How Zohran Mamdani Became the Main Character of New York City

Summary

Critics at Large | The New Yorker: How Zohran Mamdani Became the Main Character of New York City

Release Date: August 7, 2025

In this compelling episode of Critics at Large, The New Yorker's esteemed staff writers delve into the dynamic and transformative landscape of New York City politics. Hosted by Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz, the episode features a deep dive into the rise of Zoran Mamdani, a young and charismatic political figure who has swiftly captured the attention of both local and national audiences.

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1. Introduction to the Episode

The episode kicks off with the trio introducing the show's summer interview series, hinting at engaging conversations with various New Yorker colleagues about diverse cultural phenomena.

Nomi Frye:
"Each week on this show, we make sense of what's happening in the culture right now and how we got here. And today, it's our first installment of what's becoming an annual tradition over here at Critics at Large Central, our summer interview series."
[00:12]

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2. Zoran Mamdani’s Ascension in NYC Politics

Nomi Frye leads the conversation, spotlighting Zoran Mamdani's remarkable victory in the Democratic primary against Andrew Cuomo. Mamdani, at just 33 years old, brings a fresh perspective to NYC politics, leveraging social media and video tactics to galvanize support.

Nomi Frye:
"Zoran Mamdani. I could kiss you. Is that what you're saying?... He won June's Democratic primary in an upset over Andrew Cuomo and is one of the first kind of new political figures to burst onto the scene in years."
[01:19]

Eric Latch:
"Zoran presents himself as the left candidate in the race... he's the one who's got the clearest policy proposals."
[08:37]

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3. Historical Context of NYC Mayoral Politics

Eric Latch provides a rich historical backdrop, comparing Mamdani's rise to previous NYC mayors like Bill de Blasio, Eric Adams, and Andrew Cuomo. He highlights the city's tradition of unpredictable elections and the recurring emergence of both reformist and machine-aligned leaders.

Eric Latch:
"New York City's mayoral elections are not a history of front runners dominating... We've had these big Democratic primary fields with up to ten major candidates."
[08:54]

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4. Campaign Strategy and Digital Savviness

Mamdani's effective use of digital media is a focal point. His ability to create engaging content, such as humorous responses to critics and strategic video messages, has been pivotal in his rapid rise.

Zoran Mamdani (via video clip):
"Here are a few of my humble suggestions for headlines..."
[12:37]

Nomi Frye:
"This is one of the things that Zoran is good at and why his campaign has been so successful."
[13:24]

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5. Pop Culture and NYC Politics Representation

The discussion shifts to how NYC politics are portrayed in popular culture, referencing films like Gangs of New York and Serpico. Eric Latch draws parallels between historical political machines like Tammany Hall and contemporary political dynamics, noting the enduring themes of power, corruption, and reform.

Eric Latch:
"It's very Trumpian... These characters reveal the hypocrisy in politics."
[30:11]

Nomi Frye:
"A movie like Serpico... is kind of like this Sidney Lumet movie starring Al Pacino from 1973."
[30:25]

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6. The Broader Influence of NYC Politics

Eric shares an anecdote illustrating NYC’s cultural and political influence beyond its borders. He emphasizes how the city’s trends and leaders often set precedents for the rest of the country, underscoring NYC’s pivotal role in shaping national discourse.

Eric Latch:
"New York is a big part of America here, and it matters. It just flat matters kind of what we decide here."
[38:02]

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7. Parasocial Relationships with Politicians

The hosts explore the concept of parasocial relationships—where voters form emotional connections with political figures. They discuss how Mamdani’s approachable and relatable persona fosters such bonds, akin to historical figures like FDR and LaGuardia.

Nomi Frye:
"We talk a lot about parasociality... with politicians."
[42:22]

Eric Latch:
"These sorts of relationships now transcend and connect..."
[43:46]

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8. Conclusion: The Future of NYC Politics

As the conversation wraps up, Nomi and Eric reflect on the immense pressures mayors face in addressing NYC’s complex issues. They underscore the critical yet challenging role of the mayor in navigating the city's multifaceted problems, drawing lessons from historical successes and failures.

Nomi Frye:
"It's been called the second hardest job in politics."
[46:00]

Eric Latch:
"We ask, basically, what we're asking them to do is resolve impossible problems."
[46:10]

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Looking Ahead

The episode concludes with a preview of next week's solo segment, where Alex Schwartz will engage with Lauren Collins about "Americans in Paris," promising continued exploration of cultural and political intersections in diverse urban settings.

Nomi Frye:
"Next week, Alex steps into the solo host chair. She's going to be talking with our colleague Lauren Collins about a totally different city, Paris. Make sure you tune in."
[48:27]

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Produced by Michelle O’Brien, with consulting editor Alex Barish and executive producer Stephen Valentino, this episode of Critics at Large offers a nuanced and thorough exploration of New York City’s political landscape. By intertwining historical context, pop culture references, and contemporary analysis, the podcast provides listeners with a comprehensive understanding of Zoran Mamdani’s impact on both local and national stages.

For more insightful discussions and cultural analyses, tune into Critics at Large on your preferred podcast platform.

Transcript

[Vincent Cunningham]

This is Critics at Large, a podcast from the New Yorker. I'm Vincent Cunningham.

[Alex Schwartz]

I'm Alex Schwartz.

[Nomi Frye]

And I'm Nomi Frye. Each week on this show, we make sense of what's happening in the culture right now and how we got here. And today, it's our first installment of what's becoming an annual tradition over here at Critics at Large Central, our summer interview series.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Ooh, yes. We have so many wonderful New Yorker colleagues writing about all sorts of wonderful things. And over the next three weeks, we're each gonna sit down one on one with a colleague to bring you a morsel. Maybe more than a morsel, maybe a bit of a feast of culture from the wide world of the New Yorker.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yes, indeed. I'm gonna be talking with Lauren Collins about Americans in Paris.

[Vincent Cunningham]

I'll be sitting down with Richard Brody to talk about the movies, specifically autourism.

[Nomi Frye]

But I'm up first today, talking with our colleague Eric Latch. Me and Eric are gonna be talking about how New York City politics has been represented in culture historically, about the storytelling that politicians have to do and what kind of figure they cut. And, of course, the mayoral candidate who's captured everyone's attention right now, Zoran Mamdani.

[Alex Schwartz]

Ooh, I can't wait to hear your conversation.

[Nomi Frye]

Oh, my God.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Eric is one of my favorite New Yorker writers. And Zoran. I could listen to hours of Zoran content.

[Nomi Frye]

Zoran Mamdani. I could kiss you. Is that what you're saying? Okay, anyway, kissing or not, there's a lot to say about Mamdani. He won June's Democratic primary in an upset over Andrew Cuomo and is one of the first kind of new political figures to burst onto the scene in years. He's young. He's only 33. He's been really effectively using video and social media during his campaign. He was born in Uganda to a Ugandan Indian academic and a filmmaker. He's been a state assembly member from Queens for only a couple years. And, you know, there's a lot to say about the national press's reaction to his primary win as well. So that's why I wanted to talk to Eric about Mamdani. Eric has been covering this race and New York City politics more broadly for a while now, and he's really got a sense of how Mamdani compares to mayors of old. So we're going to talk about that, and we're also going to talk about how the politics of New York City is represented in popular culture. And all of this is to answer the question of why does everyone care so much about who is mayor of the city? So that's today on Critics at Large, how Zoran became the main character of New York City.

[Eric Latch]

Eric, hello.

[Nomi Frye]

Hi. I'm so excited to have you here with me. We are friends. Off mic. And that is.

[Eric Latch]

I hope so.

[Nomi Frye]

This is news to you?

[Eric Latch]

Yeah. Yeah. I'm honored to have you say it in such a way.

[Nomi Frye]

Oh, my God, Eric, you do look dubious.

[Eric Latch]

No, no, I'm with you.

[Nomi Frye]

But it's true. I'm not. I swear. I didn't just bring this on. Eric, you are my friend, right?

[Eric Latch]

We are friends.

[Nomi Frye]

We are friends. And I'm excited to have you here in the capacity of colleague.

[Eric Latch]

It's such an honor.

[Nomi Frye]

And co staff writer. It's really. It's truly an honor to have you onto pod. I also know that you're a POD listener.

[Eric Latch]

I am a devoted POD listener. And I. As I said to you when you asked me, I felt like, you know, getting asked to prom by my crush when you were like, will you come on the program?

[Nomi Frye]

You know, this couldn't be a better endorsement for us over here at Critics at Large headquarters.

[Eric Latch]

Remember when we used to share an office?

[Nomi Frye]

Oh, my God, yes. It was so beautiful. So, in any case, we are here to talk about something that might have some more, you know, community public importance and that might be interesting to a broader swath of the population. In the beginning of the summer, way back when, you and I had sort of vaguely talked about having a conversation on the show about New York City politics in general, which you have been covering for a few years here at the New Yorker. And we weren't exactly sure what we would focus on. We were like, are we gonna talk about Eric Adams? Are we gonna talk about, like, real estate and the politics involved in real estate, et cetera, et cetera. And then, as many of her listeners know, most of her listeners know, Zoran Mohamdani won the Democratic primary in a pretty big upset. A total surprise. And now all anybody wants to talk about is this new young guy on the municipal national stage. And it seemed to me like a really good time to talk about him and to talk about kind of the mayoral race in general, which you have been covering for the past few months and will continue to cover until we have a new mayor and we drop. Yes. And so, Eric, maybe we can start with you giving us kind of a brief primer on Zorin. Who is this guy? Why is he such an object of fixation?

[Eric Latch]

Okay, where to start? So, New York City, this year has a primary election. New York City, we have elections on odd years for reasons that are completely inscrutable, lost to history. They always happen sort of in the hangover of presidential elections. And then there's always this big question mark over them about how much this does or does not connect to the big picture. And for the past couple cycles in New York mayoral races, we've had these big Democratic primary fields where in the presidential race where you just have these clown car primaries with was it eight people at the time or last time? Who can even remember? But it was around 10 last time and it was what counts as a major candidate. And then there's all these minor candidates where it's like you quickly get up to a dozen people or something. And so four years ago, coming out of COVID coming off of two terms of Bill de Blasio, the city turns to Eric Adams, former ex cop, law and order candidate, who after eight years of a progressive mayor who had passed all these sort of ambitious social programs, but also came with, by the end, what many New Yorkers felt was a lot of baggage and just a lot of history and a lot of bad feelings, that the fresh start that Eric Adams pitches the city is like, we need to sort of clean the city up. The city's out of control. We need to put a former cop who is also a prominent black leader in the city, who understands black communities concerns, understands law and order concerns, understands sort of like how to run the city or at least the power structure of the city, and has been around a long time. And that's who's elected mayor.

[Nomi Frye]

Right.

[Eric Latch]

And he goes on to have an eventful.

[Nomi Frye]

Yes, we can touch on the many scandals of Adams a little bit later.

[Eric Latch]

Four years, however, he is the mayor of Swagger, and he comes in promising Swagger and he's going out having delivered Swagger.

[Nomi Frye]

Yes.

[Eric Latch]

And Adams basically last year cuts this deal with the new Trump administration to save his own skin in this criminal cases.

[Nomi Frye]

Right back in April. Right.

[Eric Latch]

Indicted in. Back in April. But even before then, there had been all these Democrats sort of chomping at the bit to challenge him because of the challenges and failures and fuck ups and embarrassments of the Adams years. And this large field presents itself, you know, including controller, a former controller, a couple state senators, a whole bunch of politicians who no one's ever heard of, including among them this young state assembly member from Queens. From Queens, Zoran Mumdani, who presents himself, I mean, as the left candidate in the race. And the field is so big, it's Hard to distinguish sort of anybody, but he's the one who's got the clearest policy proposals. And then he's making these videos that people like online. And then sometime around March, April, May, he really just, with the backing of a lot of volunteers, just takes off at velocity that New York City politics has not seen in quite some time.

[Nomi Frye]

When was the last time, would you.

[Eric Latch]

Say that somebody emerges this quickly?

[Nomi Frye]

Somebody emerges this quickly.

[Eric Latch]

I mean, one of the funny things about New York City mayors in general is like, the history of New York City mayors is not the litany of successes and heroes. It's like mostly fuck ups and rogues.

[Nomi Frye]

Right.

[Eric Latch]

And then the history of like New York City mayoral elections is not a history of like, front runners dominating. Like, that's really interesting. Kind of over and over again you have these like, collapses. You know, when people try to become mayor, these people sort of line everything up. They get all the pieces together, they get the power and endorsements, and they try to do the Tony Montana thing of like, first year, first you get.

[Nomi Frye]

The money, then you get the power.

[Eric Latch]

Yeah, exactly.

[Nomi Frye]

Then you get the mayoral nomination.

[Eric Latch]

Exactly. And time and again, there's been kind of flops. So, you know, the most recent one is the rise of Bill de Blasio in 2013, which going into that election there was a speaker of the City Council at that time was allied with Mike Bloomberg, who was thought to be the front runner. And then Anthony Weiner had his time in the sun.

[Nomi Frye]

Oh, yes.

[Eric Latch]

Too exposed, it turned out. Too exposed.

[Nomi Frye]

Carlo's danger.

[Eric Latch]

And so de Blasio is kind of, you know, one sort of ant scene that I've been thinking about. Although de Blasio is different from Mamdani in that he had this long career in New York City politics before he becomes mayor. I mean, he'd been around for decades and he'd kind of straddled the kind of institutional democratic world. He had worked for the Clintons. He had worked for Andrew Cuomo when Cuomo was HUD secretary. But then, I mean, Bloomberg in some ways also kind of came out of nowhere, I mean, from the complete opposite. And Mamdani, he's like this businessman who's never been involved in politics before. And then partially because 911 happens and the city is just completely reeling, he kind of comes into power just almost before anybody realizes kind of what happened.

[Nomi Frye]

Yeah, the thing with Mamdani, though, as you know, and I mean, the difference from certainly someone like de Blasio with his experience from Bloomberg in a very different way, you know, perhaps Even polar opposite. Is this his youngness, Right, his youngness, which I think seems to me to be one of the things that is driving this new velocity filled connection between him and a type of voter that wouldn't have necessarily gotten as excited or excited at all about another candidate. I mean, the man is 33 and has very limited experience. Again, for better or worse, we can look at it from different, but he's untainted by the kind of machine of politics.

[Eric Latch]

It's sort of this, you know, his strengths and his weaknesses are almost like his critics say he's 33 and his supporters say he's 33. You know, it's like a relief. You know, it's a sort of like. And again, this is like one of those things. It's like, how does this connect to national politics? Like Democrats across the country are like, when are we getting new leadership? You know, it's like this sort of been this question, question, question, right?

[Nomi Frye]

Calcified machine, right.

[Eric Latch]

That many people or many Democrats have been talking about. And here's like literally here's new leadership.

[Nomi Frye]

And one of the things about this youngness is that he is what we might call a digital native, right. Which has figured heavily in his campaign. I was wondering if maybe we could look together at a video.

[Eric Latch]

Yeah. So this clip is from a couple weeks ago, you know, and is an example of Mamdani's mode of communication. He post primary took a trip to Uganda to celebrate his wedding with family and friends and kind of in anticipation of discussion and criticism and sort of the kind of usual kind of ways that these sorts of moves from politicians get problematized. He just kind of leaned into it and went straight at it.

[Zoran Mamdani]

Being a politician means listening not just to your supporters, but your critics too. And some of these critics, especially on a certain website, have been giving me consistent advice. For example. Amwhite087 Zoran go back to Uganda where you come from and belong. Teflongon loser. Go back to Africa. There are thousands like this from across the country. I hear you and I agree. I'm going back to Uganda. I'm headed there in a personal capacity to celebrate Rama and I's marriage with our family and friends. But I do want to apologize to the haters because I will be coming back. And since you will undoubtedly read about this trip in the New York Post, inshallah, on the front page, here are a few of my humble suggestions for headlines. Mia Mamdani in Africa, Uganda Miss me. He's kompal, elitely crazy. The Afra can't be serious.

[Nomi Frye]

This, I think, is a really good example of what Zoran is good at and why his campaign has been so successful. And so, you know, he's become so quickly ascendant. What do you see in this video? What is his skill set that he's bringing to the table?

[Eric Latch]

A couple things. One is, like, coming out of the de Blasio years, one of the frustrations that New Yorkers had with de Blasio was like, an inability or like a disinterest in the public performance of leadership. Being mayor.

[Nomi Frye]

Yeah. And like, he just wanted to go to the gym.

[Eric Latch]

It's like that is just, you know, in some ways, like Adams, you know, the fact that the city voted for Adams was like, I'll play mayor. You know, I'll be the mayor. That's the swagger thing.

[Nomi Frye]

I'll give people FaceTime.

[Eric Latch]

Exactly.

[Nomi Frye]

I'll shake their hands, I'll say, how you doing, brother?

[Eric Latch]

I'll be out and about. You know, you'll see me. And Zoran's doing that too. Playing to a different audience than the one Adams did, but just a kind of facility and delight in public performance and in just being in front of the camera, a kind of knowing wink, wink. Let's just make up a bunch of New York Post headlines.

[Nomi Frye]

You know, he's having fun with it.

[Eric Latch]

He's having fun and.

[Nomi Frye]

And he's showing himself also to be thick skinned, in a sense. It's sort of like, I'm having fun with it, but also, fuck you.

[Eric Latch]

It brings people into the conversation and gives people a sense of story and of. You know, one thing I spent a long time thinking about during the primary is just like, you know, it's running out all these volunteers, like, knocking doors, Right. And there's been this, like, long debate in New York City and elsewhere in the country among political people about, like, the efficiency of knocking doors, like, to sort of get voters out and sort.

[Nomi Frye]

Of like, whether it works or not.

[Eric Latch]

Whether it works or not. And I'm not gonna, like, parse that debate right now, but kind of what I realized as Zoran's campaign was sort of picking up steam was that whether or not it works, knocking doors, it makes for good content to tell people that you're like, knocking doors.

[Nomi Frye]

That's such a great way to put it, because it's the efficacy of it in this day and age. What you're saying, I think, Eric, is that even if boots on the ground doesn't necessarily work in terms of like, oh, people will actually Come to the polls. If we knock on their door in the Bronx, we could film ourselves knocking on the door in the Bronx. And then people not in the Bronx. Yes, and in the Bronx, too. Maybe we'll see it and respond to it.

[Eric Latch]

That knock on the door is heard through the Internet by all these other people.

[Nomi Frye]

Right. A politician's narrative is a huge part of their appeal or their ability to repulse voters. Right. Like an unsuccessful narrative or a narrative that doesn't connect is a handicap. Obviously. So what is Zoron saying about himself in his videos, in his public appearances recently, for instance, he had this video where Jamaal Bowman took him to a Wu Tang Clan concert, and he met backstage with Wu Tang members and with Killer Mike and, you know, all these, like, rap kind of greats. Very important. The New York texture and landscape.

[Eric Latch]

Yeah.

[Nomi Frye]

That is one thing that kind of strikes me when I'm thinking about, like, what is he trying to say with this sort of thing.

[Eric Latch]

Yeah. But then he goes and he goes backstage at Madison Square Garden, and he's talking to, like, rappers about affordability. That's like, you know, he just takes his policy platform and he's just, like, shopping it around all over. He's, like, taking it with him wherever he goes.

[Nomi Frye]

Right.

[Eric Latch]

You know, and that's the story that people are following along. It's like, let's watch the guy talking about affordability jumping into the ocean off Coney island, like, you know, like, riding.

[Nomi Frye]

The polar bear kind of thing. Just to talk about, like, freezing the rent. Here I am in the freezing water.

[Eric Latch]

You know, here he is in the street cart with the vendors. Like, here he is backstage in Madison Square Garden. It's like. It's a visual projection of, like, a. Of a political discussion.

[Nomi Frye]

Yeah, yeah. And so, as opposed to, like, okay, someone, like, we haven't mentioned Andrew Cuomo yet who. Right. Rimshot Cuomo, of course, longtime governor of New York, lost big, big, bigly to Zoron, and yet is still running, you know, gonna be running as an independent because he lost the Democratic primary. Adams is gonna be running as an independent as well. What kind of story are they telling? Like, what's Cuomo's story, for instance, and this world building.

[Eric Latch]

And I'll pause here to say, like, we're, like, yucking it up. But I, like, before the primary, like, I completely, like, you know, Zoron was, like, ascending, and, you know, it was clear that, like, basically he had distinguished himself from the other Democrats running who were not named Andrew Cuomo. But going into primary Day in late June, it was like Andrew Cuomo looked like he was just gonna be the next mayor of New York.

[Nomi Frye]

Right. And was that. I mean, the polls, I know, were. Until right before the primary, the polls seemed in his favor.

[Eric Latch]

Yes.

[Nomi Frye]

Right. But also, just like this, the of kind of unbreakable power and the kind of machine of politics that he seemed to be telling, if I'm correct, was part of the thing of, like, yeah, he's gonna win. Like, nobody's gonna be able to shatter his hold on the city.

[Eric Latch]

It was old school power politics. It was like endorsements and institutional support and money and experience, quote, unquote, versus like, upstart energy. People got behind Cuomo that, like, just a couple years ago had called on him. Cuomo res as governor in a sexual harassment and abuse of power scandal. That was like the idea that he would return to public office just a few years later. Public life a few years later was sort of unthinkable then, and yet he lined up just everyone, and it was just fear. I think there's no other.

[Nomi Frye]

Don't hurt me.

[Eric Latch]

It was just he. I think the simplest way that I've been thinking about it is basically like Cuomo made a bet that the election would be about crime, public safety, and Zoran made a bet that it would be about affordability and cost of living. And that, you know, the voters responded to that. And then sort of down from there, sort of trickling down from there is all sorts of, like, stylistic differences and political differences and, you know, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

[Nomi Frye]

Yeah. I mean, I think it's also interesting to think how the sort of digital nativeness that we mentioned as an absolute positive for Zoran's campaign also presented its own kind of potential pitfalls. You know, I mean, he's 33. He has, like, almost all millennials, you know, a vast digital footprint on the Internet that he's been collecting for the past, like, 20 years, you know, since he was a teenager, probably. Or while his opponents, his main opponents, you know, like someone like Cuomo, someone like Adams, you know, they're men in their 60s. Right. They don't have that quote, unquote baggage that people can kind of like, pour through in a kind of like, let's cancel him type way. Right, yes. And so what are your thoughts about that? About this kind of like, digging through the crates of the past again?

[Eric Latch]

I think that, like, basically what his critics thought would be weaknesses in many cases for his supporters were like, the very things that were adding, I think, to his, like, you know, people feeling like they could relate to this guy.

[Nomi Frye]

It's whatever people might say about it is authentic, you know.

[Eric Latch]

Yeah. I mean, it was, like, not distant from people.

[Nomi Frye]

Yeah.

[Eric Latch]

And so I think, like, people like, you know, again, we're talking about, like, Democratic Party primary voters, you know, so.

[Nomi Frye]

It'S like they're knowledgeable about the context.

[Eric Latch]

Usually not even that. I just think it's like, you know, you're not running in a Republican primary in, like, Missouri. Again, these things that were, like, pitched, I think, before the primary as kind of like, oh, no, this is what's gonna do them in. He made a case that, you know, no, he was going to reach people exactly through those ways.

[Nomi Frye]

So we're not the only ones who are interested in New York City power brokers. Martin. Marty Scorsese is, too. In a minute, we'll consider the many pop cultural depictions of the political machine on critics at large. From the New Yorker.

[Christopher Kimball]

Hey, this is Christopher Kimball here from Milk Street Radio. We have a new episode about great food writing at the New Yorker. Staff writer Adam Gopnik picked out some of his favorite essays, like Calvin Trillin's Search for the Perfect Bagel and MFK Fisher's musings on Potato chips.

[Nomi Frye]

They were a little too salty to encourage me to drink. They were ineffable. I am still nourished by them.

[Christopher Kimball]

You can find this episode of Milk Street Radio on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Nomi Frye]

Eric, this is a culture show. So far, we've been talking politics.

[Eric Latch]

I'm so sorry.

[Nomi Frye]

Politics? Yeah.

[Eric Latch]

I'm such a nerd.

[Nomi Frye]

No, no, I invited you to talk politics. And politics are also culture in their own way. But I think it would be great if maybe we can turn to, like, actual culture and think about how TV shows and books and movies have used the kind of, like, machinations of, like, New York City politics and kind of the machine of mayoral politics as fodder.

[Eric Latch]

Yeah.

[Nomi Frye]

Because it's definitely something that's been mythologized in art over, like, many, many years. Are there any particular texts? What springs to your mind first when I say the words New York City politics?

[Eric Latch]

Where to start?

[Nomi Frye]

Where to start?

[Eric Latch]

Where to start?

[Nomi Frye]

Where to start?

[Eric Latch]

I mean, I think.

[Nomi Frye]

Do you want to start with Gangs of New York? Maybe?

[Eric Latch]

I think I want to start with Gangs of New York.

[Nomi Frye]

Okay, so Gangs of New York, the 2002 Scorsese movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Daniel Day Lewis, and Cameron Diaz. Kind of randomly. It's about 19th century, mid 19th century.

[Eric Latch]

New York City politics, Civil War era.

[Nomi Frye]

Civil War era, 1860s. Yeah. And I told you before we started taping that I haven't seen this movie since it came out. And I remember not liking it very much. Yeah. And I think it was because it was kind of like the moment of transition between Scorsese using people like, you know, Pesci and Robert De Niro transitioning into the young Leonardo DiCaprio and me being like, what the who is, why he can't hold this, et cetera, et cetera. But I want you to tell me a little bit about the movie because I know a lot of people like it and that it is a very important text for kind of like New York City politics.

[Eric Latch]

I love this movie. I love this movie. And part of why I love this movie is because I think Daniel Day Lewis is incredible in it. But really why I love this movie is because it does the thing that I think the best kind of literature and culture about New York City and New York City stories does, which is it plays with fact and fiction. It's sort of about, like, myths that also kind of make gestures at reality. The book it's based on, which is called the Gangs of New York by a journalist named Herbert Asbury. It's published in 1928. And it's basically this collection of kind of legends and tales of. And sort of like gothic stories of New York City underworld. And so, like Bill the Butcher, the sort of Danny Daily Lewis character is sort of. His myth is told there in this kind of, like, Paul Bunyan esque kind of way. And like the Dead Rabbits and the Bowery Boys and the way kind of like street gangs and violence feeds into politics and power in New York. And that kind of story, which is like a very Scorsese kind of arc, but again, they're. Asbury is a journalist and he's making claims of like, this is real. These are real stories. The Gangs in New York is also a big source text for one of my favorite books, Lowlife by Lucy Sant. And the way that the kind of character of the street and the dichotomy between, like, one of the things in Gangs in New York, the movie that I love the best is when they have these actually happen. They would have. These uptown rich folk would do these tours of the slums of, like, the Gangs of New York, is set in the Five Points, which was like, the most notorious of the New York City slums. And, you know, there was all kinds of, like. There's Leonardo DiCaprio's character grows up in the old brewery, which is this, like, decrepit old factory building where, like, supposedly, like, 15,000 people lived at one time, you know? And, like, what these stories have. And then, like, kind of the thing that I think they gift us is, like, grittiness as equality.

[Nomi Frye]

Yes.

[Eric Latch]

The kind of, like, seediness of New York.

[Nomi Frye]

But it's what's interesting to me, too, is this sort of, like, how does that disgustingness, right, of these sort of rogues and outlaws and the gritty streets and so on, how does that interact with politics? I mean, one of the main things, as I recall it from watching Gangs of New York years ago, was the whole Tammany hall thing, which was kind of like the organization machine that kind of animated in kind of brutal and usually at least somewhat criminal ways. The Democratic Party. Can you tell us a little bit about Tammany Hall?

[Eric Latch]

Yeah. Tammany hall is the Democratic Party political machine that kind of really comes to power in the middle of the 19th century. Sort of roots are earlier, but sort of really comes to the fore. And it's basically a bunch of crooks around the town. Yeah, like, that's what it is. It's basically about power and patronage and control. And the way it kind of like, feeds into the stories of New York has to do with, like, basically truth and hypocrisy and, like, who's truth and like. So basically, in Gangs of New York, you have the figure of Boss Tweed, who's this early Tammany Hall. He's, like, the most notorious of the Tammany hall bosses. In Gangs of New York, he's played with Popeye gusto by Jim Broadbent. And he is the one who gives this speech to Bill the butcher. Daniel Day Lewis character.

[Nomi Frye]

Bill's got mixed feelings as regards the Irish.

[Eric Latch]

Bill, deliver these good and fervent folk to the polls on a regular basis, and there'll be a hand and a handsome price for each vote goes Tammany's way. My father gave his life making this.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Country what it is, murdered by the British.

[Eric Latch]

So Daniel Day Lewis is this kind of nativist, kind of like, magian kind of figure of, like, America for Americans, right? And Boss Tweed is like kind of like, well, we need the Irish. Cause we need their votes, you know? And that's how we keep control of the money, right? And that's how we can keep control of the power. And it's sort of like kind of mutant idealism. Like, Tammany was infamous for these ways of revealing hypocrisy. Both in their own members and in sort of their enemies. So actually, Citizen Kane, interesting is Boss Geddes, who's the guy who does in Orson Welles, like Citizen Kane's character, by revealing to the world that Kane is not a family man. He's having an affair with his failed opera singer girlfriend and basically is like, get out of this race and stay out of politics or I'll reveal, you know, like, your infidelity to the world. And Cain tells him to fuck off, and then Geddes ruins him.

[Nomi Frye]

Right.

[Eric Latch]

And these figures, I mean, you know, what they were about is like these arguments about, like, what power is for and what it can do.

[Nomi Frye]

Yeah.

[Eric Latch]

And they were like, very cynical debates about, like, to expect government to, like, be good for everyone is naive. And so basically what it's about is.

[Nomi Frye]

Like, your friends get as much as you can for yourself and your friends and your family.

[Eric Latch]

It's very Trumpian. You know, it's like, it's very Trumpian. It's the same way that Trump is holds up hypocrisy to Democrats noses. And it's like the whole sort of oh, is America so innocent kind of thing.

[Nomi Frye]

You're just as bad, et cetera.

[Eric Latch]

That's the kind of thing that Tammany hall bosses presented themselves to the world or the public image of them that lasted.

[Nomi Frye]

And Trump is a born and bred New Yorker, of course, and a classic political boss. And a classic political boss. And I think this sort of fight between the hopeful desire for innocence and honesty vis a vis a kind of corrupt machine, you know, like a movie like this isn't exactly City hall, it's more than nypd, but like a movie like Serpico or something like this Sidney Lumet movie starring al Pacino from 1973, where Frank Serpico, Pacino is kind of like an honest cop, and he comes against this machine at every turn. That is the corrupt NYPD that is trying to force him to his knees.

[Eric Latch]

Not just an honest cop, but a hippie cop. A hippie cop, a kind of avatar of, like, youth culture and, like, idealism.

[Nomi Frye]

Yes.

[Eric Latch]

You know, running up against, like, the old ways and the old machine.

[Nomi Frye]

Isn't it time to let the old ways die?

[Eric Latch]

Exactly.

[Nomi Frye]

And, you know, it's interesting to look at this. I mean, this is such a race through a very rich history. So there's so much we're missing. But it's so kind of curious to ask or to think about how is this kind of like, matching up with what we see in the city today, you know, there's like an enormous wealth disparity, there's an affordability crisis. The city's a mess, quote unquote. You know, sort of like post Covid contraction. And then like the emergence of this kind of like bright eyed progressive candidate like Zoron, you know, of course it doesn't map on. Exactly. I'm just kind of like positioning.

[Eric Latch]

No, but I've been thinking about this a lot. I think this is like, you know, in the late 19th century, early 20th century when you had these Tammany hall bosses with delightful names like Honest John Kelly and Charles Silent Charlie Murphy. You start to get at the end of the 19th century, the rise of this figure who at the time was known as the reformer.

[Nomi Frye]

Yes.

[Eric Latch]

And it's sort of age of optimism. They were like basically upper class New Yorkers who were sort of presented to the city. So like Boss Tweed famously went down in like a huge corrupt scandal. And in the aftermath of that, Tammany pledged to kind of clean itself up or whatever. But it's sort of certain times, basically the machine would go too far and there'd be this kind of like throw the bums out kind of. They would get too greedy, too greedy, too blatant. And then there was a sort of natural reaction to that.

[Nomi Frye]

Right.

[Eric Latch]

And so the early figures that counter that tend to be these kind of like upper crust white New Yorkers who sort of are like above it all and sort of unbought and clean. I'm talking about figures like William Strong, Seth Lowe, John Perroy Mitchell, the famous boy mayor. And they would basically say, we can clean up city government. And they would often fail. They would come in and then they would often like just kind of flop or people would get sick of them, or, you know, they'd actually turn out that they'd be sort of more loyal to their rich buddies than the city at large. And then Tammany would come storming back into power. And then we get these figures that break this dynamic that are like. I mean, the big One is like LaGuardia, Al Smith, also the governor is sort of slightly different. These guys who basically come in, sort of introduce the idea of modern government, modern politics as we think of it now in New York City, which is.

[Nomi Frye]

Characterized by what as opposed to the older.

[Eric Latch]

It's basically professionalization of government in the 20s and 30s, especially sort of during the New Deal is like basically when a lot of this, there's just basically, it's also about the money to do it, like how big the city government should be. And Then kind of what it can do, you know? And so basically, like, these figures become, again, the sort of the push, pull in, like, the sort of stories that we tell about New York. Often it's this tug between the machine and the reformer, you know, and it's sort of like naked, honest power, you know, versus, like, you know, risking it with idealism and sort of who wins in that kind of struggle. I mean, Batman is all about this stuff.

[Nomi Frye]

Batman, exactly.

[Eric Latch]

You know, it's like, that's so.

[Nomi Frye]

I didn't think about this, but that's so interesting. Yeah, it's the lone hero coming out at night and cleaning up this town, you know?

[Eric Latch]

Yes. Batman comes out of, like, the late 30s. Like, New York is thinking all about this Gotham City. I mean, this is even like in the Christopher Nolan universe of Batman, like Harvey Dent, the White Knight DA who then basically turns bad and has half his face obliterated and then is sort of revealed to the world as this monster. Like, this is like, these are the kinds of tropes, the push pull between sort of the gravity of the machine and the sort of directness and bluntness of power politics versus, like, the risk of idealism and the perils of idealism and the hope and then often failed promises of reformers. Like, that's the history of New York City politics.

[Nomi Frye]

New York looms large in the cultural imagination. But why do people in other states or even other countries care who the mayor is? This is critics at large from the New Yorker. Stick around.

[Alex Schwartz]

Hi, I'm Tyler Foggit, a senior editor at the New Yorker and one of the hosts of the Political Scene podcast. A lot of people are justifiably freaked out right now, and I think that it's our job at the Political Scene to encourage people to stop and think about the particular news stories that are actually incredibly significant in this moment by having these really deep conversations with writers where we actually get into the weeds of what is going on right now and about the damage that is being done. It's not resistance in the activist sense, but I think it is resistance in the sense that we are resisting the feeling of being overwhelmed by chaos. Join me and my colleagues David Remnick, Evan Osnos, Jane Mayer, and Susan Glaser on the Political Scene podcast from the New Yorker. New episodes drop three times a week, available wherever you get your podcasts.

[Nomi Frye]

So, Eric, one thing that I've been thinking about over the last couple months, I mean, we care obviously about the New York mural race. You care about it professionally, of course, because that's like, hopelessly. That's hopelessly because that's your area of coverage. It's one of your beats. But we also just care about it because we both live in New York. But the question is, why do people outside of New York care? Like, why do people in America care? Why do people internationally care? Why is the New York mayoral race and who's gonna be mayor of New York such kind of a lightning rod for people all over, not just here?

[Eric Latch]

Yeah.

[Nomi Frye]

Like, who cares, really?

[Eric Latch]

I mean, there's, like, practical and material political reasons that I think that's true. But I also think. I try to think about when I work on my stories, like, what the reader will get who doesn't live here.

[Nomi Frye]

Yeah.

[Eric Latch]

And I often think about something that happened to me in 2019. I was in Iowa. I was following the devil.

[Nomi Frye]

I remember you brought me a refrigerator magnet. Cause this was Kiss me, I'm Iowish.

[Eric Latch]

Cause.

[Nomi Frye]

See, we are friends.

[Eric Latch]

Yeah, that was back in our office, our joint office days. Anyway, so I was in Iowa, following around the Democratic candidates for president. And I had met some sort of party activists, organizer types in Cedar Rapids. And one night, a group of them invited me to dinner, and they were like, we're gonna go to the best restaurant in Cedar Rapids. And I was like, sounds great. Where are we going? And they're like, amena's. This place, it's called Cobble Hill.

[Nomi Frye]

Oh, my God.

[Eric Latch]

And Cobble Hill is the name of a very lovely, gentrified neighborhood in Brooklyn. And I show up at this restaurant, and it's just like. It's a Brooklyn restaurant that's been, like, exported to the prairie, and it's packed. I think the chef had cooked in New York City for a bunch of time, and then he went home to Cedar Rapids, and he opened up his little Brooklyn restaurant. You know, but it was like, to me, it felt. You know, it's like I actually experienced this a lot in Iowa. Sort of like all the little towns in Iowa have a little coffee shop now where you can get, like, a latte. And it's like, that's not all. Just like New York feeding into that. But New York is a big part of that. You know, New York is just like. We do kind of like, pace the. The culture, the dialogue between the city and the rest of the country is a very active and productive one, despite what enemies of the city want Americans to believe. It's like, we are a big part of America here, and it matters. It just flat matters kind of what we decide here. And to Pull it back to the political. It's like things that are tried here that because we are at scale and we have the to try things, then end up politically sort of like dispersing around the country. And then also it's just like there's a lot of power here. So, like, we produce leaders that often end up being like important leaders. I mean, it's not for nothing, but it's like Trump, Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, aoc. It's like these are New York City people. Right, Right. And I think that to forget that part of the story kind of risks missing the story.

[Nomi Frye]

And do you think people see this or how much not just people, but you, as a kind of analyst and constant temperature checker of this race and the Zoran versus Cuomo and Adams of it, see this as a kind of harbinger of either things to come or a reaction against national politics? I mean, beyond the municipal level.

[Eric Latch]

Yeah. I mean, you know, it's like, I think what Zoran has reminded everybody is that part of what New York contributes politically to the rest of the country is a lot of like, left energy. I mean, AOC had done that before him, you know, and sort of like it's easy to forget now, but it's like before, before primary day, it was like there was this question about whether the left was sort of receding in New York. But that's one of the things that like Mamdani's win has reminded everybody of, you know, that it's like there are many, many people in this city who are willing to dedicate their time and effort to supporting a certain political agenda and political goals. And when those people get together, they can be quite powerful.

[Nomi Frye]

Yeah. I mean, there's been a lot of fear mongering on kind of more national level, kind of Fox News concerted effort about this kind of socialist, Muslim.

[Eric Latch]

Yeah. Neo Marxist sleeper cell.

[Nomi Frye]

Neo Marxist sleeper cell, like, and also a lot of kind of backlash about like, this is actually a child of privilege. Right. But back in New York, he's trying to impose on us the kind of like Marxist politics that he supposedly is running on.

[Eric Latch]

I mean, these are the dichotomies that like reformers have had to deal with. And kind of making a cartoon of New York, especially to like the rest of America is like a long tradition too.

[Nomi Frye]

Yeah.

[Eric Latch]

But it's like we contain multitudes, as the poet said. That's the challenge ahead of. Ahead of Momani. And that's the challenge for like any reformer left mayor that presents himself.

[Nomi Frye]

Yeah. Eric, you know, I've been thinking. It's like, we talk a lot about parasociality, right? We talk about it with podcast hosts. No, we and the culture. We and the culture. You know, in recent years, I think it's become a term of art how we invest certain figures with affect, you know, emotion, belief, hope, dreams, without necessarily knowing if they will fulfill those hopes and dreams and emotions and all of that. And, of course, this happens in politics. We've seen it. You know, the politician is father or very occasionally mother, you know, or the politician as a kind of, like, strong leader or like. Or change maker. You know, it happened certainly with Obama and happens with Trump. Surely, you know, will you have a beer with this guy? Will you want to have. Is he your friend? And so. So I think this is a question with Zoran as well. You know, the kind of parasocial relationship that voters have with these figures, is that always kind of bound to failure, or is that something that politicians, in the case of someone like Zoran, who's just new and untested and so on, like, something that can bear itself out in a positive way.

[Eric Latch]

Like, I mean, I think that this is one of the benefits of telling New York City stories, because these sorts of, like, they probably didn't call them parasocial relationships at the turn of the 20th century, but, like, certainly I myself.

[Nomi Frye]

Had a parasocial relationship with Boss Tweed.

[Eric Latch]

Exactly. You know, I mean, perhaps not Boss Tweed, but certainly Al Smith, a reformer who was, you know, he was the governor of New York in the 20s, and he was famously. He grew up in a Lower east side tenement and was sort of an up from the streets guy. He was sort of a precursor to FDR in all sorts of ways. And then fdr sort of like, you know, in the complete opposite way, is this, like, patrician kind of figure. But, like, people felt that they knew him, that he was not just the president.

[Nomi Frye]

I mean, he used these fireside chats the way today's politicians use TikTok.

[Eric Latch]

Exactly. This discourse now about, like, does Mohamdani or some other kind of, like, politician who's a hit? Like, they don't talk like traditional politicians, but I think they don't talk like failed politicians. The good politicians have always found a way to kind of, like, transcend and connect, and is it always bound to failure? I mean, you know, it's like New York has examples of both. LaGuardia is, like, remembered as, you know, maybe New York City's best mayor ever.

[Nomi Frye]

Protagonist of the 1959 musical Furello.

[Eric Latch]

Incredible. I mean, who knew, really? Can we get a revival? The counter to LaGuardia, who's sort of seen as this great success, is John Lindsay, who's the mayor of New York city in the 60s. Lindsay is this charismatic liberal Republican reformer who comes in in this kind of Kennedy esque wave of, here's the guy and he's gonna be the savior. And then by the end, he makes de Blasio look like, you know, the most popular, like, guy on the planet. He's blamed for setting the city up for its, like, crises in the 70s, you know, and it's like we've chosen both ways. We've seen both ways, and that's the city history.

[Nomi Frye]

Who can tell? But sometimes I wonder, you know, I've lived in the city now for like, 20 years, and sometimes it seems to me, can we say that it's like the New York populace is just like a mayor hater. Like, is it fun to hate the mayor?

[Eric Latch]

Clearly it is. We need them to stand up there and take it. You know, it's like that's part of what we ask mayors to do as part of the job of mayor.

[Nomi Frye]

It's been called the second hardest job in politics, right? Yes. Because it's being the old self after being president.

[Eric Latch]

Yes. And it's like it's a job with high visibility, big power in some ways, kind of limited power in other ways, but often ends up being kind of a receptacle for all sorts of anxieties and frustrations and kind of anger about the difficulty and unresolved paradoxes of city life.

[Nomi Frye]

City life. And American life.

[Eric Latch]

And American life. And American life. And we ask, basically what we're asking them to do is resolve impossible problems. And some of them can sometimes work it out for a little bit, but very few have kind of managed to do it over a prolonged period of time. And no one solves things permanently.

[Nomi Frye]

So what I'm hearing from you, Eric, is you're not gonna run for mayor.

[Eric Latch]

I am. I am not.

[Nomi Frye]

I am now announcing my candidacy for mayor of New York City.

[Eric Latch]

If elected, I will not serve, et cetera, et cetera.

[Nomi Frye]

Eric, thank you so much. Thank you for sitting with me today.

[Eric Latch]

Thank you for enduring during my oh, my God rants.

[Nomi Frye]

It was a pleasure and an honor. This has been critics at large. This week's episode was produced by Michelle o'. Brien. Alex Barish is our consulting editor. Our executive producer is Stephen Valentino. Conde Nast's head of Global audio is Chris Bannon. Alexis Quadrado composed our theme music and we had engineering help today from James Yost with mixing by Mike Kutchman. You can find every episode of Critics at [e-mail] Critics now next week, Alex steps into the solo host chair. She's going to be talking with our colleague Lauren Collins about a totally different city, Paris. Make sure you tune in.

[Deborah Treisman]

Hi, I'm Deborah Treisman, fiction editor of the New Yorker. Each week on the Writer's Voice podcast, New Yorker fiction writers read their newly published stories from the magazine. You can hear from authors like Colson Whitehead.

[Eric Latch]

Turner nudged Elwood, who had a look of horror on his face. They saw it. Griff wasn't going down. He was going to go for it. No matter what happened after.

[Nomi Frye]

Or Joy Williams, her father, was silent. Slowly, he passed his hand over his hair. This usually meant that he was traveling to a place immune to her presence, a place that indeed contradicted her presence. She might as well go to lunch.

[Deborah Treisman]

Listen to news stories or dive into our archive of great fiction. You can find the work of your favorite fiction writers and discover new ones. Listen and follow the Writer's Voice wherever you get your podcasts.

[Nomi Frye]

From PRX.