Speaking as someone who is Jewish, Paul Krugman addresses attacks on Zohran Mamdani as an antisemite:
"I’m Jewish, and anyone who knows their history realizes that whenever right-wing bigotry is on the ascendant, we’re always next in line. Are there really people out there naïve enough to believe MAGA’s claims to be against antisemitism, who can’t see the transparent cynicism and dishonesty?"
"The fact is that the Trump administration already contains a number of figures with strong ties to antisemitic extremists. ...
Everyone who cares about keeping America America needs to take a stand against the resurgence of bigotry. Because the truth is that we’re all rats now."
Jewish thinker Peter Beinart takes the mainstream media and centrist Democrats to task for their monomaniacal focus on Mamdani's statements about the intifada, while they remain totally silent about the genocide of Palestinians:
"It’s not because he threatens Jews. It’s because he believes Palestinian lives matter."
#ZohranMamdani #antisemitism #Jews #racism #Palestinians #media
/3
https://peterbeinart.substack.com/p/why-are-national-democrats-attacking
It’s Not Because He Threatens Jews. It’s Because He Believes Palestinian Lives Matter.
"These media anchors should really have to wrestle with their consciences about the fact that they are participating in this. No one is forcing them to have the only question they ask which deals with Israel and Palestine and Gaza, be a question about globalize the intifada … as if all of this death, all of this killing, all of this starvation, it just doesn’t register, it doesn’t matter because the lives of Palestinians are not considered to matter."
As a Muslim, Nesrine Malik writes,
"Mamdani has shown how prejudice is rarely about individuals, but the fear that marginalised minority views could ever become powerful majority ones. In this mayoral race, from Palestine to local policing, anti-Muslim hate is not just a repellent phenomenon confined to Mamdani, it is a barricade against the desires of the voting public. Once people start making that connection, it really is over."
The vicious reaction to his New York mayoral success tells us this: the establishment will not countenance mainstream voters making common cause with Muslims, says Guardian columnist Nesrine Malik
Michael Tomasky on why Mamdani apppeals to so many, and scares the bejasus out of the Democratic establishment:
"He told some very simple truths. He said: You’re getting screwed. And it’s not some invisible and undefinable hand of God that’s screwing you. It’s specific actors, and the politicians who are their handmaidens."
#ZohranMamdani #Democrats #centrists #EconomicElites
/6
https://newrepublic.com/article/197397/centrist-democrats-learn-zohran-mamdani
"He told people something that they already knew—but that they too rarely hear politicians, even Democratic ones, say.
Right now in Washington, the Republicans are on their way to passing a bill that, as I wrote last Friday, will deposit $68,000 IRS checks into the bank accounts of people making more than $900,000 a year while it will cut billions of dollars in health care to Americans of few to moderate means."
"At every public university in the country right now with an in-state network of hospitals, the higher-ups are in a panic wondering how they’re going to replace the many millions of dollars that are being picked out of their pockets—money that funds health care for those who can’t pay, mind you—and dropped into the wallets of millionaires."
"The national Democrats talk about this at Capitol Hill press conferences and in cable news interviews. But they don’t seem to be able to tell a story about it for the life of them. Why is it so hard?
Democrats of all stripes, especially the centrist ones, need to think about this."
"Despite Mamdani speaking of a fair New York for everyone, [Kristen] Welker asked him [on "Meet the Press"] about the phrase 'globalize the intifada,' despite how what he originally said about that has been entirely misrepresented."
And this confirms what Peter Beinart says — see /3 and /4 above — about the media's treatment of Mamdani.
#ZohranMamdani #antisemitism #Jews #racism #Palestinians #media
/10
It's hard for Democrats just as it's hard for Republicans.
They'd have to disavow their billionaires.
The billionaires that are literally buying votes and buying elections.
William Lindsey 
martin lentink 🇪🇺 🇺🇦📎
Nicole Parsons