Candidates after winning an election on a platform that appeals to the progressive base (because that is where the energy lies, especially among young people) often try to move to the center upon taking office because of powerful interests that oppose those measures. Hence they try to tamp down expectations of big changes.

The newly inaugurated mayor of New York City Zohran Mamdani does not seem to be following that path. In his first speech as mayor, he vowed to govern as a democratic socialist, the label he proudly wore in the campaign. His swearing in featured two of the most progressive voices who hold congressional office, senator Bernie Sanders and congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Zohran Mamdani on Thursday vowed to “reinvent” New York City in a speech on his first day as mayor, promising “a new era” for America’s largest city and an ambitious start to his term of office.

The 34-year-old political star and democratic socialist, who a year ago was a virtually unknown state assemblyman, is the city’s first Muslim mayor, first of south Asian descent and the first to be born in Africa. He is also the first to be sworn in using the Qur’an.

Mamdani added that a “moment like this comes rarely and rarer still is it that the people themselves whose hands are upon the levers of change”.

The mayor said that in writing his remarks, he was advised to lower expectations. “I will do no such thing,” he said. “The only expectation I seek to reset is that of small expectations. Beginning today we will govern expansively and audaciously. We may not always succeed but never will we be accused of lacking the courage to try.”

Mamdani did not shy away from his socialist politics. “I was elected as a democratic socialist and I will govern as a democratic socialist. I will not abandon my principles for fear of being called radical,” he said to loud cheers from the gathered crowd.

He ended by saying: “The work has only just begun.”

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On the steps of city hall on a bitterly cold January day, the newly elected mayor was introduced by the Bronx Democrat congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a democratic socialist ally who is edging toward a run for the White House in 2028.

“We have chosen courage over fear. We have chosen prosperity for the many over spoils for the few,” Ocasio-Cortez said in her remarks. “We have chosen to make a new future for all of us, we have chosen a mayor who is relentlessly dedicated to make life not just possible but aspirational for working people … we have chosen that over the distractions of bigotry and the barbarism of extreme inequality.”

Mamdani was then formally sworn in by the Vermont independent senator Bernie Sanders, another political ally who in many ways laid the groundwork for Mamdani’s affordability agenda with his run for the Democrat presidential nomination in 2016.
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Sanders said in his address to the crowd that Mamdani was taking power “at a time when we are seeing too much hatred, too much divisive and too much injustice” and called for “government that works for all, not just the wealthy and the few”.

He added that Mamdani had taken on the Democrat and Republican establishments, “the president of the United States and some enormously wealthy oligarchs and you defeated them in the biggest political upset in modern American history”.

Mamdani now begins one of the most unrelenting jobs in American politics as one of the country’s closest-watched politicians whose platform promises free childcare, free buses, a rent freeze for about 1m households, and a pilot of city-run grocery stores.

You can be sure that there will be many, including some in the leadership of the Democratic party, who will be hoping that he will fail so that they can say that their brand of neoliberal oligarch-friendly policies is the way to govern. Already, Israel and their lobby in the US have accused Mamdani of festering antisemitism because he revoked a whole slew of executive orders made by outgoing mayor Eric Adams, including controversial ones favored by the Israel lobby.

Mamdani revoked an Adams-era order that adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism, which the previous administration said included “demonizing Israel and holding it to double standards as forms of contemporary antisemitism”.

Israel’s response came hours after Mamdani issued an order to rescind all executive orders that Adams issued after he was indicted on federal corruption charges in 2024 – charges that were later, controversially, dropped.

Mamdani’s office said the decision was to ensure “a fresh start for the incoming administration”.

One of Adams’s orders, now revoked, included prohibiting city officials overseeing the city pension system from making decisions in line with the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, which Mamdani has said he supports.

A second order directed the New York police commissioner, currently Jessica Tisch, to evaluate proposals for regulating protest activity occurring close to houses of worship. It came after demonstrations outside an Upper East Side synagogue hosting an event promoting immigration to Israel sparked claims of antisemitism.

The Israel lobby, already alarmed by the huge loss in public support in the US, especially among young people, because of tis genocidal actions in Gaza, is fighting a rearguard battle for public opinion and will be fearful that this kind of political will, if successful, will encourage other elected officials, long fearful of being the target of the lobby if they did not acquiesce to its demands, to follow suit. So they will be among those groups, including the wealthy and corporate interest, who will try to make Mamdani fail.

But Mamdani is not backing down. So far, he seems undaunted, which is a refreshing change from the often pusillanimous behavior of Democratic politicians.