The U.S. And The West Are Handing Themselves Over To Implacable Enemies

Last month, New York State Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani won the Democratic primary for Mayor of New York City — and his victory is reverberating far beyond the five boroughs. It is sending tremors through the city’s political, cultural, and ideological foundations — and through the conscience of the country.

To some, Mamdani’s win is cause for celebration. It is proof that a new America is emerging. One that should be fairer, more “intersectional,” and unapologetically socialist. To others, it’s a moment of quiet dread — not because Mamdani is outspoken, but because his rise may mark the domestic arrival of a foreign ideological campaign that has been in motion for more than 50 years.

Mamdani’s ascent wasn’t a fluke. It wasn’t just about low turnout or shifting demographics. It was the logical result of a decades-long strategy, seeded by foreign Islamist regimes, to reshape how the West — and especially America — thinks. It started in the classrooms and campuses, and now it’s made its way into the ballot box.

Beginning in the late 20th century, Islamist regimes in Iran, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere recognized they couldn’t destroy the West through war. But they could undermine it from within by shaping how its next generations thought.

Armed with billions in oil wealth, they poured money into American college Middle East Studies departments, student organizations, “cultural” initiatives, and activist causes across elite American and Western universities. They fed students a seductive narrative: that America and Israel were twin villains of modern history — imperialist, oppressive, irredeemable.

It isn’t true, but it doesn’t have to be. It just has to feel right, and for a generation of students yearning for purpose and moral clarity, it worked.

That generation has now come of age. They’re no longer just students. They’re journalists, nonprofit leaders, political staffers — and in Mamdani’s case, elected officials. They speak in the language of justice and liberation but increasingly echo the worldview of regimes that imprison journalists, silence dissent, persecute women, and execute gay people.

Socialism as a Trojan Horse

To many in the progressive mainstream — including old-school liberals who still believe in democratic socialism — Mamdani appears to be a bold reformer. What they fail to grasp is that the socialist label is a gateway, not the destination.

His brand of socialism is not the goal. It’s a tactic. A framework to attract idealists and redirect their energy, but not toward economic fairness – toward something far more dangerous: the legitimization of Islamist ideology under the banner of social justice.

To Mamdani and those who shaped him, those nostalgic liberals aren’t comrades they’re useful idiots. People who still think this is about worker’s rights, rent control, and health care, while in reality, it’s about building a new hierarchy, one that looks a lot less like Sweden and a lot more like Tehran.

His campaign, funded and messaged in lockstep with this broader playbook, was built around core urban issues like housing, inequality, and justice. However, beneath the surface, it was shot through with anti-capitalist, anti-Zionist, and anti-Western sentiment. The coalition behind him didn’t form naturally — it was engineered. It was built the same way this ideological network was built on college campuses: by merging unrelated causes under a single, emotionally charged narrative of “oppression.”

That’s how you get spectacles like “Queers for Palestine” — coalitions that defy logic unless you’ve been trained to see the world not through the lens of truth or safety, but through a rigid oppressor-versus-oppressed binary. This isn’t grassroots activism. It’s ideological programming. It is the harvest of decades of foreign-funded grooming.

Mamdani’s victory is not just about him. It’s confirmation that the strategy works, and it is spreading.

That’s why his coalition is so full of contradictions: LGBTQ+ activists campaigning for a man aligned with the worldview of Hamas; secular progressives rallying behind someone whose ideological lineage rejects secularism itself. These alliances don’t make sense unless you understand intersectionality as a tool —for power, not for justice.

The ultimate aim is certainly not coexistence or pluralism. It’s dominance. It’s to use the freedoms of the West to dismantle the very pillars that uphold it. Through language, through institutions, through political theater. And now, through elected office.

This is Islamism — the political ideology that seeks to impose religious rule and destroy secular governance. Islamists have discovered that the liberal values of the West, especially when disconnected from civic duty or moral confidence, are the perfect cloak for advancing their aims. They’ve learned to speak our language better than we have.

And now they’re winning elections.

Mamdani’s win should not be dismissed or downplayed. It wasn’t an afterthought. It was a turning point. For many, it feels like hope. For others, it feels like the first real warning bell. For all of us, though, it should be a moment of reckoning — and clarity.

Because if we keep refusing to name what’s happening — if we keep letting ourselves be silenced by fear of looking intolerant — we may soon find ourselves living in a version of New York that no longer resembles anything we set out to build.

This isn’t about right versus left, Democrats against Republicans, it is about truth versus distortion. Freedom versus authoritarianism. Civilization versus those who would tear it down, using our own ideals as the wrecking ball. If we don’t act now, we won’t recognize what’s left to defend.

Juda Engelmayer is the president of HeraldPR, a leading public relations and crisis mitigation firm and a partner with Converge Public Strategies. With decades of experience in media, strategic communications, crisis management, and public affairs, Juda leads a growing team and oversees a diverse portfolio of high-profile clients. Before launching HeraldPR, Juda spent ten years as Senior Vice President at 5W Public Relations, where he led major accounts and spearheaded crisis communications efforts across industries. Earlier, he served as Chief Communications Officer for the American Jewish Congress, where he played a pivotal role in revitalizing the nearly century-old organization’s public profile and influence. Juda also served as Vice President at Rubenstein Associates, one of New York’s premier PR firms, where he managed a wide range of clients—from foreign governments and nonprofit organizations to entertainment, healthcare, and international business ventures. His client roster has included the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, UNIEC, the Global Peace Initiative with Dr. Kilari Anand Paul, Christians United for Israel, Broadway Stages, and Hudson International, among others. He began his career in public service as Executive Assistant to New York State Comptroller H. Carl McCall, serving from McCall’s appointment in 1992 through two successful election campaigns, before transitioning into public relations in 2000. Read more in his recent New York Times profile: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/03/style/harvey-weinstein-pr-juda-engel…