As Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani stood with Council member Chi Ossé at our beloved grime square (the dunkin’-checkers-popeyes at Myrtle-Broadway), I realized something vital that pushed this publication to make its first official political endorsement. Zohran is hot, and New York City deserves a hot mayor.

I want a good mayor, sure, in the same way that I want a good husband, but what I’m talking about, what gets me excited about Mamdani, is that feeling that you get when you meet someone and you think, “yeah but I want it to be him. I want him to be the Mayor.”  With his easy charm, caring smile and Uniqlo Uncle style, he’s someone who makes you want to get up and believe in something, even if you end up looking a little foolish.

I recently canvassed alongside the Mamdani campaign’s Bushwick outfit. We met outside Loveless Coffees on Central Ave where we paired off to knock on the doors of residents in rent-stabilized apartments. We read from a script and tried to highlight Mamdani’s platform to freeze rent increases on their buildings, among other pillars of his campaign including fast, fare free buses, introducing city owned grocery stores, and no cost child care.  

We talked with people, got signatures, pledge cards, and donations. Bushwickians from all backgrounds were genuinely pleased to answer their doors for us, and many had already known of Mamdani from his time fighting for working class New Yorkers in the State Assembly, where he has served the 36th District since 2021.

When the group of canvassers reconvened that afternoon at Clara’s on Wilson Ave, we sat and shared rounds of Miller High Life and buffalo wings, talking about the state of the city. There was a spark emanating between us that I hadn’t really felt since maybe 2020. Not since before the pandemic, when Bernie had just won Nevada, and I was watching Super Tuesday coverage at a trendy bar in a coastal city surrounded by the aut de jour of leftist podcasters and DSA organizers. 

I think it’s those glimmers, even if they last just a few months, that sustain you when everything else begins to seem so unbelievably pointless. And even though we know the deeply rooted machinations of finance and capital will resist this moment, exercising these muscles is a fundamental human experience that we must run toward, even if we’ve been burned before.

My entire adult life I have frequented DSA events and canvassed on behalf of their candidates. One thing that I’ve always liked, is the practice of giving yourself to a cause that not only aligns with your beliefs, but endeavors towards a better, more equitable society. No matter how cynical things get, I will never quite fully admit that something like canvassing or mutual aid or protest, or voting, or participating in a struggle is profitless. I’ve always found them to be a relief. Every time, it’s like, “thank God there is still something alive in me that thinks a better world is possible.” 

If this is your second or third mayoral race, or if last year was your third or fourth presidential election, it’s hard not to be world-weary and start to think about settling for what’s good enough. Giving up on an ideal you dreamed of in years past. But to do that, it would not only be less than you deserve, but a betrayal of what you meant when you said that you loved this city. 

I understand, it seems like we have been given worse options as we’ve aged, we know the window is closed on our first true love, and the ones that fill you with the same sort of excitement are now feebler and farther between. It’s getting harder and harder to get it up for the promise of a truly progressive leader. 

Zohran feels like a spark, like having your head turned by someone who demonstrates that they care, knows what they believe in and fights for it. It’s unbelievably attractive in a candidate. It’s the type of charm that motivates people to volunteer, donate, organize, and build the coalition that is going to be necessary not only to get him elected, but to be able to enact anything in a city historically cool to the idea of Democratic Socialism. 

Being a leftist at this time in America has been a bit of a tantric experience. We’ve come close so many times, but we’ve never really gotten there, have we? Holding onto the idea that we might, as a major American city, have a Democratic Socialist elected as mayor, who in turn could enact meaningful change for working and middle class people in this city feels like holding out for your soulmate. Months and then years go by and you start to accept that it might not ever happen. 

But there is something happening. Perhaps it’s a little hope, maybe just a crush, but it seems you can’t walk out of DeKalb station on a weekend without a bright-eyed volunteer asking if you’ve heard about Zohran. You enter businesses around the neighborhood and it’s his poster in their window, you scroll and see one of his videos popping up on your timeline. 

This handsome, seemingly kind man is promising you all the ways you could live securely in the place he wants to build for you. You could raise a family, afford not only your groceries, but your chicken over rice. New York City has always been a place of pleasure, but at a certain point that loses its novelty and you realize things are only really pleasurable again when you have the hope that you can build a life with meaningful security. 

So let yourself have a little bit of a crush this spring, sign up to things you don’t normally do, pretend to know more about stuff than you actually might just to keep the conversation going, try to play it cool and do things that at the very least will let you fill yourself with the erotic hope that this one might be the one that changes everything.

The New York City Democratic Primary is on June 24th. It is a rank choice voting system, and so alongside volunteering, donating, and canvassing, be sure to rank Zohran and for the love of God don’t rank Cuomo.