Zohran Mamdani facing 9/11-themed attacks from Andrew Cuomo’s political machine and criticism from a billionaire at a Saudi conference, and then being elected mayor of New York on the same day Dick Cheney passes — it’s like the final scene of a drama about this entire era. And yet, it wasn’t a Hollywood script; it’s what just happened.
Mamdani long ago cast his campaign as something more than a race to run one city. He told The Lever that “this is the heart of the battle for the future of the Democratic Party.” It’s a theme he’s continued to amplify throughout the campaign — and the battle he identified has been on full display over the last week.
On one side are the party’s long-standing luminaries, politicians, media elites, and operatives still clinging to the dream of a return to pre-MAGA normalcy. Many in this faction spent election day valorizing Cheney. Others were insisting that to win elections and face down Donald Trump’s authoritarianism, Democrats should construct a big tent that avoids any unifying national agenda at all, periodically try to out-Republican the Republicans on some social issues, and then label that incoherence “centrism.”
