Election Day in The Big Apple
The world expects that at the end of today, Zohran Mamdani, 34, will be mayor-elect of New York City. He is singular political talent. Watch his interaction from Monday night with MSNBC’s Ari Melber.
The man is quick. He’s engaging. He laughs. He’s most importantly, likeable.
Anand Giridharadas yesterday paid special attention to Mamdani’s winning smile. Giridharadas tried to imitate it in the mirror and began to wonder: “Do I smile enough? Do I ever smile? Was my grandmother right that I look angry in my book jacket photos? Am I angry? Why am I so angry? What kind of life could I have had if I could smile like that guy?”
There is political substance and there is affect. Presentation. Curb appeal. Mamdani has it. Too many progressives do not, Giridharadas worries (emphasis mine):
One of the many things I read in the smile is a break from a dominant affect of today’s progressivism. Mamdani is as bona fide a progressive as they come. And this frees him to adopt a steadfast sunniness, encapsulated by but not limited to the smile, that distinguishes him from many who share his worldview. Some progressives will scowl as they read this, thereby proving my point, but progressivism has an affect problem. It is fueled by righteous anger, which it sometimes fails to transcend. America today is depressing, but being depressing is no way to win people over to make America less depressing. Sometimes progressivism struggles to be more than just the sum of the injustices it fights, the boots on necks that it wishes to dislodge. It can be angry and pessimistic to the exclusion of reminding people of its own victories as a movement. It can be hostile to people who agree partly but not entirely. It can value purity over welcome and conversion. And there is something in Mamdani’s smile that breaks from all that. It says: I am against many things, and I want to do and create many things because of the things I am against, but I am more than what I am against.
Mamdani’s smile, “paints the beautiful tomorrow,” as political strategist Anat Shenker-Osorio frames it. A Bernie Sanders aide tells Giridharadas that Mamdani is “’assigning an emotion’ to the policy agenda he is championing.” An upbeat one.
These observations, of course, grow out of his book “The Persuaders.” My most important takeaway (sorry, Anat — she gets an entire chapter) reduces to “Is there room among the woke for the waking?” It gets at the behavior among some progressive purists to police speech and opinions and expel “heretics” from their midst. It is no way to build the critical mass necessary, say, to inspire millions to join a national strike. Welcome the newbies who agree with you mostly and allow them to grow into their new activist clothing. Smack them down for not knowing up front the insiders’ approved terminology or secret handshakes and you’ll alienate potential allies, friends you’ll need to build a movement. (Those terms and behaviors tend to faddish and short-lived anyway.)
The kind of progressive activist Giridharadas mentions views every victory as incomplete, every bill as half a loaf, every compromise a betrayal no matter the upside. They are exhausting downers and often single-issue. I call them glass-half-empty progressives. They wonder bitterly why more people don’t want to hang with them.
Which takes us back to Anat: If you want people to join your party, throw a better party.
Dance more. Mock your opponents more. Smile more.
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