_WHAT’S HAPPENING_
Socialist New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) delivered a scathing critique of America during a July 3 speech commemorating the nation's 250th anniversary.
Delivering the speech while seated at George Washington's desk and flanked by eight newly naturalized citizens, Mamdani painted the United States as a nation of profound contradictions, criticizing ICE enforcement, wealth inequality, and what he called an "arena of supremacy."
_THE FACTS_
Mamdani described America as "an arena of supremacy, where only a select few are allowed freedom, where not all are created equal."
The mayor accused "masked agents" of "terrorizing our streets" and "spiriting them away in unmarked vans," referring to ICE enforcement operations.
He praised Americans who "link arms with neighbors" against ICE as embodying "the national spirit."
He also asserted that "righteous dissent" is the truest form of American patriotism.
Without naming Elon Musk directly, Mamdani criticized "the world's first trillionaire" while claiming children "go to sleep hungry."
The mayor stated that America was “built by those with callous dirt-streaked hands,” but has allowed “much of that wealth to be held instead in the soft hands of a precious few.”
Mamdani only became a naturalized US citizen in 2018, after arriving from Uganda at age seven.
Meanwhile, First Lady Rama Duwaji went to an Islamic “spiritual wellness” retreat in Spain instead of spending July 4 in America.
_OUR TAKE_
Mamdani's speech exemplifies the Marxist approach to patriotism. There’s no love or reverence for the greatness of America; the only appreciation he expressed was for the right to “dissent” — presumably against the American traditions and ways of life that he considers antagonistic to his socialist agenda.
This was especially galling as he sat at George Washington’s desk.
As Harvard Law professor and conservative thinker Adrian Vermeule observed, "To love only what your country might ideally become, in aspiration, is not to love your real country at all, but only an ideological abstraction."
