https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/november-5-2025
"New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, a member of both the Democratic
Party and the Democratic Socialists of America, began his victory speech last
night with a nod to Eugene V. Debs, labor organizer and Socialist candidate for
president at the turn of the last century.
“The sun may have set over our city this evening, but as Eugene Debs once said:
‘I can see the dawn of a better day for humanity.’”
The 34-year-old mayor-elect’s speech went on to deliver something that was more
than a victory speech. It marked a new era much like the one that had given
rise to Debs himself. After more than forty years in which ordinary Americans
had seen the political system being stacked against them and, over time,
forgotten they had agency to change it, they had woken up.
Mamdani began by lifting up New York City’s working people, noting that “[f]or
as long as we can remember,” they “have been told by the wealthy and the
well-connected that power does not belong in their hands…. And yet,” he said,
“over the last 12 months, you have dared to reach for something greater.”
“Tonight,” he said, “against all odds, we have grasped it. The future is in our
hands.” New York, he said, had delivered “[a] mandate for change. A mandate
for a new kind of politics. A mandate for a city we can afford. And a mandate
for a government that delivers exactly that.”
Mamdani thanked “the next generation of New Yorkers who refuse to accept that
the promise of a better future was a relic of the past.” And that was the heart
of his message: that democracy belongs to ordinary people. “We will fight for
you,” he said, “because we are you.”
He thanked “Yemeni bodega owners and Mexican abuelas. Senegalese taxi drivers
and Uzbek nurses. Trinidadian line cooks and Ethiopian aunties.” He assured
“every New Yorker in Kensington and Midwood and Hunts Point” that “this city is
your city, and this democracy is yours too.”
Mamdani celebrated the hard work of democracy in his win. It was a victory not
just for all those who make up New York City, he said, but also for “the more
than 100,000 volunteers who built this campaign into an unstoppable force….
With every door knocked, every petition signature earned, and every hard-earned
conversation, you eroded the cynicism that has come to define our politics.”
With that base of Americans engaged in the work of democracy, Mamdani welcomed
a new era. “There are many who thought this day would never come, who feared
that we would be condemned only to a future of less, with every election
consigning us simply to more of the same,” he said. “And there are others who
see politics today as too cruel for the flame of hope to still burn.”
But in New York City last night, he said, “we have answered those fears…. Hope
is alive. Hope is a decision that tens of thousands of New Yorkers made day
after day, volunteer shift after volunteer shift, despite attack ad after
attack ad. More than a million of us stood in our churches, in gymnasiums, in
community centers, as we filled in the ledger of democracy.”
“And while we cast our ballots alone, we chose hope together. Hope over
tyranny. Hope over big money and small ideas. Hope over despair. We won because
New Yorkers allowed themselves to hope that the impossible could be made
possible. And we won because we insisted that no longer would politics be
something that is done to us. Now, it is something that we do.”"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
