In Retrospect

Defying the billionaire-funded machinery of American urban politics, Zohran Mamdani’s grassroots campaign restored a simple but radical idea — that democracy works best when people stop being audiences and start becoming agents

XZohran Mamdani’s recent victory in the New York mayoral race has drawn significant attention from commentators across the political spectrum. The result overturned not merely electoral expectations but a set of entrenched assumptions about what is politically viable in the United States today. The campaign was waged in a context shaped by sustained racialised rhetoric in the post-Trump political environment, by the consolidation of corporate influence over urban political machines, and by deep internal tensions within the Democratic Party itself.

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