Mamdani Heralds The Rise Of The New Radical Chic

In the immediate aftermath of an attempted terrorist attack by young supporters of radical Islam outside Gracie Mansion, Mayor Zohran Mamdani chose to tell the world which side he’s on. And it’s definitely not on the side of the cops and protesters who would’ve died in an explosion the young radicals hoped would cause death and destruction “even bigger” than the Boston Marathon bombing. No – it’s on the side of radical Islam, the kind supported by his virulent anti-Israel activist friend Mahmoud Khalil.

“Last night, as we marked the one year anniversary of his detention, Rama and I were honored to welcome Mahmoud, Noor, and their son Deen to Gracie Mansion to break our fast together,” Mamdani posted.

The mayor attached a picture of he and his wife welcoming the activist who led the anti-Jewish protests at Columbia University, including illegal occupations of buildings which caused the Trump Administration to detain him over support for terrorist organizations like Hamas and lying on his original visa form.

The mayor, who chose to condemn the twenty participants in the “Stop the Islamic Takeover of New York City” protest as white supremacists but slow-rolled his condemnation of the would-be Islamist terrorists, was deliberately sending a signal that is impossible to ignore. Zohran Mamdani won’t endorse the violent young radicals outright – that would be a bridge too far – but he wants everyone to know where his heart lies.

It’d be less disturbing if, as so many legacy media organizations declare, Mamdani is a fringe character in the Democratic Party, a TikTok friendly accidental mayor thanks to the fluke of a rash of bad candidates undone by scandals present and past. But Mamdani doesn’t do things by accident, especially when it comes to social media: he sent a message by hosting Khalil, and he wanted young Democrats to see it. And for New York City’s Jewish population to see it, too.

The reason why is made clear by new polling data from the Manhattan Institute, which surveyed the current Democratic coalition on numerous questions related to policy. MI’s overall takeaway is that the Democratic Party has opinions that are much more moderate than those of Mayor Mamdani or New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. But digging into the survey’s details illustrate a younger radical fringe which doesn’t have a problem with Khalil, and probably doesn’t have much of a problem with the attempted bombers, either.

According to MI’s polling, a quarter or more of 18–29 year-old Democrats view Israel essentially the same way as Nick Fuentes. “One in four (26%) of these younger Democrats believe that Israel is a colonial apartheid state that must be dismantled and that Israel bears responsibility for any and all violence since its founding,” writes MI vice president Jesse Arm. And of that same cohort, 38% claim the October 7 terrorist attack on Israel was either an “inside job” or a “false flag operation”, allowed or created whole cloth by Israel as a pretext for war in Gaza. And of course they would think that – 24% of them told MI’s pollsters that the Nazi Holocaust of Jews was either greatly exaggerated, or did not happen at all.

There’s no real separation between these Democrats and Mayor Mamdani – he simply represents an elevated luxury version of these beliefs, one that calls for the end of billionaires while hanging with Alex Soros and Huma Abedin in their tricked out penthouse duplex overlooking the city. The Gracie Mansion Khalil féte is a drab return to the Seventies era of “That Party at Lenny’s,” when Leonard Bernstein hosted the Black Panthers and the doyennes of the city hoped to leave their society friends behind as one of “the few attuned souls” to the new Radical Chic.

As Tom Wolfe wrote:

They had to be morally avant-garde, able to articulate the luxury opinions fashionable at that exact moment. They had to perform all these inversions—rising to the social stratosphere by ostentatiously demonstrating their solidarity with the oppressed, securing their place atop the structures of power by striking radical poses, and pretending to support tearing those structures down.

Of course, Democrats and their legacy media allies will dismiss this development as an exaggeration. It’s just a dinner, after all. What’s to worry about a bit of light terrorism among friends? And there were probably Nazis there, what do you expect? His wife’s Instagram likes, who cares about those, she’s a private citizen! Chuck and Hakeem, they’re still the leaders of the party last we checked.

The aging neoliberal Democrats still fancy themselves in charge of the situation. They still have their hands on the wheel, and the youngsters will learn their place in time. With the rise of Mamdani and his cohort, that grip will be tested like it has not been in half a century. Do not be surprised when it fails.