By Alliance for Sustainability President Terry Gips
Could one key element in ending our uncivil wars be as simple as an authentic smile accompanied by a huge heart and commitment to a vision of possibility for all?
This is essentially what the brilliant, prolific writer and unrelenting social activist Anand Giridharadas is challenging himself and all of us to explore in his remarkable Substack the day of the election. I feel he put his finger on something that’s been a big missing in our politics – even lives. It’s as simple as an authentic smile.
The Embodiment of a Mesmerizing, Transformative Smile: Zohran Mamdani
Who is his prime example? New York City’s Democratic Socialist Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani. Some of you will immediately recoil at the mention of his name, triggering an onslaught of critique given some of his concerning statements about Israel. I get it and am sorry to upset you, but I want to focus on us exploring the power and possibility of a smile.
We all know how a stranger’s smile can make our day. Maybe it can change our politics as well. Yes, I know there have been and are lots of deceptively smiling leaders hiding their ruthless intentions and actions. But I think Anand’s message is far bigger and more important – each of us can choose to smile, and it may well be the key to co-creating the world we have longed for.
Sure, Mamdani has big promises that will be fought, but his vision of a new way of being and kind of politics are invaluable as he offers an important opportunity to glimpse and begin to make real a world that works for all. That’s the promise of his smile.
A Self-Reflection on the Meaning of a Smile
I want to share a few of the key parts of Anand’s self-reflection and inquiry into a new way for us to be. You’ll hopefully get the gist of his invitation to embody a new kind of politics…and yes, hope:
“I begin with a confession. On more than one occasion (OK, three), I have finished watching a video of Zohran Mamdani speak and hurried to a mirror to work on my smile. I have no plans to run for office, but the Mamdani grin is so striking, so politically potent, so confounding to his foes, so distinct from the projected affect of many of the New York mayoral candidate’s own allies, so full of sun in the dreariest timeline, that I have wondered about my own.”
“Do I smile enough? Do I ever smile? Was my grandmother right that I look angry in my book jacket photos? Am I angry? Why am I so angry? What kind of life could I have had if I could smile like that guy? And in the mirror I try it, and what my brief study has found is that a smile so broad physically hurts. It doesn’t seem to hurt Mamdani, though. It may be why he wins.”
We can all look into the mirror and choose how we see ourselves and what we give others.
The Impactful Policies Behind the Smile
“To be clear, the heart of the campaign was always substance. A million New Yorkers could probably name his key policy ideas: fast and free buses, universal childcare, and a sweeping rent freeze. His opponents have struggled to offer much more than fearmongering about his substance.”
Mamdani is running as a Democrat who wants to do very specific and understandable things to make life more affordable, and therefore uncork the dreaming and creation that can spill forth when life becomes more than a struggle merely to sustain itself — at a time when, nationally, Democrats are struggling to figure out who they are and how to be more than just Not Trump.”
Yes! There is light at the end of the dark tunnel, and it’s not an oncoming train…just a smile.
“But the question is how he has been able to turn the ‘capitalist capital of the world’ into ‘the epicenter of an ascendant and impatient socialist-led rebellion,’” as The New York Times recently put it. And how he has been able to rouse 90,000 people to volunteer for his campaign — a staggering figure that translates into the sight of Mamdani canvassers everywhere in New York. And how he has been able to win over enough skeptics to get to this historic precipice.”
The Smile Factor
“And into the mix of factors I’d throw the smile.”
“You know the smile. It is a face-filling, muscle-tensing, high-octane power beam that flares every time Mamdani comes to a podium, every time he is in between sections of a speech, every time he approaches a prospective voter on the street, every time he is filmed dancing in nightclubs in the dead of night, every time he hears someone in the crowd yell ‘Habibi!’”
“Like every politician’s smile, it is more than a facial expression. It is rhetoric. In his case, it seems to project a mix of things — genuine joy in the process of campaigning itself, confidence and a certain aboveness, accessibility to all comers, refusing to mirror the demeanor of those who traffic in fear of him.”
So many are deeply touched by both his vision and his oh so human smile.
Can a Smile Challenge Progressivism and Reflect a New Way of Winning?
“One of the many things I read in the smile is a break from a dominant affect of today’s progressivism. Mamdani is as bona fide a progressive as they come. And this frees him to adopt a steadfast sunniness, encapsulated by but not limited to the smile, that distinguishes him from many who share his worldview.”
“Some progressives will scowl as they read this, thereby proving my point, but progressivism has an affect problem. It is fueled by righteous anger, which it sometimes fails to transcend. America today is depressing, but being depressing is no way to win people over to make America less depressing.”
This is huge. Do most Americans want our scowls or smiles? Do we want to be depressing or transcendent? Do we win by being “angry and pessimistic”, being “hostile to people who agree partly but not entirely”, “valuing purity over welcome” and being defined by what we’re “against” vs. what we’re for?
The Bottom Line: A Smile Offering a New Vision
I’m so glad Anand included one of my favorite trademarks of his, the profoundly hopeful vision of the world we want: Mamdani and his smile “shows what you might feel if he won. In the words of the political strategist Anat Shenker-Osorio, it paints the beautiful tomorrow.”
“He is smiling the way you may smile when you can drop your kid off at free daycare, catch a free bus, watch a movie with your spouse instead of arguing about the impending rent hike. He is embodying what the lifting of certain stressors in your life would translate into.”
“As an aide to Bernie Sanders once put it to me, Mamdani is ‘assigning an emotion’ to the policy agenda he is championing.”
YES! That’s the feeling we so seek.
The Real Choice: Fighting the Fire of Authoritarianism with Fire or Water?
And finally, Anand lays out the choice before us:
“One version of the question Democrats have grappled with lately is whether you fight fire with fire, or with water. Whether you fight authoritarianism with drastic actions like redistricting, or by sticking to the rulebook. Or whether, you could say, you meet scowl with scowl — or with something like the Mamdani grin.”
“Is the antidote to this heartless, cruel Trump presidency a hardness in the opposition, a take-no-prisoners attitude that would surely become, in time, the culture we all swim in?”
“Or is it a ruthless drive to care, to mend, to weave, to join, embodied in a mile-wide smile?”
I cried when I read Anand’s last sentence. Regardless of our strongly-held political views, Anand is getting at something so many of us have long sought conceptually. He is gifting us with a profound, brilliant reframe which he has reframed as a “ruthless drive to care, to mend, to weave, to join, embodied in a mile-wide smile.” Sign me up!
As Billie Eilish and Barbie sing, Isn’t this what I was made for?
Other Perspectives Undergird this Path Forward
In his election night analysis, CNN commentator Van Jones summarized this: It’s about people’s basic needs being met.
Democratic NJ Governor-elect Mikie Sherrill ended her victory speech tonight: “The passion in our heart is waiting.”
And might I end by expressing my own smile about the Democratic victories across the country – with approaches ranging from democratic socialist to mainstream, moderate – they are clear and potent rebuffs to a wannabe king and lay out a path to restoring the rule of law and our democracy.
I have a long-needed grin tonight and plan to keep smiling as we continue to face into the darkest of dark days ahead forged by leaders who are seeking to institutionalize the authoritarian playbook.