Living in its exurbs, Jane and I don’t vote in New York City’s elections. New York, though, will always be our defining metropolis, where we’ve worked and lived, our omphalos. Like it or not, boastful or rueful, we’re New Yorkers. For various reasons, at this phase of our lives, we reside “out of town,” but which town is never in doubt.
New York’s mayor has thus been our foremost local leader. We can name all the mayors of our moment as we can the Presidents; about the dates of Governors, Senators, representatives we’re hazier. The Wagner, Lindsay, Beame, Dinkins, Giuliani, Bloomberg, de Blasio and (oy) Adams “years” evoke images of us making our way – up ladders and across town.
We can find ourselves in Manhattan – south of a hundred and twenty-fifth and north of City Hall. (The “outer boroughs” scramble in memory into an unnavigable blur. Have we ever been to Staten Island? We must have!) Other cities we judge by comparison. The first four years of our retirement we chose to live in Rome partly because Rome was “the New York City of its day.”
Imaginatively if not actually we voted in New York’s mayoral primary. Until a few days before the election, Jane and I would both have voted for Andrew Cuomo, as we’d voted him Governor – “holding our nose,” as the phrase goes – but with confidence even so. I’ve known Andrew Cuomo slightly over the years – we lived near each other in Westchester, encountered each other occasionally – and while I respected his competence, I abhorred his arrogance. He possesses the gift of making one feel two inches tall, in contrast to his famous dad, who produced the opposite effect. After a casual greeting with Andrew, I’d be grinding my molars for months.
Even so, I’d have voted for him. These days America’s cities need strong defenders to protect them from the Nameless One and his redneck mob. (Are my prejudices showing?) Andrew’s finest hour was his management of the Covid crisis. He led his state (and the frantic nation) clearly, candidly, competently, encouragingly, in contrast to our dithering, lying President (whose ineptitude we re-elected – go figure).
Jane would have cast her vote for Cuomo. I too – until the campaign’s final week, when my preference would have shifted to a hitherto unknown state legislator named Zohran Mamdani, thirty-three, inexperienced, Muslim. I blink typing the preceding. A Muslim? Unknown? Inexperienced? Thirty-three? In this perilous hour? Was I out of my mind – or, pique-pricked, avenging myself in my little way against Andrew’s imperious disdain?
I write to understand – my moment in myself. Why would I have cast such a perplexing vote? What could have persuaded me? Had our turbulent politics tumbled me into a feckless anarchist?
Despair takes risks. Though no hellraiser, I’m heartily sick of America’s political status quo. The duplicity, pusillanimity, and corruption of our elected class, albeit an historical constant, seem to have spiked to unprecedented heights. I was a Joe Biden fan – a good man, I’d have vowed – but even he betrayed his promise by clinging to a job he could not have performed. My enemies I loathed, naturally enough, but now my ideological teammates seemed almost as perverse. Status quo has turned anagram for snake pit. So what the hell – try a new face – thirty-three, inexperienced, Muslim, so what? What did we have to lose!
Mamdani, if eventually elected, can’t be as good as I hope. No one can. But his freshness permits hope. And we need hope – oh, how we need it! – in this fearsome hour.