Did Trump, Mamdani and MTG preview an end to identity politics?

On Friday, President Donald Trump welcomed New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist, to The White House. The sitting president didn’t call the incoming mayor of America’s biggest city a communist or any other previously used insult. The two leaders were respectful, some might say even optimistic. The future of the country does not appear as divided as it did even months before.

Hours later, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., a MAGA stalwart, announced her upcoming resignation from the House. The firebrand has seemingly curbed her language towards the other, offering those who both agreed with her conspiracy theories and loathed her stances a chance to bring down the temperature. Partly due to her persistence, the release of the Epstein files became a bipartisan issue, as did the looming expiration of pandemic-era Affordable Care Act subsidies. The future of the country does not appear as divided as it did even months before.

Only time will tell which news will be more impactful. But both of these stories may have offered an off ramp to identity politics.

It’s fair to say Greene once represented the extreme of the GOP. Gaining nationwide notoriety for peddling conspiracies and elevating QAnon, she was once a pariah on nationwide media and extremely popular in her district.

Five years after winning her seat, she’s stepping down while apologizing for raising the temperature, appearing like a pretty mainstream politician on pretty mainstream daytime talk shows like The View. 

Like I’ve pointed out before, most of Greene’s views haven’t exactly changed. But the rhetoric definitely has. And the rhetoric had been pretty consistent since the current sitting president rode a golden elevator down to announce his official bid for his first term.

Some pundits are positing all of this just means she’s running for statewide office, or maybe even running for president. Great.

If that is the case, it’s an even bigger example of the beginning of the end of identity politics. If conspiracy theories and hateful rhetoric work in fewer congressional districts and other areas, that’s a larger sign it’s ending. Motivations may mean something in a court of law, but not when it comes to actually changing opinions. 

It’s fair to say Mamdani has been portrayed by some media ecosystems as the extreme left. A young politician unafraid of embracing the boogeyman-inducing word socialist, Mamdani went from unknown politician polling at single digits to winning a more than a 50 percent of votes in a three-way mayoral race.

He didn’t win that race simply because he was the only democratic socialist on the ticket; he won because he championed some common-sense issues. (It’s the economy, stupid). 

Similar to Greene, Mamdani embraced some of the same issues that helped Trump win over 30 percent of NYC voters in 2024. Like Mamdani said in the White House on Friday, “When we spoke to those voters who voted for President Trump, we heard them speak about cost of living. We focused on that same cost of living. And that’s where I am really looking forward to delivering for New Yorkers in partnership with the President on the affordability agenda.” (It’s the economy, stupid.)

The biggest surprise on Friday wasn’t Greene’s resignation video.

Or Mamdani and Trump’s meet-cute.

Or Trump posing in front of a portrait of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Or Trump being cool with Mamdani calling him a fascist.

The long-term takeaway came early in their shared remarks to the assembled press.

That was when Trump said, “I think you’re going to have, hopefully, a really great mayor. The better he does, the happier I am, I will say. There’s no difference in party. There’s no difference in anything. And we’re going to be helping him to make everybody’s dream come true, having a strong and very safe New York. And congratulations, Mr. Mayor.”

Once again: “There’s no difference in party. There’s no difference in anything.” 

Is this the moment we will identify as the beginning of the end of identity politics? 

One meeting and one resignation video does not dismiss the enormity of the actual actions of any politician last week.

During the same week Trump buddied up to his new favorite New Yorker, he dismissed the brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi, gave Ukraine less than a week to accept a proposal that favors Russia to end the war that Russia started, called a reporter “piggy” and welcomed back to the White House the man who slashed hundreds of thousands of federal jobs, Elon Musk.

We are still not living in an era of civility.

But when three of the most important names in the game, from vastly divergent political backgrounds, are willingly cooling things down, it does appear that there’s now an off-ramp for some of the most heated partisanship.

Reality check: If Trump and Greene were to step back from their long-standing claims that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, that would be evidence of a huge step.

Nevertheless, last week’s baby steps are still progress.