Paris Demetriades
Much has been written about the triumphant victory of 34-year-old Zoran Mamdani in New York, and rightly so. This historic development, I read in a particularly insightful comment, marks the beginning of a new phase in political life, where meaning returns through conflict rather than management. It is worth taking a moment to unpack this provocative observation.
First of all, the fact that New York is not the United States as a whole, as has been repeatedly emphasized by countless experts in analyses prompted by Mamdani’s victory, is not in dispute. Although it is the country’s most populous city, New York undeniably shows significant political and social differences compared with most other American states.
By extension, the triumph in New York, at least in theory, of an ideology and political agenda diametrically opposed to the Trumpian far-right does not necessarily mean it will influence broader developments in the United States or even in Europe, as some have suggested. On the other hand, such influence cannot be ruled out, nor should the importance of this particular candidate winning in this particular metropolis be dismissed or minimized.
Against the vulgarity, the crude and offensive rhetoric, and the misleading fables constantly propagated by the current U.S. president and his imitators, who, like cancerous cells, have multiplied across the Western world including Cyprus, perhaps measured, moderate, and reasoned opposition can no longer function effectively as a barrier or counterweight. It may be necessary to popularize and intensify counterarguments with greater energy and conviction, even if in most cases the task seems absurd and simply requires proving that one is not an elephant.
From the less important and often laughable, yet nonetheless believable claims spread among a significant portion of the numbed population by Trump’s anti-woke hysteria, such as that people will be forced to change gender, that everyone will be made LGBTQ, or that we will be forced to take the devil’s vaccines, to the more substantive issues for which Trumpian rhetoric misled the less informed layers of society, such as promises to manage the economy for the benefit of the majority or to end wars meaningfully, Mamdani’s election carries real significance.
Its importance as a case study is further highlighted by the fact that Mamdani, a millennial, cosmopolitan candidate with an immigrant background, ran on a positive agenda during his campaign. Against a populist movement that spreads misinformation with boundless audacity aided by algorithmic manipulation, New York’s new mayor did not restrict himself to a defensive, conventional, or sterile approach for fear of offending. On the contrary, he conducted a dynamic grassroots campaign focused on a positive agenda, emphasizing real problems that demand bold solutions, including inflation, housing, healthcare, chaotic inequality, and environmental sustainability.
It goes without saying that these are the issues that matter most to the overwhelming majority of the population, both in the rest of the United States and in Europe, even if many have been convinced by far-right delusions that the source of our problems is poor immigrants or a supposed “woke” agenda. Despite isolated and sometimes excessive activism, no dark or insidious woke agenda has ever existed, and none ever will. What does exist, and what must finally be deconstructed as a monumental lie, is anti-woke hysteria.
As an allegedly evolutionary species, humans are meant to progress, not take one step forward and five steps back. Whether this is mere wishful thinking today or a realistic prospect in the future will be determined by time. One thing is clear: political developments do not advance automatically, and they certainly do not move forward on their own.
demetriadesp@sppmedia.com
This opinion was translated from its Greek original.
