Zohran Kwame Mamdani is the 112th mayor of New York City. He may one day be the President of the United States.
Why not? He is smart, he is experienced, he is charismatic, he is winsome, and he is successful. He is the youngest mayor in 133 years and the first ever from the borough of Queens. And, if this is important, he is the first Muslim to be elected mayor and also a naturalized citizen only since 2018 (which, actually, presents a problem).
On all of these tracks, he is running against the locomotives driving the America First, Make America Great Again, and Christian Nation cars full of noisy people. Those cars cary citizens who say loudly they do not want immigrants, Muslims, and people of color in these United States (although they often refer to these people simply as “criminals” in order to camouflage their true feelings).
New York City is the most populous place in the United States and the most diverse. It is full of people like Mamdani in some way, and that may make its decision about who they want for mayor not a good sign of what the rest of the country wants. I’m not sure somebody like Mamdani could be elected to any office anywhere else in the country.
Some people don’t like Muslims. Like Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, who said, “New York will be completely Muslim in three or four years” and “I think we oughta pack him up and send him home.” He might be referring to Uganda in East Africa where Mamdani was born, or to South Africa where he once lived, or to India where his parents were born and lived. Or New York City, but probably not.
Some people are afraid of Muslims, and this is true in the United States and in European and African countries where they have fled as refugees. A certain strain of Islam is dangerous because they believe their religion should take over the world and rule it according to their holy book (rather than any constitution or bylaws). Americans have a right to fear this, not because we know much about Islam but because he know a lot about our Christian neighbors who feel this way … about Christianity. We call it Christian Nationalism and you can read all about it in Project 2025 (and in the speeches of Steven Miller and Russell Vought). Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all have versions of their faith that seek this kind of cultural and political dominance, and history has shown us what happens when such fundamentalists (as we call them) succeed in their dreams. It is always bad news for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
We have perhaps 7,000 Muslims living in South Carolina, gathering in about 25 mosques and religious centers. So we don’t know too much about Muslims, and it is this ignorance and its corresponding lack of contact that keep us, all five and one half million of us, receptive to the rantings of people like Tuberville.
The good senator from Alabama could get elected here but not the good mayor of New York City. We will vote for a very, very bad Christian, like Donald J. Trump, but not a decent, respectable Muslim, like Zohran Mamdani. But who knows what will happen in ten years, when Mamdani is actually of presidential age, or in 20 years, when he will have turned the corner toward the millennial age, or in 40 years when he will be almost as old as our last two presidents (Biden and Trump).
One day we might just embrace the truth of what we say, that there is no religious test for holding office in the United States. It is not required that a person be baptized or circumcised or confessional in any way to be the mayor of any town, the governor of any state, or the chief judge of any court. Suffice it to say that many of us prefer a justice-doing, truth-telling, bribe-rejecting person of any religion to many of the “Christians” who have held high office in this country but did not have the conviction or the courage to follow Jesus while wielding power and prestige.
You go, Zohran. You be you, and you be for your people in the great city of New York, and you tell it like it is, and you work hard to fulfill the words of the great Hebrew prophet who called us to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God and also to obey the words of our Lord and Savior Jesus who commanded us to love our neighbor–our Ugandan, Muslim, and Indian neighbor–even our New York City neighbor … as ourselves.
You keep going, Mr. Mayor of the greatest city in the world, and one day I just may check the box beside your name in an effort to make you President of the United States of America. Except, of course, that naturalized citizens are prevented from serving as President, which will save many people from utter consternation. So sorry, Mr. Mayor!
