Those to the left of the varied strains of normative fascism that pass for mainstream political discourse in the United States nowadays have likely been inundated with celebratory messages and reports of Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the New York City mayoral elections yesterday. By all accounts, today the air is a little fresher as we are all lifted up by the winds of change because around one million people in a corner of what is called the U.S. voted for a “democratic socialist,” whatever that means anymore. Faith in democracy and electoral politics abound as the “right” or “good” candidate won this time. Mamdani is the exception that proves the rule that the system works. Nagging doubts about the validity of representative democracy as a means to order our social and political lives have been put to rest. Hope has been restored. But there is a thin line between hope and naivety. I propose the following be considered alongside any rejoicing.

Nobody won. There are almost 4.7 million “active registered voters” in NYC out of a population of 8.48 million. Only two million or so people voted. Meaning the vast majority of New Yorkers, including registered voters, did not vote. As in every election, most people couldn’t be bothered to engage in the charade of casting a vote. Mamdani didn’t win. Nobody won. Nobody represents us. Nobody should be in office.

Mamdani’s victory isn’t news. He was the Democratic candidate in a Democratic city running an iteration of “The Rent is Too Damn High” campaign in a place where rent costs an average of $4,000 per month. It would be nonsensical for him not to win when almost two-thirds of registered NYC voters are Democrats. (Yes, yes, I get it, the party  and media machines were against him.) The heavens haven’t opened; politics have just played out as politics play out. Despite the overwhelming odds in his favor, Mamdani only won 50% of the vote. Andrew Cuomo, whose own shadow wouldn’t even vote for him, still managed to get more than 850,000 votes. This wasn’t a runaway victory or a landslide endorsement of democratic socialism or, even less, a statement on U.S. foreign policy. It was a Democrat winning where the Democrat always wins.

Talk is cheap. How’d all that hope and change rhetoric work out with Obama? Deportations and drone strikes and still no decent healthcare. Mamdani can call a genocide a genocide or criticize the police (then walk it back) all he wants. Those are not radical positions; they are consensus ones among his constituency. Seventy-seven percent of Democrats believe Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Fifty-five percent of Democrats don’t have confidence in the police. To reflect the views of one’s base is not pushing the envelope, it’s politics as usual.

New York City is not the planet. Despite the concentration of financial, media, and cultural capital in NYC, it is just a large city where, again, only one million people voted for the Democratic candidate. NYC is not even NYC, it is Manahatta, part of Lenapehoking, territory of the Lenape people. It is not a bellwether for the coming democratic socialist revolution. It must be contextualized. If Mamdani is being lifted up, then so should the cop and CIA agent in Virginia and the real danger, the hater of the homeless and likely Democratic presidential nominee, Gavin Newsom. That Democrats are winning when the Trump administration is immensely unpopular is not surprising.

Mamdani’s win is the system recuperating itself. Regardless of the candidate, it was the system that won last night. The outsized importance that a local election has taken on in the collective imagination of the United States serves a purpose. That purpose is to channel energy, attention, funds, hopes, and beliefs into liberal democracy. People are justifiably angry and fed up and the system, via Mamdani, has successfully offered them an outlet. Expressions of discontent, disenchantment, and alienation have ostensibly manifested at the ballot box, vindicating electoral politics as the only acceptable form of politics. Elections are both products and spectacles that serve to siphon antagonism toward the system into the system. The outcome is irrelevant so long as it is seen as legitimate. The same system that brought us Trump can also bring us Mamdani. Never mind the victor, the most important thing is that we collectively cede our own and our communities’ power, authority, and agency to another. That we are contained – demobilized and depoliticized except in the act of casting a vote every couple of years. Liberal democracy thrives on historical amnesia, embrace of the cult of authoritarian personality, lack of imagination, and the absurd notion that each cycle will yield a different result than the hundreds of years of elections prior.

Vote or don’t vote, it doesn’t really matter. A mark on a ballot every now and then is insignificant. It is letting that act be the final manifestation of political expression that is significant and dangerous. Power over can never be power with. One who aspires to rule is guided primarily by self-interest. There can be no reconciliation with those who seek to dominate us. Their authority is illegitimate, and our posture must be one of antagonism to it. They know we’d be better off without them, that is why they so badly yearn for us to play their game. Let us refuse.