January 2, 2026
Just after midnight on January 1, in a private ceremony in the long-closed former City Hall subway station in Manhattan, New York Attorney General Letitia James swore Zohran Mamdani into office as mayor of New York on a historic Quran. Hours later, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) swore Mamdani in publicly in a ceremony on the steps of City Hall.
“My fellow New Yorkers—today begins a new era,” Mamdani said.
The new mayor emphasized that he represents the everyday people of New York City, “construction workers in steel-toed boots and halal cart vendors whose knees ache from working all day” and “neighbors who carry a plate of food to the elderly couple down the hall, those in a rush who still lift strangers’ strollers up subway stairs.” “I stand alongside over one million New Yorkers who voted for this day nearly two months ago,” Mamdani said, ”and I stand just as resolutely alongside those who did not…. I promise you this: if you are a New Yorker, I am your Mayor. Regardless of whether we agree, I will protect you, celebrate with you, mourn alongside you, and never, not for a second, hide from you.”
Mamdani identified this era as “an opportunity to transform and reinvent.” “A moment like this comes rarely,” he said, and “[r]arer still is it the people themselves whose hands are the ones upon the levers of change.”
“To those who insist that the era of big government is over,” Mamdani said, “hear me when I say this—no longer will City Hall hesitate to use its power to improve New Yorkers’ lives.
“For too long, we have turned to the private sector for greatness, while accepting mediocrity from those who serve the public. I cannot blame anyone who has come to question the role of government, whose faith in democracy has been eroded by decades of apathy. We will restore that trust by walking a different path—one where government is no longer solely the final recourse for those struggling, one where excellence is no longer the exception.”
Mamdani recalled past city leaders who called for an end to economic and social inequalities and celebrated the “gorgeous mosaic” that is New York City. Men like Bill de Blasio, David Dinkins, and Fiorello La Guardia believed “that New York could belong to more than just a privileged few,” Mamdani said. “It could belong to those who operate our subways and rake our parks, those who feed us biryani and beef patties, picanha and pastrami on rye” if they used the government “to work hardest for those who work hardest.” He promised to “resurrect that legacy.”
He called for everyday Americans to write a new story for New York City, weaving together the many languages, religions, and countries from which they came to become New Yorkers. He promised that city leaders would not try to divide New Yorkers, but rather would work to bring them together. Rather than using “the good grammar of civility…to mask agendas of cruelty,” he said, they would “replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.”
The policies he promised are not simply about lowering costs, he said, but about “the lives we fill with freedom.” For too long, he said, “freedom has belonged only to those who can afford to buy it.” “Here,” he said, “where the language of the New Deal was born, we will return the vast resources of this city to the workers who call it home.”
Mamdani’s speech was a declaration of a new kind of modern politics that focuses on “freedom to” rather than “freedom from.” For decades, the Republican Party has called for dismantling the government, arguing that regulations and taxes were destroying Americans’ freedom from constraints. But for most Americans, government regulation and investments in social welfare like education and infrastructure guarantee freedom to build a life that is not cramped by preventable obstacles, including those imposed by the wealthy and powerful.
The idea of government regulation and a basic social safety net to permit Americans to live their lives to their fullest potential was a key principle of the New Deal launched by Democratic president Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1933, and Mamdani was right to note that the New Deal was born in New York City.
It was in New York City that turn-of-the-century reformers like Frances Perkins recognized the desperate need of urban workers for laws that would protect them from workplace injuries, provide a safety net for widows and orphans, and guarantee a living wage. Those reformer worked with the Democratic Tammany Hall machine to push such legislation through the legislature, where it picked up support from Republicans. In the first three years after the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, New York passed 36 bipartisan laws regulating factories. Other states, especially those with their own history of progressive reform, quickly followed suit.
FDR came from this political ferment, but reform quickly became bipartisan in New York City, where Republicans had their own history of progressivism under Republican president Theodore Roosevelt. In 1933, after a political scandal involving Tammany Hall, New Yorkers elected Republican Fiorello La Guardia to be their mayor after he ran a campaign supporting FDR for president. La Guardia helped to rebuild New York City’s economy during the Great Depression.
By recalling La Guardia and the New Deal, Mamdani was rejecting the modern ideology that demonizes government action rather than celebrating it. He appears to be in good company: an Economist/YouGov poll released on December 30 showed that 80% of Americans believe that “political institutions have been captured by the rich and powerful,” 82% believe that “elites are out of touch with the realities of everyday life,” and 74% believe that “leaders who come from ordinary backgrounds better represent people like me.”
One of Mamdani’s first official acts was designed to restore faith in government by attacking corruption. Mamdami revoked every executive order issued by the previous mayor, Eric Adams, after September 26, 2024. It was on that date that Adams was indicted on five federal charges of public corruption, including bribery, wire fraud, illegal campaign contributions, and conspiracy. After Adams spoke highly of President Donald J. Trump and appeared to agree to cooperate with his immigrant sweeps, the Justice Department in February 2025 moved to drop the charges. The evidence of corruption prompted multiple resignations from the Department of Justice.
In contrast to 34-year-old Mamdani’s inauguration in New York City, the Wall Street Journal on the same day published a story about President Donald Trump’s “signs of aging.” Authors Annie Linskey, Josh Dawsey, and Meridith McGraw note that at 79, Trump is “the oldest man to assume the presidency” and, “according to people close to him,” “is showing signs of aging in public and private.” He gets little sleep and has been recorded falling asleep at public events, appears to be having trouble hearing, doesn’t exercise regularly, and eats “a diet heavy on salty and fatty foods, such as hamburgers and french fries.” Trump told the journalists that he does not always follow the advice of his doctors because “I have very good genetics.”
After learning that the Wall Street Journal was writing about his health, Trump called the authors to “express…irritation about the public debate over his health.” The authors made it clear that Trump and his doctor say he is in excellent health, and his aides say he keeps a busy schedule.
The Wall Street Journal article was significant not because it acknowledges weaknesses many journalists have already recorded, but because a leading right-leaning media outlet is suggesting that Trump is not up to the task of the presidency.
This, in turn, suggests less about the president’s condition than about the danger for the Republican Party of having Trump at its head going into the 2026 midterm elections. On December 31, Republican polling firm Cygnal reported that in generic polling, 49% of Independents favored Democrats and only 29% opted for Republicans. The Independent’s Washington bureau chief, Eric Michael Garcia, called the poll “a flare gun for Republicans.”
Over Tuesday, December 30, and Wednesday, December 31, U.S. Southern Command announced it struck another five small boats that it claims were being operated by “narco-terrorists.” It killed another 13 people and possibly left some survivors. These latest strikes bring the total to at least 35 and the number of people killed to at least 115.
This morning, at 2:58, Trump’s social media account posted about the ongoing Iranian protests that have been sparked by the skyrocketing cost of living, writing: “If Iran shots [sic] and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue. We are locked and loaded and ready to go. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
At 6:56 this morning, Trump posted on social media that “The White House Doctors have just reported that I am in ‘PERFECT HEALTH,’ and that I ‘ACED’ (Meaning, was correct on 100% of the questions asked!), for the third straight time, my Cognitive Examination, something which no other President, or previous Vice president, was willing to take. P.S., I strongly believe that anyone running for President, or Vice President, should be mandatorily forced to take a strong, meaningful, and proven Cognitive Examination. Our great country cannot be run by ‘STUPID’ or INCOMPETENT PEOPLE! President DJT.”
Later in the morning, he posted one image of a dead bird near a windmill with the caption “Eagles going down!” and another with birds near windmills saying: “Killing birds by the millions!” MeidasTouch noted that the first image was a 2010 picture of a red kite in Spain and the other was a 2006 image from Taiwan.
Catherine Rampell of The Bulwark asked: “What does it mean when your doctors keep insisting you redo the cognitive exam?”
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Notes:
https://apnews.com/article/mamdani-new-york-mayor-666a4b709191a08fe05f759578373fd5
https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/live-updates/zohran-mamdani-inauguration-day-nyc-mayor/
https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/nyc-mayor-zohran-mamdani-inauguration-speech/
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/as-signs-of-aging-emerge-trump-responds-with-defiance-769c5dcd
https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/25/us/new-york-city-mayor-eric-adams-indicted
https://www.thecity.nyc/2025/02/10/trump-justice-eric-adams-corruption-drop/
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/february-14-2025
https://www.justsecurity.org/120753/collection-u-s-lethal-strikes-on-suspected-drug-traffickers/
Matthew and Hannah Josephson [Frances Perkins], Al Smith: Hero of the Cities (London: 1969), pp. 135–140.
Bluesky:
crampell.bsky.social/post/3mbh5t6wcwk2g
meidastouch.com/post/3mbhfbstrkc2t
robertscotthorton.bsky.social/post/3mbfi6qe2dk2i
Contrasting Mamdani and Trump makes it clear how America lost its way. The concept of public integrity vanished. The sense of virtue in government, of acceptance of responsibility towards the body politic, and the ethical obligation to provide care to those in need among us disappeared.
I was reminded of this when I recently learned of the death of the most decent, principled man I ever knew, Pat Dobel, Corbally University Professor of Public Service at the University of Washington, author of a text on Public Leadership Ethics.
How we save our democracy cannot just be focused on legislation and court rulings. It can’t just be focused on kicking out the shallow, self-centered, ethically challenged politicians who have been elected. We have to restore a framework of leadership in our politics and government that embodies ethical standards and norms. We need to construct barriers to the all-too-easy downhill slide away from integrity.
Pat’s ideas are not something quaint, although I am sure many will think so. They respect our founder’s ideals while recognizing that real people will sometimes fail. But with practice, what it means to be an ethical leader for the public good becomes achievable.
The only way it will happen is if we all, as citizens, come to understand what we must expect from those we elect to lead us.
May it bring us more Mamdani's and fewer Trumps.
Democratic establishment take note: Mamdani is what is referred to as a “leader.” Note the contrast - he rallies people by talking about what he is going to DO, and makes it abundantly clear that he has their back. You, on the other hand, rely on garnering votes by endlessly telling people that “Trump is bad,” hoping that they won’t notice that you haven’t crafted a coherent policy platform in what seems like decades. At the risk of alienating your corporate sugar daddies, stop trading in mealy-mouthed nonsense and work for the things people want: Universal healthcare. College and trades education that doesn’t come with crushing debt. Wages that support families. An attack on wealth inequality. A climate that won’t incinerate the planet.