Hopes of a composed and level-headed rightwing reaction to the Democrats’ across-the-board electoral success were unceremoniously dashed as leading Maga figures spewed unrestrained vitriol at their victorious opponents.
Particular Republican fury was reserved for Zohran Mamdani’s emphatic election as mayor of New York, a result that provoked a luridly provocative front page on the Rupert Murdoch-owned New York Post.
The tabloid, a fervent backer of Donald Trump, greeted the result with headline “The Red Apple” illustrated by a picture of the face of Mamdani – a self-proclaimed “democratic socialist” – attached to an animated red suit and holding a hammer and sickle above his head to signify his alleged communist sympathies.
A subheading read: “On your Marx, get set, Zo! Socialist Mamdani wins race for mayor.”
On Fox News, Sean Hannity gave a visceral response typifying much of the rightwing reaction and predicted that it would prompt an exodus of native New Yorkers.
“I honestly feel bad. I have friends of mine in New York. My phone is blowing up. They are officially depressed and scared,” he told network hosts, Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum.
“A full 9% of people say that they will leave if he, in fact, got elected before today. They said, if he got elected, they’re going to leave New York City. You see the price of real estate. They call it the Mamdani effect in the outer boroughs, that would be Nassau and Suffolk county, that would be Westchester. They’re getting out of New York City.”
Referring to Mamdani’s Muslim faith, which has prompted some of his most extreme opponents to falsely tar him as a “jihadist”, Hannity concluded: “If you would have told me 24 years after [the] 9/11 [terror attacks] that somebody that was that radicalized would win this dramatically. I wouldn’t have believed it.”
Baier predicted that Mamdani’s election could have a positive spin-off for Republicans by provoking a backlash that could help future candidates. He identified Elise Stefanik as a potential beneficiary in next year’s New York governor’s race, when she challenges the Democrat incumbent, Kathy Hochul.
But the suggestion that Republicans could reap a dividend from a failed Mamdani mayoralty was eviscerated by Steve Bannon, the Trump cheerleader and former White House adviser, on his War Room podcast.
“All those Republicans sitting there with their bow ties, sitting there going, ‘Oh, we want a socialist in charge so we can see how people fail.’ They’re Bolsheviks,” said Bannon, a former Wall Street banker who once described himself as a “Leninist”.
“They’re not going to give up control of New York City … Once they infest New York City, it’s going to take a trenching tool to get them out.”
Bannon expanded on the theme in an interview with Politico, calling Mamdani’s win “a wake up call” while praising him as a “serious guy” who posed a threat to Trump’s Maga movement.
“People better understand they have a fight on their hands,” he said. “There should be even more than alarm bells. There should be flashing red lights all over.
“You’re going to see a whole new group of Mamdanis in these major urban cities because they’re just flooded with immigrants. That’s where his vote came from, principally.”
Stephen Miller, the powerful and ultra-hardline White House deputy chief of staff, who has spearheaded Trump’s anti-immigration crackdown, posted a screenshot from New York City government website to imply that the Uganda-born Mamdani’s win had been brought about by immigrant votes.
“Almost 50% of New Yorkers live in family households with at least one immigrant,” the post read.
On a similar theme, the far-right influencer, Jack Posobiec posted a video purporting to be from the streets of Manhattan in 1993, showing mostly white members of the public, with the implication that the population had been transformed by immigration.
“NYC in 1993. Now exists only as a memory,” he wrote.
Laura Loomer, the rightwing provocateur who has wielded extraordinary influence over Trump’s staff appointments since his return to the White House, posted a series of inflammatory messages suggesting that the Republicans were failing to resist “an Islamic takeover” because the party had been infiltrated by Qatar.
“We have a major Islam problem in America. The GOP refuses to address it because the entire party is influenced by Qatar,” she posted. “The Islamic takeover of America is in full swing. NYC, Virginia and Minnesota all elected Jihadi Muslims tonight. I don’t think Americans understand how dangerous and violent our country is going to become. “
In a separate post – singling out the election of Democrat Ghazala Hashmi, a Muslim, as Virginia’s lieutenant governor, she wrote that “communism and Sharia have become normalized.”
George Santos, the disgraced former Republican member of Congress recently released from jail after Trump commuted his seven year sentence, reserved his ire for Curtis Sliwa, the defeated Republican candidate in the New York mayor’s race, who won 7.1% of the vote and criticized by some for drawing support away from Mamdani’s main independent challenger, Andrew Cuomo.
“Fuck you @CurtisSliwa. I HATE YOU, your dumb wife, that stupid Beret of yours and all your fucking cats!,” he wrote.
Mamdani won with more than 50% of the vote.
In contrast with the deluge of hostility, there was a strikingly magnanimous message from one of Mamdani’s fiercest critics, the billionaire hedge-fund manager Bill Ackman, who had repeatedly warned against the dangers of electing him.
“Congrats on the win. Now you have a big responsibility,” Ackman posted. “If I can help NYC, just let me know what I can do.”
After being criticised for the conciliatory message, Ackman doubled down in a later X post. “Mamdani won a decisive election,” he wrote.
“He is going to be our mayor for the next four years. I care enormously about New York City.
“While I did not support Mamdani for mayor and have concerns about the unintended and negative consequences of his policies, I want to do everything I can to help NYC regardless of who are [sic] mayor is.”
