Why did Zohran Win?

Some thoughts on Zohran Mamdani’s victory

Many are trying to explain his success with some rando/accidental factors such as “personal charisma”, the weakness of the pro-establishment candidate and so forth

Still, I think there may be some fundamental factors behind his ascent that remained unnoticed by the general audience.

A longue durée shift, so profound that a born politician could feel it with his guts, if not verbalise it explicitly - and then, ride the wave

So, let’s talk about how the vibe is changing, in the United States.

1. Public outrage does not work anymore

If you look at Zohran, he is calm, constructive, and very rarely raises his voice

This is super important, and reflects a major change that has happened in the American politics

I think one thing that Mamdani - but almost no one else in the American public space is getting - is that the public is getting tired of the outrage

Outrage, anger, righteous indignation has all been the primary drivers of the American (and global) politics for the recent decades.

For a while, this tactics worked

Indeed, when everyone is polite, and soft (and insincere), public outrage, public indignation can stand you out of the crowd. Wow, this guy really believes in what he say. I may not agree with everything, but I see he is an honest chap

Outrage used to be something that helped you get notice

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Now, however, there is a massive oversaturation on the market of outrage

It is not only that the people are tired. Like, they are, but that is not the whole story

It is also that as everyone is yelling, the marginal utility of yelling is approaching zero. All of your screaming just converges into the indistinguishable white noise

As of 2025, you can stand out of the crowd, if you behave, show decorum, politiness and self control

In fact, a great deal of Mamdani’s success has been based not on “charisma” per se, but on the fact he was behaving like an adult in a room of toddlers

Notice what he is doing

He puts forward a moderate, restrained proposition, consciously framed in a way that it would very difficult to make a legitimate counterargument against it

A state with the equal rights for all its citizens

Now the opponents start screaming, and yelling and losing their minds

The overall impression is that he is an adult, and they are capricious, uncontrollable children, although even they may be decades older than him

What stands you out in a crowd today, is reason, and moderation

Anger, indignation and reactivity just makes you like everyone else

People are tired of anger, tired of righteous indignation, and the outrage does not pay anymore

It is just that the politicians fail to notice it

2. Identity politics do not work anymore

This is a very important point, and I want to stress it specifically.

One great innovation of Zohran’s 2025 campaign is the promise of better future for everyone, and not just any particular community. That is a massive change in vibe

For the past decade and something, American public discourse has been heavily shaped by the identity politics. No matter the stance, or ideology, they would divide society into the two demographic groups: one “good”, another “evil”, one “victims”, another perpetrators, and so on. Specific criteria of division could vary, but the general principle remained the same.

On the one side, you have the essentialised good, on another - the essentialised evil, and what makes the difference between them is race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, so basically literally whatever that has nothing to do with your personal choice.

Now another thing to understand is that the identitarian consensus has been pretty much bipartisan, only the specific criteria of assignment differed:

White bad → POC bad

Men bad → Women bad

In this, and in many other cases, the right-wing discourse worked as a complete inversion of the left-wing one. Sometimes, the exactness of the inversion is producing an almost comical effect. Like, if the Democrats rule by the name of the disadvantaged minorities, then the GOP must also find a disadvantaged minority to rule by its name.

(And so, the Scotch-Irish it is)

So, basically, the left wokeness became a major driving force behind the right wokeness, that grew and prospered as an intersectional reactionary response on the former.

Now a real innovation of Zohran’s campaign, is that he stepped away from the identity politics further than any Democrat candidate or, perhaps, further than any political candidate in the recent American history.

More than any other candidate, he presented himself as a candidate of all citizens

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One thing that sets Zohran apart from most Dem (and progressive) politicians is that he stopped antagonising entire demographies for no good reason at all. When he attacks someone, he is making sure he is attacking them personally and not as members of a broader community.

Which is of course, the correct thing to do.

Indeed, spitting in the face of the entire demographies and then acting as a surprised pikachu face when they turn against you has been the favourite game of American politics since the times immemorial.

Now the thing about Zohran is that he stopped that, and stopped completely

You may agree with his policy proposals, or disagree with them. But the audience feels - even if it cannot formulate it explicitly - that the discussion on public buses and rent is 1000 more times more constructive than whatever the Democrats had been putting on the table before.

Long story short, it is a great thing that a Democrat politician is focusing on the socio-economic issues, and distances from the culture wars. In this regard, Zohran’s campaign must be seen as a healthy self-correction mechanism on behalf of the Blue

3. Muslim scare does not work anymore

Normative Islamophobia that has long been the single most acceptable form of racial & ethnic bigotry in America, is now receding. It is not so much dying as rather - failing to replicate in younger generations. It is not that the old people change their views as that the young do not absorb their prejudice any longer.

In fact, I incline to think it has been failing to replicate for a while, it is just that we have not been paying attention. All of this suggests that the normalised anti-Muslim prejudice will be washed away with the generational change.

For a younger voter, the anti-Muslim propaganda is increasingly looking like the anti-Catholic propaganda from the 19th c. An artefact of the bygone age

Know-Nothings may had their reasons to be wary about the whole Catholics thing. But there are no Know-Nothings left. The old prejudices are not so much get disproven, as just gradually die off