This year, thousands of New Yorkers clawed political power out from establishment Democrats and brought it back home. When we elected Zohran Mamdani as mayor, we proved that the future of the city belongs to its people, not billionaire donors. Despite running against a campaign made up of fear, craven racism, and millions of dollars, we stood with our neighbors and demanded better than the status quo. This win couldn’t have happened without the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (NYC-DSA).

I ran for office in 2021 because I believed the working people of our city deserve dignity and prosperity and I understood that our government was not committed to ensuring New Yorkers could live with that dignity, day in and day out. In deciding to run, I quickly realized that the problems we face as working people in Brooklyn, in New York, and in the United States more broadly are not disparate issues to be solved on an ad hoc basis but are different spokes coming from the same core issue: the economic system in which we live.

Our problems have an obvious source and clear solutions that our government has the responsibility to provide. The ultrawealthy are raising our rents and taking away our health care, while simultaneously squeezing their profits out of the pockets of the families who make our city what it is. Zohran’s campaign prioritized affordability, the antithesis of the business-as-usual politics that has left so many of us behind, a new brand of politics that is desperately needed not only in our city but around the world.