Liberal networks avoid ‘extreme’ label for socialist NYC mayoral candidate

Liberals at the network news divisions don’t have an objective or nonpartisan vision when it comes to who in politics can be defined as extreme. When you’re a liberal, Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders isn’t extreme. He’s not very far from you. He gets a wave and a smile. But from their place on the political spectrum, conservative Republicans are uniformly “ultraconservative.” 

On the morning after Zohran Mamdani won the Democrat primary for mayor of New York, defeating the merely liberal Andrew Cuomo, the networks could not bear to define a socialist as being a political problem for Democrats. But they could describe him as charming. 

ABC’s Aaron Katersky proclaimed on “Good Morning America” the voters made a “surprise choice to back a young, charismatic socialist who promises to make New York City more affordable, signaling they’re ready for a break from the past.” 

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Reporter Rachel Scott did say Mamdani ran “very far-left,” but it sounded like a positive: “For progressives, this is a good sign for them. They see this as their candidate that ran on a very far-left agenda that talked about affordability.” 

On “CBS Mornings,” reporter Jericka Duncan said Mamdani was “a progressive Muslim American immigrant” with “social media savvy” who rode “a wave of anti-establishment sentiment to a shocking victory.” That’s one weasel word for an extremist: “anti-establishment.” 

Co-host Vladimir Duthiers almost endorsed the winning Democrat: “Meeting people where they are, listening to them and having solutions that they feel speaks to their futures is incredibly powerful.” 

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On NBC’s “Today,” reporter Emilie Ikeda defined this candidate as merely on the left side of Cuomo: “Mamdani ran to the left of Cuomo, focusing on affordability and pushing populist ideas, including free public buses, rent freezes and city-owned grocery stores funded by higher taxes on the wealthy. Endorsed by Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Mamdani’s success signals a potential ideological and generation shift within the party.” 

An ideological shift to the extreme? They couldn’t say that. But they aired Mamdani denouncing “Donald Trump’s fascism” without any comment or correction. 

Only ABC’s Katersky vaguely mentioned Mamdani “faced criticism over his anti-Israel rhetoric.” None noted he released a rap song called “Salaam” in which he praises the “Holy Land Five,” who were convicted of funneling millions of dollars to Hamas. 

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Mamdani hates Israel and set up his campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine at Bowdoin College in the 2010s and, as a state assemblyman, introduced a controversial bill to strip the nonprofit status of organizations with any links to Israeli settlements. His opponents will make this an issue, even if the networks can’t handle it. 

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The “PBS News Hour” on Wednesday night turned for analysis to Errol Louis, who failed in several Democratic primary campaigns for the New York City council. Amna Nawaz, a Pakistani-American Muslim, brought up the dreaded right-wingers and their ugliness: “Errol, we have also seen some pretty ugly attacks awakened in reaction to Mamdani’s win. That includes attacks on his faith. He would be the city’s first Muslim mayor if he’s elected. And we have seen some Islamophobia like this one from the prominent MAGA voice Charlie Kirk. He wrote: ‘Twenty-four years ago, a group of Muslims killed 2,753 people on 9/11. Now a Muslim socialist is on pace to run New York City.’ What does all of this mean for the kind of campaign you could see ahead?” Louis said, “hatred and division don’t work.”  

On “CBS Mornings,” reporter Jericka Duncan said Mamdani was “a progressive Muslim American immigrant” with “social media savvy” who rode “a wave of anti-establishment sentiment to a shocking victory.” That’s one weasel word for an extremist: “anti-establishment.” 

PBS failed to call Mamdani “far-left,” but a new NewsBusters study by Bill D’Agostino described the PBS pattern. From January 21 through June 21, the taxpayer-funded network spoke of the “far left” just three times, and the “far right” 127 times — an absurd 42-to-one ratio. 

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Could a Mayor Mamdani fail? The Chicago Tribune, which endorsed Joe Biden in 2020, recently ran an editorial titled, “New Yorkers, take it from Chicago — we’ve seen this movie before, and the ending isn’t pretty.” The paper wrote: “Most of Mamdani’s ideas are shared (at least in principle) by Mayor Brandon Johnson, and many of them are popular in blue cities. But experience has taught us here that far-left candidates do not make for effective or popular municipal executives in today’s stressful economy.” 

Just as the networks aren’t really interested in how Brandon Johnson is performing in Chicago, no one should expect them to be critical of Zohran Mamdani. Democrat mayors have run deep-blue cities into the ground for 50 years or more, and no one at these networks is going to hold them accountable, any more than Democrat voters do. They save that “accountability” talk for Republicans. 

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