{"id":165972,"date":"2025-11-06T11:55:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T11:55:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/165972\/"},"modified":"2025-11-06T11:55:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T11:55:12","slug":"after-fairytale-in-new-york-mayor-elect-zohran-mamdani-starts-a-new-chapter-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/165972\/","title":{"rendered":"After fairytale in New York, mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani starts a new chapter \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

After Tuesday night\u2019s fairytale in New York, Zohran Mamdani<\/a> began his new life vowing to be a mayor for everyone while the US political establishment and business elite continued to warily eye his startling ascent.<\/p>\n

Although advance polls had predicted that Mamdani, the 34-year-old socialist Democrat, would crush Andrew Cuomo, a dynastic figure in New York politics, the joyous election-night scenes across the boroughs offered an alternative to the ironclad convictions about how US politics must work. <\/p>\n

Mamdani\u2019s election broke all kinds of records. He becomes the first Muslim mayor of New York \u2013 and his first year in office will coincide with the 25th commemorative ceremonies for 9\/11. He is the youngest mayor of Gotham since Hugh John Grant in the 1890s. <\/p>\n

He was born in Uganda, raised in relative privilege in the Upper West Side, is an ardent Arsenal fan and a neophyte state politician who ran a campaign without the help of the Democratic Party machine. <\/p>\n

He didn\u2019t look or sound like a politician, but instead like an everyday New Yorker who emerged from the teeming avenues or subways to stand for the people \u2013 and they followed him in droves. <\/p>\n

\"Mayor-electMayor-elect Zohran Mamdani speaks to the press in Corona Park, Queens on Wednesday. Photograph: Alexi J Rosenfeld\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Keith Duggan: New York mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani issues challenge to Donald Trump after stunning winOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

After a fiery election speech in Brooklyn on Tuesday night, Mamdani returned to the podium on Wednesday against the autumnal backdrop of the Unisphere in Corona Park, Queens. <\/p>\n

\u201cNew Yorkers are facing twin crises at this moment. An authoritarian administration and an affordability crisis,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd it will be my job to deliver on both. It will be my job to stand up for the city and also to ensure that we do not look to Washington DC as if it is the reason for all of the problems here in New York City. Many of the issues we are speaking about, they predate president Trump. They are issues that for too long we have turned a blind eye to or sought to rationalise, or normalise.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mamdani\u2019s promises read like basic fair play rather than a radical socialist agenda: rent control, affordable grocery prices and childcare in a city where the costs for all three necessities have become extortionate. With a GDP of $2.4 trillion, New York boasts the biggest metropolitan economy in the world. But as its new mayor pointed out, \u201cOne in four New Yorkers live in poverty across the five boroughs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sceptics will keep a close eye to see how Mamdani, who has scant political experience, will deal with the headaches that come with a city workforce of 300,000 as well as navigating state and federal opposition. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0‘The backlash has arrived’: Six takeaways from a good night for the DemocratsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

He has already become a thorn in the side of president Donald Trump<\/a>, irked by the idea of a \u201ccommunist\u201d running his home city and threatening to withhold federal funding for it. <\/p>\n

Ironically, the core of Mamdani\u2019s policies echo those flung around the US by Trump during his election campaign: to make life more affordable for American workers. So far, that has not happened and Mamdani\u2019s rising star may be symbolic of a shifting mood among the electorate.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the lesson for the president is that it\u2019s not enough to diagnose the crisis in working class Americans lives,\u201d Mamdani said on Wednesday in what will be the first of many spiky, indirect exchanges with Trump\u2019s White House.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to deliver on that crisis. This is a president that ran a campaign on the promise of cheaper groceries and now has gone so far as to cut Snap [nutritional assistance] benefits for close to two million-New Yorkers \u2013 someone who is making it harder to afford those same groceries whose prices he was decrying not so long ago. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat scares Republicans across the country is the fact that we will actually deliver on this agenda, and the contrast is something they cannot bear to witness.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Zohran Mamdani has lifted New Yorkers out of their pessimistic and reactionary funkOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After Tuesday night\u2019s fairytale in New York, Zohran Mamdani began his new life vowing to be a mayor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":165973,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,16142,356,13,14,6,11,12,15,16,969,5,12159,7,8,107,65,66,67,47005],"class_list":{"0":"post-165972","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-democratic-party","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-latest-news","16":"tag-latestnews","17":"tag-main-news","18":"tag-mainnews","19":"tag-new-york-city","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-republican-party","22":"tag-top-stories","23":"tag-topstories","24":"tag-us","25":"tag-world","26":"tag-world-news","27":"tag-worldnews","28":"tag-zohran-mamdani"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115502627392209656","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165972\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}