You Can't Deport A Movement
They're Not Afraid Of Zohran Mamdani Because He's "Radical"
As you know by now, Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist, child of immigrants, and State Assembly member from Queens, is the Democratic party nominee for mayor of New York City.
Mamdani stormed the first round of ranked choice voting, surpassing the considerably better-funded Ghost of Gropers Past. Barring a 3rd party Cuomo run, Mamdani will face off against a Republican challenger in November, plus whatever superPAC dark money is aligned against him by enraged centrists.
And all the Zohran Mamdani stories I’ve read since election night fall neatly into two categories:
He terrifies the Democratic establishment.
He really freaks out the racist idiots.
That’s it. That’s the Venn diagram. And in the middle? A 33-year-old compassionate Muslim with a vision board and a dream.
Let’s be honest—this man didn’t just beat Andrew Cuomo in the NYC mayoral primary. He beat a party system. Cuomo spent millions, got every establishment endorsement, rolled out the unions and it wasn’t even close.
The Democratic machine cannot process Zohran Mamdani. He wasn’t created in a lab by corporate consultants. He doesn’t owe anybody.
He talks about housing like it’s a human right, which actual Christians would do. He didn’t hire a PR firm to find the "Muslim Joe Rogan." He just showed up, knocked on doors, and told the truth.
Cuomo ran on name recognition. Mamdani ran on rent control. Guess which one people can actually afford?
THEY CALLED HIM A TERRORIST, HE CALLED FOR RENT CONTROL
And the MAGA right? They’ve lost their entire racist minds.
Laura Loomer tastefully posted: “NYC is about to see 9/11 2.0.”
First of all—no one has radicalized more Americans than you, Laura. Secondly, she ignores the heroic sacrifices of Muslim New Yorkers that day, because that's what racists have to do.
But the greatest mistake the ultraconservative fundamentalist Christians make in their vulgar 9/11 comparisons is this: that attack was carried out by ultraconservative fundamentalist Muslims. Ideologically, our religious conservatives’ values are substantially closer to the Taliban than Assemblyman Mamdani’s liberal values.
The New York Young Republican Club said Mamdani should be deported using the Communist Control Act. The Communist Control Act? “The Call to Prayer is coming from inside the Kremlin!”
Guys, I get that you were too young to wallow in 2002-era Islamophobia, but the Cold War called and wants its slurs back. The New York Young Republicans couldn’t fill a food court, but they want to rewrite the Constitution.
You ever notice how white conservatives always panic when a brown guy with an accent wins something? “He’s a foreign radical!” Sir, he’s from the borough Trump grew up in. This isn’t the rise of radicalism. It’s the collapse of your comfort zone.
These people raised to hate conservative Muslims seriously don’t know how to handle this: “Oh no, he believes in universal healthcare and also doesn’t eat bacon!
Republican friends trying to deport Zohran Mamdani need to understand that he’s from Queens - he isn’t going anywhere. He’s not the foreigner. You’re the flashback.
MAGA Twitter’s out here acting like Mamdani’s gonna take office and ban bagels and launch a workers’ uprising from the halal cart.
Like: “Oh no, Zohran wants to destroy New York City by making it affordable to live in!” Like it's a threat.
Yes, he’s terrifying — to landlords. And honestly? Good. If your net worth depends on someone else's rent being 70% of their paycheck, maybe you should be terrified.
And get this straight — to these people, Zohran Mamdani is simultaneously:
a devout Muslim,
a Marxist atheist,
a radical immigrant outsider,
a product of elite liberal academia,
a terrorist,
and also... soft on crime?
You can’t call someone both a “Sharia Law extremist” and “woke social-justice liberal.” That's a Fox News Mad Libs.
He’s about to destroy 24 years of Islamophobic propaganda and these bigoted bobbleheads are signing up to play the villains.
THE ANTISEMITISM THING
Of course, he’s now being accused of antisemitism by FOX news viewers who haven’t yet learned how to spell the word. These are the folks who didn’t care when Trump had Kanye & simian child-man Nazi Nick Fuentes over for dinner; who were unperturbed when Trump called 87% of US Jews “disloyal;” and who thought it was just swell when Trump pardoned the “Camp Auschwitz” guy from January 6th.
But calling people who oppose certain actions of the Israeli civilian government “antisemitic” has become very popular for people who’ve never much cared about antisemitism.
Brad Lander, NYC’s Jewish & recently quite heroic Comptroller, who probably ran the most focused and dedicated campaign for third place in the history of politics, has been instrumental in showing the absurdity of these claims. He and Mamdani have formed a Jewish-Muslim alliance of 2 that New Yorkers understand - and delight in. You know how sometimes siamese twins have surgery to separate? I’ve been pretty sure these guys are gonna somehow become surgically attached.
THE REVOLUTION WILL BE RENT-STABILIZED
They keep on calling Mamdani “anti-American” because he wants rent control and cops who don’t shoot unarmed people (he also wants to free up the NYPD from being social workers with guns). Meanwhile, beating the crap out of cops on the Capitol steps for a lie remains acceptable — but he’s the threat to democracy?
Mamdani prays five times a day and supports public housing. So what’s their point? That he wants conditions to be on earth is it is in heaven? That he believes poor people should have food, Palestinian lives matter as much as Israeli lives, and that working American Muslims, Christians & Jews need to form alliances to push back against the billionaires controlling everything?
Of course, Muslim-ban devotee Donald Trump rage-posted on Truth Social about Mamdani, and do take note — it wasn’t a political statement. It was more like a pathetic deranged Facebook comment written by your uncle after three Coors Lights and freebasing a Tucker Carlson rerun.
He called Mamdani a “100% Communist Lunatic” — which, coming from Trump, is basically a badge of honor. This guy called Angela Merkel a Marxist because she didn’t laugh at his jokes & knew how to pronounce the word “democracy.”
But notice - Trump didn’t talk about Mamdani’s policies; because Trump hasn’t actually read a policy since someone first handed him Mein Kampf in large print.
Instead, he mocked Mamdani’s appearance, voice, and intelligence. Which is hilarious coming from a guy who looks like a creamsicle dipped in rotting meat and left out in a nuclear silo.
Trump could’ve talked about:
NYC’s housing crisis
Rent control
Immigration
Health care access
Fare hikes on working people
But these are issues Trump never cared about when he still lived here. So instead, Trump launched a racial panic attack.
At this point, Trump’s Truth Social feed is a cry for help in caps lock. He’s like a guy screaming at pigeons in Central Park, but with access to nuclear codes.
If Mamdani really were a communist, he'd nationalize Trump Tower and turn it into public housing. Sounds awful, I know.
TRUMP ISN’T SCARED OF MAMDANI BECAUSE HE’S RADICAL.
Trump & his lackeys are scared because the more hardworking white Americans hear from leaders like Mamdani, the harder the oligarchs are gonna have to work to keep those white folks angry & horrified of liberals, trans kids and migrant nannies.
Mamdani is young, popular, principled, pro-working people, brown, and unbought — and that makes Trump short-circuit like a Roomba tossed in a bathtub.
The unlikely exception among MAGA racists is Steve Bannon, who said of Mamdani to NBC: “He did something that AOC and Bernie haven’t been able to do – he connected populism to affordability. Republicans better start taking this guy seriously and they better stop wishing that he wins and they will automatically run against his policies in 2026. This guy is a very skilled politician. He’s clearly had a lot of training. He’s got radical ideas, but he presents them in a sunny upbeat way and people feel like he’s fighting for them, particularly on an issue that Republicans haven’t connected on yet”
You know what Zohran Mamdani did that terrifies them most?
He won without selling out.
He didn’t run from “Abolish ICE.”
He didn’t throw Palestinians under the bus.
He didn’t rub elbows with hedge fund ghouls and call it “bipartisanship.”
He talked about what actually matters—housing, wages, healthcare, dignity—and people listened.
He didn’t have a Super PAC. He had super-motivated volunteers in a city that knows 45 years of trickle-down economics haven’t done what we were promised.
Mandani didn’t “find swing voters.” He found voters. In the Bangladeshi delis, the Yemeni bodegas, the Irish pubs, the Dominican beauty salons, the public schools with broken heat, the rent-burdened apartments in Jackson Heights.
He didn’t wait to be anointed. He went and earned it.
And that’s why the establishment can’t stand him—because he makes them look fake.
He’s not the outlier. He’s the future. At least, he could be.
He didn’t “crash the party.” He’s throwing a brand-new one.
Now none of this is to say that he’d have an easy time. If he achieves the Mayor’s office, he’ll inevitably hit the brick walls of political reality a younger Bill Clinton & Barack Obama smacked into. Yes, he’d compromise; yes, he’d let down supporters once he faces the political realities of this job. Yes, there are those who’ll call him a sellout, etc.
But this week we saw a skilled young leader terrify both the Democratic establishment and freak out the right wing racists. Because he’s proof that you can win—without fear, without shame, and without apologizing for your name.
They’re not scared of Zohran Mamdani because he’s dangerous.
They’re scared because he’s calm.
He’s smart. He’s unbought. He talks policy instead of slogans, with Obama/Buttiegieg level messaging skills.
And he won with a coalition of brown kids, union members, seniors, and working people who are sick of being stepped on.
That’s why they’re scared — because he doesn’t fit their stereotype. He’s not violent, he’s not radical — he’s effective. And if a brown Muslim democratic socialist can win in NYC, then their whole idea of America starts to fall apart.
So to the people attacking him? Keep panicking. Keep melting. Because Zohran Mamdani isn’t your worst nightmare.
He’s the overdue receipt for all the crap that’s holding America back. And at this moment, he best represents America’s unfinished promise.
I’m rooting for you Democrats. Wise up on this.
If you still think Zohran Mamdani is the problem, maybe the problem was your definition of “normal.”
Hope Mamdani CRUSHES his opponent(s)! Let’s Make American Kind Again!
As always, you're 💯% right, John Fugelsang. Thank you!