Copyright time
Mamdani wrapped himself in how he is different—the city’s youngest Mayor since 1892 and the first Muslim to lead the nation’s largest city. “I am young, despite my best efforts to grow older. I am Muslim. I am a democratic socialist. And most damning of all: I refuse to apologize for any of this,” Mamdani said to cheers. “If tonight teaches us anything, it is that convention has held us back. We have bowed at the altar of caution and we have paid a mighty price.” That doesn’t mean his win was easy. There were plenty of reasons national Democrats were chugging antacids in recent months as one by one Mamdani’s past statements came back to Page One. His strident support for Palestinian causes never wavered and he maintained that he views Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a criminal, but Mamdani did walk back some of his harshest criticism of police. While he was critical of Barack Obama in social media posts years ago, the pair spoke twice during the campaign and Obama offered to be a sounding board for the relative neophyte. Mamdani never shed his democratic socialist label but he also spent hours meeting with Wall Street and business leaders to assure them he was not going to go on a taxing spree for a giggle.
