'A Politics of No Translation.’ Zohran Mamdani on His Unlikely Rise

It’s not easy to move around New York City as Zohran Mamdani anymore.

Like when the 33-year-old Democratic nominee for mayor leaves a union meeting to walk to his Manhattan campaign office, as he did one Monday morning in July. Within a block, a phone--wielding crowd forms and follows. “Oh my God, hello,” someone blurts. People clap. Cars honk. Traffic down Fifth Avenue comes to a standstill as a plumber’s van stops and a guy hops out to shake Mamdani’s hand. There is some heckling. “Antisemitic!” someone shouts. But mostly it is star treatment, in multiple languages and from all generations.

All this is new: the adulation, the notoriety, the xenophobic death threats that have prompted an entourage of men with spaghetti earpieces. Before 2025, basically no one knew who Mamdani was. Over