Mamdani stokes Italian American outrage after resurfaced tweet shows socialist giving the finger to Christopher Columbus statue: ‘Take it down'
Italian Americans were outraged at mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani Monday after a social media post resurfaced showing him flipping the bird at a statue of Christopher Columbus and calling for its removal.
The socialist Mamdani is seen in the tweet from June 2020 giving the middle finger to the back of the towering figure in Astoria, which is part of his state Assembly district.
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5 Italian Americans were outraged at mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani Monday after a social media post resurfaced.
Stephen Yang
'Take it down,' wrote Mamdani, who was running for state office at the time.
The tweet left a bad taste in the mouth of Italian American groups in the Big Apple this week, including the Columbus Heritage Coalition.
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Angelo Vivolo, the group's president, vowed not to support the lefty candidate come November.
5 The socialist Mamdani is seen in the tweet from June 2020 giving the middle finger to the back of the towering figure in Astoria.
Zohran Mamdani/X
'We will defend Columbus Day and Columbus statues,' he told The Post.
'He is being disrespectful to the Italian American community' said Vivolo, who is the former head of the Columbus Citizens Foundation, which runs the city's Columbus Day Parade. 'If you offend one community, you offend all communities.
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'I don't think he will be mayor for all the people of New York City.'
5 'Take it down,' wrote Mamdani, who was running for state office at the time.
Matthew McDermott
The Italian voting bloc that Mamdani disrespected makes up about 8% of the city's population, noted Joseph Scelsa, the founder and president of the Italian American Museum.
'To eliminate such a large population of people would be a travesty,' he said. 'It's not inclusive. It's exclusionary.
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'Who's to say who is a hero and who is not a hero? Columbus is our hero.'
5 The tweet left a bad taste in the mouth of Italian American groups in the Big Apple this week, including the Columbus Heritage Coalition.
Robert Miller
An email to Mamdani's campaign about the brewing controversy was not immediately returned.
The wet behind the ears socialist shocked ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo in June's Democratic primary, putting him in the driver's seat for November.
Mamdani could face Cuomo again in the general election — the longtime Italian American pol is mulling a run as an independent — along with Mayor Eric Adams, who is running as an independent, and GOP candidate Curtis Sliwa.
5 An email to Mamdani's campaign about the brewing controversy was not immediately returned.
Matthew McDermott
Lefties have made a habit of targeting Columbus statues and Columbus Day because of the famed explorer's treatment of Native Americans when sailing to North America.
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But supporters argue he's important to Italian Americans and his voyage was a critical moment in history.
The statue Mamdani condemned in his tweet is one of the five in Big Apple parks, according to city officials.
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Sequoia VC Shaun Maguire Keeps Pushing Mamdani ‘Islamist' Claims
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Although the specific tactic of cross-endorsing is uniquely suited to ranked-choice elections, Mamdani and Lander's model of coalition building can be replicated across Democratic politics. To be sure, Lander's endorsement didn't erase the skepticism that many in the Jewish community feel toward Mamdani. Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, Mamdani's main opponent, did his best to amplify that skepticism—often cynically, as many of his Jewish critics argued. But Mamdani himself occasionally amplified it too. In late June, he shared a social-media post mourning the death of a Jewish woman. According to authorities, she had been attacked by a man who shouted that he wanted to 'kill all Zionist people.' But Mamdani neglected to acknowledge the role that anti-Semitism played in her death, much less the role that many of his ideological peers have played in fomenting anti-Semitism. The oversight invited another round of blowback. 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This kind of exclusionary politics has led many Jews to conclude that they are unwelcome or unsafe on the left, even though some Zionists agree with much of the left's platform. Many Zionists (including Lander) support a cease-fire in Gaza, for example, and oppose the occupation of Palestinian territories as well as settler violence in the West Bank. The left has often alienated these voters by enforcing an anti-Zionist orthodoxy. Michael Powell: The magic realism of Zohran Mamdani As Mamdani prepares for the general election, he would do well to avoid getting dragged into fights about Israel. This doesn't mean he needs to reverse his positions. It means he should continue focusing on issues—such as housing, transportation, and food security—that made up the core of his campaign and animate a broad share of New Yorkers. If Mamdani wins office, he can look to London Mayor Sadiq Khan for a model of coalitional progressive politics. A Muslim member of the Labour Party, Khan was reelected to a third term last year thanks to significant support from Muslim and Jewish voters. He earned the trust of these groups by addressing both Islamophobia and anti-Semitism, and by adopting priorities—such as free school meals and affordable housing—that were popular well beyond his electoral base. If the left wants to prove that it can run the largest municipal government in America, it can't double down on ideological purity, whether about the Middle East or anything else. Anti-Israel hard-liners will have no choice but to work with people they previously deemed pariahs. Mamdani and Lander just showed them how rewarding that collaboration would be.
