To believe that it is a desired talent on the left. Zohran Mamdani, winner of the Democratic primaries for the municipal election of New York, shares with Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris an astonishing ability to modulate his accent according to the audience. Faced with owners of Bodegas-these small New York grocery stores open 24 hours a day-it adopts a vaguely Puerto Rican sabir, Pepito advertising. With the Bangladais, he rolls the “R” and exchange the “V” for “B”, as if he had just landed from an airplane from Dacca.
Born in Uganda in 1991, Shiite Muslim, Mamdani embodies New York multiculturalism in what is most caricatured, a precious asset when we aims a political career in the megalopolis. Carried by the nepotism of well-born circles, he had almost made this ethnophony a profession: in 2016, his mother, the Indo-American director Mira Nair, had recruited her as a musical advisor for her film The lady of KatweDisney production. He interpreted there, this time with an African accent, a piece of rap entitled Spiceunder the pseudonym Young Cardamom. A flop, like the rest of his discography for a time interpreted in the metro. A graduate in African studies, which became American in 2018, Mamdani was more likely in politics than in music. And could well, in November, seize the town hall of New York.
His trajectory embodies more than a political turning point. It crystallizes this divorce between America of the great metropolises, progressive and post-national, and the Middle America, conservative and rooted. In the trendy cafes of Brooklyn, where we campaign in favor of the disarmament of the police and for cheaper rents, he is seen as a Savior. In the plains of northern Texas, where we want cheap diesel and school lessons at school, it is perceived as an Islamo-wokist.
Mamdani is actually a bit at the same time, like an ideological buffet served in the most radical democratic wing, that of the New York Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders, “The most influential political figure in my life”he said. An ultra -kery that rakes wide: from the defense of illegal immigrants via that of the LGBTQ and the Palestinians. Mamdani does not hide it: he wants to put an end to the American national story.
Close to the BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions on Israel) movement, Mamdani had defended a law in Albany aimed at cutting funding in the Israeli colonies. In November 2023, a month after October 7, he participated in a five-day hunger strike in front of the White House. During his flash campaign, he qualified the Israeli actions in Gaza as “Genocide” And claimed that he would have Netanyahu arrested if he came to New York, even if he does not have power. He also called for a “Globalization of intifada”before qualifying: “It is a symbolic call for human rights of the Palestinians”he said, quoting the Washington Holocaust museum where the term “intifada” is, according to him, used to translate the insurrection of Warsaw into Arabic.
In his public meetings, Madmani surfs ambiguities. In Queens, in Jackson Heights, a high place of New York multiculturalism, he plays his role to perfection, that of the young progressive tribune, anchored in the struggles of field, turned towards the emancipation of “Oppressed” and carried by a calibrated rhetoric for social networks. Micro in hand, rolled up sleeves and tie knotted in a hurry, he harangues a variegated crowd, mainly made up of veiled women and activists from community nebulae.
Enemies are clearly designated. Trump (“A fascist”) Of course, ICE officials (the immigration police) and the moderate democrats, such as Andrew Cuomo, his now ex-primaries. The former New York State governor is the shaded symbol of theestablishment White and liberal. The visual universe is that of intersectional meetings so popular with American ultra -ke: trilingual posters, militant t-shirts, cultural references wanting to decolonial and inclusive, local but globalized. Also in his private life, Mamdani sails between two worlds. The one who wants to be the spearhead of this postmodern left has civilly married his wife, Rama (an American illustrator of Syrian origin) in New York, before religiously celebrating their wedding in Dubai, where he had an Islamic marriage contract established.
Conquering Big Apple is out of reach of Trumpists
Even his program seems to have been imported from Venezuela. The style is Bolivarian. On the menu is the total free buses for an annual cost estimated at $ 630 million, funded by an reinforcement over income above one million. Second pillar: the immediate freezing of rents in more than two million dwellings. But it is the third proposal that sets the most chavist tone with the creation of a municipal network of social grocery stores, for non -profit, for “Break food speculation”. Land investment offices and banks already fear investment hemorrhage.
The Trumpists have little illusions. Conquering Big Apple is out of reach. Picturesque but marginal figure, Curtis Sliwa, former radio host and self -proclaimed vigilante of the metro, goes back to the municipal ring once again. Guardian Angels red jacket on his back and muscular slogans against shoulder crime, he embodies an almost folk and above all ultraminority right.
Hope turns to Eric Adams. Although weakened by a federal survey for corruption – since classified -, the mayor presents himself to his independent re -election. Adams puts on his image of pragmatic attached to order and security, even if it means adopting Trumpian intonations. Republican donors have already made it known: they will suspend the financing of Sliwa if he refuses to rally Adams. The city that never sleeps is about to hold the right awake until November.
Commie Corridor, UltraGauche Lab
They are young, graduates, sometimes as a couple, often vegetarian. They live in Astoria, Fort Greene, Park Slope or Clinton Hill. They have posters from Bernie Sanders in their room with exposed brick walls and move by foldable bike. They work in social, culture, education, or “ethical tech”. And for a few years, they have been on the ground for a left that has nothing to envy to LFI.
The Commie Corridor is called their fief (literally “the corridor of the cocos”), a territory which extends from Northwest Brooklyn to the mixed districts of Queens, via the aging streets of the Lower East Side. There, socialist candidates garner Soviet scores. Zohran Mamdani, Kristen Gonzalez and Julia Salazar Senators, all passed by the ranks of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), flirt with 70 or 80 % of the votes. In the June 2025 primary, Mamdani crushed Cuomo to Park Slope and Jackson Heights as we sweep an old tired guard. From the opening of the early vote period, the corridor set the tone: 131,434 voters moved in four days – double 2021.
Conservative newspapers were still laughed recently from Commie Corridor. But the moderates are worried. Because it is no longer just a lair of white and Asian trendy utopians (it remains very largely shunned by black and Latinos voters). It is an electoral laboratory. We defend universal social housing, free transport, police divestment, and a taxation that makes Wall Street shudder.
