Anti-Muslim and hard-right activists used Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral campaign and subsequent election as mayor of New York City to spread racist misinformation and bigoted conspiracy theories. Many progressive activists viewed Mamdani’s historic victory as the city’s first Muslim and South Asian mayor as a triumph of pluralism. Anti-Muslim groups, in contrast, suggested that the practicing Muslim and progressive politician’s victory signaled the downfall not only of the city, but the country.
The hate perpetuated by anti-Muslim groups and figures that continues after Mamdani’s election fits into a larger project of religious and racialized fearmongering pushed by the organized anti-Muslim movement since its emergence after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Then, as now, anti-Muslim activists coalesced around New York City as the focal point for their bigoted and hateful misinformation campaigns, which promote a hard-right war of civilizations in which Muslims are deemed enemies of white Christian America.
After Mamdani, a New York State Assembly member, beat former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic mayoral primary in June, anti-Muslim figures began churning out rhetoric vilifying him and the people of New York who supported his campaign. Anti-Muslim hate group leader Brigitte Gabriel took to Twitter on June 24 saying, “The Mayor of New York City will most likely end up being Zohran Mamdani. Sharia Law will be coming to the United States. We must do everything to stop it.” Sharia, also spelled Shariah, is Islamic law that anti-Muslim figures claim is being forcibly — and sometimes unknowingly — imposed on those in the United States and broader West. Anti-Muslim activist Pamela Geller posted on Twitter that New York Democrats elected “a jihadi socialist who wants to globalize the intifada, globalize 9/11, and believes capitalism is a danger.”
The anti-Muslim movement remains a political force in the United States. It receives support from right-wing politicians, who opportunistically use anti-Muslim bias to … enhance draconian national security policies and racist immigration infrastructures.”
On July 2, Jamie Glazov invited anti-Muslim hate group leader Robert Spencer to his online hate program The Glazov Gang to opine about how Mamdani’s victory represents the “suicide of the west.” Spencer responded that, along with Mamdani’s alleged socialist policies, there will be a “rise in the jihad activity” in New York and that, as a Shia Muslim, Mamdani will not have a problem with it. Spencer said this will cause the city’s wealthy and those who prefer safety to flee, and he predicted that Mamdani is likely to “build a wall to keep all the people in who are going to be fleeing.” Spencer added that Mamdani is unlikely to be able to build a wall fast enough to prevent an exodus, and that the “city will be destroyed and the only people left in it will be the criminals and the jihadis and the people who are too impoverished to leave.” On June 25, Spencer went further on his hate blog Jihad Watch, claiming that “Mamdani’s victory is an indication of how much of a victory 9/11 was for the global jihad.”
9/11 gives rise to anti-Muslim bigotry
Anti-Muslim bigotry is not a new concept in the United States. Until 9/11, however, anti-Muslim ideology — which is generally characterized by nativist and anti-pluralist attacks on Muslims and false conspiracy theories about Muslims being threats to the nation and to democracy — was not a core organizing principle of any one sector of the hard right. That changed after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, when extremists associated with al-Qaida killed nearly 3,000 people in a series of attacks on targets that included the World Trade Center in New York City. The horrific attacks gave rise to a cottage industry of disinformation peddlers who vilified and demonized Islam and its adherents. Led by anti-Muslim hate figures like Spencer and Gabriel, it has blossomed into a movement of interconnected groups and figures disciplined in their messaging to frame Islam as a subversive threat to the U.S.
The hate group ACT for America has lost a significant number of chapters, and the hate group Understanding the Threat shuttered due to legal and financial troubles. In 2024, only 31 active anti-Muslim hate groups operated in the country.
However, the anti-Muslim movement remains a political force in the United States. It receives support from right-wing politicians, who opportunistically use anti-Muslim bias to justify intrusions into Americans’ privacy and enhance draconian national security policies and racist immigration infrastructures. Conservative media bubbles also frequently make Islam a political punching bag and frame the U.S. Muslim community as suspicious interlopers. The institutions associated with white Christian nationalism also support the anti-Muslim movement by characterizing Islam and all other non-Christian religions as incompatible with white American culture.
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