Mamdani Thinks Bad Opinions Are Worse Than Terrorists' Bombs

 by Batya Ungar-Sargon

Ever since two ISIS-inspired terrorists, Emir Balat and Ibrahim Kayumi, threw explosive devices at a group of non-violent anti-Muslim protestors in New York City on Saturday, Mayor Zohran Mamdani has gone out of his way to denounce . . . the protestors—the would-be victims of the terrorist attack, had their assailants succeeded.

The protest was led by far-Right social media personality Jack Lang, who gathered 20 protestors outside Mamdani’s residence, Gracie Mansion, to “Stop the Islamic Takeover of New York City.” They were met by 100 counterprotestors, two of whom threw IEDs at Lang and his crew. By the grace of God, the bombs didn’t detonate; it had been the intent of the two terrorists to exceed by leaps and bounds the Boston Marathon bombing in casualties.

You wouldn’t know it from how Mayor Mamdani described the event. His initial tweet omitted any mention of the motivation behind the attack, though one of the assailants cried out "Allahu Akbar" as the device was thrown.

Instead, Mamdani led by attacking the people who would have been the victims of a massive, violent terror attack if Balat and Kayumi had succeeded.

Whatever you think of Lang and his ideology (I personally find putting bacon on the Quran, as Lang has done at past protests, to be offensive), his protest was non-violent and his speech 100% protected. That’s what it means to be an American: You get to have bad opinions without getting killed.

Yet Mamdani went out of his way to call out Lang—while running cover for actual terrorists, not naming them or their ideology.

Notice also the difference in tone between how Mamdani described the violent terrorists and the protestors: The protestors are white supremacists whose actions are “rooted in bigotry and racism” and are “an affront to our city’s values.” But while the Mayor admits what followed was “more disturbing,” the actions of the violent terrorists are all conveyed in the passive voice: “The attempt to use an explosive device and hurt others is not only criminal, it is reprehensible and the antithesis of who we are.” It is “the attempt” that is reprehensible. The attempt made by who? The Mayor leaves it up to your imagination!

This wasn’t a one off. At a press conference on Monday, the Mayor again led by condemning the “Islamophobia” of the protestors. “This was a vile protest rooted in white supremacy,” he said, though it was two Muslims who almost committed mass murder.

“New York City will never tolerate violence, whether from protests or counterprotests,” said Mamdani, equating the protestors and the terrorists, though only one side threw bombs. He then laid out the findings of the Police Department.

This is heinous stuff. But it’s unfortunately how many on the progressive Left think.

Many progressives truly believe that racism or “Islamophobia” are worse than terrorism—certainly if the object of terrorism is someone on the Right, or white, or Western. Terrorism is done by the “oppressed” against the “oppressors,” and to the progressive Left, oppression is the only form of moral virtue, with oppression being an extension of being a “person of color.” Many Leftists find it impossible to arrive at the conclusion that a white person could even be considered the victim of terrorism—because they can never be considered a victim at all. The oppressed, after all, have a right to violence, according to the thinking of many on the Left—“Resistance by any means necessary” and so on. Mamdani’s own wife was recently revealed to have liked posts celebrating October 7.

Mamdani’s move of repeatedly invoking Islamophobia when pretending to condemn an attempted mass murder by Muslims is meant to make you think that he is the real victim here—not the people almost mass murdered, who he keeps dehumanizing.

Deeply embedded in Leftist thinking is the idea that words are violence, and thus violence cannot be any worse than words. That’s how you end up with a country beset by Left-wing political violence, how you end up with a quarter of “very liberal” Americans telling pollsters that violence can sometimes be justified to achieve political goals.

https://batyaus.substack.com/p/mamdani-thinks-bad-opinions-are-worse