On Mamdani’s Rise: How The Little Things Won Big
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Zohran Mamdani Got The Little Things Right
I first heard of Zohran Mamdani last summer.
I saw him in a video on Reddit. He was being interviewed by a relative nobody, a guy who runs a subreddit that advocates for bike infrastructure in New York City and brings people together to do so.
The two of them were on the Queensboro Bridge, which connects Midtown Manhattan to Queens. At the time, the bridge needed, and thanks to advocacy like this now has, a separate lane for cyclists and pedestrians.
The audio quality sounded worse than an iPhone, and this young advocate, whose name, “Zohran,” I remembered, had to shout over the sound of wind that clogged the microphone.
At the time, he wasn’t even running for mayor.
When his campaign started to grow, I knew him as a local politician who supported things that would directly improve my life: building more protected bike lanes and bus-only lanes.
I saw Zohran’s campaign and his rise through this hyper-local lens. To me, he was somebody who would fight for the little things as much as the big things.
It’s these little things that won me over.
I admit that I ranked him #2 on my primary ballot, still in effect, a vote for him in New York’s ranked-choice voting system, but I preferred Brad Lander’s policies on housing, and as I blogged about, I love the idea of fast buses, but feel conflicted about free buses.
Zohran Mamdani Got The Big Things Right
And yet, here in New York City, as many conversations were about the nuances of housing policy or the practicalities of how a city-run grocery store could go, many others weren’t about any of this.
There’s a famous essay in the personal development world called “1,000 True Fans” by Wired Magazine founder Kevin Kelly. He writes, “To be a successful creator you don’t need millions…you need only thousands of true fans.”
I thought of this essay as more people around me spent their Saturdays in far-flung outer borough neighborhoods canvassing for Zohran.
These people were often not living in rent-stabilized housing, or who rode slow buses daily, or who had children who would benefit from his pledge for free childcare.
They were mostly educated, relatively well-off New Yorkers. They were superfans not just for his policy, but for his broader vision.
Kelly writes later in the essay, “the enthusiasm of true fans can increase the patronage of regular fans. True fans not only are the direct source of your income, but also your chief marketing force for the ordinary fans.”
This free marketing force of superfans, I believe, has been an under-discussed component of his success.
As big-time democratic donors on the Upper East Side and Upper West Side funneled money to defeat Mandani, and as the conservative press returned to the same Red Scare “He’s a communist!” playbook of the 1950s and ’60s, Zohran’s campaign came to be about taking on the big donors of both parties, on the political status quo.
As friends from Miami and even Barcelona began asking me “for my thoughts on the mayor race,” at first I was puzzled.
I realized later than I should have that Zohran’s campaign, it seemed, meant more to the country than it did to us in New York.
The Concrete and The Abstract
As a student of persuasion and propaganda, I think Zohran’s campaign teaches us how to focus relentlessly on the concrete issues, but connect them to something greater.
A few months ago, I wrote about how the Nuyorican radical group The Young Lords did something similar in the 60s and 70s.
If we aim to build movements, we must focus on both the top-of-mind needs of people and how this connects to something more.
Yes, Zohran as mayor means that (finally!) the 34th St busway will get finished, which I am personally looking forward to.
Yet, I see how this mayoralty aligns with a vision for New York that puts ordinary citizens first, and what this means for our city.
