New year, new mayor
As Zohran Mamdani takes office in New York City, can his vision of pragmatism, progressivism, and community win over America?
Happy New Year, readers, and welcome to 2026! We wish you all the best in a year that holds new promise for change — some of which is already underway.
In an early-morning ceremony in the historic 1904 subway station under City Hall, Zohran Mamdani was sworn in today by New York State Attorney General Letitia James as the new mayor of New York City.
Mayor Mamdani offers a new vision for the city he will lead. Can his leadership — like his campaign — be, as Joe Scarborough put it, a “repudiation of the politics of hate and rage” and the logical follow-up to the No Kings demonstrations, but also a sign that, in America, politics still works? And that Democrats, for all of their disarray, are figuring out how to do it? And that Zohran Mamdani has led the way in pulling together progressive goals and kitchen-table arguments in a way that’s compelling enough to turn the tables on Trumpism?
Can Mamdani be not a copy-paste-ready model but rather a great synthesizer of threads within the Democratic Party — a leader parallel, as Scarborough mused, to Ronald Reagan? That remains to be seen.
But Mamdani is already doing something important that has eluded Democrats so far — he’s helping to make meaning for people.
As Anand put it in a Substack note in November:
The profound insight of the Zohran Mamdani campaign was that people want to be summoned to do more, not less; they want to get together, not lurk on screens alone; they want to belong in hope, not just commiserate in anger; they want to organize, not agonize.
The campaign had 100,000 volunteers. It had about 1 million voters. One out of 10 of its voters were volunteers. Is there any precedent for this in modern political history?
This is not “Don’t boo. Vote.” This is “Don’t boo. Join.”
A lot of other prominent progressive campaigns have been extremely online, even at their best. This was an incredibly physical, meat-space campaign.
I would not be surprised if there are dozens, hundreds, maybe even thousands of relationships that eventually come out of that volunteer corps. There are going to be Zohran volunteer marriages and children, five, ten, twenty years from now. People want to be part, as Emma Goldberg reported for The New York Times.
Volunteering for Mr. Mamdani’s campaign became a salve for members of a generation diagnosed by psychologists with anxiety and by the surgeon general with loneliness, whose religious affiliation is often “unaffiliated” and who also apparently killed drinking and having sex.
“It’s honestly what I would prescribe for the loneliness epidemic,” said Tal Frieden, 28, at a rally in Sunset Park the Sunday before Election Day.
We’ve heard from a lot of smart people — like former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy and Senator Chris Murphy — over the past couple of years about the epidemic of loneliness, and they have suggested that solving for loneliness is a big part of fixing American democracy. Mayor Mamdani appears to be on the case.
Looking for more? Here at The Ink, we’ve been covering the Mamdani campaign since it began, maybe even before it was cool, and we invite you to look back with us.
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When I was 20 I volunteered for JFK's primary campaign in Los Angeles. The campaign put everybody to work on something. I was a Kennedy Press girl passing out information to delegates to the convention. Everybody got a job. It was the best feeling for someone who wasn't even old enoughto vote. Needless to say the 60's devastated most of us. Until the Age of Monster tRump 1968 had been the worst year of my life. 2025 has overtaken that year as the worst of my long life. I am 84, weak and tired, but Mamdani's campaign gave me real hope. WE HAVE SOMETHING TO BELIEVE IN: OURSELVES. I am smiling today for the first time in many many months.
I have had close ties to NYC since I was born, though I don't live there. My son has lived in Manhattan for more than a decade. My dad was born in NYC and went to school there. My mom also attended school in NYC. My dad's sister and family lived in Queens, so I kind of grew up there. I've watched the City change, in both positive an negative ways, but there has always been a huge wealth on privilege gap. May of the most egregious issues can be solved with buy-in from all sides. I'm hoping that people will realize that a more affordable, equitable city will benefit everyone.