Following the decisive victory of Zohran Mamdani in the New York Democratic mayoral primary this Tuesday, 26-year-old Mae Lee is realizing in real time that she is quite unfamiliar with hope.
“I’m super well acquainted with your run-of-the-mill negative emotions like sadness, despair, and disbelief,” Mae told reporters gathered at the scene. “Hell, I love to throw in a bit of abject disinterest every now and then to spice things up! I am completely unfamiliar with hope. In fact, it is sending chills and other strange reactions through my body.”
When asked to pinpoint the last time she felt hopeful, Mae said, “Ummm, 2008? But I was ten.”
“I really loved ‘Dynamite’ by Taio Cruz,” she explained. “I’d say that was the last time something really spurred hope in me.”
Mae admits that she hadn’t quite come to consciousness yet when Obama was elected in 2008, and since then, every election has been “kind of a downward spiral of despair and disbelief.”
“Biden 2020 was a fun moment for sure,” she continued. “But even then, I wasn’t really hopeful about Biden, you know? I was just pleasantly surprised that things would not be worse than we could ever imagine. That didn’t last long, though.”
According to Mae, the most intense positive emotion she has allowed herself to feel in the past several years is “cautious optimism.”
“You can’t really be let down by ‘cautious optimism’ in the same way you can be let down by hope,” she explained. “‘Cautious’ is right there in the title! But there’s something about New Yorkers platforming a Democratic Socialist who wants free buses, cheaper childcare, and a more equitable city that’s making me want to do a little dance. I haven’t wanted to do a little dance since I first heard ‘Dynamite’ by Taio Cruz!”
As of press time, Mae was taking a moment to let the sun kiss her face and the breeze caress her skin for the first time in years.
“Wait…” she continued. “This rocks.”
