New York is not the city that Mamdani pretends it is

There is an unhappy history of left-wing Britons getting involved in US elections. Back in 2004, the Guardian – the flagship organ of the British left – organized a letter-writing campaign, urging voters in the swing state of Ohio not to re-elect George W. Bush. The good people of Ohio didn’t take kindly to a bunch of North Londoners telling them how to vote, and although the Guardian’s campaign probably can’t be given all the credit, the voters of Ohio duly went to the polls and swung firmly behind Bush.

One wishes that London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s intervention in this week’s election in New York might have had a similar result. Interviewed shortly before Zohran Mamdani was elected, the Mayor of London praised the Democratic Socialist candidate for mayor of New York as “fun” and “authentic.” A spokesman for the London mayor proclaimed: “The mayor hopes that like in London, New Yorkers see through the politics of hatred and fear and embrace Mamdani’s hopeful and optimistic vision for the future.”

I think we all know the drill here. If the subtext of the Guardian’s fateful 2004 intervention in US politics was that a bunch of rural hicks in Ohio needed to be instructed by better educated types about what a ghastly man their then president was, then the subtext of the mayor of London’s intervention into the New York race is that if you don’t vote for the Socialist candidate it’s because you’re anti-Muslim and therefore anti-progress and anti-diversity. 

The trouble is that not many New Yorkers want to hear from the Mayor of London on how to run a city. While Khan wafts around the world telling everyone what a diverse and vibrant place London is, the news that floats back over the Atlantic from London is rarely positive. 

Most Americans I speak to who have recently been to our capital return rather shocked. Not least among their observations is how wild the crime in London is. New Yorkers might risk being set on fire on the subway by a spice-addled illegal immigrant, but they are also used to being able to walk down a street with their phone in their hand. They do not have to hide their device for fear that it is going to be snatched from them by a youth on a bike. Every American tourist who does experience this aspect of London tends to tell their friends about it. So while Khan thinks that London’s bad reputation in the US is a result of Donald Trump’s occasional swipes at his mayoralty, it is in fact merely a reflection of Americans visiting Khan’s London and returning home with stories of the reality.

Another line I hear plenty of people voicing in America is something along the lines of: “Whatever happened to London?” This would of course be dismissed as appalling, backwards racism by Khan and his PR team. But I have heard it often enough to know that it is an expression of genuine surprise. There was a time when you could tell American friends that it was all fine really, and that Downton Abbey and other popular dramas might have unduly raised expectations of what the average day in Britain looks like. But these American visitors are on to something. The problem with “diverse” cities is that they all end up monotonously resembling each other. 

In any case, if New York really is going to follow London’s lead, then New Yorkers can only blame themselves. Mamdani must count as the least qualified person ever to run for major political office. The son of a Columbia University professor and an award-winning film-maker, he seems to have drifted through his career. He tried and failed to be a rapper. Then he worked for his mother for a bit. And now he’s meant to run the biggest city in America. 

It is true that he seems to have entranced many voters because of his youth (he’s 34) and “vibe.” But whenever he has actually been questioned about his policies he cannot explain how he is going to pay for any of them, other than by taxing the rich. 

To say that he is economically illiterate is an understatement. Early in the campaign it became clear that he cannot read a budget sheet. It also transpired that he thinks that the already beleaguered New York Police Department is some sort of wing of the KKK. Trained by the Israelis, naturally. 

Possibly alert to the whiffs of anti-Semitism that have pervaded his career, he has chosen to counter this by saying that any criticisms of him are because of his Muslim-ness. In fact few New Yorkers, like Londoners, care what religion their mayor is. But they do take exception when a candidate stands outside a mosque during election season, as Mamdani did, and starts to tear up while telling a story about an aunt (who turned out not to be an aunt) who was said
to be fearful of wearing her hijab in New York after 9/11 – as if she was the real victim of that day.

One of the demonstrations that New York is not the city that Mamdani sometimes pretends it is can be seen from the fact there was no widespread “anti-Muslim” backlash after 9/11. Just as there was no meaningful opposition to his candidacy because of his Muslim faith. 

It was one thing for the Guardian to misread the people of Ohio. It is quite another for people running for elected office to misrepresent their fellow citizens.

Perhaps this is just one more similarity between London and New York. Both must count as among the world’s most tolerant populations. But they are populations that have become used to being misrepresented by politicians whose own gilded lives and effortless careers should be demonstration enough that we aren’t the people they often find it useful to pretend we are.