Democrats face their David Duke moment with Mamdani

Zohran Mamdani is now the Democrats’ nominee for mayor of New York City. He is also an openly anti-Semitic socialist.

His nomination puts the Democratic Party in a position not unlike the one Republicans faced in 1991, when David Duke — a former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan — became the GOP nominee in Louisiana’s gubernatorial runoff.

Now it’s the Democrats’ turn. They must reject Zohran Mamdani and the hateful, dangerous movement he represents, just as the Republicans did with David Duke.

This is the Democrats’ David Duke moment. And they’re failing the test.

Principle over party

In Louisiana’s 1991 “jungle primary,” the two top vote-getters were:

• Edwin Edwards, a former Democratic governor who had been charged with bribery and later convicted of extortion and money laundering; and
• David Duke, the former grand wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, who ran as a Republican.

Duke received only 32% of the vote, but that was enough to advance to the runoff. Although he had run for office several times in the 1980s as a Democrat, Duke ran as a Republican in 1991 — and won the Republican candidacy.

Faced with an impossible choice of backing an unrepentant white supremacist on their party’s ticket, Republicans rallied around Edwards, launching a campaign under the nose-holding slogan: “Vote for the crook — it’s important.”

And it worked. The crook Edwards defeated Duke, 61% to 39%.

That crossover vote was no small feat. This was the early 1990s — a time when Southern Democrats were in full collapse. Just three years earlier, George H.W. Bush beat Michael Dukakis by 10 points in Louisiana. Even the governor at the time, Buddy Roemer, had switched parties and run as a Republican because the Democratic brand was so out of favor.

In fact, bipartisan revulsion at Roemer’s political opportunism contributed to Duke finishing second in the primary. But in the end, Republicans knew what needed to be done. They didn’t like voting for Edwards, but a white supremacist was a nonstarter.

Failing the test

Thirty-four years later, a Jew-hating red is the Democrats’ candidate for mayor of New York City, one of the most prominent political offices in America. This is the Democrats’ David Duke moment.

But instead of rejecting Mamdani — who, like Duke, should have been a washout from the start — prominent Democrats are embracing him.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), for example, told Fox News that Mamdani is the “future” of the Democratic Party.

Mamdani isn’t some garden-variety progressive. He occupies a darker corner of the political spectrum — somewhere between Vladimir Lenin and Hamas. His candidacy should be as repugnant as a KKK grand wizard.

In 2021, he summed up his anti-Israel worldview in one sentence: “There are also other issues that we firmly believe in, whether it’s [boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israel] or whether it is the end goal of seizing the means of production.”

Mamdani doesn’t just support the BDS movement against Israel. He’s defended calls to “globalize the intifada” — a phrase that means exporting terrorism against Jews to every corner of the world, including the United States.

Mamdani has refused to condemn the global terror campaign against Jews, explaining that globalizing the intifada simply reflects a “desperate desire for equality and equal rights in standing up for Palestinian human rights.”

Then, when Hamas terrorists invaded Israel and slaughtered nearly 1,200 innocents on October 7, 2023, Mamdani condemned Israel, not Hamas.

Imagine a candidate who refused to condemn lynchings. He’d be ostracized on the spot — and rightfully so. But Mamdani cannot bring himself to denounce the murder of Jewish women and children — and Democrat leaders can’t bring themselves to denounce him either.

A terror-sympathizing socialist

Domestically, Mamdani is also extraordinarily sympathetic toward Islamic terrorists, having publicly criticized the U.S. government for putting al-Qaeda terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki under surveillance.

RELATED: Socialist Mamdani promises to ‘Trump-proof’ New York City, expel ICE

Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images

Although Mamdani won the Democratic primary, he is actually an official member of the Democratic Socialists of America. That group’s radical platform includes:

• Defunding the police;
• Releasing prisoners;
• Abolishing prisons;
• Nationalizing industry and abolishing capitalism;
• Eliminating carbon-based fuels;
• Providing public housing for all; and
• Closing all U.S. military bases.

As reported by the Free Press, Mamdani’s social media history is full of disqualifying statements for any serious candidate. A few examples:

• “Taxation isn’t theft. Capitalism is.”
• “Queer liberation means defund the police.”
• “We don’t just need more accountability. We need fewer police.”

Bigger than politics

For conservatives, it’s tempting to sit back and enjoy the spectacle of Democrats self-destructing. But this is bigger than party politics.

Both major parties have a responsibility to reject mainstreaming communism and Islamism in the United States.

In 1991, Republicans chose principle over party. They helped defeat a candidate who represented the worst of their history.

Now it’s the Democrats’ turn. They must reject Zohran Mamdani and the hateful, dangerous movement he represents, just as the Republicans did with David Duke.

Because, as the bumper sticker said in 1991, “It’s important.”