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Zohran Mamdani was a long shot. But the 33-year-old democratic socialist state assemblyman flew past former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s name recognition and money advantage to win the Democratic primary for New York mayor last week.
On paper, the upset may seem like a parochial story of quirky turnout math and a uniquely flawed opponent in a city so blue it’d elect a Smurf. In reality, Mamdani’s victory is a canary in the coal mine, less for what it says about him and New York politics than the conditions that made his message land. Dismissing it as an intramural oddity misses the broader point: when voters believe the deck is stacked against them, they look for candidates who promise to reshuffle it.
First, a reality check: There’s no guarantee Mamdani will win in November. Only registered Democrats vote in primaries, and the general electorate is a different animal. Moreover, while New York is reliably blue, big outside money is lining up against him, so it remains plausible (even if not super likely) that he could lose to an independent candidate.
Nobody knows how Mamdani would govern if he wins, either. He could push the policies he ran on, some of which could create a crisis if enacted. In the worst-case scenario, they could result in capital flight, plummeting tax revenue, worsened public services, rising crime, and a host of other ills that would make the greatest city in the world slightly less great. (Though none of that would make me consider relocating my home and company HQ. Moose is up for anything.)
But Mamdani will also be a first-time executive constrained by Albany’s veto power and the tough realities and tradeoffs of city management. I wouldn’t be shocked if he governed more pragmatically than he campaigned. He’s already ditched some of his more controversial positions such as “defund the police,” and he’s shown a willingness to engage and evolve. He’s clearly a skilled and ambitious politician who wants to have a successful career in this business; to achieve this, he needs to be popular and win elections, and that means being seen as having done a decent job as mayor. If he does things that make New York’s tax base flee the city, crime go up, and public services fall apart, he will be seen as a failure. As Fiorello LaGuardia said, “There is no Democratic or Republican way to pick up garbage.”
Ultimately, though, how and what Mamdani does in the future is almost beside the point. Nothing will change the fact that he won the primary with an unabashedly far-left, economically populist, soak-the-rich message in the beating heart of global capitalism. New York is simultaneously one of the wealthiest and least affordable cities in America (and the world). Mamdani’s campaign was focused on slashing the cost of living and improving the quality of life for regular New Yorkers, promising a $30 minimum wage, free buses and childcare, city-owned grocery stores to slash food prices, rent controls on stabilized apartments, and higher taxes on the rich and corporations to pay for it all.
In the America I grew up in, this kind of platform would’ve been DOA, and Mamdani would’ve long been ostracized from polite society. The only political label that’s historically been more toxic than “socialist” is “communist.” Everyone knows that’s about as un-American as it gets, which is why Donald Trump calls anyone to his left a communist, from Mamdani to Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris.
But here’s the thing: the slurs only carry weight if people still see the United States as capitalist. Increasingly, they don’t. The United States looks less like a free‑market meritocracy – the kind with equal opportunity, open competition, rags-to-riches possibility – and more like a pay‑to‑play kleptocracy where access and advantage are auctioned to the highest bidder.
When Mamdani said that “billionaires shouldn’t exist,” he wasn’t threatening to line them up at dawn, but rather just to tax them down to size – at least as long as the playing field looks as tilted as it presently does in the United States. A growing number of Americans, those for whom the American Dream is the stuff of history books and “socialism” gives more Sweden vibes than Cuba, are on board for that.
Socialists may still not be able to beat capitalists, but if voters conclude that America has devolved into a two-tier system that rewards proximity to power more than hard work, don’t be surprised when a Ugandan-born millennial socialist like Mamdani has a shot against oligarchs and kleptocrats.
This country’s last successful populist wave started with a Queens real-estate showman promising to blow up business as usual. Trump won the White House twice on the back of voters who believed that democracy was broken and the game had been rigged against average Americans by coastal elites and the “deep state.” He’s spent a decade blaming global trade and immigration for working‑class pain, to reasonable success. But when it comes to “draining the swamp,” Trump has done anything but. Instead, he has expanded the swamp – and I’m not just talking about the new Alligator Alcatraz he's so excited about. Now Republicans in Congress are ramming through the One Big Beautiful Bill, which is set to be the largest wealth transfer from the poor to the rich in modern US history and will burden future generations with trillions in additional debt. Talk about class warfare.
If you’re 25, saddled with student loans, priced out of housing, and watching Trump cut the social safety net you’re paying into to fund tax cuts for his billionaire friends and cronies, soaking the rich increasingly looks not just like common sense but like self-defense. It’s no wonder Mamdani’s message resonated.
And I suspect the demand for what he’s selling will only grow in the coming years. Advances in artificial intelligence threaten massive job losses among white-collar workers. The backlash this time around will be driven not by blue-collar, working-class men in the Rust Belt but by priced-out urban professionals with advanced degrees and politically active suburban moms whose over-educated, under-employed children won’t have the opportunities they thought they would. Trump’s protectionist, anti-immigrant crusade won’t win over that crowd. Establishment Democrats haven’t come up with a good answer yet, either.
This doesn’t necessarily mean Mamdani himself is about to become the left’s new Trump. The fact is Mamdani is everything Trump wished Obama could’ve been: actually born in Africa, actually a Muslim, and actually a (democratic) socialist. That may be a winning combo in Brooklyn coffee shops and parts of the Bronx; color me skeptical it plays out as well in swing districts across the country. But the policy lane Mamdani has staked out – call it “anti-kleptocratic economic populism” – is wide open for someone with more national appeal to speed through it.
CEOs should worry less about Mamdani and more about the energy he’s tapping into. Those who mistake lobbying spend for sound strategy will one day wake to find themselves the targets of bipartisan populist pitchforks. If companies don’t start embracing genuinely open competition and mainstream politics remain unable to fix the optics of a rigged game, voters will send outsiders to rewrite the rules for them.
What We’re Watching: Dalai Lama’s succession plans, Big Beautiful Bill in the House, Israel-Hamas ceasefire under review
The Dalai Lama at the start of his 90th birthday celebrations in his exile in northern India.
Who will be the next Dalai Lama?
As the Dalai Lama approaches his 90th birthday, he is meeting with top Buddhist figures this week to lay out succession plans that could draw a sharp response from China. The 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, fled his native Tibet after a failed uprising against Chinese rule in 1959 and became the global face of a campaign for Tibetan independence. While China wants to install a successor who will accept Beijing’s control of both Tibet and Taiwan, the Dalai Lama’s latest statement emphasized his office’s “sole authority” over the selection process.
Is the US House ready to pass Trump’s signature legislation?
Following Senate passage on Wednesday, President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” hasreturned to the House where lawmakers are scrambling to reach the floor for a possible vote later today. If all members of the House are present — following a cancelled recess, storms in the Washington area this morning have made travel to the Capitol challenging — Republicans can afford just three “no” votes from their members. Some House Republicans already say they would vote against the bill in its current form, likely delaying eventual passage until after Trump’s July 4 deadline.
Israel and Hamas are not yet committed to Gaza ceasefire
On Tuesday, Trump posted on his Truth Social account that Israel had “agreed to the necessary conditions to finalize the 60 Day CEASEFIRE” in Gaza and warned Hamas that its leaders had better say yes. As of late this morning, both Israel and Hamas remainpublicly uncommitted to Trump’s terms. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to visit the White House next week.Hard Numbers: Russia and Azerbaijan tensions rise, Americans hit the road in record numbers, & More
People followed by mourners carry the coffins of Azerbaijani brothers Huseyn and Ziyaddin Safarov, who died in Russian police custody, to a cemetery in Hacibedelli, Azerbaijan, on July 1, 2025, in this still image from video.
2: Russia-Azerbaijan ties are fraying after the South Caucasus country said two Azeri brothers died last week after being tortured in Russian police custody. In retaliation, Azerbaijan has arrested half a dozen Russian state journalists working in the capital, Baku. The two former-Soviet countries generally get along but have had frictions over Azeri migrant labor in Russia, an Azerbaijan Airlines plane that was shot down over Russian airspace, and Moscow’s backing for Armenia in that country’s decades long conflict with Azerbaijan. The Kremlin said Azerbaijan was being “extremely emotional.”
87.1%: In the latest blow to free movement in Europe, Poland has introduced checks along its borders with Germany and Lithuania, partly a response to the surging number of people seeking first-time asylum in the country – the amount increased 87.1% from 2023 to 2024, more than any other country in Europe. The move is also a tit-for-tat measure, after Berlin introduced its own checks at the Polish-German frontier.
500: The war is going from bad to worse for Ukraine: After Russia launched over 500 drones and other missiles into its cities over the weekend, the United States halted a weapons shipment that was headed to Ukraine. The White House said it was putting its own interests first after lending military support to other countries.
14: With international demand for customer service centers soaring, is Africa ready to answer the call? Experts think so, predicting that the “Business-Process Outsourcing” industry will grow 14% annually on the continent in the coming years, nearly twice the global average. Anglophone African countries are particularly well positioned – the industry is growing nearly 20% per year in Kenya.
72.2 Million: A record 72.2 million Americans are set to travel domestically during the upcoming Fourth of July holiday weekend, according to the AAA, a nationwide motorists’ group. More than 60 million of them will be taking trips by car, driven – as it were – by the lowest summer gas prices since 2021 (and some fight delays).
US President Donald Trump speaks to reporters aboard Air Force One after departing early from the the G7 summit in Canada to return to Washington, D.C., on June 17, 2025.
When US President Donald Trump announced a swath of tariffs on virtually every US trading partner on April 2 – which he dubbed “Liberation Day” – most economists had the same warning: prices will rise. What’s more, Trump’s plan to deport millions of undocumented migrants and his adviser’s idea to weaken the US dollar would add to the buoyant pressure on prices.
Exactly three months on, those inflation distress calls appear to have been misplaced: the inflation rate was 2.4% in May, within touching distance of the Federal Reserve’s 2% target, and far below the rates seen in 2022 under former President Joe Biden – even with the dollar having its worst start to a year in over 50 years.
So why haven’t prices skyrocketed, as some economists warned?
First of all, not all the tariffs have even been imposed. When US treasury markets began to suffer following the announcement of “retaliatory tariffs,” Trump pulled back, pausing these extra taxes until July 9. What’s left of his new tariff policies are a 10% across-the-board levy – even these were briefly invalidated – a 55% rate on Chinese imports (down from 145%), and sectoral duties on goods like steel, aluminum, and auto parts. The US president has also allowed for a smattering of exemptions, most notably on smartphones and computers – those must have been a rotten Apple.
Secondly, businesses have made choices that have put a cap on price hikes.
Part of this is simply due to firms waiting for Trump to finalize his tariffs plans before they start passing on the higher costs to consumers, per University of Missouri economics professor Joseph Haslag.
“During the heyday of the negotiations, I don’t think anyone wanted to start raising prices until they knew what the final deal was going to look like,” he said.
Some of it is also thanks to forward planning. When Trump initially announced the tariffs, some firms stocked up on inputs before the duties came into effect. This has allowed them to hold prices as they continue to sell inventory that was purchased at pre-Liberation Day prices.
Finally, there are some economic factors that are putting downward pressure on prices, per Haslag. The economy is slowing, reducing demand and lowering inflation rates. What’s more, artificial intelligence may have already started helping firms to lower prices: it boosts worker and business productivity, allowing them to produce more in less time and at less cost.
Trump feels validated. The president will see the misguided warnings of high inflation as the latest example of the media and the “deep state” trying, and failing, to take him down – he lauded the low inflation rates during a May speech in Saudi Arabia. As such, he will feel that he has the green light to continue advancing other elements of his agenda, safe in the belief that any cautions from the “establishment” can be shot down as “fake news.”
Aren’t those “reciprocal tariffs” coming back though? Affirmative – they return just one week from now, and Trump’s plans are still up in the air. He has only negotiated one trade deal – with the United Kingdom – despite saying soon after “Liberation Day” that he had made 200. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent hinted that there might be some flexibility on the timing, which would be in line with the president’s past actions.
“July 9 is not a drop-dead date on which tariffs are going to be implemented across the board,” said Haslag. “We’ve had other sorts of deadlines that have come and passed over the past few months with regards to tariffs.”
The chickens always come home to roost. For any political gains Trump may have made thanks to lower-than-expected inflation rates, this upcoming deadline for the reciprocals creates a major dilemma for Trump: either he “chickens out” again, as one columnist jokingly suggested, or he actually imposes these hefty duties. The Fourth of July celebrations this weekend may not be as expensive as once feared – will Americans be able to say the same for Labor Day, Thanksgiving, or even Christmas?Read: Apollo’s Angels. I’m only part way through Jennifer Homans’ magisterial cultural history of ballet, but it’s off to a jeté of a start. I never knew that ballet originated in the court of French King Louis XIV, an avid performer himself, who used dance to create new courtly norms that would break the old nobility and reinforce his power. Centuries later, ballet and geopolitics did another stunning pas de deux, as some of the greats fled the Russian revolution for the West, making the ballet stage a Cold War battlefield of its own. Homans, a talented historian and ballet dancer in her own right, gives us a fascinating look at the life, meaning, and possible death of one of the world’s most rigorous and transcendent art forms. – Alex K
Watch: Birds. I went bird watching with a group in New York City’s Riverside Park this weekend and had a blast. Grab your binoculars and buckle up for the most exciting two hours of your week. – Lizzy
Watch: “Vermiglio.” An Italian film set in the high mountains of northern Italy in the closing days of World War II, Vermiglio tracks the arrival of a wounded soldier en route to faraway Sicily into a home that centers on the emerging lives of three daughters. This movie threatens to tip into melodrama at every moment – and it never does. Beautifully shot, masterfully acted, and a story that refuses to compromise, this is a gem of a film. – Willis
Hot Take: “Cheaper by the Dozen 2” is better than the first “Cheaper by the Dozen.” You get all the best of the Baker family and their adventures from the first film but the addition of the Murtaugh family, including Eugene Levy and a young Taylor Lautner. Plus, the sequel takes place during the summer, adding a “Grown Ups”-esque vibe that makes it an annual watch. Overall, it takes all of the best parts of the original and adds some more, making it the stronger film. I recommend a rewatch just in time for the Fourth of July weekend!– HannahIt’s been just over a week since US President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire between Israel and Iran. Despite a brief exchange of bombs – and Trump’s f-bomb – in the immediate aftermath of this announcement, a tepid truce appears to be holding, even if questions remain about the extent of the damage to Iran’s nuclear facilities.
But how did the flare-up affect the domestic politics of each country involved? Let’s explore how the 12-day conflict affected the political fortunes of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and Trump.
Israel: Netanyahu off the ropes, for now.
Three weeks ago, it looked like Netanyahu was staring into the abyss, with his coalition government on the verge of collapse. He survived the vote, then bombed Iran, destroying parts of its nuclear facilities and killing several senior military officials. As a coup de grace, he got the US to join the cause as well.
The data reflects that this was a success for the Israeli leader. Some 70% of Israelis supported the strikes, per one poll, and he also received an electoral polling bump.
Yet Netanyahu isn’t out of the woods – far from it. Though the fighting has ended with Iran, it continues in Gaza. It’s this conflict – and the failure to retrieve the remaining 50 Israeli hostages – that dominates Israel’s domestic politics right now, and it has put Netanyahu in a Catch-22, per Aaron David Miller, a former US diplomat who is now a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
“He’s trapped between his right-wing coalition partners, and public opinion – but even more important, potentially, Donald Trump,” says Miller, referencing how Netanyahu’s right flank doesn’t want him to make a deal with Hamas, whereas the Israeli public and Trump do.
What’s more, Netanyahu still faces a corruption trial. Miller noted that Israel’s judicial branch hasn’t been afraid to imprison the top public officials – former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert served 16 months in jail for bribery – so “this is not an academic matter” to the incumbent leader.
Still, the aura of success surrounding his Iran mission has changed things for him. And with the next election not due until the fall of 2026, he has room to breathe, politically.
“There’s no doubt that his brand has been enhanced tremendously,” says Miller. “He’s probably under less pressure now than at any time since the government was formed in December 2022.”
Iran: Khamenei is down but not out.
The Supreme leader is “categorically weaker” than he was before the conflict, says Dr. Saram Vakil, an Iran expert at the London-based think tank Chatham House.
The reasons are clear: the war significantly damaged Iran, and exposed its military vulnerability. The Islamic Republic lost control of its own skies, its nuclear facilities were heavily damaged. Its response to Israel inflicted little damage, and, after the US airstrikes, Tehran responded with a feeble, face-saving wave of airstrikes against the US base in Qatar – and they reportedly told Trump ahead of time.
Khamenei tried to claim victory, saying that Tehran had “dealt a severe slap to the face of America,” in his first public address after the ceasefire was announced. However, the 86-year-old “looked very diminished” in the video, per Vakil. He was reportedly hastening succession talks during the conflict while hiding in a bunker.
In a bid to quell any potential uprising and maintain the regime’s existence – Khamenei’s top priority – the Islamic Republic has turned to a familiar tactic: mass arrests, executions, and military deployments. Boosting the public’s support for the regime, though, will require a lot more work.
“He has long been criticized, and I think long been held as responsible for the economic stagnation [and] the country’s standoff with the international community. He’s not a bold leader,” Vakil said of the Ayatollah. “There are no clear or easy avenues for him personally or for the state to re-legitimize themselves.”
There is a saving grace for Khamenei: Iran’s powerful military – the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – is unlikely to overthrow him, per Vakil, and his nuclear facilities remain somewhat intact, at least according to one intercepted call. The supreme leader is down, but not yet out.
United States: Trump celebrates, but also treads carefully
Though initial intelligence assessments were mixed about the extent of the damage to Iran’s nuclear facilities, no American troops died during the attacks and Iran’s immediate response was minor and contained. That seemed to put to rest dire warnings, including from within Trump’s own MAGA camp, that involving the US in another Middle East war would, in the words of former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, “tear the country apart.”
But if the mission didn’t rip up the country, it also hardly united it, according to Larry Sabato, a US politics professor at the University of Virginia.
“Look at the surveys. There’s almost always a rally-around-the flag effect [after a war]. Not this time!”
A CNN/SRSS poll found that just 44% of Americans supported Trump’s strikes on Iran. But his approval ratings – currently in the low 40s – were unmoved by the mission, suggesting that in the end, the relatively limited military engagement has had little political effect.
In fact, if there is something Middle East-related that could cause significant damage to Trump’s ratings, per Sabato, it would be the US getting more involved in the conflict – something few Americans want.
As such, the US president would be wise not to invest too much energy in resolving tensions between Israel and Iran, meaning he will have to work hard to preserve a shaky peace between two bitter adversaries
“Trump’s not going to be the next FDR,” Sabato told GZERO, referencing President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s prominence in the American imagination as a great statesman of both war and peace. “Biden made that mistake – thinking he would be the next FDR – but I don’t think that Trump’s going to be that stupid.”What We’re Watching: Thailand’s PM ousted, Musk vs Trump on bill and midterms, Turkey arrests journalists for blasphemy
Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra (C) speaks to the media during a press conference after the Constitutional Court suspends her from duty at Government House.
Thailand’s PM suspended over flattering phone call
Thailand’s constitutional court accepted a petition on Tuesday to suspend Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra, as pressure mounts over the leader’s alleged mishandling of a border dispute with neighbouring Cambodia. The petition accuses Paetongtarn of violating ethical standards in a leaked phone call with influential Cambodian politician Hun Sen, during which she flattered Hun and disparaged her own country’s military. Paetongtarn now has 15 days to gather evidence pleading her case. If she is removed, her party will likely select a successor, but broader clashes with the opposition – and the streets – may just be beginning.
Elon Musk makes a huge threat versus Trump
World’s richest man Elon Musk has more thoughts to offer on US President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill.” If the bill passes Congress, Musk warns, a third American political party “will be formed the next day,” and every lawmaker who voted for it “will lose their primary next year if it is the last thing I do on this Earth.” The Senate passed its $3.3-trillion version of the bill on Tuesday, but it must go back through the House before it reaches the president’s desk. Musk’s warning won’t change the fate of Trump’s signature legislation – overwhelming pressure from the US president will far outweigh anything Musk can immediately apply – but his threats to spend mega-millions to swing next year’s midterm elections can’t be ignored.
Cartoon controversy in Turkey
Four employees of a satirical magazine in Turkey have been arrested forpublishing a cartoon that authorities say depicts the Prophet Muhammad, which is forbidden in Islam. With disturbing echoes of the so-called “Charlie Hebdo” murders in Paris ten years ago, Istanbul riot police have had to contain protesters outside the magazine’s offices chanting for “blood” and “revenge.” The publishers emphatically deny their cartoon depicts the prophet, but prosecution of these journalists will offer an easy political win for the ever-controversial PresidentRecep Tayyip Erdoğan and his government.