This coming November, or soon after New York City commemorates the 24th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, voters in America’s largest city might elect their first Muslim mayor. Zohran Mamdani, who easily won the Democratic primary in June, is ahead in most polls for the general election. While he has faced some anti-Muslim rhetoric during the campaign, the Big Apple’s negative concerns about Islam and Muslims, common in the years after 9/11, have generally become a Big Meh.
Mr. Mamdani’s appeal to many of the city’s young and Democratic voters lies mainly in his socialist promises, such as government-run food stores. Identity politics, namely the desire for a leader of one’s own likeness or the fear of “the other,” matter less. His popularity “reflects the emerging power of civic and grassroots/working-class mobilization,” wrote Sangay Mishra, a political science professor at Drew University, in Religion News Service.
New York’s probable acceptance of a Muslim mayor, while noteworthy because of 9/11, is not so startling these days. Dozens of Muslims have been elected to public office in the United States as well as in Europe. This embrace by voters helps undercut a powerful recruiting message – that non-Muslims disrespect Islam – used by extremists who abuse Islamic principles for violent ends.
“Fear doesn’t make us safer, it only makes us weaker, and the politics of fear is simply not welcome in our city,” said Sadiq Khan, a Muslim who became mayor of London in 2016 and is now serving a third term.
American attitudes toward Muslims began to shift upward after the 2011 Arab Spring, according to polls, but dipped last year. The high for holding favorable views was 78% in 2022 but, according to polling by the University of Maryland, that declined to 64% last year, returning to 2016 levels.
Yet a majority of young Democrats in the U.S. (56%) now say Muslims actually strengthen American society. That reversal of a post-9/11 stereotype might explain why Mr. Mamdani is favored to be mayor of New York. Memories of the 9/11 tragedy may live on, yet ways to prevent a similar attack require new ways of thinking.
