In November 2025, New York City — the largest city in the United States, home to 8 million people and approximately 400 different opinions per square block — elected 34-year-old Zohran Mamdani as its mayor. He is the city’s first Muslim mayor. Also its first South Asian mayor. Also a democratic socialist who beat both Andrew Cuomo and a guy named Curtis Sliwa in a high-turnout race.
The reaction from certain corners of the internet was, predictably, completely reasonable and measured. Just kidding. It was not.
Here’s the rational thought for the day: New York City has had 110 mayors. The first 109 were Christian men, almost entirely white. The city elected a Muslim mayor, and the government did not collapse. The Statue of Liberty is still there. The pizza is still good. The subway is still a disaster, but that predates Mamdani by several decades and will outlast all of us.
Democracy did a thing. A major American city chose someone different. Turns out the thing people said couldn’t happen — that a Muslim could run one of the world’s great cities — was just a thing people said. File under: Rational Thought.
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