“Ambition,” “hope,” and “opportunity” were the words of the hour at the inauguration of freshly minted Mayor Zohran Mamdani, the 34-year-old democratic socialist who completed his ascent to New York City’s highest office on Thursday afternoon.
Speakers at the ceremony placed a focus and mandate on New Yorkers — promising a brighter four years than those seen under former Mayor Eric Adams, while calling on New York City’s inhabitants to do more themselves to improve the city.
National progressive leaders Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-Bronx/Queens) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.) spoke at the ceremony, with Ocasio-Cortez delivering opening remarks and Sanders administering Mamdani’s oath of office. Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and new City Comptroller Mark Levine, both Democrats, also took their public oaths on Thursday, Williams for his second and final term.
They all emphasized solidarity, community, diversity, and opportunity in the years ahead — with Williams, Sanders, and Mamdani embracing the tenets of democratic socialism amid a growing wealth divide.
Sanders told those in attendance that Mamdani “needed your help to win the election, now he will need your help to govern.”
Mamdani himself said during his inaugural address that “while we will encourage New Yorkers to demand more from those with the great privilege of serving them, we will encourage you to demand more of yourselves as well.”
Mamdani’s biggest boosters seek ‘return to community life’
Ocasio-Cortez and Williams both characterized the day as an inauguration not only for Mamdani, Williams, and Levine, but for all New Yorkers, calling on them to help Mamdani’s administration reach its goals for the city.
“It is the people of New York City who have chosen historic, ambitious leadership in response to untenable and unprecedented times,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “New York, we have chosen courage over fear. We have chosen prosperity for the many over spoils for the few.”
Ocasio-Cortez, noting the historic nature of Mamdani’s election as the city’s first Muslim mayor and its first immigrant mayor in over a century, said she trusts Mamdani will be a mayor “for all of us.”
Mamdani’s unlikely election, Ocasio-Cortez said, “calls on all of us to return to public life en masse.”
“Now is the time to turn towards our neighbors, stand with them, and return to community life,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “A city for all will require all of us to fill our streets, our schools, our houses of faith, our PTAs, and our block associations as we support this mayor in making an affordable city a reality for all of us.”
Williams, after taking his oath of office, called on New Yorkers to work to make New York City better.
“In these contradicting ideals, we are faced with a choice, and I choose hope. In other words, I have faith,” Williams said. “But faith without works is dead, so today, I’m committing to the work of public service, and I ask every New Yorker to commit their own talents to use what they have and do what they can for the success of our city and everyone who calls it home.”
He then asked those in attendance to stand, join hands, and take an oath of their own.
“We can all be the voice of the people,” Williams said, asking the audience to repeat. “I know what’s ahead but I won’t lose hold, and I won’t lose hope. Anything can happen, so anything can happen. And as we march forward, no one let go of anyone’s hands.”
Economic and social opportunity
Each speaker focused heavily on the nation’s extreme wealth gap, which is exacerbated in New York City. Middle-income and low-income New Yorkers are starkly worse off than the city’s top 20 percent of earners, a divide Mamdani has harkened to throughout his campaign, which he structured largely around affordability.
“Our city today is booming for people at the top. But it’s getting tougher and tougher for working families to pay their rent, to find a job with a living wage, and yes, Mr. Mayor, to find affordable childcare,” Levine said, alluding to Mamdani’s promise for universal childcare.
Levine and Mamdani both emphasized the importance of building more affordable housing in the city, a key tenet of the new mayor’s agenda.
“Together, this ascent marks a new era for New York City, led by a historic new mayor in Zohran Mamdani, guided by his dedication to a working class that makes our beautiful city run,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
Williams, discussing his upbringing as the child of immigrants from Grenada, said his own ascent to leadership was unlikely.
Sanders, who has long railed against an American “oligarchy,” praised Mamdani for his ambitious affordability agenda — which includes a promise for a rent freeze and free bus fares — and characterized him as an example for national progressivism.
“At a moment when people in America and in fact throughout the world are losing faith in democracy, over 90,000 of you in this city volunteered for Zohran’s campaign,” Sanders said. “When working people stand together, when we don’t let them divide us up, there is nothing we cannot accomplish.”
Williams painted New York as a city with endless contradictions: “This is a city of enormous wealth and enduring poverty, of the greed of some and the generosity of many, of darkness and of light.”
“As Public Advocate, I’ve tried to be an activist elected official, someone who pushes back. Now, I see the chance to push forward,” Williams said. “To provide accountability aimed at the ideal that government has an opportunity and an obligation to do good. At the core of public service and progressivism is the principle of making government work and showing people it can work for them.”
A full embrace of democratic socialism
Mamdani, who has faced criticism throughout the past year for his identification as a democratic socialist, bore the label with pride during his address.
“I was elected as a democratic socialist, and I will govern as a democratic socialist,” Mamdani said. “I will not abandon my principles for fear of being deemed radical.”
The crowd at the inauguration was dotted with red beanie hats donned with the logos of the “Democratic Socialists of America.”
Sanders, perhaps the biggest champion of democratic socialism in America today, applauded Mamdani for standing up to “the Democratic establishment, the Republican establishment, the President of the United States, and some enormously wealthy oligarchs” in his campaign and victory.
In an election defined by affordability and candidates’ fitness to advocate for New York City amid historic federal scrutiny, Mamdani has carved out a place as a national leader of the progressive left, alongside Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez.
Williams identified a need to stand up to “authoritarianism” and “oligarchy” in the United States — though no speaker mentioned President Donald Trump by name, several alluded to a federal crisis of democracy and a need to stand up for communities that have been impacted by federal crackdowns. The ongoing Immigration and Customs Enforcement detentions of immigrants arriving for routine hearings at 26 Federal Plaza in downtown Manhattan was a point of focus for Williams and Mamdani as well.
The ceremony featured a performance by singer-songwriter Lucy Dacus, who sang the political anthem “Bread and Roses,” embraced by the Democratic Socialists of America as a call for both physical and spiritual sustenance for the working class.
