Zohran Mamdani, Sadiq Khan & the Politics of 'Belonging' in the Age of Trump

There are several parallels between Mamdani & Khan: both are South Asians, mayors of big cities, and hated by Trump.

Zohran Mamdani (left) and Sadiq Khan. 

(Photo: Altered by The Quint) 

Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the 2025 New York City mayoral election marked a rupture in American urban politics. At just 34, the Ugandan-born son of Indian immigrants became the city’s first Muslim and first South Asian mayor, as well as its youngest since 1917.

His 50.4 percent win over former Governor Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa was powered by young, immigrant, and working-class voters drawn to his pledge for fare-free transit, city-run groceries, rent freezes, and universal childcare.

For supporters, the result was a long-overdue affirmation that New York could still surprise the establishment. Critics, including President Donald Trump, speculate that it is proof that the city has drifted into “communist chaos.” Trump’s warnings that he would withhold federal support unless Mamdani “behaved responsibly” turned a local victory into a national flashpoint.

Across the Atlantic, Sadiq Khan has been living in that flashpoint for nearly a decade. The London-born son of Pakistani immigrants, Khan has spent two terms defending his city’s pluralist identity against the same populist anger that now greets Mamdani.

During Trump’s 2025 state visit, the president called Khan “among the worst mayors in the world,” accused him of mismanaging immigration, and repeated the false claim that London “wants to go to Sharia law.”

Khan dismissed the rhetoric as racist and Islamophobic, but it reflected a larger pattern. The ascent of two South Asian Muslims to the helm of London and New York has become a test of whether multicultural leadership can endure in an era that increasingly rejects its premise.

Reform, Robinson, and the Cities of Anxiety

Mamdani’s campaign was both a policy experiment and a cultural reckoning. Running as a democratic socialist, he spoke directly to New Yorkers priced out of housing, burdened by debt, and disillusioned with establishment Democrats.

His promise of redistributive reform gave substance to what he called “a politics of care". Yet the response from Washington was swift and hostile. Trump labeled him a “radical,” a “threat to Jewish New Yorkers,” and “a man who hates the police.” His advisors privately discussed using Mamdani as the new face of an “unhinged left,” hoping to mobilise suburban voters through fear of an immigrant progressive running America’s largest city.

London has witnessed a parallel spectacle. Reform UK, the successor to Nigel Farage’s Brexit movement, has revived a language of resentment that casts London as alien to “real Britain.” Party leader Richard Tice has blamed Khan for “importing social chaos,” while far-right agitator Tommy Robinson led violent Westminster protests in September targeting Muslims and asylum seekers.

These demonstrations, framed as “defending British identity,” were amplified by conspiracy networks portraying Khan as an existential threat. The city that once symbolised global confidence has become a vessel for national insecurity.

The symmetry between these two politics is striking. In both Britain and the US, right-wing populism has recast diverse, immigrant-powered cities as symbols of decline. London’s cosmopolitanism and New York’s pluralism have become rhetorical evidence of what conservative leaders describe as lost sovereignty.

Both Khan and Mamdani have learned to convert those attacks into political strength. Their leadership rests on the conviction that representation is not merely descriptive but moral—a commitment to protecting diversity as civic duty.

Trump’s Transatlantic Shadow

Donald Trump’s fixation on Muslim mayors has evolved into a strategy of polarisation. His feud with Sadiq Khan began in 2015 when Khan condemned Trump’s proposed Muslim ban. Since then, Trump has invoked London after every terror attack and crime wave, arguing that multiculturalism invites danger.

His 2025 visit to the UK revived those claims, blending misinformation with moral panic. Such rhetoric has not only targeted Khan but emboldened Britain’s nationalist movements, whose online networks echo Trumpian slogans almost word for word.

Mamdani now inherits that adversarial role. Trump mocked him by mispronouncing his name, questioned his citizenship, and warned that “New York stands no chance” under his leadership.

Yet Mamdani’s defiance was immediate. In his victory speech, he declared that “New York will not be governed by threats.” The line was directed as much at the White House as at segments of the city’s Jewish electorate who viewed him with caution.

New York’s Jewish community, the largest outside Israel, played a complex role in the election. Many older and Orthodox voters were wary of Mamdani’s criticisms of Israeli policy, but younger Jewish progressives embraced him as a candidate of conscience. That generational divide reflects a deeper shift in urban politics, where solidarity is increasingly built on shared principles of justice rather than inherited loyalties.

Trump’s rhetoric about London’s “Sharia threat” and New York’s “communist mayor” reveals how transatlantic populism now functions as a single ideological current. Both Khan and Mamdani are caught within it, forced to defend their cities’ moral legitimacy in a struggle that is as cultural as it is political.

Gaza, Multicultural Strain, and the Question of Moral Authority

The continuing violence in Gaza and the occupied territories has placed both mayors under new scrutiny. In London, mass pro-Palestinian demonstrations have filled Trafalgar Square for months, met by counter-protests accusing Khan of enabling extremism.

Khan has condemned antisemitism unequivocally while defending the right to protest, insisting that “standing for Palestinian humanity does not mean standing against Jewish safety.” It is a difficult balance in a city that is home to both Europe’s largest Jewish population and one of its most diverse Muslim communities.

Mamdani faces an equally delicate test. His long record of supporting Palestinian rights has drawn attacks from conservative media and national figures. Trump even claimed that “any Jewish person who supports Mamdani is stupid,” a remark that provoked bipartisan outrage. Yet Mamdani’s tone has shifted from activist to statesman.

He now emphasises the safety of all New Yorkers and condemns antisemitism while continuing to call for a “just peace” abroad. His strength may depend on whether he can maintain that balance - protecting Jewish New Yorkers from hate while asserting that critique of state policy is not equivalent to prejudice.

Both mayors understand that multicultural leadership now operates under siege. It is no longer enough to celebrate diversity through symbols or slogans. The real challenge lies in governing amid overlapping traumas, where communities interpret global events through local fears. Inclusive politics, they are learning, is not about harmony but about managing disagreement without letting it fracture the civic fabric.

The Politics of Endurance

Sadiq Khan and Zohran Mamdani are not merely administrators; they are custodians of an idea.

Their shared South Asian Muslim heritage links two post-imperial metropolises shaped by migration, trade, and colonial memory. London and New York remain the most visible laboratories of multicultural governance, yet also the most fragile. Reform UK’s nationalist revival and Trump’s resurgent populism represent a backlash against the demographic transformations these cities embody.

The challenge for both mayors is not simply to survive that hostility but to outgovern it. Khan’s London has endured austerity, terrorism, and xenophobic campaigns. Mamdani’s New York will face federal confrontation, housing crises, and the volatile moral terrain of Middle East politics. If they succeed, they will prove that pluralism can do more than persist—it can lead.

In an age defined by walls, slogans, and suspicion, it remains both powerful and provocative to see two South Asian Muslim mayors leading London and New York. Their leadership does not promise comfort. It promises endurance, the hard work of coexistence that stands against fear and fatigue, and insists that belonging, in all its complexity, remains the city’s greatest strength.

(Ashraf Nehal is a political and foreign policy analyst and a columnist primarily tracking South Asia. He can be reached on Twitter at @ashrafnehal19 and on Instagram at ___ashraf___19. This is an opinion piece. The views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)