the elephant in the room

In a year saddled with so much voter apathy, Zohran Mamdani’s campaign seemed to have done the impossible: get people excited about politics (and politicians) again. Like everyone else in this country, I had been closely following the New York City mayoral race for months. Watching the results come in on election night, I realized that his campaign had reignited something in me that I thought had been long gone: genuine optimism. 

And while I would love to continue to revel in the joy of the election night win, I woke up the next morning and was quickly reminded of the relentless Islamophobia that had plagued this election cycle. From Cuomo’s racist AI-generated ads portraying "Criminals for Mamdani", or his insistence that Mamdani would cheer on another 9/11, or even Rudy Giuliani’s post-election day crashout (complete with images of 9/11), much of the response to his candidacy had dredged up some of the most racist and Islamophobic tropes. One of Cuomo’s ads even went so far as to darken and lengthen Zohran’s beard, lightening his skin, clearly trying to portray a distinct image of him laden with Islamophobic intent. 

With all of that in mind, I think it’s imperative to consider how the tropes deployed against him worked in concert to push a much deeper anti-immigrant sentiment. Politicians throughout this cycle relied on false narratives about both immigrants and crime to manipulate the ongoing moral panic about both issues. This was very clearly wielded against Zohran at many points and was only enhanced through Islamophobia. When Republicans called for his denaturalization, I was reminded of a few things: how easy it is for the state to render you stateless; how Islamophobia provides space for immigrants to be rendered “The Other”; and how that otherization, combined with the criminalization of immigrant groups, both work to rationalize any abuse as a necessary evil by the state.

Many of us have grown accustomed to some of the pettiness that often emerges in politics, but this race felt markedly different. It certainly didn’t help that the attacks surfaced in tandem with a notable absence of support from his would-be allies, other members of the Democratic Party. I expected opposition from his actual opponents, but watching the endorsements roll in for this guy felt very telling. 

You might assume that the same party that had suffered such a catastrophic loss in the last election would have rushed to endorse the young, exciting candidate who had energized people across the country. Unfortunately, nope. That was simply too much to expect from the octogenarians at the helm of the party. Notably, Chuck Schumer never endorsed Mamdani; a glaring omission, considering how much Mamdani had been so well-received by young people across the country. Hakeem Jeffries had also been under pressure to endorse him for months, finally doing so a little over a week out from the election. Although you can’t expect much from the same people who are more focused on prostrating themselves for AIPAC money and who see their role as “keeping the left Pro-Israel." It all feels particularly damning when you think about the kinds of people the Democratic Party has been much more eager to embrace.

Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò recently wrote about shame and the departure from political correctness over the last few years. His words are ones I continue to return to as I metabolize moments like the responses to the Mamdani campaign. 

“A key aspect of the way we lived with each other before these self-styled epochal developments involved exactly the ‘social shame and cultural pressure’ that Klein and other influential voices now come to condemn: ‘political correctness’ as it was known in earlier days, or ‘wokeness’ as it has come to be rebranded in recent years.” 

When considering the consequences of the collective abandonment of political correctness, it comes as no surprise that we have seen the normalization of such flagrant bigotry. Pushing the line on the norms governing moral etiquette, the Overton Window has shifted so far to the right that all of the -phobias and -isms that were once seen as reprehensible and career-damaging have now become commonplace. Plainly, so many of the hateful things that people say publicly out loud now would have had them ostracized just a few years ago. This shift away from political correctness, coupled with the shortage of tangible social penalties, has made space for an outward embrace of open white supremacists, Nazis, Islamophobes, etc. 

And say you choose to defend marginalized groups? There are now swaths of people who will flatten your position as “virtue signalling” and “performative activism.” What does it say about where we are in society that extending care to other people is automatically perceived as performance? But, I digress.

Throughout the election cycle, there were a few moments when the candidates were asked various questions to indicate their stance on Israel and Palestine. (A little odd, given the fact that Israel is not located within any of the boroughs of New York City). Regardless, this has obviously become a much more politically salient conversation across the country, especially in the last year. In the New York mayoral race, I think it’s important to understand how this question was leveraged strategically, specifically against Mamdani.

Any answer other than a resounding affirmation that Israel has the right to exist would have lent itself to the deployment of one of the most successful tools of Israeli propaganda: the conflation that any critique of Israel is a critique of Jewish people everywhere. Israel, as a colonial, political project, has been extremely effective in conflating antisemitism with antizionism. Antizionism is an opposition to Zionism (the movement for the creation of the Jewish state in the Middle East); antisemitism is the prejudice and discrimination towards Jewish people. Suppose you can get people to accept the conflation of antizionism with antisemitism, the Israeli state becomes much more effective at nullifying the protest movements against the genocide. As a result, this conflation has been extremely effective in manufacturing consent with the actions of the state of Israel. When deployed, it dually silences efforts in support of Palestinians and shields the Israeli government from legitimate criticism.

To his part, Mamdani reiterated a clear, coherent, and fair position on Israel every single time. In one debate, the candidates were asked where they would travel on their first foreign trip as Mayor, with both Andrew Cuomo and Whitney Tilson responding that they would travel to Israel. Mamdani answered that he would stay in New York City, focusing on New Yorkers. Oddly enough, the moderator then asked (only Mamdani) if he would visit Israel, to which he responded that he wouldn’t. Rather, his focus remained on standing up for Jewish New Yorkers and meeting them wherever they were in the city, whether in their boroughs or synagogues. Bizarrely, the moderator continued to press the question: "Yes or no, do you believe in a Jewish State of Israel?” Mamdani answered, "I believe Israel has a right to exist." The moderator asked, "As a Jewish state?" Mamdani replied: "As a state with equal rights." Setting aside the devious implications behind this line of questioning, the implication that a man running for mayor of an American city must pledge his allegiance to a foreign state, or be deemed otherwise traitorous, is objectively baffling. 

Further, this line of interrogation towards the sole Muslim candidate in the race is illustrative of how much of a stronghold the conflation of antisemitism and antizionism has in American political discourse, and how much more dangerous it becomes when weaponized with Islamophobia. This line of questioning is also unhelpful because it forces people into making a false choice; reinforcing this framing implies that you can only support Jewish people or Palestinian people (not both). Personally, I think that is patently false. And I think it plays into the reality that many people treat politics like a zero-sum game, internalizing one community's gain as a loss to themselves. I firmly disagree with that notion and would argue that you can support a free Palestine while remaining steadfastly in support of Jewish people. Support of one community doesn’t inherently quash any efforts in support of the other. Speaking out against the actions of the Israeli government should not be taken as an indictment on all Jewish people - that would be antisemitism at work.

One of the most prominent organizations against antisemitism, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), has unfortunately helped steward Islamophobia in the name of combating antisemitism. Following his election-night victory, the ADL announced the launch of the Mamdani Monitor to track the new administration’s priorities and appointments, as well as a tip line for people to report antisemitic incidents in NYC. Considering that tracking elected officials would be an unprecedented effort for the ADL, this immediately felt unsettling for many reasons. 

Firstly, in his election night speech, Mamdani explicitly named antisemitism as one of his priorities: “... and we will build a City Hall that stands steadfast alongside Jewish New Yorkers and does not waver in the fight against the scourge of antisemitism.” Secondly, the ADL faced backlash for its response to Elon's Nazi salute. More recently, a Maine Democrat came under fire for an alleged Nazi tattoo, which elicited no response from the ADL. If the ADL’s mission is to target antisemitism, why are its efforts the loudest against the Muslim Mayor-elect (who has consistently expressed support for Jewish people)? Quite frankly, I believe that Jewish people are done a disservice when efforts to combat antisemitism are reduced to 1) ensuring complete obedience with the Israeli government and 2) being used to facilitate heightened surveillance of Muslims and other non-Jewish people. 

Despite all of this, I remain very excited for the people of New York. I maintain a healthy skepticism of all politicians; still, I hope that Mamdani can translate his incredible campaign into meaningful change for New Yorkers. 

I wrote this piece because I don’t think enough non-Muslims are speaking up for Muslims. As a Christian (and simply as a person who cares about other people), I see it as my duty to speak up for Muslims in the face of so much rampant, disgusting Islamophobia. I follow plenty of Muslim and Jewish writers who have spoken out against the Islamophobia that’s surfaced over the last year, and I wanted to be another voice speaking out against it as well. 

In a world that’s moved so far away from political correctness, Islamophobia feels like the elephant in the room. Everyone knows it’s there, but nobody acknowledges its presence. The legacy of the War on Terror continues to loom heavily over this country, but that shadow unfairly hovers prominently over all Muslims. There is no doubt in my mind that there will continue to be Islamophobic attacks against Mamdani and every other Muslim, and I think that we need to be loudly pushing back on them at every instance.