It’s been almost two weeks since I realized, to my dismay, that the elections for mayor in New York, this city so close to Lisbon and which tells us so much, are the second most popular elections in the country — second only to the final clash of Rui Costa vs. Noronha Lopes for the throne of Light.
Mamdani’s election has stirred passion and hatred in Portugal, especially among those who believe that the immigrant born in Uganda, with roots in India, naturalized American, is a dangerous Islamic radical, defender of Hamas terrorism, convinced communist and personification of the theory of population replacement.
Do you know what these two elections have in common? Is that the position of mayor from New York is as important as the president of Benfica in terms of his ability to resolve or change the course of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Therefore, between the two they have a combined total of zero relevance to hostilities in the Middle East.
Assumptions about Mamdani’s connection to Islamic radicalism are based on a few posts and dated opinion articles, as these positions were never publicly defended by the new mayor of New York during his campaign. It is extrapolation and misinformation shared intensely, until the lie republished and forwarded thousands of times becomes the truth.
Images of different crowds celebrating victory with hugs multiplied on social media, while internet users elaborated their monochromatic theses about the danger of suicidal empathy or the harmful effects that each and every Islamic citizen represents for Western values. Meanwhile, a few internet users asked: “Is this what you want for your countries?”
One version western spaghetti similar to the accusations voiced in efforts by the MAGA movement over the last few weeks. The fertility of MAGA materializes the virility of its creator, because, apparently, Portugal is full of American patriots. Those who make nationalism and conservatism a battlehorse are unhappy with the massive import of so many foreign labels. The new nationalist movement is, after all, transnational.
In this steamroller of populist paragonas, they forgot to mention the most important thing. What, in fact, is important to analyze. This was not a significant victory for the Democratic candidate, as Mamdani’s 50% represents a significant decline in voting intentions for the Democratic Party when compared to Adams’ 67% or Bill de Blasio’s more than 70% in 2013 – although it is equally true that none of them faced an opponent with the media and electoral weight of Andrew Cuomo.
If Mamdani won, it was not due to population replacement having won in the American leftist factions, or to the sudden death of the principles of Western social democracy, nor to New York’s admiration for Arab terrorists – especially because no one has suffered more than the city’s inhabitants from the effects of Islamic radicalism since the beginning of the century.
The victory can be explained with galloping inflation in New York, city that is gentrifying and contributing to the rise in prices also in the outskirts of the statewhich has made common precarious situationsvisible in the walking faces of citizens who, despite working, find themselves homeless.
Poverty sticks to the bones and has no religious creed. The concern about paying the bills legitimizes the fact that more than 30% of the Jewish electorate in New York voted for Mamdani. THE mayor Democrat may even prove to be a failed solution at the end of his term, but he was not the one who led New York to the degeneration of living conditions and the instability that rages in those streets. It’s the symptom, not the cause.
On the other hand, the lack of options against his candidacy opened the door to leadership wide open for the representative of the Democratic Party. Republican Sliwa and his campaign narrative based on slogans worthy of the Prohibition era were never a solution, although he fulfilled his role in feeding the New York meme factory. Andrew Cuomo, the only credible alternative, lost credibility with his defeat to Mamdani in the Democratic Party primaries. Past cases of alleged illicit sexual conduct contributed to the electoral defeat.
In a campaign seasoned with a hint of populism, Mamdani also knew how to explore social media like no one else. The eloquence and informal format of his videos, in which he addressed everyday topics of the New York population, such as transport pricesyes housing or the foodbuilt the media bubble that pushed him to victory.
Like it or not, your campaign was excellent at generating and disseminating memorable content, examples of proximity politics. This is the prototype that we should import into Portuguese politics. The main lesson to be learned from an innovative candidate in the way he captivated voters who seemed lost at the outset.
Those who worry about Mamdani’s rise can calm down the fuss, because, to reach the leadership (or a prominent position) of the Democratic Party, he will have to avoid the mistakes of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, removed by establishment because they are too radical. Before the new mayorDonald Trump’s public enemy No. 1, Gavin Newsom, or the former Secretary of Transportation and also an expert on engagement on social media, Pete Buttigieg. Even if one day he leads the party, he will never be able to run for president because he was not born in North American territory – who doesn’t remember the implausible Republican narrative about Obama’s birth in Kenya?
For all these reasons, Mamdani as mayor from New York will contribute as much to the growth of Hamas as Rui Costa, with the difference that the New Yorkers chose to try to change what was not right.
Furthermore, news much more damaging to the allegations of spreading anti-Semitism in the Western world comes from the heart of white America. The space left free on the conservative right by the murder of Charlie Kirk has been gradually occupied by Nick Fuentes, a personality from the eugenicist confines of the internet who makes statements bordering on racial and religious hatred. Its online media presence achieves the feat of attracting more and more young people to the place where the new mayor tries to remove them: from Islamophobia and anti-Semitism, as he reiterated during the campaign.
Despite the two weeks of news about New York, the reactions of Portuguese civil society left a trail of polarization that leads me to reflect on how a mayor from the other side of the ocean, elected in a chronically democratic ecosystem and in a particularly contingent vote, based on four poverty reduction proposals and when we know nothing about his political capacity, manages to generate so much hatred and indignation. Is it because of what you believe in or what you represent?