Zohran Mamdani wins NYC: Can America recover from this ‘stupid’ mistake?

It may have offended some New York City Jews on Tuesday when U.S. President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social that anyone voting for Democratic mayoral candidate Zohar Mamdani was "stupid." But blunt as it was, Trump's message should have touched a nerve, not only about Jewish voters, but about anyone who cast their ballot for the self-described socialist Democrat and the progressive policies that propelled him to victory.

"Any Jewish person that votes for Zohran Mamdani, a proven and self professed JEW HATER, is a stupid person!!!" Trump said in a Truth Social post on Tuesday.

Mamdani, a 34-year-old Democratic Socialist, has become the first millennial and Muslim to lead New York City. He defeated former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa, at least according to preliminary results, with most votes counted and his victory declared.

While New Yorkers now look ahead to what Mamdani's leadership could mean for their daily lives, and for the future direction of the United States' largest city, an equally urgent question looms: how did this happen, and how can it be prevented from happening again?

Trump offered a one-word answer on Tuesday: "stupidity".

"Whenever the people are well-informed," Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1789, "they can be trusted with their own government."

And when they are not? Jefferson warned that the greatest threat to democracy is the ignorance of its citizens.

Today, that warning feels prophetic. American voters are, quite simply, uninformed.

"The political literacy of American citizens is really low, and we don't understand the ideological roots of what Mamdani is saying," explained Charles Asher Small, founder and director of the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP).

Take, for example, the fact that Mamdani founded the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter at Bowdoin College. SJP grew out of American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), a group affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood. Small noted that most Americans have never heard of the Muslim Brotherhood, or mistakenly view it as a benevolent nonprofit. In reality, he said, the Brotherhood seeks to destroy democracy, dismantle Israel, and murder Jews.

"When Mamdani cannot bring himself to condemn 'from the river to the sea' or 'globalize the intifada,' which are Muslim Brotherhood slogans, most Americans don't make the connection, and this is a travesty," Small told ALL ISRAEL NEWS.

Moreover, Mamdani has been a walking contradiction. He tells traditional Muslims one thing in Arabic or Urdu, then turns around and thanks the transgender community at a nightclub. Even a mildly educated electorate would recognize this profound hypocrisy, but it seems most voters did not.

Experts say part of the problem is that Americans no longer know their history or understand how policies like Mamdani's have failed before. Political analyst Marc Schulman told this reporter that the United States has spent years emphasizing STEM – science, technology, engineering, and mathematics – while removing nearly all emphasis on civics and history. The result: voters who show up at the polls without understanding what they're voting for.

In addition, the growing economic, social, and political marginalization is seen in New York and across the country. When people feel excluded, overworked, and unheard, populism and extremism start to sound appealing, Small explained.

"Mamdani appears to be addressing the disenfranchised," Small said. "He gives fantastical policies that are appealing, yet will be impossible to deliver."

"Zohran Mamdani, the Pied Piper of Bushwick, offers trust-fund socialism to over-credentialed, downwardly mobile 20- and 30-somethings who can't become adults due to the job and housing markets," wrote author Batya Ungar-Sargon. "A nepo baby, he legitimizes living off your parents in a rent-stabilized apartment into your 30s."

Analyst Ruthie Blum agrees. Speaking to this reporter on ILTV Insider the day before the election, she said young voters are drawn to the illusion of "free stuff,"  which is precisely what Mamdani offers.

"Many people think he has charisma," Blum said. "He's young… But what he's mainly doing is saying he's going to give you free buses, freeze rent, subsidize grocery stores."

As Blum explained, those promises speak directly to young professionals struggling to make ends meet in the city where they work, a group that increasingly feels entitled and economically trapped.

"Those premises are very seductive," she said.

But beyond the giveaways, Mamdani's real appeal lies in something more insidious: moral posturing. He cloaks radical ideas in the language of compassion and justice, making his policies sound humanitarian.

In reality, Mamdani espouses elements of radical Islam that stand in direct opposition to the very values he claims to champion: the rights of women, LGBTQ individuals, and religious minorities. Yet, with polished rhetoric and progressive branding, he manages to convince his followers that he represents the moral high ground.

This message clearly resonates with young Jewish voters, too.

A largely quoted Quinnipiac University poll published last week showed that 16% of Jewish respondents planned to vote for Mamdani, and, according to other surveys, most of them were young adults.

"Mamdani's social media and engagement is very sophisticated, aimed at young people, and slick and attractive," said Small. "I think some young Jewish people are uncomfortable with the war against Hamas in Gaza. It's been a difficult two years. Maybe some people feel they have White guilt or are ashamed of the conflict and do not understand what's at stake for Israel and the Middle East."

That lack of understanding and clever messaging made Mamdani's appeal especially potent. 

But it's also dangerous.

Recently, Mamdani posted a photo with Imam Siraj Wahhaj, a Brooklyn cleric who served as a character witness for the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He also accepted a $100,000 donation from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) through a super PAC. CAIR was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terror-financing trial. Mamdani has accused Israel of genocide and publicly stated that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should be arrested if he visits New York.

In a different era, the media might have helped voters grasp the implications of all this. Even five or 10 years ago, traditional news outlets would have assigned reporters to cover these stories for days, sometimes weeks. Now, everything is instantaneous. Headlines move faster than facts, and few checks and balances remain.

Small stressed that more and more Americans are getting their news from social media, where narratives are often manipulated rather than researched. 

"People are feeding into it," he said.

Where antisemitic rhetoric was once confined to small, private conversations, social media now amplifies it to thousands, even millions, in seconds. Many analysts have linked the rise in antisemitism directly to the rise of social media, among other factors.

The fear now is that Mamdani's victory will not only bring bad policy but also violence.

Small warned in an interview with Fox News Digital: "The normalization of antisemitism and anti-democratic rhetoric is now mainstream… The antisemitic discourse of Mamdani will inevitably lead to increased hate and violence."

Schulman agreed, saying Jews have reason to be concerned.

"They should be worried," he told ILTV. "They should plan accordingly."

And the problem extends beyond New York City's Jewish community, many of whom are unlikely to leave even after Mamdani's win. The greater concern is the precedent it sets nationwide: that being openly anti-Israel is no longer disqualifying.

"You can be anti-Israel and still run," Schulman said. "If you can win in New York, an anti-Israel candidate can win anywhere in the United States."

Can the tide be reversed?

Small said there is cause for cautious optimism. While Mamdani's win represents a new and troubling chapter in New York City politics, he believes the city's democratic heritage, and America's, can still be reclaimed.

ISGAP has spent years researching the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States and the role of the Qatari regime in spreading that ideology through its vast wealth. Although Qatar has fewer than 300,000 citizens, Small noted that it gives more money to American education than any other country. Through these grants, Qatar has built extraordinary soft power, shaping the values and worldviews of future American leaders.

"Young people go to the best universities to learn to be citizens, and they are being mis-educated," Small said.

"It is not just antisemitism," he added. "Young people are supporting anti-democratic, anti-American, sexist, homophobic values… Liberal education is the foundation of democracy, and these institutions are taking tens of billions of dollars from a regime that wants to destroy democracy."

Small said the first step must be to stop these regimes from infiltrating America's colleges.

"This is more important than profit," he told ALL ISRAEL NEWS. "These institutions train America's next generation."

He added that Americans, including American Jews, who choose to stay in New York under Mamdani's leadership must double down on their commitment to reclaiming the city's democratic principles. Only then, he said, can New York once again embody its legacy as a multicultural city that welcomes people and weaves them into its civic fabric.

"People who demonize democracy have no place in New York City or the United States," Small said.

In other words, stupidity might have won an election, but awareness, courage, and truth can still win the country back.