"Hope is a discipline"

Historian Yuval Noah Harari was asked what he saw behind Trump's renaming of the Department of Defense to the Department of War. His response, accompanied by a mischievous smile, was: "It's simple. There's no need to look for complicated explanations. We went from defense to war. What could be easier to understand?" War means war. It's the politics of fear, of aggression, of force as the law of the new world order. Of aggressive nationalism.

And, lo and behold, the voters of New York have begun to rise up against this explicit brutality. They have elected someone who is down-to-earth and will solve their concrete problems. Until now, and forgive the easy pun, Americans have been navigating the new era of ultra-populism unleashed by their sheriff-president. With their practicality, the good people of that country—let's say the silent majority—had decided to survive the ideological hurricane and its practical consequences by trying to ride the authoritarian wave. It's what the middle class typically does: I step aside, I keep things moving. My harm doesn't want to be noticed. I prefer not to know too much; everything is so ugly. I have enough with my small, safe circle. But now, suddenly, Zohran Mamdani has awakened the pride of New Yorkers: especially African Americans and Hispanics (the immigrants targeted by Trump), people who don't own their own homes, those who use public transportation, young people with no prospects for advancement...

All of them have finally seen an alternative emerge. It remains to be seen whether it takes hold, or how it takes hold, whether it spreads beyond New York. It's unclear which way the Democratic Party will lean: its other candidates who won in Virginia and New Jersey have a more centrist bent, still steeped, let's say, in progressive neoliberalism. Mamdani is the one who has shaken things up: he's a Muslim immigrant who declares himself a Democrat and a socialist, that is, a social democrat. In the US, believing in egalitarianism—in making wealth accessible to everyone—sounds very strong, almost far-left. This is a young man who, without rejecting private enterprise, defends the public sector. He says so openly. He advocates for cooperation, for coexistence among different groups. Faced with a Trumpism that looks for scapegoats and enemies everywhere, this is downright revolutionary.

Are we beginning to move beyond the phase of "paralyzing catastrophism" described and combated from an environmentalist perspective by the Belgian philosopher Isabelle Stengers? Perhaps. As the French economist Thomas Piketty sees it, the ideological battle is on: ultranationalism versus egalitarianism. Someone has decided to take the stage and has emerged victorious from the first skirmish. It is a moral and factual victory. The authoritarian national-populists who had seized the anti-establishment banner have gained a rival who is leading the insurrection against those whom Giuliano da Empoli calls privileged "predators." And he does so with an equally simple and clear discourse, also using social media with the same skill. Mamdani uses Trump's communication weapons, but instead of proclaiming war and anger to engage in MAGA (Make America Great Again), promises peace, distributive justice, and hope for a welcoming and just city.

A few days ago, in conversation with the thinker Yayo Herrero before an attentive audience of leisure educators, she quoted the American Angela Davis: "Hope is a discipline." We must be open to the possibility of the best happening, which won't occur without "active hope." This is what Mamdani has activated in the US. It would be good to begin to leave frustration and fatalism behind. Trump and company aren't going to make it easy. It will be difficult, for example, for good news to emerge from the Climate Change Conference in Brazil that is now beginning. However, the tense wait for some glimmer of transformative light seems to have ended. While we can't by any means consider the chaos over—globally we remain on the brink of climate and war—we now enter, hopefully, into a reasonably hopeful struggle.