Washington: Donald Trump and Zohran Mamdani are often described as two sides of the same coin – populist responses to the abject failure of establishment politics to capture voters’ imaginations or deliver on their promises.
The US president and the New York mayor both gave noteworthy speeches on Friday, the eve of America’s 250th anniversary; both were steeped in the same American legend, but they were incompatible in their visions for their country.
Mamdani spoke in the morning at City Hall, sitting behind a desk that once belonged to George Washington, surrounded by recently naturalised US citizens – immigrants like himself – to the nation they were celebrating.
Easily one of the most important political figures in the country, Mamdani used the occasion to highlight what he called the contradictions of modern America. It is the wealthiest country in the world, he pointed out, but allows much of that wealth to be held “in the soft hands of a precious few”. It is a country where children sleep hungry “while the world’s first trillionaire hungers for more”. It is a country where health insurers exploit the sick and elections are sold to the highest bidder, he said.
Mamdani was forthright about what he saw as America’s flaws – sometimes with a hint of anger in his voice. But he was also optimistic about the country’s capacity to harness its better angels.
“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,” he said. “But time and again, including 250 years ago, those forces of division have been vanquished by the forces of progress.”
Trump, by contrast, spoke late at night below the breathtaking carvings of Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills of South Dakota, with a crowd of supporters at his feet.
And while he acknowledged the US was a country capable of making mistakes – “our mistakes make us human”, he said – it was a speech that cast the American nation as blessed, close to perfect, and exceptional to the rest of the world in the fullest sense.
“By the grace of God, the United States of America is the most successful, most accomplished, most exceptional nation ever to exist in human history,” Trump said from behind a bulletproof shield.
“The birth and survival of the American nation under God is quite simply the best and most incredible thing ever to happen on this planet by human hands, ever.
“It is not the norm; it is the exception. It is rare, it is priceless, and it is truly miraculous … We are a people like no other. For whatever reason, that’s just the way it is.”
Trump is merely the current proponent of American exceptionalism, though he might embrace it more vocally than others. Galling though it can be to the Australian ear, if there were ever a time for it, the 250th anniversary of the American experiment is probably it.
Where Mamdani explicitly elevated the immigrant story as essential to the American project, it was absent from Trump’s version
But the president’s speech was not principally a call to patriotism. It was a political call to action.
Standing beneath the sculpted faces of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Roosevelt, Trump said 250 years of American history and character were at risk from “a resurgence of the communist menace in our land”.
He has spoken much of this recently, as hard-left candidates – some supported by Mamdani – win Democratic primaries ahead of the midterm elections. It is an updated version of Trump’s war – one that all authoritarians wage – against the so-called “enemy within”.
“There is no American freedom without American culture, and there is no American founding without the American people,” he said. “A Constitution is only as strong as the people and the culture responsible for upholding it.”
The US would get its identity back, Trump said. And the crowd applauded when he observed: “In America, we speak English – because that is the language of our founding.”
Where Mamdani explicitly elevated the immigrant story as essential to the American project, it was absent from Trump’s version, except when he advised: “You do not have to be born here, but you do have to love what we have built. You must love our country.”
It was a speech that had many hallmarks of Stephen Miller, the hardline White House deputy chief of staff who shaped the president’s immigration crackdown and for whom the sometimes abstract notions of character and culture are fundamental to the American ideal.
Trump said that those who hated America wanted to make it impossible to answer the question: “What does it mean to be an American?”
It was a question he did not fully answer. But it is one many will be asking themselves as they mark this particular Fourth of July.
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Michael Koziol is the North America correspondent for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald. He is a former Sydney editor, Sun-Herald deputy editor and a federal political reporter in Canberra.Connect via X or email.From our partners
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