People Are NOT Into Ted Cruz’s Recent Tweet About Zohran Mamdani

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Today, Tuesday, Nov. 4, is Election Day, and all eyes are on the New York mayoral race.

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The clock is ticking on this mayoral race, but that hasn’t stopped one more conservative endorsement for Cuomo to roll in.

Last night, Texas Senator Ted Cruz tweeted: “This seems like an easy one, New York City,” alongside an edited photo of a ballot with two options.

The first option, seemingly referring to Cuomo, reads: “A Democrat. Just a Democrat.” The second option, which presumably refers to Mamdani, reads: “An actual communist jihadist. A literal Karl Marx-quoting, America-hating jihadist.”

It’s clear that this is an attempt by Cruz to dissuade support for Mamdani, but many people are confused about what it actually means. So, let’s break down what Cruz may have been insinuating with the “communist jihadist” label.

The Democratic Socialists of America describe their ideology simply on their website: They want to decrease the influence of money in politics, empower ordinary people in the workplace, and create structures that encourage gender and cultural equity. “We call this vision democratic socialism — a vision of a more free, democratic and humane society,” the website reads.

That “jihadist” label has been used against Mamdani several times, too. The 34-year-old is Muslim. The term “jihadist” is regularly misused by politicians and Western media, according to the BBC. Jihad traditionally refers to a spiritual struggle within Islam, but the term “jihadist” has been used by Western academics to distinguish between violent and non-violent Sunni Islamists. Many, however, conflate violent “jihadists” with the religion of Islam and Muslim identity more broadly, despite the vast majority of Muslims rejecting such interpretations.

Now, Cruz is using these same terms — “communist” and “jihadist” — to echo what other Mamdani adversaries have been saying throughout the campaign. However, people on social media have been quick to criticize Cruz’s Twitter endorsement. One tweet reads: “I disagree w/ much of what Mamdani says & espouses. But the level of racist & slanderous vitriol directed at him is a sign of how deep the political rot runs.”

Others are poking fun at this bizarre, last-minute attempt to sway voters: “Completely unnecessary to call Curtis Sliwa a communist jihadist just because he wears a red beret.”

People have also been quick to point out that Cuomo is actually not even the Democratic nominee in this race: “Surely by ‘democrat’ they mean the guy who’s running with the Democratic party and not the guy who was endorsed by Trump and musk.”

Some are even embracing this label. One person tweeted: “Hell yeah.”

This person pokes fun at the word salad-ness of Cruz’s attempt at a dig.
@AlSextoPino / Via Twitter: @AlSextoPino

People are also confused by Cruz’s thought that this would help: “it really is incredible how over the past 48 hours, all of the least popular political figures in America decided ‘you know what will help Cuomo, in this city where I’m even less popular than I am in the rest of America? if *I* endorsed him!'”

They also don’t understand why Cruz cares about this local New York election in the first place.

Thoughts?