Séamas O'Reilly: Hope is not just the radical option — it's the only one

Irish Examiner

9 hours ago

I awoke on Wednesday to the cheering news that Zohran Mamdani had won the Democratic primary for mayor of New York.
That I cared one way or the other about this might strike some of you as strange. This time last year, it would have seemed preposterous to me as well.
In fact, in all my time online, I can't remember following — or even being aware of — the election of a New York mayor in real time. This one, however, was different.
Mamdani is just 33 years old, and was up against the 67-year-old former governor, and Democrat party grandee, Andrew Cuomo — as powerful an establishment figure as can be imagined.
Name recognition from his time as governor made Cuomo every pollster's clear favourite as recently as two weeks ago, despite said office ending in his resignation after multiple women alleged that he sexually harassed them, and despite a litany of allegations related to bribery and corruption involving his staff during that same time.
Nevertheless, Cuomo seemed anointed. The former governor went into this election with a war chest of $35m — more than the next six candidates combined — and ringing endorsements from party titans such as Bill Clinton and Michael Bloomberg.
He was, it seemed, the company man being given his rightful dues, and he duly topped every poll from the moment he entered the race.
Mayor Cuomo appeared to be nothing short of a fait accompli, not least since the eventual winner went into this race with just three years' legislative experience and barely any name recognition.
Mamdani would not, in fact, reach double digits in any poll until late March.
What changed all of this was one of the best-run, and most inspiring, political campaigns we've seen in many years, and one from which we can all take heart, even if we wouldn't ordinarily care who gets to cut ribbons and set bin collection ordinances in a city 3,000 miles away.
Mamdani, a self-described socialist, ran a deeply empathetic campaign, laser-focused on making New York more affordable for its residents, and taking aim at the old guard Democrat elites he charged with failing in this task.
His campaign promised rent freezes, affordable housing, childcare provision, and making buses entirely free to use.
To the centrist pundits, this seemed childishly utopian. To his band of supporters, it seemed increasingly achievable for one of the richest cities ever sited on planet Earth.
To those of us who might live in far-away places with similar issues, this alone should be a reason to prick up our ears.
Mamdani's campaign was a revelation in modern electoral politics. His short, witty Instagram reels and X posts had clear and concise messaging, free of vague platitudes or lordly condescension.
They were also fearless, unafraid to call out the racism of ICE raids and immigration orders, and standing in unequivocal solidarity with the people of Palestine, and the LGBT+ community, at a time when huge swathes of the Democratic Party were happy to keep schtum in the face of Trump's attacks on all such enemies, while avidly backing a mayoral candidate credibly accused of sexual harassment.
As Mamdani's following, and approval, began to soar, his social media presence was often branded a faddish symptom of his youth and inexperience.
Without much by way of actual analysis, those within the highest ranks of the Democratic establishment posited his catchy, short-form videos as proof of his unseriousness.
Why exactly short video ads magically attain adult respectability once they are broadcast on television, at a cost of millions of dollars, went unexamined.
Some Democrat elites already seem determined to learn precisely the wrong lesson from all this: that short form video is what won it for Mamdani. It didn't.
He was simply the charismatic candidate their base has been crying out for all this time, in touch with their concerns about the economy, immigration and Palestine, a genuinely progressive candidate with heart, teeth and a backbone.
That's the lesson they should be taking from this upset, and one we'd do well to apply wherever we are.
Mamdani is not yet mayor. The actual vote takes place in November, with the Democrat nominee almost mathematically preordained to win — but not quite guaranteed.
His victory over Cuomo is, at root, one of decency over cravenness, of ambition over inertia, of the future over the past. It serves as a small, life-giving crumb of hope in an American political landscape that's seemed so often bereft of it, and an inspiration to all of us.
And, entirely selfishly, I'm glad it happened for another reason.
Séamas O'Reilly: writer's final column for the Examiner. Picture: Orfhlaith Whelan
I wanted to sound a small, hopeful note this week because, after three happy years, this is my last column for the Irish Examiner.
I've enjoyed writing about everything from royal deaths to the half-remembered summer holidays of my childhood, but the past year or two has also meant cataloguing so much of the degradation and horror we see around us every day — from the ongoing genocide in Gaza, to the march of the far right in America, Britain, and right here at home; the miasma of scams and racism taking over social media platforms, and the abject bankruptcy of the push to insert AI into every part of our lives.
Throughout, I've tried to sugar the medicine, adding what insight I can, what hope I can muster, and what jokes I'm allowed.
It's been a true joy to discover I was allowed pretty much everything, and for that I have the Irish Examiner to thank.
Now, at the risk of peddling sentiment, I'll leave you with my takeaway from this week, and this entire three years: We should take strength from whatever good news comes our way, because hope is not a luxury.
In a world conditioned to engender hopelessness, hope is not just the radical option, but the only one.
And no matter how things pan out in a world that seems to burn more violently every day, it's one I choose to continue looking, and writing, toward.
Thanks to Séamas for three years of insight and good humour, from all of us at the Irish Examiner features desk.