New York City’s next mayor, Zoran Mamdani, has not yet been sworn in. But to conservative media figures, he has already become the new embodiment of evil.
He has been called “truly evil” and “incompatible with America.” His labels include communist, Marxist, jihadist sympathizer, and “enthusiastic leftist.” FOX News’ Laura Ingraham warned her viewers Don’t be fooled by “smiling socialists who rule like Soviet tyrants.”
The post-election cover of the New York Post drawn mamdani The piece, which held aloft the Soviet Union’s hammer and sickle symbol, had sold out on newsstands by noon and sold on eBay for $75. By the end of the day, the Post was selling baby onesies and commemorative plates featuring the cover.
Already, conservative media outlets are seeing Mamdani as someone guaranteed to get viewers’ blood boiling, along with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton. Doing so could help Republicans in the midterm elections.
“It’s clear that he will be the biggest target of right-wing media for the foreseeable future, well into 2026,” said publisher Howard Polskin. recoverya newsletter that follows conservative media. “He’s colorful, controversial, and not afraid of conflict.”
The new bogeyman of conservative media
The head of the Daily Signal, a news outlet that Polskin regularly monitors, said Mamdani is likely to be seen as a threat because his appeal to working-class Americans who feel left out of the economy is similar to that of President Donald Trump, but they have different ideas about how to deal with it.
“Remember a few years ago, we had Nancy Pelosi, who was the Republican bogeyman,” said Rob Bluey, president and editor-in-chief of the Daily Signal. “I think Mamdani is probably going to be the new guy. I think that’s why there’s so much emphasis on Mamdani in conservative media.”
At the Washington Examiner, editor-in-chief Hugo Gurdon saw ominous signs in Mamdani’s election night victory speech. “He was truly evil, boasting not only of his accomplishments but of silencing the enemies he had defeated and inflicting them on others. He shed his smiling campaign mask and revealed his venomous true nature,” Gurdon wrote.
Newsmax’s Rob Schmidt called mamdani “A mayor for foreign-born people. We flooded the country with diversity, and diversity gave us Zoran.” Schmidt said in an interview that he was not yet ready to anoint Mamdani as a deliberate target of conservative media.
“The go-to bogeyman sounds like something made up, but we’re just rightly concerned about people spouting and promoting ideologies that are destined to fail,” he told The Associated Press.
The Post had identified Mamdani as a subject of interest well before the election. From October 27th to November 5th, he appeared on the cover of the tabloid seven times. One, headlined “Mom and Child,” depicted Mamdani in a little boy’s overalls to illustrate a column warning that the city was not a toy to hand over to “babies like Zoran.” Another front page loudly proclaimed, “Not so fast,” predicting a close race in the polls. The top headline on election day was “Trump to New York: Get rid of the communists.”
After the election, Mamdani contacted the White House seeking a meeting with President Trump. the president said on sunday It means “Let’s do something.”
Socialist or Communist?
Mamdani’s status as a member of the Democratic Socialist Party of the United States and his Muslim background are behind many attacks in conservative media.
Asked this spring on NBC’s “Meet the Press” if he was a communist, Mamdani said, “No, I’m not.” Webster defines socialism as a political theory in which local communities or governments own and control the production and distribution of goods. Communism, promoted by revolutionary Karl Marx, is considered a step beyond private property and capitalism no longer existing.
Many of Mamdani’s critics do not make the distinction. “Communist takeover in the Big Apple,” says Fox News on-screen heading read. “They elected a communist,” wrote World Net Daily. President Trump: “He’s not a socialist, he’s a communist.” said He said this in an interview on “60 Minutes” last month. “A communist. He’s much worse than a socialist.”
Some Jewish groups expressed skepticism About Mamdani, who supports Palestinian rights and has criticized Israel’s attack on Gaza as genocide. However, he condemned Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, and said he would work to combat anti-Semitism.
Republicans have a clear interest in getting more American Jews, a traditionally Democratic-leaning group, to switch. But that alone doesn’t explain some of the hostility we see in the media.
National Review said Mamdani’s victory was “ Open Season on Jews in New York” Megyn Kelly said that the tenets of Islam are: inconsistent with American values And Muslims should not be elected mayors or governors. Podcaster Michael Savage called him “Marxist jihadist sympathizer” Influencer Laura Loomer predicted that Mamdani would encourage Muslims to: commit a political assassination It’s about gaining power and silencing critics.
Mamdani’s staff did not respond to messages from The Associated Press. At the end of the campaign, he raised my voice for some of the religion-based attacks against him.
“I thought if I behaved well enough, bit my tongue in the face, and made racist, baseless attacks while returning to my core message, I could be more than just a believer,” he said. “I was wrong. No amount of redirection will be enough.”
In the eyes of consumers, Mamdani appears to be the leader of the party.
Some of the attacks, although not unique to Mamdani, reflect a common theme in politics and the media, linking all members of a political party to the party’s beliefs, which can potentially portray them as marginal. After his election, the Daily Signal wrote that Mamdani was “now the presumptive president.” the leader of his party”
Victory Girls, a conservative blog, used an illustration of the next mayor in military uniform. “The socialists are coming. Mamdani is just the beginning,” the blog reads. “If we ignore them, we will all be in big trouble.”
“He’s the new AOC in the sense that we’ve found a relatively unknown person who can define and hold up as an example of what it means to be a Democrat,” said Angelo Carusone, president of the liberal media watchdog group Media Matters for America.
Carusone said he doesn’t know if Mamdani will become a conservative media villain like Clinton or Pelosi, but he understands the urgency.
“If we don’t check on him right now, he’s going to get the young guys,” Carusone said.
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David Bauder writes about the intersection of media and entertainment for The Associated Press. please follow him http://x.com/dbauder and https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.socia I
