Bill Simons
You’d think the most powerful man in the world, President Trump and the fearless political upstart Zohran Mamdani, whose campaign to become New York’s mayor has rocked the boat, would have nothing in common.
Trump explains that it isn’t at all his fault that the government won’t be providing food for children through SNAP – “Look, those wretched Dems have closed the government.”
Mamdani, the unvarnished socialist democrat, wants to tax the wealthy and big corporations to provide universal child care, free buses and some city grocery stores.
You’d think that Trump, who regularly dances to the gay anthem “YMCA,” and who, in his three presidential runs, has received a total of 215 million votes, and Mamdani, who marches in New gay parades and has been Astoria’s State Assemblyman, have zilch in common – right?
Wrong!
For starters, the two come from accomplished families, have deep roots in Queens and went to elite schools. It’s not just that they both love sports. Mamdani, who’s said to be a decent table tennis player, can do deep dives on soccer. A Manchester United zealot, he delighted in the news of Liverpool’s four-match losing streak and he launched a significant initiative to make the pricey tickets for the upcoming World Cup more affordable.
More importantly, he says his successful advocacy, when he was 18, for a cricket team at the Bronx High School of Science was the foundation of his political career.
Trump obviously adores golf and owns 18 more golf clubs than any other president ever has. These days, it’s hard to keep the man who once headed the New Jersey Generals USFL football team, who was briefly a tennis agent, and who’s planning a big MMA bout for the White House lawn, away from the spotlight at the Super Bowl, FIFA finals or the Ryder Cup.
More significantly, beyond Trump’s and Mamdani’s love of sports, both have uncanny anti-establishment instincts, and are either celebrated as heroes or are demonized by many. It’s not just that both have a gift for cutting through the crap. Sure, many voices claim that Mamdani is an unrepentant communist who is bound to ruin America’s greatest city, while others say the president is a tyrant doing the bidding of his billionaire pals and is undermining our democracy.
While the real estate mogul and media personality came down a Manhattan escalator and promptly galvanized the right, it seems that right before our eyes, Mamdani, a former hip-hop artist, has emerged from Fordham Avenue in the Bronx to energize the perennially hapless left. So it’s been claimed that, more than any other politicians, these two adeptly connect with Americans who feel left out.
Speaking of connections, Trump and Mamdani have quite a tennis connection, which we saw at the very beginning and the very end of this year’s US Open.
On the first day of qualifying, the rising Mamdani staged an inventive pop-up campaign event high in the stands of the distant Court 11.
Twenty-one days later, a stylish and stunned US Open fan from Scarsdale looked up into the sky just above Ashe Stadium and exclaimed, “Oh my God, that’s Air Force One!” Maybe she shouldn’t have been surprised. After all, word was out that the world’s most famous and powerful man would be doing his, “Look at me, here I am!” thing at the final.
For decades, celebrities have descended on the Open to wave to appreciative fans. There were athletic gods, from Pele to Tiger to Jordan, a British princess named Sarah, a Nobel Prize winner named Tutu, countless rockers, from Aretha and McCartney to Springsteen – and, of course, Presidents Carter, Bush Sr., Clinton and Obama.
But no celebrity not named Billie Jean King has worked the Open with more confidence than Trump. For years, he gazed down from his high-profile suite as if Ashe Stadium were his domain. Sports Illustrated’s S.L. Price claimed it was “impossible to resist his playboy aura…It looked like he owned the Open.” Then Trump ran for the presidency in 2015, was booed, and for a decade didn’t return to the Open.
This year he returned with a vengeance. Never has anyone so impacted a US Open final. The Secret Service took over security from the USTA, and soon the Billie Jean King Tennis Center became quite an armed camp. With machine guns, automatic pistols and bullet-proof vests, agents scoured every corner of the place. Traffic was snarled. It took up to 90 minutes to get through TSA security checkpoints, and the USTA told broadcasters not to show fan reactions to the president.
The Carlos Alcaraz-Jannik Sinner final was delayed by 45 minutes, and when the president briefly appeared on the stadium’s electronic scoreboard during a changeover, there were modest cheers amidst a torrent of boos. This “Boo Heard Round the World” YouTube video has drawn 415,000 views: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/mTfjFBltRCM
Twenty-one days before the final, Mamdani initiated an event that would promote affordability and the fact that the
US Open qualifying tourney was free. Twenty-five fans would have the opportunity to sit with him in the bleachers in the Flushing Meadows outback on the opening day of qualies. As Japan’s Mai Hontama took down Campbell, CA native, Kristina Penickova, Mamdani flashed his charismatic, now famous smile and explained tennis’ arcane scoring system to unaware fans.
New York mayors have long been linked to tennis. Eons ago, the legendary Fiorello LaGuardia built public tennis courts as part of his initiative to democratize sports and recreation. The tennis-loving mayor David Dinkins managed to change the rules so jets from LaGuardia Airport no longer dropped noise bombs. But his rival, Yankee zealot Rudy Giuliani, hated tennis because Dinkins loved it – that is, until he showed up to grab glory when it was announced that the US Open’s new arena would be named for African-American Arthur Ashe. For years, Mayor Michael Bloomberg gained political points by pumping up New York with his Opening Day speeches and the current mayor, Eric Adams, told US Open visitors that the prime thing he wanted them to do was spend money.
To many, Mamdani’s meetup event at the Open was just another example of his rewriting the urban political game plan. On gritty streets, in clanky subways or up in the rafters watching a Knicks game, the Ugandan native floods the zone with fun hot takes and lively community engagement that, with a laser focus, segue to his core message. The insurgent who delights many and infuriates others will dash into the Atlantic in his suit and tie, chant in Bengali or explain ranked voting in Spanish on TikTok.
With Zorhan, there’s an “Anything goes” mindset. In rough neighborhoods, at high school art exhibits or late-night concerts featuring the Staten Island hip-hop group Wu Tang, he pushes the envelope. Who needs the endorsement of some political stiff? Yes, the 34-year-old has a certain curiosity and a sense of whimsy. But friends and foes alike, note that his core message is rooted fierce determination to change the playing field.
At the Open, his theme was affordability. In a city that’s pricing out its residents, New Yorkers could enjoy the qualifying tourney for free – imagine that.
Mamdani eventually left the bleachers. Concessionaires were giddy with delight to see him, and one African-American woman just below an Arthur Ashe Stadium sign gushed, “I’m going to start working for you tomorrow!”
Apparently she and quite a few others did a pretty good job. While President Trump remains the most powerful person in the world and clearly has altered the political and cultural landscape from Kansas to Kiev, Mamdani will become the first South Asian tennis-friendly socialist democrat mayor in New York history. And that’s a big deal for the Big Apple and perhaps for America.
We’ll see.
