It’s Still Fascism When Democrats Do It

The attacks on Zohran Mamdani are MAGA politics

Edit: Senator Gillibrand just apologized to Mamdani for her comments; New York Governor Kathy Hochus also condemned Gillibrand’s comments. This is excellent news, and suggests the party has (at least in this instance!) decided to reject these ugly politics and find a better way forward.

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After Zohran Mamdani’s upset win in the Democratic primary over misogynist abuser, nursing home murderer, and disgraced former governor Andrew Cuomo, centrist Democrats have loudly and disgustingly lost their shit. Stephen Robinson summarizes some of the worst shit-losing:

Axis of Evil architect David Frum directly linked Mamdani’s primary victory to antisemitism in New York. Democratic Rep. Laura Gillen repeated the bigoted smear that Mamdani’s criticism of Israel’s government is tantamount to antisemitism. Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand shamelessly suggested that Mamdani had endorsed violence against Jews. Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell said, “I don’t associate myself with what he has said about the Jewish people.”

Robinson’s article explains why these charges are ridiculous—noting, just as a start, that Mamdani has called for an 800 percent increase in hate crime prevention programs specifically to address antisemitic incidents. “Because,” he explains, “ultimately, we cannot simply say that antisemitism has no home in this city or no place in this country. We have to do more than talk about it.”

Thank God non-Jew Eric Swalwell is refusing to associate himself with Mamdani’s incendiary claim that (checks notes) antisemitism is dangerous and we need to do more to fight it.

Most of the anger and attacks have focused on Mamdani’s refusal to outright condemn the phrase “globalize the intifadah”, a phrase he says he doesn’t use. He argues that heavily policing Palestinian speech is dangerous, as it aligns with the Trump administration’s attack on protest and free expression. He’s also pointed out that the Holocaust Museum until recently used the term “intifadah” in its Arabic language translation of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. Demonizing the language of resistance during a horrific genocide is cruel and counterproductive.

Even if you disagree with Mamdani and think the phrase “globalize the intifadah” should be verboten, it’s impossible to listen to him talk about these issues in good faith and come away with the conclusion that he’s going to target Jewish people. This is not Trump accusing Jewish people of dual loyalty or pushing horrific antisemitic conspiracy theories that have led to actual massacres. This is a guy saying he wants to put concrete resources towards helping Jewish people under threat while also expressing empathy for Palestinians whose community is being decimated.

Yet Democrats like Chuck Schumer deny Trump is antisemitic while freaking the fuck out about Mamdani. What is going on?

Democrats are tactical bigots

What’s going on is fascism. Democrats are targeting Mamdani for exactly the same reasons that Trump targets immigrants, trans people, Black people, and one Zohran Mamdani.

The first reason is that bigotry is, or can be, a powerful way to delegitimize political opponents. Mamdani’s policy program is not actual Communism, but it is pretty far left. He’s advocated for rent freezes, which landlord-friendly centrist Democrats hate. He’s also called for free public transit and free public childcare—again, policies which make some centrist Democrats nervous.

Mamdani also challenges the centrist Democratic pro-Zionist consensus. New York mayors don’t have a whole lot of control over foreign policy. Nonetheless, rhetorical support for Israel, even unto brutal and sweeping war crimes, has become a major way in which Democratic candidates are supposed to signal to donors and swing voters that the party is moderate, reasonable, and willing to hate at least some of the same people (Palestinians, Muslims) who are also hated by the right. A candidate who opposes Israeli war crimes in New York City is seen by centrists as a threat to Democrat’s image and to their electoral hopes nationwide.

Mamdani is scary, from this centrist perspective, not because he threatens Jewish people, but because he threatens centrist policy priorities and centrist electoral calculus. The Atlantic runs a darkened, lowering image of Mamdani as a scary Muslim because they think that their readers will be more frightened by Scary Muslim than by Scary Free Buses.

The fact that Mamdani energized younger voters in unprecedented ways and defeated a centrist candidate despite massive spending disparities would, you’d think lead to some reconsideration on at least the worries about election losses. Mamdani’s win shows that progressive non Zionists can in fact win, even against better funded opponents, even in the face of a brutal smear campaign. That should be good news, right?

Democrats are sincere bigots

It would be good news except for one thing: Democrats don’t just indulge in Islamophobia as a tactic. They indulge in Islamophobia because they genuinely believe that Muslims should not have a place in leadership and public life.

Kate Manne in her book Entitled explains that misogyny is not (just) about hatred, but is often about entitlement—men’s sense that women owe them deference. When women fail to perform deference (by, say, assuming leadership positions), men become enraged, and double down on misogynist smears and bullying in an effort to put women back in their place.

I think other bigotries function in similar ways. That’s why Mamdani’s victory sparked such an outburst of grotesque Islamophobic smears. Senator Gillibrand falsely and disgustingly suggested that Mamdani had “glorif[ied] the slaughter of Jews” as a way of expressing her sense that the established hierarchy is under threat. A Muslin in power means anarchy, death, the world turned upside down. It’s like the right claiming Obama was going to institute sharia law.

Bigotry is a fascist tactic to build power. And fascist build power to advance bigotry in the form of race based, identity-based hierarchies.

In general Democrats oppose fascism. They rely on Black voters, Latino voters, women, LGBT voters, and working-class voters, all overlapping groups which broadly suffer under fascist hierarchies. Democrats (for the most part) denounce Republican efforts to disenfranchise non white voters; they (for the most part) denounce efforts to force LGBT people out of public life. Fear mongering racist conspiracy theories hurt Democrats, and they (mostly) try to oppose them.

But. There are also instances where Democrats see certain hierarchies as benefiting them and their constituents. They struggle to denounce anti immigrant policies, since immigrants can’t vote, and therefore have little influence in elections. Some waver on trans rights, since trans people are a tiny group with little electoral heft.

And along the same lines, Democrats have embraced Zionism because they believe it is an electoral winner (not just with Jewish voters) and because they see it as central to their identity as a party. In that context, Muslims and Palestinians who criticize the consensus are seen as speaking out of turn and as attempting to overturn just, natural, and righteous hierarchies.

When Mamdani explains that Arabic speakers have some entitlement to their own language of resistance, Democrats like Gillibrand rush to insist that they do not, because they believe that the Democratic status quo requires Muslims in the coalition to remain silent or perform deference. Muslim people are not entitled to their own language, nor are they entitled to their election victories. They are entitled to nothing. That’s Islamophobia.

Fascism can’t fight fascism

Islamophobia is obviously evil in itself; it harms Muslims, it harms Palestinians, it harms people like Sikhs associated with Muslims by a broadly ignorant American public, and it harms people who advocate for Muslims.

That is all horrible, and we should forswear Islamophobia on those grounds alone. But it’s also important to recognize that when Democrats embrace fascist tactics and fascist goals, they undermine their ability to fight fascism for everyone.

Mamdani explained this himself; hyper policing support for Palestinians, smearing such statements of support as antisemitic, lends power to Trump, who has used Zionism and false accusations of antisemitism as an excuse to defund universities which he sees as centers of antifascist resistance, and to target political opponents for deportation. Democratic response to these outrages has been tepid and muted; Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer, for example, can’t mention Trump’s attack on Columbia without validating it and blaming Columbia. Trump’s fascist hierarchy of bigotry is a fascist hierarchy of bigotry that Schumer endorses, at least so far as that fascist hierarchy of bigotry relegates Palestinians and Muslims to the bottom.

To be fair, there are Democrats who realize the dangers of embracing Islamophobia—and not just progressives. Centrist New York Jewish congressional leader Jerry Nadler has endorsed Mamdani as has lefty Democratic Jewish New York comptroller (and former rival for mayor) Brad Lander. The Democratic party doesn’t have to embrace fascism; it can rebuke Gillibrand’s ghoulish politics of hate and choose a better path. If they don’t, though, the outcome is certain—the fascists will win.

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