Zohran Mamdani, before stepping into the world of electoral politics as a Democratic nominee for mayoral candidacy in the USA’s largest city, harbored radical inspirations. Ideas such as the ‘queer liberation’ through defunding the police and the legalization of prostitution formed the cornerstone of his candidature. In the unfortunate year of 2020, he brashly labeled the NYPD as racist and demanded the takedown of the Christopher Columbus statue. Boycotting Israel and attempting to divest from it were also part of his audacious agenda, for reasons only he may fully understand.
Mamdani, in 2020, triumphed in securing a position in the State Assembly running on platforms that effortlessly surpassed the radical stances of socialist grocery stores and the outlawing of billionaires. He, like his party comrades, enthralled the world with their frantic leap to the left. While mainstream Democrats now struggle and scramble to understand their NYC nominee, they resort to conveniently dismissing his past tweets as remnants of an anxious 2020 era when everyone supposedly had a licence to go off the handle.
But it’s hard to ignore the extremist voices of 2020, which have continued echoing a thinker like Mamdani who promoted viewpoints such as ‘Each according to their need, each according to their ability.’ Drawing from the Communist Manifesto in its essence, transforming the city into a communist’s haven was a belief he held. He encouraged civil unrest and destruction of historical iconic statues while he paraded pictures of him indecently gesturing towards a statue of Christopher Columbus.
This defiance was presented as part of a larger fight against colonialism, a battle that broke the sound barrier in 2020. As a Ugandan national, Mamdani sought to make a name for himself within this tumultuous environment. More outlandish were his tweets which championed ‘intersectionality’, a theory peddled by academics in 2020 seeking to create a strange unity among left-leaning activists.
Busy amalgamating ‘queer liberation’ with anti-Israel sentiments, Mamdani tweeted that no one would be ‘free until we’re all free.’ This amalgamation also gave rise to controversial tweets such as ‘Queer liberation means defund the police’ which shockingly insinuated the NYPD as a ‘racist, anti-queer & a major threat to public safety.’ Disturbingly, this became a rallying cry for those subscribing to intersectionality and steeped in the convoluted language of woke culture.
Exceeding already outrageous boundaries on gender identity, he utilized the term ‘queer’ expansively, intending to encapsulate both gay couples and transgender sex workers. He was ruthlessly persistent about men becoming women upon identification, a stance that raises more questions than it answers. Battling against the NYPD, Christopher Columbus, and stressing on the eradication of colonialism hardly makes for an amicable NYC mayoral candidate, but disturbingly, this was regarded as par for the course in 2020.
2020 was indeed a peculiar time when eccentricities such as Mamdani’s were dismissed as part of the zeitgeist. The period, hopefully, marked the pinnacle of left-wing radicalism. From 2019 to 2023, we have alarming examples of similar questionable decisions taken by other Democrats and liberal institutions, including former Vice President Kamala Harris. In her 2020 Democratic presidential nomination bid, she publicized Her stance on taxpayer-funded gender reassignment surgeries for transgender illegal immigrants in prison, a position most would regard as extreme, and arguably, irrational.
Another confounding practice from the left was the replacement of ‘Latino’ and ‘Latina’ with ‘Latinx’ due to the former’s gender-specific connotations. This futile attempt to eradicate sex differences trickled down to government agencies and medical journals, which opted for ‘pregnant people’ and ‘birthing persons’ over ‘pregnant women’ and ‘mothers.’ Widespread adoption of ‘chest feeding’ over ‘breast feeding’ was another unwarranted impact of this trend.
Following George Floyd’s death, Robin DiAngelo, an opportunistic author, reached a high stature within ‘respectable’ circles. Her book ‘White Fragility’ became an obligatory reading in many workplaces and universities amongst the woke, manifesting the mania sweeping over the country. Stacey Abrams, despite firmly denying election results, somehow turned into a media favorite and Democratic hero.
The Left’s radicalism had three apparent catalysts: Trump, the COVID-19 pandemic and its consequent lockdowns, and the unfortunate death of George Floyd. The Left refused to accept Trump’s victory in 2016, with Hillary Clinton declaring him as an ‘illegitimate president’ without any repercussions. These hostilities accumulated over four years and found fresh outlets after COVID-19.
During the pandemic, people were driven to extremes due to isolation from friends, colleagues, and the outside world in general. Lives were spent down internet rabbit holes, which heightened extremism tendencies. The gruesome killing of George Floyd acted as an accelerant to already inflammable sentiments.
However, these incidents do not fully account for the level of extremism displayed by figures such as Biden, Harris, Mamdani, and the corporate world. A larger contribution came from the existing culture of censorship. The proclaimed justification for suppressing opinions on COVID-19, including legitimate observations about vaccine efficacy and side effects, was dismissed as ‘dangerous.’ This ignited a wave of woke mania.
Mamdani emerged politically amidst these chaotic circumstances of lockdowns, COVID-19 induced fear, public outrage after Floyd’s death, and rampant Trump derangement across New York City. His extreme worldviews should not be dismissed as isolated expressions created during tumultuous times; they are patterns deeply embedded within the DNA of the Left.