I read all 16,100 tweets that Zohran Mamdani has ever posted.
Why? Because the Democratic front-runner for New York City mayor sounds polished now—but he didn’t start that way.
If he wins in November, Mamdani, 33, would become the city’s first digital-native mayor.
But long before he was a rising political star, Mamdani was “Young Cardamom,” “TreyDadday,” and “bayaye27,” as he documented his life across the web in unfiltered bursts. What I saw in reading all of his posts, which span 18 years and multiple personas, is a portrait of a man with a revolutionary vision for America. One that hasn’t faded.
Mamdani’s internet trail reveals far more than a veneered candidate biography on a website ever could. In tweet after tweet, he calls for the end of the free market, for defunding the police, and for dismantling the prison system, which he describes as the “carceral state.” He champions communism (at least in one jokey photo), stans anti-Israel activist Linda Sarsour, calls cops “haram” (the Arabic term for forbidden under Islamic law), and insists that New York should look more like socialist Vienna. As Mamdani moves more into general-election mode as the front-runner to beat—wearing suits, moderating his message, and cozying up to the business community—his digital past offers a rare glimpse of the ideology beneath the polish.
The Mamdani campaign did not respond to my requests for comment. But here is the real Mamdani, based on my review of his internet past:
