THE cry echoes up and down New York City’s crowded streets. Out of nowhere has emerged a malevolent Muslim candidate for mayor named Zohran Mamdani.
He is 33-years-old and born in Uganda – a country that was also home to the late Idi Amin. To many horrified New Yorkers, it looks as if he may win.
Jewish old-timers on the Upper West Side and Wall Street are having apoplexy, muttering about the Holocaust. President Donald Trump, a fellow New Yorker, calls Zohran a “communist lunatic”.
Zohran’s followers have similar unkind thoughts about Trump – who is a long-time foe of most Muslims – unless of course they have oil wells.
Zohran has two huge strikes against him. First, he is a Muslim running in the world’s largest Jewish city that venerates Israel. Second, he says he is a “democratic socialist” and pro-Palestinian.
Some big New York City (NYC) firms and from Silicon Valley are now trying to ban the word “Palestine” from their internal email – just close your eyes and it will all go away.
Zohran, who came to the US in only 2018, calls for free buses, state-run supermarkets, price controls and other market handcuffs.
Where have I heard of these before? Why in the dear old Soviet Union, that is where! Price controls on everything except for T-52 tanks meant that just about everything else in the bad old USSR was either in crazy short supply or always out of stock.
Now young Zohran wants to bring socialist enlightenment to my big city. Even more shocking for many of its citizens, Zohran calls for a Palestinian state and condemns Israel’s slaughter of Palestinians.
Zohran does not seem to realise that all those Palestinian children being killed by Israeli forces are pre-teen “terrorists”.
What is wrong with using so-called US/Israeli food aid handouts to lure and then kill Palestinians? It is the law of the jungle.
What makes this so interesting is that it appears the tired old Democratic Party, so long entrenched in NYC, is showing signs of terminal exhaustion. Its day has come and gone.
Muslims, who make up a quarter of the world’s people, are popping up in US Congress and government. Think of the fiery Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar from Minnesota. Add the inflammatory Zohran. And who is next?
One thing is for sure. The old Democratic Party is crumbling. The final proof was the clumsy election lost by Kamala Harris – a nice lady but without any political charisma.
The Democrats were heavily burdened by the widely held view that the party had become a welfare machine for blacks. Just as strong, many right-minded Democrats were horrified by their government’s support of Israel’s massacres in Gaza and then Iran.
Americans from coast to coast detested their nation’s complicity in genocide and destruction of Palestine’s cities. Young people across the Western world loudly protested the Palestinian genocide. Draconian repression by the powerful Israel lobby has failed to silence these protests.
The crimes in Palestine have shocked the entire world. Americans are starting to understand that their government is increasingly influenced by groups whose first loyalty is not to the US.
For a startling example, the Trump administration is just offering Israel yet another US$15 billion (RM64 billion) in arms and cash as the massacre in Gaza continues while American’s health benefits are being slashed by many billions. No wonder Zohran is terrifying New York.
Eric S. Margolis is a syndicated columnist. Comments: letters@thesundaily.com
