Every morning, I ride the Metro-North into Grand Central station, walk through the main concourse, and see the constellations painted on the ceiling. It is the only place in New York City where you can see the stars. You can’t wish on them; you can’t follow them north or augur the future in their twinkling. There is no future in this city. You will own nothing, and you will not be happy. In New York you are on your own, and not even the heavens can help you. As you come and go to work the stars will remain in the same place, and so will you-or at least you hope. Because New York is a city for people who have everything and people who have nothing. For now you are neither, but the voice in your head says, Not for long, and repeats it every day, because you know things can always get worse-there is no middle without a bottom. One day the constellations on the ceiling will come crashing down with the plaster, and so will you, another middle-class star cast out of heaven. You are consumed by an angry terror. There is nothing more radicalizing than a fear of falling. At least, I suspect, for the people I walked among at a Zohran Mamdani watch party last Tuesday. Held at an upscale waterfront bar in upper Manhattan, the event was hosted by the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), which was handing out a postcard-sized pamphlet titled “TRANS RIGHTS CLASS FIGHT,” which detailed the efforts of the DSA to pressure hospitals to facilitate gender transitions for children, among other efforts. I have read the pamphlet several times and am still not sure how “trans rights = class fight.” But I am sure which class I found myself in that night, as Andrew Cuomo conceded, and the young, fashionably dressed crowd cheered for their mayoral candidate, and the news reported that Mamdani had performed worst among the very poor and very rich, but won voters making between $75,000 and $150,000 per year. New York is a city for people who have everything and people who have nothing. I was among the young professional managerial class. When you hear about the laptop class-the people with AirPods, college degrees, and “good” jobs that require them to have three roommates in their thirties-this is them. They’re the most privileged class of workers ever produced by capitalism, and they want to end it. Voting for Mamdani won’t do that, but it at least shows you’re trying.
