As Election Day approaches, the New York Times has passionately defended New York City’s socialist mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, changing the subject to accusations of “Islamophobia” when one of his opponents (either former Democrat Gov. Andrew Cuomo, or Republican Curtis Sliwa) dares to bring up Mamdani’s history of hostility toward Israel and abject failure to condemn the terrorist group Hamas, and his membership in the Democratic Socialists of America, an anti-Semitic organization.
They're openly campaigning for the socialist. Late on Tuesday morning, Times reporters Matthew Haag and Dana Rubinstein posted “Attacking Mamdani’s Muslim faith, Cuomo has played to voters’ fears”:
In the closing days in the race for New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic front-runner, has faced a barrage of faith- or ethnicity-based attacks from his opponents. Many have come from his closest rival, former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.
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Mr. Mamdani responded to the attacks in a 10-minute address on Friday, denouncing the rhetoric and divisiveness while embracing his faith.
“For as long as we have lived, we have known that no matter what anyone says, there are still certain forms of hate that are acceptable in the city,” Mr. Mamdani said, standing outside a mosque in the Bronx. “Islamophobia is not seen as inexcusable.”
While Mamdani raised the “islamophobia” charge in this case, usually the Times can be relied on to do it for him, as shown in several earlier stories on the campaign.
Often the Mamdani cheerleading appeared high in the headline deck, as in Emma Fitzsimmons’ report on Sunday: “Vance Criticizes Mamdani’s Comments About Islamophobia After 9/11 -- Zohran Mamdani said the vice president’s attack on social media was one in a series of “cheap jokes about Islamophobia.” Opponents "pounced"!
Mr. Mamdani, who is running to become the city’s first Muslim mayor, gave a 10-minute speech on Friday to address what he and others have characterized as a rise in Islamophobia during the campaign. In his speech, he grew emotional as he recounted how his aunt stopped taking the subway after the Sept. 11 attacks “because she did not feel safe in her hijab.”
Mr. Vance and Republicans pounced on his comments, arguing that his focus should be on the victims who died during the attacks.
Fitzsimmons avidly defended Mamdani point by point, a boost the paper would never provide a controversial Republican candidate.
Mr. Vance’s attacks follow similar ones regularly hurled by Mr. Trump, who has threatened to arrest Mr. Mamdani and has called him a communist. (He is a democratic socialist.)
Mr. Vance also criticized Mr. Mamdani last week for meeting with a well-known imam in Brooklyn. The imam, Siraj Wahhaj, who leads Masjid at-Taqwa in Bedford-Stuyvesant, was an unindicted potential co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center terrorist bombing. (The imam was never charged in the case, and The Times reported that the list Mr. Wahhaj appeared on was criticized by some former terrorism prosecutors as being overly broad.)
Mr. Mamdani said in an interview on MSNBC on Saturday that Mr. Vance’s comment about his aunt was inappropriate.
Also inappropriate: Mamdani making up an aunt who feared wearing a hijab after 9-11 (the “aunt” was then described as actually his father’s deceased cousin). As of Tuesday afternoon, the Times doesn’t seem to have reached that detail.
The Times strained to put Mamdani’s Democratic and Republican opponents on the defensive in order to distract from Mamdani’s own callous rhetoric about the 9-11 attacks.
Mehdi Hasan, a Muslim journalist, said that it was wrong for Mr. Vance to mock Mr. Mamdani for talking “publicly and emotionally about their experience of racism,” especially when Mr. Vance’s wife is the daughter of Indian immigrants.
Reporter Jeffery Mays wrote under the headline deck on Monday: “Mamdani Says Rivals Are Pushing Hate as Mayor’s Race Enters Last Stretch -- Zohran Mamdani’s opponents, Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa, denied accusations that they are stoking Islamophobia with their rhetoric and actions.” The opening paragraph:
In the waning days of the New York City mayor’s race, Zohran Mamdani, the front-runner, has faced attacks that he and other Democrats characterize as an Islamophobic-driven effort to paint him as a foreigner and threat to New Yorkers.
Mamdani is doing that just fine with his callous rhetoric and refusal to condemn Hamas.
