Right-wing media's Mamdani outrage fuels GOP anti-Muslim rhetoric

[marmar]

Right-wing media’s Mamdani outrage fuels GOP anti-Muslim rhetoric
Mike Johnson refuses to condemn Republicans for turning attack at Mamdani’s home into Islamophobic campaign

By Sophia Tesfaye
Senior Writer
Published March 12, 2026 6:45AM (EDT)


(Salon) During Islam’s holy month of Ramadan, when Muslims around the world fast from dawn to sunset and gather with family and neighbors each evening to break that fast, the American right is manufacturing outrage about Muslims in public life. Worse yet, they are turning it into a vehicle for increasingly explicit calls to push Muslims out of American society altogether.

What should have been a straightforward story about an anti-Muslim rally escalating into violence instead became a right-wing media opportunity to cast New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, and by extension all Muslims, as the villain. Saturday’s protest outside Gracie Mansion, the city’s mayoral residence, was explicitly billed as a demonstration against the supposed “Islamic takeover of New York City.” Organized by Jake Lang, a pardoned Jan. 6 insurrectionist who promised to burn a Quran, the event attracted counter-protesters. Amid the chaos, two men allegedly hurled improvised explosive devices (IEDs) filled with bolts and screws into the crowd of anti-Muslim protesters.

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Within hours, right-wing media and Republican politicians had reframed the entire episode into a grievance against Mamdani himself. The logic was almost comically circular: an anti-Muslim rally was held outside the home of a Muslim mayor and violence erupted, therefore the mayor’s response was suspect. When Mamdani criticized the Islamophobia driving the rally, that criticism itself became the outrage. Even the New York Times curiously questioned why Mamdani “did not turn to his typical means of communication,” like “short-form videos posted to social media about the attack.”

The most nakedly bigoted response came from Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., who declared on social media that “Muslims don’t belong in American society” and suggested that Mamdani should be deported. The mayor, who was born in Uganda, has been a U.S. citizen since 2018. That hasn’t stopped Ogles from previously urging the Justice Department to investigate whether Mamdani could be stripped of his citizenship through denaturalization. The congressman, whose Nashville-area congressional district is home to more than 40,000 Muslims — one of the largest Muslim communities in the South. He recently proposed a bill to ban immigration by Muslims, declaring that they “are unable to assimilate” and “all have to go back.”

The most alarming part of the episode is not that one far-right congressman is willing to indulge in explicit religious bigotry. American politics has always produced figures eager to test the boundaries of decency. What is remarkable is how many Republicans have decided those borders no longer exist. ...................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2026/03/12/right-wing-medias-mamdani-outrage-fuels-gop-anti-muslim-rhetoric/

[ABC123Easy]

1. My wish for Mamdani

Can someone find a nice tan suit for him to wear?