One funeral, one birth: From Cheney’s dark shadows to Mamdani’s bright horizon

In the span of just twenty-four hours, two events unfolded that seemed to bookend an era. On 3 November 2025, Dick Cheney—the chief architect of America’s forever wars—died, bringing to a close the life of a man whose decisions reshaped the Middle East through force, fear, and extraordinary violence. The very next day, 4 November, New Yorkers elected Zohran Mamdani, a son of African and Asian Diasporas and one of the most outspoken critics of United States’ imperial power, as their next mayor. One figure exited the world having built an empire of dominance abroad while sowing the seeds of dictatorship at home. The other entered the global stage offering a radically different political imagination rooted in justice, equality, affordability, a novelty in the American political lexicon, and anti-war ethics. The coincidence of their crossings invites a simple question with profound implications: how is Cheney remembered today—especially in the MENA region he helped devastate—and how is Mamdani being seen as he rises?

The contrast sharpened immediately in Washington. While the White House maintained a conspicuous silence on Cheney’s death—issuing no condolences and making no official comment—it weighed in repeatedly on Mamdani’s victory, offering a mix of cautious praise and political hedging within the same week. That imbalance spoke volumes about the shifting moral landscape as much as about the men themselves. The architect of the War on Terror passed with minimal acknowledgment from the administration, while a progressive, anti-imperial mayor-elect suddenly drew attention usually reserved for presidents.

The gravity of Cheney’s legacy extends far beyond symbolic critique. In a recent interview with The Analysis, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, described Cheney’s tenure as systematically breaching international law—from the invasion of Iraq under false pretences to the authorisation of torture programs that defied global conventions. Wilkerson went further, asserting that, morally and legally, Cheney and his closest aides “should have all been tried for war crimes.” 

Mamdani drew regional attention not for the office he will hold, but for what his victory seemed to signify: a rare moment when an American electoral outcome resonated with the vocabulary of justice, accountability, and anti-war politics long demanded across the Middle East and North Africa. In Arab media and intellectual circles, the contrast was read less as coincidence than as a quiet verdict on two competing visions of America—one defined by unpunished violence and silence, the other by moral and political engagement.

For many in the region, the real story was not about Cheney or Mamdani alone, but about America’s uneasy relationship with its own history. Cheney’s death prompted the expected tributes from loyalists and political allies, yet the White House itself remained measured, cautious, almost evasive. In contrast, Mamdani’s victory drew enthusiastic attention across the region. To observers in the Middle East, this disparity spoke volumes: Washington is quick to celebrate gestures that flatter its moral image, yet hesitant to confront the architects of its most damaging policies. In the ambivalence of official silence, many heard a louder message than any scripted eulogy.

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The very issue Cheney long downplayed—the suffering of Palestinians and the ongoing Gaza conflict—emerged as a central theme of Mamdani’s campaign, resonating with a region weary of American indifference in favour of the “war on terror.” While Cheney’s legacy is inseparable from wars abroad and prisons without law and support for the rich at home; Mamdani’s victory symbolised attention to justice, affordability, international accountability and moral clarity that the United States has often neglected. In the eyes of Arab media and intellectual circles, this stark juxtaposition conveyed a clear lesson: American power is remembered not only for its force but also for what it chooses to ignore, and the silences of empire can speak as loudly as its bullets. 

The coincidence of Cheney’s death and Mamdani’s victory came at a moment that underscored a deeper political shift in America with the potential to shape the midterm elections in 2027—in a departure from what Cheney once stood for/represented. In the 2025 off-year elections, progressive Democrats made significant gains: Mikie Sherrill, a former congresswoman, won the governorship of New Jersey, and Abigail Spanberger flipped Virginia’s governorship for the Democrats. Meanwhile, Mamdani—an avowed democratic socialist—won New York City’s mayoralty in a stunning grassroots upset. 

For viewers in the Middle East and North Africa, these results weren’t random—they formed a pattern. Even as Trump remains in the White House, the vision Cheney helped champion—war, fear, imperial dominance—is being challenged by a generation of leaders speaking in a language he worked so hard to suppress. Mamdani’s win is no outlier: he is part of a quiet but decisive trend, signalling that the empire Cheney built may be crumbling not just abroad, but from within.

The juxtaposition of Cheney’s passing and Mamdani’s rise offers more than historical irony; it signals a turning point in how America’s choices are perceived both at home and abroad. Across the MENA region, the contrast is clear: one figure embodied the exercise of power with impunity, the other represents a politics of conscience and accountability. In the United States, the successive victories of progressive leaders—from statehouses to city halls—reflect a generational rejection of Cheney’s ethos of fear and dominance. Together, these developments suggest that the moral and political architecture Cheney helped construct is being quietly, yet decisively, dismantled, and that new voices, grounded in justice and ethical engagement, are beginning to define what American power might mean in the twenty-first century.

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