“The Answer, Actually, Is Hope”

Writes Riann Phillip in British Vogue:

The last few years have felt like end times. . . . [A]voidance is not the answer. Sorry to be cringe, but it seems the answer, actually, is hope. And right now it is most prominently represented by two politicians whose profiles we’ve seen go stratospheric. Here [in the U.K.], in Zack Polanski – the gay, Jewish, northern leader of the Green Party – and there [in the U.S.], in Zohran Mamdani – the young Muslim mayor elect of New York City. Both outspoken socialists, unafraid to shake things up or to actually get involved in the communities they purport to represent.

What won me over with Mamdani, aside from his no-brainer manifesto (affordable housing, free public buses, rent freezes, universal childcare for children under five), is how his campaign actually embraced people, rather than treating them as merely a bunch of demographics to placate. He spoke to young people the way we actually talk to one another. He went on podcasts, made memes, turned up at club nights (I’m still obsessed with him appearing at the club two nights before the election), and generally met people where they were instead of expecting them to come to him. He made the act of politics – and voting – feel exciting, accessible, unmissable. Bear in mind, I spent the night of New York’s mayoral election waiting with bated breath for the results, and I live in Hackney.

Now, with Andrew Cuomo defeated and Trump rattled, Mamdani is set to assume real power in the biggest city in the US. To me, the 34-year-old’s win feels like a fresh chapter: proof that there is an alternative to a status quo that increasingly only works for the few. It can be challenged – more than that, it can be toppled.

On this side of the pond, Zack Polanski is ruffling feathers with a smile, too. He took over from Carla Denyer as leader of the Greens only two months ago, and membership has already skyrocketed, surpassing 100,000 for the first time. This groundswell of support from voters desperate for an alternative to the main parties that is not Reform, means that what was once viewed as a well-meaning but inconsequential party of moral conscience and green fingers now has to be taken seriously. Hearing Polanksi’s voice cut through a news cycle that has come to be defined by division and hatred warms my heart.

– Riann Phillip
Excerpted from “A Disillusioned Gen-Z Asks:
Is Hope Back?”
British Vogue
November 6, 2025

Related Off-site Links:
Mamdani’s Win Proves That Hope Is Power – Frances Moore Lappé and Corinna Rhum (Common Dreams, November 8, 2025.)
The Right Can Mock My Teeth All It Wants – It Shows the Greens Have Struck a Nerve – Zack Polanski (The Guardian, November 10, 2025).
Mamdani and Polanski: Can a New Left Undo Trump’s Climate Reversal? – Channel 4 News (November 6, 2025).
Zack Polanski Humiliates Andrew Marr Live on Air – Antony Jones (via YouTube, November 6, 2025).
We Need to Make Hope Normal Again": Zack Polanski on How a Zohran Mamdani Win Will Send Shockwaves Around the World – Bold Politics (October 31, 2025).
The British Mamdani? Meet Political Star Zack Polanski – Mehdi Hasan (Zeteo (October 23, 2025).
Just Zack Polanski Being a Legend – PoliticsJOE (September 3, 2025).


See also the following chronologically-ordered Wild Reed posts:
• Progressive Perspectives on Zohran Mamdani’s Win in New York City
• “Hopeful and Grounded”: Omar Fateh’s Vision of Democratic Socialism
• Active Hope
• Why “Revolutionary Love” Gives Michelle Alexander Hope
• The Choice Before Us
• Hope and Courage – Christmas 2024
• Something We Dare Call Hope
• “I Came Alive With Hope”
• Resilience and Hope