Sanders Swears in Mamdani as New York City’s Historic New Mayor

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman.

We continue our coverage of the New Year’s Day inauguration of the democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani as the mayor of New York City. It was below freezing, a huge public ceremony outside City Hall, with thousands attending. We turn now to independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders,originally from Brooklyn,who swore in Mamdani.

SEN.BERNIE SANDERS: I’m here mostly to thank the people of New York City. At a time in our country’s history when we are seeing too much hatred, too much divisiveness and too much injustice, thank you for electing Zohran Mamdani as your mayor. New York, thank you for inspiring our nation. Thank you for giving us, from coast to coast, the hope and the vision that we can create government that works for all, not just the wealthy and the few.

In a moment when people in America, and, in fact, throughout the world, are losing faith in democracy, over 90,000 of you in this city volunteered for Zohran’s campaign.You knocked on doors. You shared your dreams and your hopes for the future of this city.And in the process, you took on the Democratic establishment, the Republican establishment, the president of the United States and some enormously wealthy oligarchs, and you defeated them in the biggest political upset in modern American history.

AMY GOODMAN: Independent Senator Bernie Sanders, speaking just before he swore in democratic socialist zohran Mamdani as the mayor of New york. Yes, Mayor Mamdani made history as New York’s first Muslim, first South Asian, first African-born mayor; at the age of 34, the youngest mayor of New York in generations. This is part of Mayor Mamdani’s historic inaugural address.

MAYOR ZOHRAN MAMDANI: My fellow New Yorkers, today begins a new era. I stand before you, moved by the privilege of taking this sacred oath, humbled by the faith that you have placed in me, and honored to serve as either your 111th or 112th mayor of New York City.

But I do not stand alone. I stand alongside you, the tens of thousands of you gathered here in Lower Manhattan, warmed against the January chill by the resurgent flame of hope. I stand alongside countless more New Yorkers watching from cramped kitchens in Flushing and barber shops in East New York, from cellphones propped against the dashboards of parked taxi cabs at LaGuardia, from hospitals in Mott Haven and libraries in El barrio that have too long known only neglect. I stand alongside construction workers in steel-toed boots and halal cart vendors whose knees ache from working all day. I stand alongside neighbors who carry a plate of food to the elderly couple down the hall, those in a rush who still lift strangers’ strollers up subway stairs, and every person who makes the choice, day after day, even when it feels impractical, to call our city home.

I stand alongside over 1 million New Yorkers who voted for this day nearly two months ago. And I stand just as resolutely alongside those who did not. I no ther are some who view this administration with distrust or disdain, or who see politics as permanently broken. And while only action can change minds, I promise you this: If you are a New Yorker, I am your mayor. …

And most of all, thank you to the people of New York. A moment like this comes rarely. seldom do we hold such an chance to transform and reinvent. Rarer still is it the people themselves whose hands are the ones upon the levers of change. And yet we know

A New Era for New York City

For too long, those fluent in the good grammar of civility have deployed decorum to mask agendas of cruelty.Many of these people have been betrayed by the established order. But in our administration, their needs will be met. Their hopes and dreams and interests will be reflected transparently in government. They will shape our future. And if for too long these communities have existed as distinct from one another, we will draw this city closer together. We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.

If our campaign demonstrated that the people of New York yearn for solidarity,then let this government foster it,because no matter what you eat,how you pray or where you come from,the words that most define us are the two we all share: New Yorkers. And it will be New Yorkers who reform a long-broken property tax system, New Yorkers who will create a new Department of Community Safety that will tackle the mental health crisis and let the police focus on the job they signed up to do, New Yorkers who will take on the bad landlords who mistreat their tenants, and free small buisness owners from the shackles of bloated bureaucracy. And I am proud to be one of those New Yorkers.

When we won the primary last June, there were many who said these aspirations and those who held them had come out of nowhere. Yet one man’s nowhere is another man’s somewhere. This movement came out of eight-and-a-half million somewheres – taxicab depots and Amazon warehouses, DSA meetings and curbside domino games. The powers that be had looked away from these places for quite some time,if they’d known about them at all. So they dismissed them as nowhere. But in our city, where every corner of these five boroughs holds power, there is no nowhere, and there is no no one.There is only New York, and there are only New Yorkers. Eight-and-a-half million New Yorkers will speak this new era into existence. It will be loud. It will be different.It will feel like the New York we love. No matter how long you have called this city home, that love has shaped your life.

I know that it has shaped mine. this is the city where I set land speed records on my razor scooter at the age of 12, quickest four blocks of my life; the city where I ate powdered donuts at half-times during AYSO soccer games and realized I probably was not going to be going pro; the city where I devoured two big slices at Koronet’s Pizza, played cricket with my friends at Ferry Point Park, and took the 1 train to the Bx10, only to still show up late to Bronx Science; the city where I have gone on hunger strike just outside these gates, sat claustrophobic on a stalled N train just after Atlantic Avenue and waited in quiet terror for m