Mamdani’s mistake
The New York Mayor-elect should remember that civility is valuable, but not as valuable as justice.
Politics is not for the faint of heart. That general maxim feels all the more relevant in the Trump era.
The president, like other autocrats, plays hardball with everyone. He lives in a Machiavellian world where anything is permissible and nothing is forbidden in the quest to achieve what he wants.
Like The Silence of the Lambs’ Hannibal Lecter, a character the president talks about a lot, he can be charming one minute and utterly ruthless the next. Dealing with such an alluring yet dangerous combination takes great skill.
Resisting his charm and remembering his ruthlessness is Job One as we navigate this unprecedented era in American politics. It is an absolute necessity for the anti-Trump resistance. Falling into the president’s web of misdirection, duplicity, and double-dealing is a serious mistake.
It is one that Zohran Mamdani, New York City’s mayor-elect and Democratic savior of the moment, made on Nov. 21 when he met with Donald Trump and the two held an Oval Office news conference. There, Mamdani lent himself to the president’s project as Trump gave the mayor-elect his blessing.
During the press conference, a body language expert claimed, “Mamdani stood like a little school boy, his hands clasped together most of the time, trying his hardest to look like a ‘good little boy.’”
He should not have met with Trump. His decision to do so has echoes of the mistakes made by many celebrities, including Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, and Bill Maher.
Like leading law firms, corporate executives, and some university leaders, Mamdani’s White House visit was an effort to curry favor from an authoritarian in the hope that he would be spared his fury. Doing so might secure short-term gains, but it lends legitimacy to a corrupt and capricious regime, fuels the autocratic desire for personalistic deal-making, and overlooks the fact that Trump is very mercurial and, as a result, cannot be relied upon.
Some think that in our era, “sitting down with someone you vehemently disagree with has become a radical act.” However, what Trump has done, is doing, and will do to this country and its people is much more than a matter on which people of goodwill should disagree.
Civility is valuable, but not as valuable as justice. Nothing happened when Mamdani met Trump that moved us toward justice. As Professor Benjamin DeMott once observed, “when you’re in an argument with a thug, there are things much more important than civility.”
Trump has regularly displayed thugishness toward Mamdani. Before the meeting, the president repeatedly denigrated Mamdani and warned of the dire consequences he would impose on New York City if elected mayor.
As he has done with many others, the president suggested that Mamdani, a naturalized citizen, does not belong in the country. Last summer, Trump noted that “A lot of people are saying he’s here illegally,” and promised, “We’re going to look at everything.”
He added that he would arrest Mamdani if he interfered with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement efforts to round up and deport people in New York.
Trump has made fun of Mamdani, or, as he put it, “whatever the hell his name is.” And, as if that were not enough, he called him a communist and threatened to withhold federal funds from New York if Mamdani won the election.
How to respond to name-calling, threats, and blackmail?
Before his Oval Office meeting with Trump, Mamdani had displayed admirable moral clarity.
“I am Donald Trump‘s worst nightmare, as a progressive, Muslim immigrant who actually fights for things I believe in,” Mamdani argued during his campaign for mayor.
In July, responding to Trump’s attacks, he noted that the president had “threatened to have me arrested, stripped of my citizenship, put in a detention camp and deported.” Mamdani observed that Trump’s “statements don’t just represent an attack on our democracy but an attempt to send a message to every New Yorker who refuses to hide in the shadows: if you speak up, they will come for you. We will not accept this intimidation.”
On election night, he said, “Donald Trump, since I know you’re watching, I have four words for you: Turn the volume up!...If anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him, it is the city that gave rise to him.”
He promised to “use his power to reject Donald Trump’s fascism.”
All that talk of being Trump’s worst nightmare and rejecting fascism was put aside or forgotten in the Oval Office.
But before the dust settled, Mamdani was insisting he had not broken his promises. In an interview on NBC’s Meet the Press on the Sunday following their meeting, Mamdani said that he still believes Trump is a “fascist” and a “despot.” He described their meeting as an “opportunity” to work together on lowering the cost of living for New Yorkers.
“I think what I appreciated about the conversation that I had with the president was that we were not shy about the places of disagreement, about the politics that has brought us to this moment, and we also wanted to focus on what it could look like to deliver on a shared analysis of an affordability crisis for New Yorkers…. I’m not coming into the Oval Office to make a point or make a stand. I’m coming in there to deliver for New Yorkers.”
Trump, for his part, explained, “I’ve been called much worse than a despot.… I think he’ll change his mind after we get to working together.”
There you have it.
The president hopes to convince the mayor that he is not a despot even as he continues to do despotic things.
For Trump, mired in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, MAGA’s internecine warfare, and plummeting approval ratings, the meeting with Madani and the publicity it generated was a gift. As Trump observed during their Oval Office news conference, “The press has eaten this thing up. For some reason the press has found this to be a very interesting meeting. The biggest people from all over the world come here, nobody cares.”
Mamdani gave the president cover by allowing Trump to appear concerned about the lives of ordinary New Yorkers. He isn’t.
Reed Galen, co-founder of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, got it right when he said that the president “has always been, from his earliest days in New York, a zero-sum zealot. He learned this lesson from his mentor, the infamous attorney, Roy Cohn. You win or you lose, there is no in-between, there is no situation in which both sides can benefit.”
“The idea,” Galen explained, “that he, or anyone in his administration, will take any action for ‘the greater good’ is lunacy and fantasy. We’ve seen several Democrats saying they need to be able to work with the Trump administration. Wake up!”
What Mamdani seems not to realize is that, as Galen put it, “The regime will do all it can to put anyone and everyone over a barrel. There is no negotiating with them…. Why? Because they don’t care about you, your silly rules, or your constituents.”
And delivering for New Yorkers must mean more than enlisting the president’s help in lowering costs. Mamdani surely knew going into the meeting that there was very little that Trump could do to make New York more affordable for its residents. At best, the Oval Office meeting provided Mamdani the opportunity to burnish his political credentials and solidify his support among voters who supported Trump in 2024.
In the end, what James Carville said about Bill Maher’s dinner with Trump applies to Mamdani’s mistake as well: “I think [he] … was had.” Like Maher, the mayor-elect helped Trump put on a show “about how charming and measured” he was.
Let’s not forget, as Carville noted, regardless of how charming and measured Trump appeared when he met with Mamdani, our president “loves to hurt people, loves to inflict pain.”
This article is representative of the author’s own views and experience. The Contrarian encourages civil dialogue and different perspectives.
Austin Sarat is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College.
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I don't think Mamdani is naive enough to think that he can depend on the POTUS in any way for anything. On the other hand, NYC needs federal money for infrastructure and DOT money- there are 3 major airports in NYC alone, it has one of the oldest, largest and busiest subway systems in the world and the tunnel project for AMTRAK is way overdue and getting more expensive as time goes by.
I think Mamdani had more to lose by making a dangerous enemy before he even got into office than he did by standing for a photo op.
Mamdani has boatloads of rizz right now and donny wanted a piece of that action and to bask in the reflected light. Mamdani had congratulations from people all over the world and he's only the mayor of NYC, whereas 70% of Americans and 90% of the
world loathes donny and can't wait until he drops dead.
Mamdani is nobody's fool. The guy has had to work with some of the most powerful, wealthy and connected assholes the world has ever produced and I don't think he's a sucker. I think he weighed his choices and maybe decided if that midnight rants and death threats were going to come anyway, what does he have to lose by starting out with a cordial relationship and maybe getting funding the city really needs.
I don't see a school boy being chastised. I see a genuinely savvy political operator, manipulating the shit out of one of the dumbest bully's that ever sat in the Oval office by feigning deference in body language and giving nothing verbally. He never said he liked, trusted or admired donny in any way.
I saw Mamdani showing an easy-going natural class, charm and wit to a slobbering dullard who is desperate for the kind of attention that Mamdani attracts seemingly without any effort.
I think Zohran played donny like a fiddle. We'll see what comes out of it, if anything. I see what your point is, but Mamdani's responsibility as mayor-elect is to the city and I don't think he wanted to start out with an antagonistic relationship, which would hurt a lot more NYers in the short run and is probably going to happen eventually anyway.
This take is utter nonsense.
The Contrarian has consistently either belittled Mamdani or has condescendingly remarked on his unprecedented defeat of both GOP billionaires and the Democratic party establishment since the mayoral primary. Centrist pundits and officials are sad that Mamdani once again showed his incredible political skills while making them look silly for dismissing him, again. He in no way 'lent himself to the president’s project', and the writer gives no examples of this.
Mamdani did not concede anything, and made a number of good points during their meeting. It's telling, but not surprising, that this article does not mention that Mamdani called Israel's catastrophe in Gaza 'genocide' in the Oval Office, something no one has ever done. This article can't mention even one point where Mamdani did not stand his ground or where he changed any view he had going into the meeting. Mamdani also proudly defended his position as a democratic socialist, also not mentioned here.
He was nothing at all like a 'little schoolboy', an incredibly patronizing description that is similar to so many other examples from 'centrist' press outlets. The comparison to journalists like Bill Maher and Joe Scarborough is also ridiculous - Mamdani is the elected leader of a huge city who will be responsible for millions of people, not a pundit who is responsible for nothing but viewership.. There is no way around the fact that Trump has a lot of direct power and influence over New York City. He did not meet Trump for a friendly dinner at Mar-a-Lago, as did the pundits listed here. This was an official meeting of two executive officials.
The comparison to Gretchen Whitmer is also silly - Whitmer allowed herself to be manipulated into showing support for a Trump order punishing those who opposed his 2020 election lies, to the point where she literally covered her face when being photographed. If anything, Mamdani reversed that appearance- he stood next to Trump while affirming that Trump is a fascist, that Israel is committing genocide, and that he is a democratic socialist, while Trump grinned and beamed at Mamdani like a 'little schoolboy'. If anyone was used, it was him.
It's also obvious that this isn't some 'friendship' that will last anyway. If a conversation can help Mamdani keep billions in federal aid from being cut off for even a period of time, that is a good thing. It is not assured in any case. He was able to get Trump on record saying he wanted to help the city. That in itself is something. Mamdani is certainly aware that Trump is 'mercurial', but that he is also easily swayed by someone with intelligence and charisma.