MAGA influencers, Republican lawmakers, and conspiracy theorists all responded to Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral victory in New York by pushing far-right anti-immigrant and Islamophobic rhetoric, and claiming the city had fallen.
Mamdani, who campaigned on progressive issues and identifies as a democratic socialist, will be the youngest New York mayor in over a century. He will also be the city’s first Muslim and South Asian mayor. With over 90 percent of the two million votes counted on Wednesday morning, Mamdani held an almost 9 point lead over former governor Andrew Cuomo, with Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa trailing far behind at just 7 percent of the vote.
“The conventional wisdom would tell you that I am far from the perfect candidate,” Mamdani said during his victory speech on Tuesday night. “I am young, despite my best efforts to grow older. I am Muslim. I am a democratic socialist. And most damning of all, I refuse to apologize for any of this.”
It is Mamdani’s embrace of New York’s immigrants and his own Muslim upbringing that most of the MAGAsphere fixated on, calling him everything from a “a third world communist” to a “Marxist” and “a jihadi.”
“A third world communist won in New York because New York is a third world city now,” right-wing podcaster Matt Walsh wrote on X. “This is mass migration working exactly as intended. It isn’t anymore complicated than that.”
White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller, the architect of the Trump administration’s immigration policy, meanwhile posted a screenshot from a 2023 report on nyc.gov website that showed around 50 percent of New York households contain at least one immigrant, without adding a comment.
Others suggested that New York’s election result would be a harbinger of things to come across the rest of the US. “Democrats in New York City have chosen a true extremist and Marxist, and the consequences will be felt across our entire nation,” speaker of the House Mike Johnson wrote on X. “Zohran Mamdani’s election cements the Democrat Party’s transformation to a radical, big-government socialist party.”
Many others focused on Mamdani’s Muslim faith, pushing Islamophobic conspiracy theories about the future of New York. “America is about to become a very violent country, Mamdani will encourage Muslims to commit political assassinations to acquire power and silence critics,” conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer wrote in one of her many posts about the election on X.
Loomer also slammed billionaire Bill Ackman, who congratulated Mamdani on Tuesday night despite his intense campaign against him over the last few months. “Never congratulate a jihadi,” Loomer wrote in response to Ackman’s post. “Mamdani wants you dead because you are Jewish and American.”
Mamdani’s campaign promoted religious tolerance and highlighted the fact that he grew up in an interfaith household, where his father was Muslim and his mother was Hindu. Mamdani ran a campaign on making New York affordable for working class residents, promoting policies including free childcare, a network of city-owned grocery stores, and more to tackle the cost of living crisis. “I don’t think that we should have billionaires because, frankly, it is so much money in a moment of such inequality,” Mamdani told NBC’s Meet the Press in July.
Some compared Mamdani to London’s mayor Sadiq Khan, who was also his city’s first Muslim mayor.
“New York, be afraid, be very afraid,” Dan Wootton, a pro-MAGA influencer based in the UK, wrote on X. “Zohran Mamdani will take you to a very dark place. Just like Sadiq Khan has done to London. The woke MSM are despicable in their celebrations tonight.”
Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, speaking on his War Room podcast on Tuesday night, also compared Mamdani to Khan, and said the new mayor would make New York the “wokeist city on planet earth,” while describing the new mayor as everything from a “neo-Marxist” to a “jihadist.”
Bannon also suggested that the Department of Homeland Security “denaturalize” Mamdani and “ship him back to Uganda,” where he was born. Mamdani is a dual citizen of the US and Uganda.
Other influencers and politicians claimed disaster for New York. “Mamdani will usher in a crime wave the likes of which New York has not seen since the 1990s,” far-right influencer Jack Posobiec said on Fox News Tuesday evening, citing something TPUSA cofounder Charlie Kirk posted on X earlier this year.
Similarly, Florida representative Randy Fine wrote on X that “New York City has fallen,” adding: “America is next if we don’t stop it.” Nancy Mace took a break from posting about her expletive-filled airport tirade to issue a prophecy: “Bread lines about to be a real thing in New York. Congrats.”
In Texas, governor Greg Abbott echoed the sentiment. “Join me for a moment of silence for NYC,” Abbott wrote on X. “Thoughts & prayers.”
President Donald Trump, meanwhile, hasn’t yet responded to Mamdani’s victory in his home city. Mamdani directly addressed the president in his victory speech, and said “if anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him, it is the city that gave rise to him.”
Almost simultaneously, Trump cryptically posted on Truth Social: “…AND SO IT BEGINS!.”
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: wired.com
