Mamdani Is a Terrible Antisemite (Meaning, He's Terrible at Being an Antisemite)
The mayoral candidate is totally failing at being an antisemite, given his endorsements from Jewish leaders, outreach to their communities, and total lack of hate speech
Nov. 4: Spanberger dismisses New York City mayoral choice of Hasidic Jewish leader as not a real Democrat … Trump agrees to partial food-stamp funding for hungry Americans to partially eat … Today we learn if lawyers for sandwich tosser can cut the mustard … Dick Cheney does most popular thing ever in his decades-long political career of doing unpopular things …
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Democratic Party leaders continue trying to ensure that the Democratic choice of many Jewish leaders loses his election today.
It’s not clear why Democratic Party leaders are opposing the choice of Jewish leaders, but I wanna say antisemitism?
The latest remarks came from former Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA), Democratic nominee for Virginia governor, right before Election Day, because that’s how a skilled politician closes the race. According to a report from CNN on Monday, Spanberger was asked about her fellow Democratic nominee, New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani.
Specifically, she was asked to respond to Mamdani’s claim that his movement had “won the battle over the soul of the Democratic Party.”
Spanberger could have responded with something like, “Questions like this — about unlitigateable bullshit regarding something that literally doesn’t exist — instead of real shit that affects real life are why most Americans reject and don’t trust mainstream media.” But, my easily shocked Newsfucker, she did not.
Instead, with the strategic savvy of a former CIA case officer, Spanberger said, “Then maybe he should be a Democrat.” Newsfucker, she doubled down.
“Why is it that everybody keeps thinking somebody running in a city, admittedly an enormous city, that that is the deciding race?” Spanberger said, confirming that her CIA experience left her unable to understand things. So, some help.
New York City has just about as many people as the entire state of Virginia and a hell of a lot more people who work there and travel there (and unlike Virginia, New York’s motto isn’t “Sic semper tyrannis,” which John Wilkes Booth cried as he murdered Abraham Lincoln).
Mamdani’s primary victory took far more strategic savvy and organizational excellence than Spanberger’s did.
New York City is the only race where Democrats have turned on other Democrats. (In other words, Spanberger helped make it more of an issue and now doesn’t understand that. #CIA.)
Mamdani has had a consistent lead over a former governor, current mayor, and a Republican candidate who’s not full-on MAGA.
Spanberger has had a consistent lead over, um, a MAGA rival who somehow isn’t inspiring MAGA voters as a Black woman candidate and doesn’t even have Pres. Donald Trump’s support.
Maybe Spanberger’s race might be seen as more interesting if progressives had tried to sabotage Spanberger from the moment she won her primary, running against her and pressing national leaders not to endorse her as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and former Pres. Barack Obama have not endorsed Mamdani. (A criminal squandering of opportunity, as I newsfucked last month.)
Maybe Mamdani’s more interesting because he went into Election Day today without the help of campaigning alongside Obama, as Spanberger and Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ), the New Jersey gubernatorial candidate, did. Maybe Mamdani’s more interesting because unlike Spanberger he’s winning even without the help of his unpopular party’s leaders.
Mamdani’s also winning despite Democrats calling him antisemitic just because he used an antisemitic slur once never. In fact, Spanberger is undermining the choice of many Jewish leaders in America’s most Jewish and most American city.
Jewish Democrats are by no means united behind Mamdani, but even some Hasidic leaders, like Rabbi Moshe Indig, have declared Mamdani kosher, or in Indig’s case, “not antisemitic.” Indig endorsed Mamdani on Sunday, months after Mamdani was endorsed by Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) and city Comptroller Brad Lander, both outspoken Jewish Democrats.
I’ve written before about my rage at the anti-Mamdani movement among Democrats. Not just because of the Islamophobia, anti-Arab bigotry, antisemitism fear-mongering, and rejection of the party’s historically most popular positions, but also because it’s so obviously stupid.
On Sunday, John Reid, the Republican Virginia lieutenant governor candidate, told Fox that Spanberger is “Mamdani in a skirt,” which Fox viewers understand to be two insults. But that insult only works because Democrats validated the idea of Mamdani’s extremism. Hey, former CIA case officer, protect your left flank.
Between Spanberger and Mamdani, it’s easy to tell which is the Democrat. It’s the one not taking shots at other Democrats.
Consider Mamdani’s comment when asked about Spanberger’s comment about his comment. Here’s CNN:
Mamdani’s campaign did not respond when asked about Spanberger’s comments.
Beautiful. No notes.
And when he was asked in person on Friday about whether his party has room for Spanberger and Sherrill, Mamdani said:
“No, they’re not real Democrats and they’re too extreme for the party.”“Absolutely, I think that this has to be a party that actually allows Americans to see themselves in it and not just be a mirror image of just a few people who are engaged in politics … To me, what binds all of us together is who we are fighting to serve, and that is working people.”
Mamdani’s factually correct about his movement and the party, assuming factual correctness is of interest to a former CIA case officer. When Spanberger questioned Mamdani’s Democrat-ness she was alluding to his membership in and endorsement by the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).
Helpfully, the New York Times compiled a list of other New York City democratic socialists:
Mayor David Dinkins, former DSA member
Republican Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, who ran for Congress on a socialist line
Former Manhattan Borough President Ruth Messinger, who ran for mayor and was a DSA member
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who’s been called Ocasio-Cortez in a skirt.
A new poll shows that most Democrats are in line with the DSA.
Asked whether Democratic socialists are a threat to American values (whatever the fuck that means) or can be good representatives for working-class Americans (which would arguably be a threat to “American values” but whatever), Democrats responded:
Threat to American values: 13%
Good representatives for working-class Americans: 78%
Here’s how Democrats responded when asked to choose between two different systems:
Democratic socialism: 74%
Capitalism: 16%
The poll is worth scanning for a number of heartening results. In fact, the only minorly disappointing result — and it’s statistically very close — is the one about transgender rights, and even there, the right position still had majority support, with 51% of everyone, not just Democrats, favorable toward a hypothetical official who defended trans rights and also advocated on important issues such as drug prices.
TFN doesn’t do predictions, and Newsfuckers know not to get caught up in predictions (a mug’s game). But it’s Election Day and you’ve been such good Newsfuckers so, here ya go. Enjoy!
TFN’s own, bespoke election guide is right here as always.
Oh, and best-selling author and best-thinking thinker Doug Rushkoff asked me to join him on the Team Human podcast for Wednesday morning election coverage. Newsfuckers, I said yes. You can sign up here to get notified when we go live, which should be 10am Wednesday morning right here.
GUESS WHO’S LESS POPULAR THAN DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM? Trump’s now hit a record-high disapproval number in CNN’s polling. Sixty-three percent of registered voters disapprove of how Trump’s doing his job, probably because he keeps doing other people’s jobs even worse than he’s doing his own job and oh literally broke one-third of his office.
Trump’s not on the ballot anywhere today, but the word “Republican” is, and voters know how to read that.
REDISTRICTING In California, voters will choose whether to redistrict their state’s congressional seats the way the founding fathers definitely didn’t want them to.
Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) has pushed a redistricting plan explicitly drawn up to disenfranchise Republican voters by splitting them up strategically into majority-Democratic districts. Which sounds bad when I put it that way.
It’s in response to four Republican-led states — and counting — going along with Trump’s push to redistrict House Democrats out of power ahead of next year’s elections, which will or won’t flip the House or Senate Democratic. Newsom’s measure is expected to pass, and TFN has written before about the opposition flipping over and playing dead or at least playing uninsured due to lapsing Obamacare subsidies.
Your occasionally skeptical TFN tends to look skeptically upon Democratic remapping efforts as tweaking around the edges, rather than reshaping the party into an unbeatable force on any map by fighting for policies that people love. Y’know, the democratic socialist ones.
Trump Goes Partially Socialist
If it breaks your brain to have the Democratic Party lose its mind over the city-owned grocery stores Zohran Mamdani is proposing, while at the same time fighting hard to just give away federal money for people to buy food, welcome to TFN’s brain!
The Dept. of Agriculture (USDA) on Monday said it will at least partially comply with judicial orders to keep funding food stamps, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), even though the federal government shutdown is still in effect.
Pres. Donald Trump, of course, has been using executive powers to fund whatever the fuck he wants to fund, like boat murders. But when it came to food stamps he decided that, nope, even presidents named Trump must obey whatever teensy law they can find that totally or at least arguably forbids it. You know what a stickler he is for the rules!
Nevertheless, Trump’s commitment to incompetence means that the USDA didn’t prepare for the possibility of these judicial orders, so states are likely to have real hiccups in getting enough money to needy food eaters by the time they would like to eat food. (To help the food-eating community, you can find local food banks at Feeding America.)
Author Brian Goldstone points out that just two months ago, Trump decided it’s better all around for America not to know how many people are going hungry.
USDA spokesperson Alec Varsamis, between bites of his salami sandwich, called the annual hunger report “overly politicized” — as if food and money aren’t primary ingredients of politics — and said the report was “unnecessary.” Which, if you don’t give a shit about people going hungry, true!
Man, now I’m hungry for a sandwich… and justice!
Trial Begins for Sandwich Tosser
Opening arguments begin today in the trial of The People vs. Sean Charles Dunn, which might prove tough for prosecutors because the people fucking love Sean Charles Dunn.
To be clear, Dunn is 100% guilty of throwing a sandwich at Customs and Border Protection agent Gregory Lairmore. #NeverForget to get a drink with that.
It wasn’t even an attempted sandwich throwing. Dunn fired at point-blank range and struck Lairmore center mass.
Members of the jury pool who weren’t selected told CNN they weren’t biting. They thought the case was bullshit. Hell, the Trump Justice Department failed to win a felony assault indictment of Dunn from a skeptical, pissed-off grand jury, even though it’s literally a cliche that indictments are so easy to get that federal prosecutors can indict a ham sandwich.
Dunn has pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor assault.
His weapon was salami. With extra truth.
Dick Cheney Dies After Living Long Enough To Become the Villain
Former Vice Pres. Dick Cheney died Monday night, after a lifetime of making people wish he had died sooner. It’s believed he wanted to hang on for one last Halloween to scare the shit out of Trick or Treaters and give them no candy because socialism and they didn’t work for it.
As historian Kevin Kruse wrote as soon as Cheney was history:
Dick Cheney did more than anyone else to build up expansive and destructive executive branch powers in the wake of 9/11; he lived to see another president turn those same powers against his own daughter.
Cheney was also a key architect of undemocratic presidential power well before 9/11, having served in previous shitty-president-record-holder Richard Nixon’s administration. When you add abetting Nixon to Cheney’s crimes as leader of the Pres. George W. Bush administration — politicizing 9/11, introducing torture into America’s official repertoire, kidnapping, spying, creating illegal hellholes outside America’s borders and also inside, voter disenfranchisement, anti-LGBTQ+ policies — let’s just say someone’s getting Hell’s best luxury sky box for an eternity almost as long as the one we spent with him!
Cheney died due to complications from pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease. That’s right, Cheney was killed by a coalition of the diseases willing to invade him.
It’s not clear why the cause of death is referred to as “complications” when it seems like they actually just simplified the shit out of him. An autopsy is expected to reveal no trace of guilt or shame.
Cheney in 2022 said, “In our nation’s 246-year history, there has never been an individual who was a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump,” expressing his gratitude that finally someone other than Bush held the title.
Hilariously, Cheney inventoried Trump’s sins thusly: “He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him. He is a coward.”
Bush, of course, took office in 2001 after voters rejected him and his supporters used lies and violence to storm a Florida election office and he ducked combat. Cheney also tried to steal elections by pressing federal prosecutors to gin up voter-fraud cases as justification for new voting rules limiting the ability of people (i.e., Democrats) to vote.
And if you’re wondering how Howard Zinn and George Carlin would have written Cheney’s obituary, TFN is proud to point you to the future-obit of Cheney written in 2015 by award-winning writer Jim Earl, formerly of The Daily Show and WTF, right here. (EDIT: Apparently the page has been removed!)
TCB
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Hi there. Your title is funny but on the last day of voting it's a bit iffy, and seeing it on its own could turn someone against Mamdani. Perhaps add a clarifying sentence? Mamdani needs to win in a landslide.