Welcome to Mamdani's NYC
The Week in Review: November 3, 2025
Welcome to Mamdani’s NYC, where we can expect free busses, the freezing of our rent, cheaper prices for your plate of lamb over rice at the local halal cart, and the institution of Shari’ah law…at least this last prospect is what some of Mamdani’s strongest detractors would have us believe. Though his appearance at a gay club on Saturday night club would indicate that his version of Shari’ah—should he ever decide to institute it—would be a rather woke-ified one.
While many conservatives accuse Queers for Palestine of cognitive dissonance, there is—as I’ve insisted in the past, and as Daniel Ben-Ami wrote in our pages this week—something of a horseshoe between Islamic cosmology and the brand of progressivism that fuels queer theory.
While Mamdani’s brand of Islam leans more toward woke-ification—or better, yass-ification—his victory has also incited discussion of Muhammad Ben Abbes, the fictional president of France in Michel Houellbecq’s 2015 novel Submission who institutes a moderate form of Shari’ah that is heavily inspired by Catholic social doctrine, including family-first policies based on the principle of subsidiarity and on Chesteronian distributism.
As I wrote last week, Mamdani’s DSA-style economic policy platform veers far from the nuanced distributist understanding of the state’s role in redistributing wealth. But perhaps his mayorship might serve as a catalyst for exploring such a possibility?
The fact that Mamdani appointed Lina Khan—whose commitment to bolstering anti-trust policy as chairwoman of the FTC has earned the praise of both left-wing and right-wing “Khan-servative” populists—to his transitional team might give us reason to hope that his time in office might open the door to forging a bona fide populist coalition.
For more on Mayor Mamdani, check out Geoff Shullenberger’s Substack post from last week and his review of Mahmood (the mayor’s father) Mamdani’s book about Ugandan politics, and listen to this week’s podcast episode:
Also in Compact this week:
Muzainy Shahiefisally on Curtis Yarvin’s philosophy
Nathan Pinkoski on Dick Cheney’s passing
Peter Hitchens on the ousting of Prince Andrew