The Rightwing reactions to Tuesday’s New York City mayoral primary keep coming, and the crazies are in a competition to top each other’s gutter-wallowing Islamophobic rhetoric.
You got yer Marjorie Taylor-Greene posting someone else’s photoshop of the Statue of Liberty shrouded in a burka, you got yer Stephen Miller saying this is what happens when you “fail to control immigration” (Mamdani came to the US at the age of seven), and you got yer Nancy Mace tweeting a pic of Mamdani wearing a traditional outfit for Eid al-Adha (link shows the outfit, not her tweet) with the caption, “After 9/11 we said ‘Never Forget.’ I think we sadly have forgotten” — because all Muslims everywhere did 9/11 and are still doing it every single day, the media just won’t tell you. And Sweet Baby Jesus in a hoverbassinet like Grogu’s, the mouthbreathing masses on Twitter ate it up, agreeing that now the Mahomettan Hordes will soon be chopping off all the heads.
No GOP grownups in any GOP rooms, as far as we can see, stepped up to even say, “Hey, I don’t like Mamdani’s politics, but you don’t have to be racist,” because the consensus in today’s MAGA party is that you do have to be racist, at every opportunity. No more of that weaksauce John McCain mildly rebuking the lady who screamed that Barack Obama was “an ARAB!”
But for pure batshit pandering to the scumbag base, it would be hard to beat Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tennessee) who twote Thursday (archive link) a copy of a letter he sent to Attorney General Pam Bondi in which he insisted that Mamdani should be stripped of his citizenship and deported. Look, some wingnut in Congress was gonna go there, so why shouldn’t it be an ambitious Trumpsucker like Ogles, the dipshit who already introduced a constitutional amendment to let Donald Trump run for president again — as if Great Leader even needs “Constitution.”
Why no, no, that FBI investigation into whether Ogles stoled $300,000 from his own campaign still hasn’t gone away, although a federal judge also hasn’t made a decision on whether the case can go forward, either. We don’t know why we’d mention that when Ogles is on such an important publicity-seeking mission. Our mind just goes funny places sometimes.
Ogles claimed that Mamdani should be denaturalized over some allegedly pro-terrorist rhymes in a 2017 rap song no one ever heard of until some oppo researchers handed the clip to the the New York Post for a hit piece about it last week. We’d like to think that Bondi won’t be stupid enough to try to denaturalize a New York City mayoral candidate who did a First Amendment thing eight years ago. But when ICE is routinely handcuffing and arresting Democrats, and the DOJ follows up with political charges, we know better than to say there’s anything this administration won’t do. (OK, fine: This administration will never admit it’s wrong.)
Sadly, the performative condemnations of Mamdani weren’t limited to Republicans, because some “centrist” Democrats apparently still think there’s political value in shooting for a reflexive “Sister Souljah moment” to prove how reasonable and moderate they are. By now, you’d think Democrats would know that such posturing only legitimizes rightwing bullshit.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D – New York) stepped in that mess Thursday, inaccurately suggesting that Mamdani had somehow endorsed a slogan he has never actually spoken or said he agreed with.
Truth Sandwich time: In a June 17 interview with The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, Mamdani was asked to condemn protesters who use the term “globalize the intifada.” Mamdani unequivocally condemned antisemitism, political violence, and “the horrific war crime of October 7,” in detail. But as for the slogan that he has never actually uttered, Mamdani didn’t categorically condemn it, but said that it could reflect “a desperate desire for equality and equal rights in standing up for Palestinian human rights.”
That led to widespread accusations that his comments were antisemitic, and an entire damned Atlantic article condemning him for parsing the term “intifada” too finely instead of just condemning it, full stop. As NPR reports, Mamdani told reporters, again, “I’ve said at every opportunity that there is no room for antisemitism in this city, in this country. I’ve said that because that is something I personally believe.”
Mamdani broke down in tears as he described the vitriol he has faced over his own faith on the campaign trail.
“I get messages that say the only good Muslim is a dead Muslim,” he said. “I get threats on my life, on the people that I love.”
So there’s your context for Gillibrand’s comments Thursday on the Brian Lehrer show, in which she seemed to say that Mamdani was a big fan of the slogan. Replying to a caller who falsely claimed Mamdani had “glorified” Hamas, Gillibrand said that New Yorkers were understandably “alarmed by past public statements. They are alarmed by past positions, particularly references to global jihad,” which, we will underline, Mamdani has not made. The controversy is over whether he adequately condemned protesters who have said it. Gillibrand continued,
“This is a very serious issue, because people that glorify the slaughter of Jews create fear in our communities. The ‘Global Intifada’ is a statement that means destroy Israel and kill all the Jews. So, these are the kinds of things that if Mr. Mamdani is elected our mayor, he will need to assure all New Yorkers that he will protect all Jews and protect houses of worship and protect funding for not-for-profits that meet the needs of these communities.”
Mamdani, as we say, did condemn antisemitic violence quite explicitly, and Lehrer did at least point out, later in the show, that “we can find no evidence that he has supported Hamas or has supported violent jihad, as that caller was asserting.” Gillibrand said that she has asked to meet with Mamdani to “talk through all these things,” but instead of just leaving open the possibility that he could convince her he’s not endorsing murders, she hammered home the idea that he just might be all for it:
“He can tell me his views of the world, and I can learn them firsthand. I think the reference that I had read was ‘Global Intifada,’ specifically, which has very serious meanings that are violent and destructive.”
Lehrer pointed out that Mamdani had never used the phrase “globalize the Intifada,” but had only been asked about other people using it, but again, not good enough for Gillibrand, who said that “as a leader of a city as diverse as New York City with 8 million people, as the largest Jewish population in the country, he should denounce it. And that’s it. Period.”
We’re just naive enough to hope that once they meet one on one, Mamdani will be able to convince the senator that he never endorsed murder, and that she’ll very publicly say it’s all cleared up now. We like to believe people — even Democrats! —can listen to each other and understand things. We are kind of stupid that way.
Oh yeah, and just to keep things interesting, after conceding the Democratic nomination for mayor to Mamdani, sex pest Andrew Cuomo now plans to stay on the general election ballot as an independent, because he’s still not fully convinced that most New Yorkers loathe him, the end.
Did Rep. Andy Ogles Steal $300K From His Campaign? The FBI Is Just Asking (With Warrants)
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