New York Times Joins the Mamdani Campaign in Its News Columns

Showers Israel-hating socialist with complimentary adjectives

“Progressive,” “optimistic,” “cheerful”— the New York Times salivates over a socialist.

Among the “tells” of New York Times bias are the modifiers the newspaper uses, in its news columns, to describe politicians, factions, and advocacy groups.

A front-page Times news article today by Liam Stack is an example, especially in contrast to the way other news articles in the same paper, on the same day, describe other politicians and political factions to which the Times is hostile.

The Times news article refers to what the Times calls Zohran Mamdani’s “optimistic message.” “Optimistic” is one way to describe the fantasy that socialist, big-government, tax-and-spend-and-regulate policies will work in New York City when they haven’t in other places where they have tried. “Naive and dangerous” would be another way to describe it. What’s next, the Times on Stalin’s optimistic message that if the kulaks are liquidated it will usher in a proletarian utopia?

The Times also describes Mamdani’s “progressive economic agenda” as if trampling the rights of property owners counts as “progress.”

The Times calls his campaign “cheerful,” as if accusing Israel of genocide were somehow cheerful.

Compare it to how the Times—in the same day’s newspaper—describes Republicans in Washington: the “ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus.” Or how Thomas Friedman on the opinion page describes what he calls “Israel’s radical-religious-nationalist government,” an echo of what Times news articles call “Mr. Netanyahu’s ultranationalist and religiously conservative ruling coalition.”

Instead of calling Mamdani radical or ultra-leftist, the New York Times soft-pedals it. The Times front-page news article reports that Mamdani, Senator Bernie Sanders, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are “democratic socialists, a once fringe movement popularized by Mr. Sanders that calls for reining in the excesses of capitalism and curbing the power of the wealthy.”

Democratic socialism is still a fringe movement, no matter what the once-credible Times claims. It doesn’t merely want to rein in the alleged “excesses of capitalism,” it wants to replace capitalism and free enterprise with socialism and government control. It doesn’t merely want to curb the power of the wealthy; it wants to tax away the wealth and redistribute it. Don’t simply take my word for it. Look at the national DSA platform: “We call for the nationalization of businesses like railroads, utilities, and critical manufacturing and technology companies, alongside regulation of corporate, communications, data, and financial sectors. We seek to ensure social and worker control over these businesses….we fight for the abolition of capitalism….Wealth taxes, increased progressive income tax rates on the highest earners, and increased estate taxes can redistribute wealth from the billionaires who hoard it to the workers who made it.”

The Times should run a correction. The Democratic socialists don’t just want to rein in the excesses of capitalism; they say they “fight for the abolition of capitalism.”

The way the Times treats Mamdani’s hatred of Israel is similarly inconsistent and dishonest. The Times writes “Mr. Mamdani has defended pro-Palestinian slogans like ‘globalize the intifada.’ He has said that he supports an Israel with equal rights for all its citizens, but has not said if it has a right to exist as a Jewish state. He has emphatically denied accusations that he is antisemitic.” Why does it call “globalize the intifada” a “pro-Palestinian” slogan rather than an anti-Israel slogan? And how is it pro-Palestinian to advocate violence that will probably slow progress toward Palestinian prosperity? How antisemitic does someone have to be before the Times stops stenographically parroting their denials?