IFA has sounded the alarm against the joined forces of Marxism and Islam, and Zohran Mamdani, the leading candidate for mayor of NYC, embodies both.

Connect with others in your state in prayer.

View Comments (15)

Marxist

I attended a NY United Against Democratic Socialism rally in Washington Square Park on August 30 to find a couple hundred people had gathered to protest — mostly — Mr. Mamdani’s Marxist ideas. Here are just a few:

• Eliminating all misdemeanors (the NY Post reported, “Theft and shoplifting under $1,000, called petit larceny, is a misdemeanor in New York state.”)
• Decriminalizing prostitution, forced touching, sexual misconduct, and certain levels of sexual abuse
• Decriminalizing menacing and assault without a weapon
• Decriminalizing driving while intoxicated
• Decriminalizing all drug use
• Decriminalizing certain levels of ID theft
• Providing free (thanks to taxpayers) buses, subways, and even housing
• Protection for illegal immigrants
• Government-run grocery stores and electricity
• Public funding for hormone therapy and surgery for transgender people
• $30 minimum wage

Mr. Mamdani has backpedalled on some of these issues, but they’re all goals of the Democratic Socialists of America. Though he’s running on the Democratic ticket, Mr. Mamdani’s campaign site calls him a “democratic socialist.” The New York Post unearthed the NYC-DSA manifesto, which they took down from their site in 2021, and it included goals to “dismantle and move beyond” capitalism and create a “wholesale socialist transformation of our national and global economy.”

Brandon Straka, the founder of #WalkAway, which hosted the rally on the 30th, said, “Socialism is just a costume. You unzip it, and you know what’s underneath? Communism. It is communism dressed up, but you can’t put lipstick on a pig. It’s still just communism.”

To that end, Fox News brought an interview from 2020 to light in which Mr. Mamdani called for the “abolition of private property.” Fox News Digital shared GOP Rep. Nicole Malliotakis’ reaction: “He claims to be a socialist, whether it’s wanting to abolish private property or wanting to seize the means of production, these are communist ideas right out of the playbook of Karl Marx.”

Islamist

Thankfully, there was one voice at that rally to speak against the candidate’s Islamist leanings. Gregory Lyakhov, the youngest nationally syndicated columnist in America, told how his parents left the U.S.S.R. in the ‘70s so they could practice Judaism freely in the U.S. He said, “The biggest city in the United States with the most amount of Jews is about to elect a mayor who doesn’t condemn the killing of Jews. How can we let that happen?”

In an interview on NBC on June 29, Mr. Mamdani would not condemn the phrase, “globalize the intifada.” He has also “vowed to arrest Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he arrives in New York City.”

Mr. Mamdani is a Shia Muslim who identifies as a Twelver, the branch of Islam embraced by 10-15% of the Muslim world, including Iran. Twelvers believe “apocalyptic war is a necessary requirement for the Mahdi (twelfth imam) to be revealed.”

The Race

IFA has been following Mr. Mamdani since he won the NYC primary in June, an upset that surprised most pollsters.

IFA shared the Christian Post report on the challenges for some of the other mayoral candidates after the primary, but at that point, former Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, had conceded to Mr. Mamdani in the Democratic race. Now, Mr. Cuomo is running as an independent, and most current polls are showing him in second place. Current Mayor Eric Adams is in third. He won the seat as a Democrat, but now he’s running as an independent.

Curtis Sliwa is in fourth as a Republican. In NYC, registered Democrats outnumber Republicans seven to one, but City & State NY reported:

Sliwa has projected confidence about his odds this time around, pointing to the fact that President Donald Trump won 30% of the vote in New York City last November – the highest share of the vote for a Republican presidential nominee since George H.W. Bush in 1988.

Joseph Hernández, also running as an independent, spoke at the #WalkAway rally. He studied at Yale and Oxford but grew up in Cuba, so he recognizes the signs that communists are trying to control his city. At his first press conference, he said, “I know communism. I lived it. I remember the lines for bread and meat. I don’t want that for New York.”

Another independent, Jim Walden, withdrew from the race on September 2, writing, “Unless there is a one-on-one race in November, a Trojan horse will take control of City Hall,” and he went on:

For those still trailing in the polls by month’s end, I implore each to consider how history will judge them if they allow vanity or stubborn ambition to usher in Mr. Mamdani. His past words reveal his extreme bigotry toward police, his authentic commitment to communism, his antisemitic obsessions, and his sympathies for terrorists.

But Mr. Straka said at the rally, “If we can get 50% of registered voters to come out and vote, Zohran cannot win. It is a mathematical impossibility, even if everybody stays in the race.”

Who Is Zohran Mamdani?

The 33-year-old frontrunner was born in Kampala, Uganda, and has been a member of the New York State Assembly since 2021, representing the 36th District, based in Queens, NY.

His father is a professor at Columbia University, where the Marxist “march through the institutions began.” He signed a letter calling the October 7 massacre of Jewish people “an ongoing war between an occupying state and the people it occupies,” despite the fact that Israel completely pulled out of Gaza in 2005. In his book, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror, he wrote, “We need to recognize the suicide bomber, first and foremost, as a category of soldier.”

“Suicide bombing needs to be understood as a feature of modern political violence rather than stigmatized as a mark of barbarism.”

Columbia Prof Mamdani wrote this.

His son, NYC mayoral-candidate Zohran, refuses to condemn “Globalize the intifada.”

Coincidence? pic.twitter.com/ePHoWLwyEt

— Michelle Tandler 🎗 (@michelletandler) July 10, 2025

He was also involved in the pro-terrorist encampments at Columbia, which IFA covered in the spring of 2024, and in 2025, he locked arms with other faculty to keep Jewish students away from the encampment.

Mr. Mamdani’s mother, Mira Nair, is a filmmaker who has received significant funding from Sheikha Al-Mayassa bint Hamad Al-Thani, sister to the ruling emir of Qatar. The New York Post asked Danielle Pletka, a foreign policy expert at the American Enterprise Institute, if she’s concerned about donations coming from a nation that has supported terrorism. She said, “They are buying somebody who is willing to be bought and at the time of their choosing they will ask for what they want… sometimes it will be Islamism, sometimes it will be antisemitism, sometimes it will be anti-Israel.”

In the comments below the article, Kevin Unick wrote:

As I stood in the rubble of The World Trade Center as a NYPD commander on the evening of 9/11/01 and somebody would have told me that 25 years later that NYC would probably elect a mayor inspired by the people that committed that atrocity. I would have cried harder than I did.

Who are Mr. Mamdani’s other influencers? The New York Post found “a strong collective of Zohran Mamdani’s core brain trust are 30-somethings or even younger Gen Zers with little to no experience in government — but long histories of radical left-wing politics.”

I found some young people at the rally who don’t buy into Mr. Mamdani’s promises of free stuff:

More Rallies

Mr. Straka told those at his rally how he’s been challenged by people who think Mr. Mamdani’s win is inevitable because London and other major cities have ushered in socialism, but Mr. Straka said, “America is just different. We have freedom in our blood and in our DNA.”

The rally I attended was their second. Their first was at Union Square, and they have several others planned.

At one point there was a gentleman who carried a camera through the crowd capturing the faces of everyone on the front row. That may have been just coverage of the event, but it struck me that it could have been for facial recognition and tracking for a group that doesn’t want socialism slowed down. Pray for future #WalkAway events to be safe in every way for those who attend.

Post your prayers for NYC in the run-up to the election.

Rich Swingle has presented in 42 nations on six continents, mostly with his own one-man plays. He and his bride Joyce Swingle have 41 screen children. They have developed a “singing play” about the Welsh and Asbury Revivals. The Swingles live in New York City. www.RichDrama.com. Photo Credit: Bryan Berlin – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=166075015.