05/11/2025
This is how you do it! Some of my favourite parts of Mamdani’s acceptance speech:
New York, tonight, you have 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.
Thank you to the next generation of New Yorkers who refuse to accept that the promise of a better future was a relic of the past. You showed that when politics speaks to you without condescension, we can usher in a new era of leadership. We will fight for you because we are you.
This victory is for all of them, and it’s for all of you, the more than 100,000 volunteers who built this campaign into an unstoppable force. Because of you, we will make this city one that working people can love and live in again
Tonight, we have spoken in a clear voice: hope is alive.
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.
Standing before you, I think of the words of Jawaharlal Nehru: “A moment comes, but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends and when the soul of a nation long suppressed finds utterance.” Tonight, we have stepped out from the old into the new.
So let us speak now with clarity and conviction that cannot be misunderstood about what this new age will deliver, and for whom.
This will be an age where New Yorkers expect from their leaders a bold vision of what we will achieve, rather than a list of excuses for what we are too timid to attempt. Central to that vision will be the most ambitious agenda to tackle the cost-of-living crisis that this city has seen since the days of Fiorello La Guardia—an agenda that will freeze the rents for more than 2 million rent-stabilized tenants, make buses fast and free, and deliver universal childcare across our city.
This new age will be one of relentless improvement. We will hire thousands more teachers.
In this new age we make for ourselves, we will refuse to allow those who traffic in division and hate to pit us against one another. In this moment of political darkness, New York will be the light.
For years, those in City Hall have only helped those who can help them. But on January 1st, we will usher in a city government that helps everyone.
Now I know that many have heard our message only through the prism of misinformation. Tens of millions of dollars have been spent to redefine reality and to convince our neighbors that this new age is something that should frighten them. As has so often occurred, the billionaire class has sought to convince those making $30 an hour that their enemies are those earning $20 an hour. They want the people to fight amongst ourselves so that we remain distracted from the work of remaking a long-broken system. We refuse to let them dictate the rules of the game anymore. They can play by the same rules as the rest of us.
We will hold bad landlords to account because the Donald Trumps of our city have grown far too comfortable taking advantage of their tenants. We will put an end to the culture of corruption that has allowed billionaires like Trump to evade taxation and exploit tax breaks. We will stand alongside unions and expand labor protections because we know, just as Donald Trump does, that when working people have ironclad rights, the bosses who seek to extort them become very small indeed.
New York will remain a city of immigrants, a city built by immigrants, powered by immigrants, and, as of tonight, led by an immigrant. So hear me, President Trump, when I say this: to get to any of us, you will have to get through all of us.
https://time.com/7331243/watch-zohran-mamdani-victory-speech/
After winning New York City’s mayoral race, Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani gave a rousing speech, promising a government that will deliver both compassion and competence.
