What Mamdani’s Win — and How Cuomo and Trump Reacted — Reveal About Power, Safety, and Change
As a tenured New York City resident and trauma-informed leadership coach, I’ve spent decades feeling this city’s oscillation between expansion and constriction. We call it resilience—but often it’s just high-functioning fear.
I’ve watched communities, corporations, and coalitions replicate trauma cycles: control what can’t be understood, dismiss what can’t be contained.
And now we’re seeing an escalation. With Donald Trump taking office a second time, the pulses of power are no longer subtle—they’re loud. Threats of deploying the military to cities, warnings about “experiments,” framing dissent as an existential threat: these are the nervous-system alarms of a leadership culture running from its own fear.
Trauma-informed leadership asks us to pause—to notice: What if the discomfort is data?
What if the tightening grip, the simmering silence, the urgency of control are not isolated events—but signals of a deeper dysregulation in how we lead, how we belong, how we show up?
The Energy Beneath the Election
When Zohran Mamdani won the New York City mayoral race, my body felt it before my mind caught up. That subtle buzz in the air — the pulse that only New Yorkers recognize when history shifts underfoot.
Because in this city, power doesn’t just change hands — it changes nervous systems.
Mamdani’s win didn’t just symbolize a political upset. It represented a collective exhale from those who’ve been holding tension for decades — the marginalized, the misrepresented, the misunderstood.
And, right on cue, came the counter-wave: fear.
Andrew Cuomo warned New Yorkers against “radical experiments.”
Donald Trump called Mamdani a “100 % Communist Lunatic” and threatened to cut federal funding.
Different tone. Same vibration: fear disguised as authority.
Fear: The Nervous System of Power
In “The Soul of Man Under Socialism”, Oscar Wilde wrote that charity “creates a multitude of sins.” He wasn’t condemning kindness — he was diagnosing cowardice. Wilde saw how people use “goodness” to sidestep transformation: to soothe symptoms rather than dismantle the systems that cause them.
He understood something that neuroscience now confirms — when a society is ruled by fear, it performs morality instead of embodying integrity.
Fear doesn’t just live in people; it lives in power structures.
And leadership culture is one of its favorite hiding places.
Fear becomes the nervous system of the organization — invisible but directive.
It fires when change walks in the door, when equity feels “too radical,” when transparency threatens comfort.
In that state, power mistakes control for safety.
Fear starts to masquerade as virtue:
Micromanagement disguised as “high standards”
Silence dressed up as “professionalism”
Control mistaken for “stability”
It’s the same reflex Wilde saw in Victorian charity — protect the image of goodness rather than confront the pain beneath it.
So when Trump threatened to cut funding and smear Mamdani as a “100% Communist Lunatic”, and Cuomo warned that New Yorkers “don’t want experiments,” what we were witnessing wasn’t just political theater — it was nervous-system theater.
Legacy leadership under threat does what unhealed bodies do: it tightens, deflects, and blames.
They weren’t protecting the people.
They were protecting their nervous systems — their familiar sense of control.
What Trauma-Informed Leadership Teaches Us
Trauma-informed leadership is nervous-system literacy applied to power.
It teaches us to regulate before we retaliate, to make safety a shared experience rather than a personal privilege. The mantra of a regulated leader looks like this: “If I can’t control it, I can connect with it.”
When Mamdani responded to Trump’s smear campaign by saying, “Turn the volume up,” he wasn’t showing defiance—he was modeling groundedness. He didn’t collapse into fear or rush to appease it. That’s what nervous-system leadership looks like in public.
Embodied Action Steps for Leaders
Action Steps
Name the Fear. Where is fear disguising itself as “responsibility” in your work or leadership style?
Regulate Before Responding. When you feel attacked, what helps you return to your baseline before making a decision? (Hint: slow breath > fast defense.)
Redefine Safety. What does collective safety look like — not just for you, but for the most marginalized person in your room or organization?
Practice Repair. Leadership isn’t about never rupturing; it’s about learning to repair without shame.
Lead Through Connection, Not Control. Ask, “What’s trying to emerge here?” instead of “How do I stop this from changing?”
Reflection Prompts:
When have you seen fear disguised as leadership in your workplace or community?
What part of you still believes that control equals safety?
How might you practice co-regulation in your next difficult conversation?
What does “turning the volume up” mean for your truth right now?
Closing Vibes
Mamdani’s win — and the fearful backlash that followed — reveal something essential: when a system’s nervous system is dysregulated, progress feels like threat.
But as Wilde reminded us, “Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s original virtue.”
So maybe our virtue now is regulation — the audacity to stay grounded while the old world shakes.
Because the opposite of hate isn’t tolerance.
It’s freedom from fear — and the courage to build what safety never dared imagine.
About the Author
Minal Kamlani is a trauma-informed ADHD recovery coach based in NYC. She works with neurodivergent adults in recovery from trauma, burnout, and survival-based coping. Her coaching blends structure and nervous system awareness to help clients reclaim function—without shame or perfectionism. Learn more at Higher Vibes Coaching.