After falsely questioning the citizenship of Zohran Mamdani and threatening to deport him, President Trump on Wednesday once again attacked the Democratic candidate for New York City mayor, this time calling Mamdani a "communist lunatic." Trump also threatened to meddle in the race. "I hold all the levers and have all the cards," he posted on social media. "I’ll save New York City, and make it 'Hot' and 'Great' again."
This noxious blend of Islamophobia and authoritarianism is signature to Trump. (He also appears to forget that the city of his birth, by most accounts, hates him.) So, what are Democrats doing right now in the face of this ugliness? Most are either silent or milquetoast. As my colleague Tim Murphy writes in an excellent piece:
Democrats should be manning the barricades against this stuff, because the menace on the other side of the line is a far greater threat than a few negative advertisements in 2026. Attacking people’s citizenship and identity as punishment for their politics is a fascist move. It will destroy the country’s civic life if unchallenged. (Resist the temptation to cheer on Trump’s suggestion that he might do the same to Elon Musk; it is a poison for the soul.)
Beyond the corruption and the bad cologne, Trumpism has always been a story about who counts as American. The attacks on Mamdani—and the threat to strip him of his citizenship as punishment for his short-lived post-college career as Mr. Cardamom—reflect the rot at the heart of the modern GOP and the exclusionary definition of national identity that made Trump’s rise possible.
So, whatever your opinion is about his politics, it remains necessary for people, especially high-ranking Democrats, to condemn the racist bile getting thrown at Mamdani right now. That it flows so freely from the White House makes it an emergency.
—Inae Oh
