We do not know whether the election of Zohran Mamdani as the Mayor of New York will turn out to be a tremor or an earthquake. Will his radical agenda turn into a chimera, strangled by the daily exigencies of realpolitik, filibustered by the system? Is his promise of free housing, universal childcare, free bus travel and grocery stores run by City Hall merely an expression of idealistic aspiration?

Yet, earthquake or not, Mamdani’s election exposes a fault line in American politics that is destined to send shockwaves around the globe. It’s not Mamdani’s progressive policy slate that makes him such a rare creature in frontline politics. And it’s not that he is the first Muslim Mayor of New York. It’s that the voters in one of the world’s most important and affluent cities have entrusted

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