Eating Their Own — Again: The Far Left Is Calling Zohran Mamdani a Traitor
Call it the Trotsky treatment, the Robespierre rub out, the Kronstadt-sailor stamp out. New York City’s avowedly socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani has just learned something the hard way.
You can never be pure enough for that ever-morphing malignancy: a left-wing revolution.
The issue? The mayor has incurred the wrath of anti-Israel demonstrators who consider him a traitor. Apparently, these people think you’re a Zionist if you’re not Josef Goebbels2.
The New York Post reported on the story Thursday, writing:
Mayor Zohran Mamdani was berated and booed at an Oct. 7 candlelight vigil in Union Square on Wednesday night by anti-Israel protesters who believe he turned his back on Palestinian causes.
Hizzoner [Mamdani], with a candle in hand, was heckled by the angry mob, including some waving Hamas flags, who marched from City Hall to crash the event meant to honor Jewish victims killed by Hamas terrorists — and Palestinians in the subsequent war.
“You coward!” some of the keffiyeh-clad agitators shouted at Hizzoner. “How do you let this happen?”
“Zohran you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide,” the protesters yelled in unison.
Other chants included “Mayor Mamdani take a stand. Stop the sale of stolen land” and “Shame on you.”
Mamdani remained stoic despite the disruptions.…
Well, he might’ve remained stoic-looking (video below), but he couldn’t have been too happy. Because according to insiders, Mamdani is “‘thin-skinned’ and hyper-sensitive to public criticism,” as the Post related in August. He “harbors petty grudges,” too, we’re told.
My, a left-winger with anger issues, vindictive tendencies, and personality problems? Say it ain’t so!
Not the Guy They Elected?
Regarding those Mamdani may hold grudges against now, and what their gripes are, The Forward reported on October 7:
More than 20 local organizations, most of them college chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine or Young Democratic Socialists of America [the Democratic Socialists of America’s student offshoot], are participating in the event. …
The groups’ complaints against the mayor include his allowing a law to take effect that allows NYPD [the New York Police Department] to implement security perimeters at places of worship and launching a plan to combat antisemitism that includes funding for Jewish community groups that do not disavow Israel.
“Zohran Mamdani campaigned on promises to the Palestine movement,” the groups said in a caption alongside a poster for the event. “He has betrayed his own alleged values, failing to make those promises a reality. Instead, he has repeatedly capitulated to Zionist pressure.”
Yes, well, Mamdani didn’t order the NYPD to arrest Israeli prime minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, as he pledged he would when running for mayor. (Netanyahu was in NYC September 24.) But, you supporters of his, let not your hearts be troubled. Mamdani still thinks Bibi should be arrested.
He just wants the Trump administration to do it.
You can ponder that, too, when riding home from your protest on your “free” Big Apple buses. They also exist — and also in that imaginary world in which a higher level of government approves and effects their creation.
Oh, it’s not that Mamdani doesn’t have his anti-Israel bona fides, especially through, though not limited to, marriage. Not only has he repeatedly accused Israel of committing genocide, but his wife, Rama Duwaji, really jumped the shark. A few years back she “liked” multiple Instagram posts applauding Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack. Moreover, as ABC 7 informed in April:
Last month, The Washington Free Beacon reported on years of Duwaji’s online activity across a handful of social media platforms, finding she had shared posts praising female Palestinian militants who participated in plane hijackings and bombings in the 1960s and early 1970s. In 2015, she shared a post in which someone else wrote that Tel Aviv was occupying Palestinian land and “shouldn’t exist.”
But none of this is good enough for Wednesday’s protesters, seen in the images and video below.
Not Alone
Further illustrating the division, other radical leftists were aghast at the anti-Mamdani agitation. For example, the hard-left Daily Kos was incredulous. The site called Mamdani “quite literally one of the greatest political success stories the U.S. socialist left has ever produced.” The Kos then pointed out that the mayor has company, writing:
This is much of the same behavior and attitude that saw Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez [D-NY] … excommunicated by the national Democratic Socialists of America [DSA], even though its New York City chapter maintained its support.
Some DSA factions were involved in Wednesday’s anti-Mamdani demonstrations, too. And this brings us to something: The Tale of the Useful Idiot.
The history of the Left eating its own is long. It goes back to leftism’s very birth during the French Revolution, in fact. That bloody affair killed many thousands, often under the guillotine. Yet its prime author, Maximilien Robespierre, was himself beheaded by fellow revolutionaries frightened that they were next to be purged.
Later in history, there were the Kronstadt sailors, stationed at the Kronstadt fortress on Kotlin Island in Russia. Inspired by utopian ideals, they aided the Bolsheviks in the 1917 overthrow of Russia’s tsarist government. What happened next?
They became disenchanted — and they rebelled against the Soviets in 1921.
Revolutionary figure Leon Trotsky was then charged with quelling the uprising, and did vanquish the sailors. Yet even he couldn’t remain revolutionary enough. Falling into disfavor, he was assassinated in 1940 under Joseph Stalin’s orders. It was essentially the same story in Mao Tse-tung’s China, Khmer Rouge Cambodia, and Fidel Castro’s Cuba. Wash, rinse, and repeat.
Of course, no one on the American Left is killing his co-ideologists on a massive scale (yet). This can only happen when the “’thin-skinned’ and hyper-sensitive” gain enough power. It is then, via guillotine or gulag, that you find out who the useful idiots really are.
