Alexandra Bowman

New York City Mayor Mamdani just gave one of the most amazing speeches you will ever hear: "We are told that America is exceptional because we are richer, stronger, and more powerful than everyone else. "The truth, my friends, is that America is exceptional because here, nothing is fixed into place. The frontier may be closed. We may have walked on the moon. But the work of fulfilling the values first enshrined in the Declaration of Independence — that work endures, and it belongs to us all. "It belongs, too, to our newest Americans: those standing here with me today, all of whom were recently naturalized. Nearly a decade ago, I, too, felt what you feel: the joy of no longer being just a New Yorker, but an American, too. "You each hold a special power: the power to determine what America means. "The powerful have always known their answer. America, in their view, is an arena of supremacy where only a select few are allowed freedom; where not all are created equal. America, if you ask them, becomes less the more people it welcomes. America, they will tell you, belongs only to those with the right accent or the right shade of skin. The rest of us, they insist, should be grateful for merely being allowed to visit. "How small they are. How weak. How unoriginal. "At every moment in our past, those who led through exclusion and isolation have tried to win power and enrich themselves by turning us against one another. Division is the oldest trick in politics — and the cheapest. "But time and again, including 250 years ago, those forces of division have been vanquished by the forces of progress."