What do Zohran Mamdani, Elon Musk and Arnold Schwarzenegger have in common? At first glance, not much – unless you count their ability to grab America’s attention. Yet all three have thrown a spotlight on one of the country’s strangest constitutional quirks: who gets to become President.In the wake of his landslide victory in New York’s mayoral race, liberals are once again indulging their favourite fantasy — the search for the next Barack Obama. But this time, it’s got a TikTok filter. The man at the centre of that delusion is Zohran Mamdani: socialist assemblyman, son of intellectual royalty, and the first Muslim mayor of New York City. To brunch-table liberals, he is the Barack Obama of the algorithm age. To constitutional lawyers, he’s an impossible case study.
Because no matter how many rent freezes he champions or reels he posts, one thing is immovable: Zohran Mamdani can never, under any circumstance, become President of the United States.
The Constitutional Roadblock
Article II, Section 1 of the US Constitution could not be clearer:“No person except a natural-born Citizen… shall be eligible to the Office of President.”That single line ends every dream of a Mamdani presidency. Born in Kampala, Uganda, in 1991 to Indian-Ugandan parents and naturalised as a US citizen in 2018, Mamdani is not a “natural-born” American.“Natural-born” means citizenship at birth without the need for naturalisation. If you’re born on American soil, or abroad to American parents, you’re eligible. If you’re born elsewhere to non-American parents, no matter how long you’ve lived in the US or how much you love it, you’re not.It’s why Elon Musk, despite his billions and his rockets, will never sit in the Oval Office. It’s why Arnold Schwarzenegger, despite governing California and marrying into the Kennedy dynasty, couldn’t either. And it’s why Zohran Mamdani, even with the entire progressive internet behind him, cannot run for President.Technically, yes. Realistically, no.Over the years, several lawmakers have proposed amending the Constitution to allow naturalised citizens to run for President — most famously Senator Orrin Hatch in 2003, who introduced the “Equal Opportunity to Govern Amendment.” It failed spectacularly. Every attempt since has gone the same way.The clause dates back to the Founding Fathers’ fear of “ambitious foreigners” infiltrating American politics. Two and a half centuries later, that paranoia remains enshrined in law.So even if Mamdani’s movement spreads beyond New York, his political ascent stops at the vice-presidential shortlist.Even without the constitutional block, the political climb would be Himalayan.Mamdani’s brand — democratic socialism, Muslim faith, pro-Palestinian activism — makes him a folk hero in Brooklyn but a liability in most of America. His platform of free buses, rent freezes and public grocery stores thrills tenants in Queens but bewilders homeowners in Arizona.Barack Obama made Chicago feel like a metaphor for America. Mamdani’s politics are proudly, even defiantly, local. He speaks for the overworked and underpaid in a post-pandemic, rent-burdened city — not for retirees in Florida or truckers in Wisconsin.New York is not America. It is a laboratory of extremes that makes national politics look like provincial theatre.
The Religion and Race Equation
No Muslim has ever been a major party nominee for the presidency. Despite decades of progress, Islamophobia remains woven into the American political bloodstream.Obama’s middle name — Hussein — was enough to fuel years of birther conspiracies. Mamdani, by contrast, is openly Muslim and proudly so. He wears his faith and politics on his sleeve, including a vocal pro-Palestine stance that would be electoral poison in swing states.And while Obama’s mixed-race heritage soothed white anxieties — Hawaiian upbringing, Christian faith, Harvard credentials — Mamdani’s story unsettles them: born in Africa, brown, Muslim, son of immigrants, and unfiltered about all of it. For voters who still see “American” as a cultural rather than legal identity, that’s too many hyphens.Mamdani’s politics are a revival of old-school socialist moralism — the belief that capitalism can be bent toward justice. It resonates in deep-blue cities but collapses under national scrutiny. Americans like socialists in history books, not in office.Bernie Sanders couldn’t sell “democratic socialism” to half the country even with decades of credibility and a Vermont accent. Mamdani’s urban socialism, filtered through TikTok and poetry, may feel modern but carries the same political baggage.In the American mainstream, “socialist” still translates to “taxes, turmoil and tyranny.”Mamdani’s unapologetic criticism of Israel — he has accused it of apartheid and genocide — makes him a hero to the activist left but a nightmare for any national campaign manager.In New York, the political calculus is complex enough to accommodate him. In Pennsylvania, Michigan, or Georgia, those same statements would dominate every debate stage and television ad.Obama managed to irritate Netanyahu while keeping AIPAC close. Mamdani has done the opposite — morally consistent but politically radioactive.Zohran Mamdani’s story remains extraordinary. He has rewritten the rules of city politics, fused activism with governance, and made the mayor’s office look like a social movement.He can be many things — a transformative mayor, a senator, perhaps even a cabinet member. But he cannot, by law, be President. Not because he is socialist, Muslim, or brown. But because he wasn’t born in America.Article II does not care about charisma, faith or ideology. It cares about birthplace. In the eyes of the Constitution, Mamdani’s revolution may be righteous, poetic and algorithmically irresistible — but it will never be inaugurated.
