These days, it seems like Zohran Mamdani is everywhere. He’s walking uptown from City Hall to Gracie Mansion, greeting New Yorkers on the way—much like he did the night before his primary victory in June. He’s saying hi to Mr. and Mrs. Met on the way to greet the house staff at Citi Field. He’s reading to kindergartners and singing “The Wheels on the Bus” with Ms. Rachel (& President Obama) and spent every night in Ramadan with a different community of Muslims in the city. He’s joined city workers in the night shift and has helped to fill potholes. And it’s only been just over 100 days.
This is a mayor who genuinely loves talking to people, evidenced by his wide smile and hearty laughs when talking to New Yorkers. His supporters ask if he ever sleeps, his distractors accuse him of grandstanding, but the reality is much simpler: Mamdani is doing what Americans are told constantly they need more of—fostering human connection.
Americans are spending more time alone—in 2023, people aged 15 to 29 spent 45 percent more time by themselves than they did in 2010. While time spent alone isn’t inherently a problem, the lack of social connection with others is; so much so that the Surgeon General put out an advisory in 2023 calling loneliness an urgent public health issue.
In that report, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy reported that, even before the Covid-19 pandemic, one in two American adults reported feeling lonely, according to recent studies. The same report cited research that suggested a lack of social connection can do as much damage to the body as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Loneliness can also put pressure on our immune systems, activating the fight or flight response—causing chronic inflammation (which in turn can increase the risk for cancers and neurodegenerative diseases). It’s associated with heart disease, with high blood pressure, and with an increased risk for death.
By contrast, social connection is good for us. A study found that the higher relational diversity someone had (that is the number of conversations you have in a day with different people in your life—from family and friends to strangers), the happier they were. The more people you interact with in your life, no matter how shallow the relationship—the better you will feel.
Research has also shown that we tend to underestimate just how much we will enjoy small talk—participants in one study were asked to rate how a conversation would go (on a random topic and with a random person—a friend or a stranger) before having it. In all instances, people underrated how they would eventually feel about the conversation. Researchers also reviewed 148 studies on mortality and social relationships and found that there was a 50 percent increased likelihood of survival for people who had stronger social relationships.
So it’s no wonder that it’s refreshing to see a politician doing something that makes us feel good; particularly when we don’t see much of it. Good leaders spend much of their time on their feet, going out into the community and listening and hearing from regular people, which they then use to inform policy. Mamdani’s mayoral campaign began with this kind of retail politics: He traveled to areas of New York City where President Donald Trump made gains in the 2024 presidential election and talked to those voters. What he learned shaped his thinking; he credits those voters in particular for securing his victory.
But meeting people where they live is not just for mayoral candidates. The Federal Trade Commission under the Biden administration, led by Lina Khan, was so effective in part because FTC commissioners traveled and engaged in listening tours that took them into different parts of the country. It is harder to do the type of engagement that Mamdani is doing as a D.C. elected, but—especially with politicians (mostly Republicans) backing out of town halls and sticking to preplanned photo ops—Americans are left with little face-to-face engagement with their elected leaders. It’s worth asking, especially for local leaders: If they aren’t walking the streets, what are they doing, and who are they meeting instead?
Small daily engagements, like thanking the bus driver or conversing with people in the grocery line may seem insignificant, but these are hallmarks of a society we should want to build: communities where people feel safe, trust and look out for one another, filled with people from all walks of life. Across American politics, there’s broad consensus that we should have a better, kinder society—but there are different definitions of what that looks like and who is included.
Right-wing politicians promote nostalgic images of a lost American life, featuring Norman Rockwell paintings, and suggest that it is other people who are blocking the country from returning to a time when everyone got along. In actuality, they promote an antisocial atmosphere, pushing policies and rhetoric that result in increased surveillance and distrust between people. Passing bounty laws for people seeking abortions and encouraging surveillance of gender in bathrooms, suggesting reporting of suspected immigrants resulting in calls about classrooms and businesses, casting Muslim neighbors as wanting to take over, policing speech on college campuses, among other things. These policies attempt to create friction and isolation and threaten a pluralistic, democratic society that is facing a cost-of-living crisis where people are already sequestered, working harder and longer. It is no surprise then that politicians who push such ideas mirror them in their behavior and remain isolated from the public they serve.
But it’s not just right-wing politicians. At a city level, there is an increase in antisocial policies that discourage people from gathering around third places, specifically young people. Malls and businesses across the country are enacting policies that stipulate that people under the age of 18 must be accompanied by an adult. So are boardwalks, pools, and even parks. In some cases, a sonic device that emits a frequency that only people under 25 can hear has been installed in public parks. Hostile infrastructure that makes sitting down in public difficult (or not possible—Moynihan Train Hall being one famous example) degrades the ability of people to merely spend time and relax in public spaces without purchasing something.
The lack of free and accessible bathrooms also contributes to this problem. These policies put in place ostensibly to target the homeless and prevent crime by young people may seem less extreme than the aforementioned right-wing projects, but their function is the same. People who seem like an annoyance or are otherwise deemed a threat are excluded from public space and life, and the commons gets smaller for everyone.
Mamdani has also been confronted by this tendency. When predominately younger New Yorkers gathered for a massive snowball fight in Washington Square Park, organized by the street show Sidetalk, the NYPD attempted to shut down the snowball fight themselves and, depending who you ask, were either playfully pelted with snowballs or viciously assaulted. Mamdani toed a careful line but has said that he would not ban the public from engaging in public snowball fights. Crime is often used to justify antisocial policies of all types. But in four months of Zohran’s mayoralty, violent crime is down.
Part of what we hear constantly is that not only are people isolated but the country is polarized in its politics. Here too, Mamdani has demonstrated value in his approach—he’s talked to Trump voters in the aftermath of the election, filmed a tongue-in-cheek video about cats with Curtis Sliwa, and has not shied away from visiting Staten Island—an area of New York with far fewer of his supporters. It’s perhaps his comfort with people who don’t agree with him (while having an unwavering commitment to his vision) that makes him have an otherwise mind-bogglingly amenable relationship with the president. People don’t need leaders to opine about getting along from panels at the World Economic Forum or in the op-ed pages of The Wall Street Journal—what they need is someone who will talk to them, listen, and be present in and with their communities.
For those who want to present an alternative vision to the chaos, Mamdani has put forward an effective blueprint—and as New Republic contributor Sal Gentile points out, all you really have to do to follow it is just be normal. If we want to build a society where people are kind, trusting, and connected with each other, then we will not only need leaders to model that behavior but we will have to be more outgoing ourselves. Don’t shy away from the interactions, big and small, with people—the bus driver, the gate agent, the stranger in the line at the grocery store, your friends who want to have coffee with you. Be like the mayor of America’s biggest city and offer a kind word and a big smile.
