Category: Zohran Mamdani
Pity equals power for the progressive class
American politics once revolved around ideas — tax reform, national defense, energy independence, health care. But one side of the aisle has abandoned the work of persuasion for the theater of grievance. The modern left no longer campaigns on what it can build but on what has supposedly been done to it.
Victimhood has become the left’s organizing principle. The emotional currency of grievance has replaced the intellectual currency of ideas. That shift isn’t just cynical; it’s corrosive. It undermines the American spirit of self-reliance, accountability, and perseverance — the virtues that built this country in the first place.
Let others compete for who has suffered most. America’s story has never been written by its victims — only by its victors.
Consider New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani. Last month, he delivered a tearful campaign speech recalling how his “aunt stopped taking the subway after 9/11 because she didn’t feel safe in her hijab.” The story went viral. Media outlets rushed to elevate it as another morality play about post-9/11 Islamophobia.
Within days, however, fact-checkers discovered that the “aunt” didn’t live in New York City — and wasn’t his aunt at all but his father’s cousin. The story collapsed, but the damage was done.
Even if the tale were true, Mamdani’s framing was an insult to truth. His version turned the “victim” of 9/11 into someone who merely felt uncomfortable. The real victims were the firefighters who ran into burning towers, the police who breathed toxic dust for months, the passengers of Flight 93 who fought back knowing they would die, the families who never saw their loved ones again. To recast that national tragedy as a story about personal unease is moral inversion.
Privilege posing as persecution
Mamdani is no symbol of oppression. He was born in Uganda to two global elites: filmmaker Mira Nair and Columbia University professor Mahmood Mamdani. Educated at elite institutions, including Bowdoin College in Maine, he embodies privilege — not persecution.
He’s not alone. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has built her career on the same inversion. A graduate of Boston University, raised in a comfortable Westchester suburb, AOC is a product of the meritocracy she derides. Her father was an architect; her family owned a home. Yet her political persona depends on playing the perpetual underdog — the marginalized woman of color silenced by “the patriarchy.”
When criticized, she doesn’t answer with arguments but with emotion. Dissent becomes “hate.” Opposition becomes “bigotry.” As Newsweek once put it, “AOC’s weaponized victimhood undermines women.”
Grievance as status
This inversion — privilege masquerading as oppression — reveals something deeper about the left’s political psychology. Victimhood now confers moral authority. The more wounded you appear, the more virtuous you become. Pain is power.
But grievance politics reshapes the citizen’s role in democracy. Instead of the proud American who builds and contributes, we get the dependent petitioner, perpetually wronged and perpetually in need of government rescue. The state becomes therapist and provider, not guardian of liberty.
That’s why so many progressive campaigns sound like group therapy sessions. The message isn’t, “Here’s how we’ll improve schools or secure the border.” It’s, “Here’s who hurt us, and here’s who must atone.” The goal isn’t reform — it’s retribution.
The vanishing of virtue
When politics becomes a contest of feelings, truth and accountability vanish. Success is no longer measured by safer streets, better jobs, or stronger families, but by how “seen” or “unsafe” someone feels. Emotional satisfaction replaces objective progress.
But the American promise was never about comfort. It was about courage — the willingness to build, to sacrifice, to endure. This nation doesn’t owe its strength to grievance but to grit.
Think back to 9/11. The real victims weren’t the politically convenient ones. They were the firefighters who ran toward the towers, the police who never came home, the husbands and wives who never got to say goodbye, the children who grew up without parents. To twist their sacrifice into a sermon on discomfort dishonors them.
RELATED: The left’s new religion has no logic — and AOC is its perfect preacher
Photo by Bloomberg / Getty Images
From grievance to gratitude
The contrast couldn’t be clearer. One version of politics says, “I was wronged, therefore I deserve.” The other says, “I was blessed, therefore I will serve.” The left has built a moral economy where pain is currency. Conservatives must offer a different creed — one grounded in purpose, gratitude, and resilience.
Freedom, not fairness, defines America’s promise. Adversity refines character; it doesn’t define it. As the nation nears its 250th birthday, we should remember who we are — a people forged by hardship and lifted by hope.
Let others compete for who has suffered most. We’ll compete for who can spread the most good. America’s story has never been written by its victims — only by its victors.
Horror show: ‘The View’ too scary for conservatives, boasts Behar
Talk about a booby prize.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) recently declared war on the GOP on several fronts, and instead of a trophy or plaque, she’ll get the honor of matching wits with those doyennes of derangement on “The View” next week.
The ever-present smile. The blazing hypocrisy. The fact that ‘Escape from New York’ is getting an all-too real sequel starting ASAP.
Apparently, Taylor Greene’s recent ideological about-face makes her the perfect conservative foil on a show that tends to veer — if not careen — left.
Co-host Joy Behar recently griped that the show can’t book right-leaning guests because, “They’re scared of us.”
Sure, Joy. Just like I’m “scared” of the 8-year-old Minecraft zombies who’ll be knocking on my door for Kit-Kats tonight.
Here’s a trick to make “The View” more compelling — stop treating guests who don’t agree with you like fun-size Snickers bars. It’s OK to have more than one.
Pretty payday
Julia Roberts is a genius. Or at least, her agent is.
The Oscar winner isn’t as active in Hollywood as in her box office heyday, but she still convinced a movie studio to pay her $20 million for her to star in “After the Hunt.”
The Me Too-themed drama cast Roberts as a professor torn between a trusted colleague (Andrew Garfield) and a bright student (Ayo Edebiri), who claims said colleague sexually assaulted her.
The film has made just $9 million worldwide and is already fading after two weeks of release. The budget? A reported $80 million, including that hefty price tag for the erstwhile “Pretty Woman.”
Paying 1995 rates in 2025 — when even the most beloved Oscar-winner can’t guarantee butts in seats? Well, Hollywood is the land of make-believe.
Billion-dollar baby
You first, Billie.
Androgynous crooner Billie Eilish is taking a bold stand against billionaires. The “Bad Guy” singer addressed a room full of rich, powerful people to accept an “innovator” award from the Wall Street Journal Magazine. Said room included mega billionaire Mark Zuckerberg, apparently.
She used the moment to lecture the ultra rich.
“Love you all, but there’s a few people in here that have a lot more money than me. … If you’re a billionaire, why are you a billionaire? No hate, but yeah, give your money away, shorties.”
Set aside the economic ignorance, the body shaming, and the fact that she’s a millionaire many times over. She just cut a gargantuan check to help defeat, check notes, “climate justice.” Why not just go full Joker and set a mountain of cash on fire? At least she could write a song about it …
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Don’t mess with the Zohran
There’s nothing funny about the rise of Zohran Mamdani.
The future New York City mayor is a terror apologist, an anti-Israel zealot, and an economic illiterate. There’s more, but you get the picture. Still, political satirists should have a field day with Mamdani on so many levels.
The ever-present smile. The blazing hypocrisy. The fact that “Escape from New York” is getting an all-too real sequel starting ASAP.
Instead, comedians are standing down. Anyone shocked? A new study by Newsbusters shows that late-night comics are targeting everyone else in the crowded New York mayoral race save Mamdani.
“Only three out of 63 jokes were about the socialist front-runner,” the site tallied. And that doesn’t count comedian turned shill Jon Stewart comparing Mamdani to Jackie Robinson …
Kim K’s moonshot
Reality stars say the darndest things.
It’s easy to poke fun at Kim Kardashian for her choice in suitors. That Kanye West pairing didn’t end well, did it?
Still, Ms. Kim is a savvy business person who transformed a sordid sex tape into a reality show empire. Just don’t ask her to teach a history class anytime soon.
Kardashian is co-starring with actress Sarah Paulson on the TV show “All’s Fair,” and apparently the two are quite chatty behind the scenes. Kardashian loves sharing her conspiracy theories with her co-star, including her belief that America never landed on the moon.
She pointed to a clip of Buzz Aldrin mishearing a question as part of her “proof.” In her defense, maybe she’s trying to recruit Candace Owens to her next reality show gig …
‘Fack’ all
Comedy is truly on the comeback trail.
The woke mind virus is fading. Roasts are back in vogue. The recent “Naked Gun” reboot was funnier than anyone expected. Now, a new trailer for a “Downton Abbey” spoof looks like the year’s brightest surprise.
“Fackham Hall,” hitting theaters December 5, packs more laughs in its two-minute running time than some mainstream comedies. The physical shtick is priceless, and the oh, so stuffy “Downton Abbey” vibe begs for a good satirical swatting.
At this rate, even Jimmy Kimmel might make us laugh before 2025 ends.
Mamdani’s false Tolerance Boulevard ends in darkness
Everybody knows the real victims of 9/11 weren’t the 3,000 murdered Americans or their grieving families. No, according to the new progressive hierarchy, it’s Zohran Mamdani’s second cousin — thrice removed, four times hijabed — who claims she was once offended on the subway. Allegedly.
So if you’re keeping score at home in the “words are violence” sweepstakes, here’s the latest update: Something that probably never happened is righteous if it helps an Islamic socialist become mayor of America’s largest city. Meanwhile, Virginia’s Democratic candidate for attorney general gets a pass for fantasizing about the murder of a Republican lawmaker and his family.
Nothing new under the sun. Just another civilization sprinting toward its chosen darkness, proud all the way.
You’d think New Yorkers might have enough self-respect not to be played so easily — especially when it comes to one of the most fateful days in American history. But no. Apparently Loki was right. They were made to be ruled — and by the very people who treat the ashes of Ground Zero as a holiday display.
I’d wager real money that at least one family member of a 9/11 victim will vote for Mamdani next week. Loki, it seems, must have read John Calvin at some point in his multiverse journey: When God wants to punish a rebellious people, He gives them wicked rulers.
The worldview beneath the wreckage
We can’t outrun our worldview. Because worldview is destiny. When a people deny reality, they descend into madness. That’s what’s happening to those voting for Mamdani. They are largely godless, and once you reject the author of reality, you’re on a short, steep slide toward hell.
Hell, for its part, knows how to work with human nature. The devil discovered long ago that our fallen desire to shake a fist at God rivals even his own. That’s how you get from watching the Twin Towers fall to, just 25 years later, electing a man who shares the same ideology as one of the hijackers.
Not secretly. Not reluctantly. These voters are proud of it. They’ll call friends and family “racists” and “Nazis” for disagreeing. Such is the will to power when you reject God: The world must be turned upside down and morality twisted into a hall of mirrors.
When even Ayn Rand saw the abyss
Ayn Rand, no friend of Christianity, at least saw the problem. In an interview late in life, she told Phil Donahue that without some objective truth in the universe, nothing else made sense. Why do we reason instead of acting on instinct like animals? Rand recognized, however dimly, that a world without truth collapses into nihilism.
But that clarity is rare. Rand was a unicorn. Most people in her camp never do the math. They end up voting for their captors, praising their murderers, and calling it freedom.
The short version is simple: If you’re not in Christ’s camp, you belong to chaos. There are no neutral parties. Hell is happy to let you think otherwise — right up to the moment the darkness slams the door shut.
The believer’s tension — and the city’s choice
Every true believer wrestles with the tension between judgment and mercy. We are commanded to love God with our whole heart, mind, and strength — and to love our neighbor as ourselves. You can’t be “nicer than God,” but you must strive to let mercy triumph over judgment whenever you can.
RELATED: Zohran Mamdani’s Soviet dream for New York City
Photo by: Lindsey Nicholson/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
New York doesn’t care. The city long ago chose the darkness, which knows no such tension. Evil allows the illusion of tolerance until the moment comes to plant its flag.
By all means, take one more stroll down Tolerance Boulevard, Big Apple, and see where it ends. You’ll find it’s a one-way street to annihilation.
The math checks out
New York has made its peace with godlessness. First it worshiped the idol of corporate power. Then it voted for Sandinista Bill de Blasio’s Marxism. Now it’s ready to give the false god of Islam a chance to shatter its soul completely. The math checks out every time.
Nothing new under the sun. Just another civilization sprinting toward its chosen darkness, proud all the way.
God help us all.
Zohran Mamdani’s Soviet dream for New York City
At a packed rally in Queens on Sunday, New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani reinforced his far-left vision for remaking America’s largest city.
Among his proposals: government-run grocery stores, free public transportation, 200,000 government-built apartments, universal childcare, and a rent freeze for the city’s one million rent-stabilized apartments.
Only a socialist could argue that taking away people’s property rights and centralizing power enhances individual freedom.
The price tag for Mamdani’s most ambitious ideas comes to nearly $7 billion a year — more than the city’s entire police budget.
Mamdani, a self-described democratic socialist, shared the stage with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), two of the country’s best-known socialist stars. Both praised Mamdani as the future of progressive politics.
Like Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez, Mamdani claims he can fund his agenda by taxing the rich and targeting corporations. He wants to raise the top corporate tax rate from 7.25% to 11.5% and increase the city’s income tax by two percentage points for anyone earning $1 million or more.
Those ideas have energized his base and helped him surge in the polls. Yet his lead is not secure. Critics from both parties warn that Mamdani’s high-tax, high-spending platform would drive wealthy residents and businesses out of New York, worsening the city’s economic and fiscal problems.
But Mamdani’s biggest obstacle isn’t fiscal — it’s philosophical.
Even in deep-blue New York, voters hesitate to hand power to a democratic socialist. Socialism’s record is clear: It limits freedom, crushes economies, and breeds instability.
To ease those fears, Mamdani’s campaign has begun to reframe socialism as a path to freedom rather than its enemy. At his rally over the weekend, he told the crowd: “No New Yorker should ever be priced out of anything they need to survive. … It is government’s job to deliver that dignity.” Then he added, “Dignity, my friends, is another way of saying freedom.”
In Mamdani’s view, freedom comes from the state guaranteeing life’s essentials — food, housing, transportation, childcare. To provide those things, government must seize and redistribute private wealth. Mamdani calls this process “delivering dignity,” which he equates with liberty itself.
That logic turns freedom on its head. Only a socialist could argue that taking away people’s property rights and centralizing power enhances individual freedom.
This rhetorical sleight of hand is not new. It’s straight from the socialist and communist propaganda of the 20th century.
Article 39 of the 1936 Soviet Constitution claimed that socialism “ensures enlargement of the rights and freedoms of citizens.” Fidel Castro’s 1976 Cuban Constitution promised “the freedom and full dignity of man” through a state guarantee of social services.
Even Joseph Stalin cloaked authoritarianism in the language of freedom. In a 1936 interview, he insisted that socialism was built “for the sake of real personal liberty,” arguing that “real liberty can exist only where there is no unemployment and poverty.”
Intentionally or not, Mamdani’s speeches echo those same lines. And he’s far from the first democratic socialist to do so. Julius Nyerere in Tanzania, Olof Palme in Sweden, and Aneurin Bevan in Britain all used similar arguments to justify state expansion in the name of “freedom.”
RELATED: Why Zohran Mamdani will be ‘one of the most catastrophic mayors ever’
Photo by Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images via Getty Images
That’s no coincidence. Mamdani is a student of socialist history, and his rhetoric mirrors the Marxist premise that true liberty requires the abolition of private property. In his 1844 essay “Private Property and Communism,” Karl Marx wrote, “The abolition of private property is therefore the complete emancipation of all human senses and qualities.”
Every socialist movement since has repeated that creed, always promising “real freedom” while consolidating control over wealth, work, and speech.
History shows what those promises yield: less freedom, not more. The more government collectivizes decision-making, the less room individuals have to think, speak, or prosper.
New York City has enormous problems, but reviving the century’s old, failed ideas of socialism won’t solve them. If anything, they’ll accelerate decline.
The city’s revival depends on the principles that built it into a global capital in the first place — limited government, free markets, low taxes, and the liberty to rise through one’s own effort.
If Mamdani truly wants to bring dignity and freedom to New Yorkers, he should reject the hollow slogans of socialism and embrace the real promise of liberty that made America — and New York — great.
LGBTQ champion Zohran Mamdani faces backlash over photo with ‘anti-homosexuality’ Ugandan lawmaker
With only a week left before the election in the contentious New York City mayoral race, socialist Zohran Mamdani is facing criticism for a photo with a Ugandan lawmaker who supported legislation restricting LGBTQ behavior.
The criticism stems from his July visit to Uganda, where he was born. During his visit, he met with Rebecca Kadaga, a well-known Ugandan lawmaker who served as speaker of the Parliament of Uganda from 2011 to 2021. She has been the first deputy prime minister since 2021, according to the New York Post.
Mamdani appeared at a ‘Gays for Zohran’ event, posing with two drag queens.
Mamdani and Kadaga appeared in a photo together during his return to Uganda.
“Delighted to meet with Zohran Mamdhani [sic] incoming Mayor of New York City. Good luck in the next phase of elections,” Kadaga said in a post on X at the end of July.
RELATED: Stop calling Zohran Mamdani a communist — he’s something worse
Photo by Mustafa Ciftci/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2014 features a variety of punishments for homosexual behavior, including seven years in prison for a variety of acts. A more recent expansion on the law includes the death penalty.
“Ugandans want that law as a Christmas gift. They have asked for it, and we’ll give them that gift,” Kadaga told Reuters in 2012, prior to the passage of the Anti-Homosexuality Act.
However, Mamdani has strongly advocated for LGBTQ issues.
One X user pointed out Mamdani appeared at a “Gays for Zohran” event, posing with two drag queens. According to one source, Mamdani joined the event for National Coming Out Day on October 11.
“Zohran Mamdani ran into the First Deputy Minister while he was at Entebbe airport waiting to board his flight back to New York City. She asked to take a photo,” Mamdani campaign spokesperson Dora Pekec told the Post about the photo with Kadaga.
“If he was aware she was the architect of this horrific attack on queer Ugandans, he would not have done so,” Pekec continued. “Zohran’s belief in universal human rights extends to all people, and he has put forward the most comprehensive plan of any candidate to protect LGBTQ+ New Yorkers.”
In July, Zohran Mamdani posted a video on X announcing that he would be heading to Uganda to celebrate his marriage to wife Rama Duwaji with family and friends. The video mocks the “thousands of messages” telling him to “go back to Africa.”
In late June, Kadaga extended her congratulations and greetings from Uganda after he won the Democratic nomination in the mayoral race.
Blaze News reached out to Zohran Mamdani’s campaign for comment but did not receive a response.
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LATE TO THE PARTY: Hakeem Jeffries Embraces Extreme Left, Backs Mamdani for NYC Mayor
Jeffries finally embraces the radical left… House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) threw his weight behind Zohran Mamdani on Friday, ending months of speculation with a last-minute mayoral endorsement that stunned New York’s political scene.
