[Order Michael Finch’s new book, A Time to Stand: HERE. Prof. Jason Hill calls it “an aesthetic and political tour de force.”]
In the wake of Zohran Mamdani’s appearance at a terror mosque that had been under NYPD surveillance after its imam’s connections to a plot to bomb New York City landmarks and after members of the mosque’s security team illegally trafficked in weapons, called themselves “Jihad Assassins” and had ties to an Al Qaeda terrorist who wanted to bomb commuter rail in Virginia, some are asking hard questions about the role of Islam in inciting political violence in America.
In recent weeks, two other Muslim politicians are making headlines for what appear to be a wish for Trump’s death and calls for violence against conservatives and Trump supporters.
In Connecticut, Saud Anwar, a Pakistani immigrant who currently serves as Deputy President Pro Tempore of the State Senate, is refusing to apologize after bringing a sign reading “Cholesterol Do Your Job” to a No Kings anti-Trump rally.
Democrats must immediately remove Sen. Saud Anwar as Chair of the legislature’s Public Health Committee. And Gov. Ned Lamont should demand it,” Republican Senate Leader Stephen Harding urged. “This man is a doctor: He is someone supposedly entrusted with protecting health. Yet, he just posed, with a wide grin on his face, with a sign wishing death upon the President of the United States.”
“I thought that sign was offensive and inappropriate. He shouldn’t have been there next to that sign. I think he regrets it. I hope he says so,” Gov. Ned Lamont claimed, but Anwar refused to apologize.
“Some Republicans are pretending to be outraged over a photo of me standing next to a satirical sign at a No Kings rally,” the Pakistani Muslim immigrant playing a powerful role in Connecticut politics retorted, describing the outrage over calling for President Trump’s “performative distraction” and “clutching pearls”.
Democrat Senate President Martin Looney backed up Anwar, describing the Pakistani Muslim, whose pretext for coming to America had been to study medicine, as a “steadfast leader on public health and a respected voice in the Senate” and claimed that the criticism was “manufactured outrage over a joking social media post”.
Meanwhile in Michigan, another Democrat, Abdul El-Sayed, the Bernie Sanders endorsed radical Senate candidate, had taken to urging a leftist mob at a Bernie Sanders and AOC event “when they go low, we don’t go high. We take them to the mud and choke them out.”
The rhetoric by Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed, the son of Egyptian Muslim migrants, was hailed by the Left. El-Sayed responded to Republican complaints with, “not so tough against folks who actually stand up for themselves now are we” and “you triggered? Cry more.”
Abdul Mohammed El-Sayed, a former Soros fellow who describes himself as a ‘doctor’ despite not actually being licensed to practice medicine, had previously spurred a backlash after he sent out an Oct 7 fundraising email claiming that “two years ago this month, Netanyahu’s military launched a ground invasion of Gaza” without mentioning the Hamas attack on Israel.
What’s behind all the violent rhetoric coming from Muslim politicians and political candidates?
Islam occupies a unique space in modern leftist politics not because progressives truly believe it’s non-violent, but because they see it as violent and capable of engaging in the violence that they themselves have become incapable of. The new ‘Radical Chic’ that Tom Wolfe described in which white liberals embraced black militants underwent a revival with the BLM movement before being eclipsed by the pro-Hamas riots after Oct 7. (Both Anwar and E-Sayed are opponents of Israel’s campaign against Hamas.) Why did so many white leftists suddenly start chanting “from the river to the sea” and waving Hamas and Hezbollah flags at protests?
Islamic politics offers white leftists the promise of an uncompromising militant movement capable of paying any price and using any tactic to destroy their opponents. By mainstreaming the Hamas atrocities of Oct 7, more than a few American radicals hope to legitimize the application of similar tactics in this country. And Muslim politicians and activists eagerly play into their expectations even while often having a very different ultimate outcome in mind for America.
“Suicide bombing needs to be understood as a feature of modern political violence rather than stigmatized as a mark of barbarism,” Mahmood Mamdani, Zohran’s father, had argued.
“We need to recognize the suicide bomber first and foremost as a category of soldier,” Mamdani wrote in ‘Good Muslim, Bad Muslim’. Mamdani was trying to position Islamic terrorism and its Jihad against all non-Muslims within the academic context of Frantz Fanon and leftist radicalism, as many Islamist supporters have done.
Whitewashing Islamic terrorism as an ‘anti-colonial’ movement is the axis of the ‘red-green alliance’ between Islam and Marxism. As long as the Left believes that Islamic terrorism shares its fundamental goals, it will justify Islamic supremacist violence and ally with Jihadists.
The use of violent rhetoric by Muslim candidates and elected officials affirms their revolutionary credibility. The more they call for violence, the more the Left embraces them and seeks out more Muslims who will do to America what they lack the boldness to do themselves.
When Charlie Kirk tweeted that “Islam is the sword that the Left is using to slit the throat of America”, he captured the leftist perspective on why it has made an alliance with Islam.
The rise of political violence in America cannot be detached from the rise of Islam in leftist politics. As Islam increases its hold on American politics, so will political violence.
