On 1 January, to mark his inauguration as mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani threw a block party. As he was sworn in outside city hall in front of a crowd of a few thousand of us, a nearby street in Manhattan was closed to traffic so that tens of thousands more could gather to watch the historic moment live on enormous screens. The weather – a cloudless blue sky and arctic winds – felt somehow fitting: a licence to dream and a warning against complacency.

Mayors don’t usually take office amid such a festival atmosphere. A smaller, more exclusive event is normally adequate. But a key feature of Mamdani’s rise has been the desire for mass participation in politics. There was no chance this day was going to pass without an open-invitation party.

Throughout his mayoral campaign, Mamdani found novel ways to include people in his movement. It began in November 2024 with a viral video taking to the streets to interview people in parts of Queens and the Bronx that had swung heavily to Donald Trump in the election. As his popularity grew, he inspired an army of volunteers for canvassing and door-knocking whom he eulogised in his speeches. In August of last year, he organised a city-wide scavenger hunt that thousands of people took part in. There was a football tournament not long after. After his victory in November, he immediately opened a jobs portal where people could submit their CV and area of interest, prompting 74,000 applications. In mid-December, he invited New Yorkers to........

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