What’s behind the sudden emergence of a host of Muslim DSA-backed candidates?
Like many phenomena, it seemed to come suddenly and out of the blue: all of these far-leftist Israel-hating candidates, many but certainly not all of them Muslim, many but certainly not all of them immigrants or first-generation children of immigrants from third-world countries.
Here’s an article at RealClearInvestigations that purports to explain the history. An excerpt:
Dr. Abdul El-Sayed’s victory in the Democrats’ U.S. Senate primary in Michigan last Tuesday was the latest sign of an emerging kingmaker in U.S. politics – a little-known super PAC that has tapped the wealth of a new cadre of Muslim-American mega-donors to support far-left candidates.
Since it was launched just six months ago, American Priorities has channeled millions of dollars, primarily from donors with Arab, Muslim, and/or Middle Eastern backgrounds, to a string of winning candidates in high-profile races.
Most of the entity-supported candidates are running on various democratic-socialist policies, such as single-payer health care, abolishing ICE, and slashing the military. But one area in which all candidates are aligned, consistent with the PAC’s mission, is in their antagonism towards Israel.
Because so much of the Democrat voter base is anti-Israel, this is now a requirement for most races. It’s not new, either. It began to be visible in politics with Barack Obama, although it was more subtle. The four members of Congress known as “The Squad” – two of whom, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, were openly Muslim and Israel-hating – were elected in 2018. Seems like longer ago, doesn’t it?
The Muslim population of the US has been growing in recent years, and it may have reached a critical mass to take more political power – especially if the group votes as a bloc, and especially in areas where the Muslim population is highest (that would be NY, NJ, Illinois, Maryland, and Michigan, by percentage of population; note that only Michigan is not a deep blue state already).
This isn’t much different from other immigrant groups who have come to this country. It’s a natural progression to get more involved in politics and to run for political office. But a larger proportion of this group isn’t interested in the values and principles on which this country was founded, and in this it’s a natural fit for the far left which has the same desire to “transform” the US into something quite different:
A recent Senate Judiciary Committee hearing convened by Sen. Ted Cruz raised a more chilling issue. The Texas Republican alleged, and witnesses concurred that – in a parallel to what has transpired in countries like France, Germany, and the United Kingdom – the Muslim Brotherhood, a subversive transnational Islamist organization, has cultivated an “entrenched institutional network” in America of NGOs, advocacy groups, and political organizations to advance its leaders’ recorded mission to “destroy … Western civilization from within.” That network, terrorism expert Kyle Shideler found, has actively partnered with the Democratic Socialists of America, as part of what Cruz called a “Red-Green Alliance,” that Shideler said is “united around a revolutionary objective advocating for the overthrow of the U.S. Constitution.” Democrats on the panel boycotted the hearing in protest, claiming in a statement the Texas senator was “[s]capegoating Muslims.”
Of course; “Islamaphobia,” that all-purpose term to attempt to quell any criticism of this group.
More about the funding that is enabling this:
American Priorities was founded in February as a self-styled “countervailing force” to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Though the largest such group, it is just one of several relatively new PACs with overlapping donors centered on opposition to Israel (see sidebar). The super PAC is led by Hannah Fertig, a strategist self-identifying as Jewish who figured prominently in the 2020 presidential campaign of Bernie Sanders, who is also Jewish and a backer of staunch anti-Zionist candidates. The group’s treasurer is Mark Hanna, an assembly district leader in New York who began his political career as an organizer focusing on Muslim-related issues, including through forming Yalla Brooklyn, an NGO dedicated to mobilizing Arab and Muslim voters. American Priorities has pledged to put up $10 million this cycle to elect Democratic candidates who believe the party establishment is too pro-Israel. AIPAC and its affiliates have also poured tens of millions of dollars into recent election cycles as support for the Jewish state generally has declined – a long-term trend among Democrats correlating with the rise of the anti-Israel progressive left. To support its political claims, American Priorities cites polls showing a majority of Democratic voters oppose U.S. military aid to Israel, are more sympathetic to Palestinian Arabs than Israelis, and shun candidates who accept AIPAC support.
Many of the super PAC’s top donors are first-generation Muslim immigrants who have made their fortunes in the U.S. They include …
The article then goes on to list some of them, with descriptions.
I will also point out that their anti-Israel message appeals to the Tucker wing of the ex-right (I don’t call them “right” anymore, because they have come to resemble the left so much that the differences have become more and more minor). But the attitudes are rife among Democrat politicians and Democrat voters. In 2024, Kamala Harris was well aware of this and did not choose Governor Shapiro of Pennsylvania because she knew many Democrat voters would turn away from her if she chose a Jew who wasn’t of the Bernie Sanders variety: secular, virtue-signaling, Israel-hating. There are just a few Democrats who have spoken out against these attitudes (for example Fetterman, Goldman who lost his primary, and NJ’s Josh Gottheimer). In contrast, despite Tucker and company, the vast majority of Republican office-holders are on the pro-Israel side.
Here’s one interesting Democrat who has offered an opinion:
Joel Rubin, the Jewish outreach leader on Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign, has likewise said that “I think what Sanders and the Sanders operation have done is shove into our system the most categorically anti-Israel, antisemitic candidates that we’ve seen in a generation – if ever, certainly within the Democratic Party” – a reference to the Vermont socialist’s leadership on the left.
In 2020, Sanders had a softer line on Israel that mostly centered on criticizing Netanyahu. That’s probably why Joel Rubin felt it was fine to work for him, but no longer holds that view as Sanders has moved into the “Israel is committing genocide” camp. These days Sanders not only sees which way the Democrats’ wind blows, he wants to be part of the push.
On Mamdani, whose election has been a high point of the movement:
These candidates are following in the footsteps of, and in some cases with the blessing of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani – whose rise captured the attention and support of several of American Priorities’ donors prior to its launch, including its two biggest backers, Mohamed Waqas Javed and Omer Hasan. Both have contributed over $1 million to the super PAC to date. While little is publicly known about them, they and a third donor, Tariq Afaq Ahmed, who has contributed $500,000, were pre- and post-IPO employees at AppLovin, today one of the world’s most valuable ad tech companies, from which they likely made a fortune. AppLovin has come under scrutiny for, among other things, its funding from Chinese Communist Party-linked individuals and entities. …
American Priorities’ treasurer, Hanna, previously served alongside Mamdani in the 2017 campaign of Palestinian-American Rev. Khader El-Yateem. Mamdani said that El-Yateem “transformed” his life, in part by connecting him with “a political movement that understood Palestine as being a central part of the struggle, which is something that I had often struggled with…all of these politicians I had admired…found every way to not address Palestinians when it came to their seemingly universal struggles.”
The Mamdani campaign, which emerged from the city’s Muslim Democrat establishment and made Israel and the Palestinian Arabs a major focus, appears to have catalyzed Muslim donors nationally, while demonstrating a proof of concept for how targeted contributions could dramatically increase their political clout going forward.
Mamdani has been both an inspiration and a catalyst for more donations.
The article cites polls of American Muslims that indicate support among them for the Muslim Brotherhood is especially high, and support for Hamas is quite high too. Also:
The Pew poll also showed that Muslims have a more favorable view of Palestinian Arabs than any other religious cohort at 78%, and a less favorable view of Israelis than any other religious cohort at 26% support. Following the October 7 attack, nearly 58% of American Muslims surveyed found that Hamas was at least somewhat justified in carrying out the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust “as part of their struggle for a Palestinian state.”
The following may be the most important part of the article:
Manhattan Institute President Reihan Salam, the son of Muslim immigrants, has identified what he sees as two problematic “ideological tendencies” among American Muslims that are of increasing relevance as Islam is set to surpass Judaism as America’s second largest religion within the next generation, and as Muslims’ political power grows. The first is “Islamism” and its violent manifestation in jihad. The second that he hypothesizes persists among upwardly mobile, educated, and often relatively secular Muslims is their rejection of “the quiet gratitude that one associates with immigrants and their children of earlier eras.” This, he says, is not so much due to the dictates of their faith as they understand it, but due to “‘anti-West westernization’ or ‘adversarial assimilation’: a process by which incorporation into American institutions produces not attachment to patriotic narratives of American freedom, individualism, and benevolence but hostility toward them.” He says that this cohort is in thrall to “Third Worldism,” which Salam defines as “a fusion of anti-Zionism, anti-Westernism, and anti-capitalism that places the sacralized victimhood of Palestinian Arabs at the center of a larger struggle against American imperialism.”
Of the two tendencies, “in important respects,” he argued recently in Sapir Journal, Third Worldism “presents the more consequential long-term ideological challenge.”
“Where jihadism targets American civilians as part of a larger struggle to overthrow ‘apostate’ regimes in the Muslim world, Third Worldism endeavors to transform the nation’s ideological-intellectual milieu, shaping how Americans – well beyond the Muslim minority – understand their country and its place in the world.”
I have heard the term “third worldism” more and more lately. I plan to write a post on the subject soon. It’s one of the main ideas that binds Islamists and the left, an alliance that some find strange but that makes perfect sense in many ways. They share the goal of destroying the west as we know it, and although each wants to be the one ultimately in charge of the Brave New World that follows, only one will succeed. But that’s for later. Right now destruction is the proximate goal.
Depressing piece. Neo. It makes me wonder if my daughters and granddaughter will still have a country. Given the tendencies of Millennials and Gen Z, I dont think they have the will to fight for the country’s preservation.
Having lived in a couple of third world countries, I think these theories sound like people who have no idea what they’re really asking for.
I dunno about this:
Are they advocating or not? AI Overview:
I doubt Trump would allow such…
Sounds like we’ve allowed too many Muslims inside the walls.
Following the British, get Muslims elected, move them up the ladder.
The Marxists are in league with Muslims for now.
“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious.
But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself.” Marcus Tullius Cicero
I hope that very soon, the country will rise up and reassert that it is founded on Judeo-Christian values. If this be bigotry, so be it. Over the course of the nation’s history even Atheists have generally adhered to those precepts; although they would likely assert that their behavior was simply based on respect for the tradition of English Law–which today seems like an oxymoron..
Will the nation recognize that it has taken a step onto a short plank by admitting a large number of people who don’t agree with the tenets of our culture, and draw boundaries? That is problematic.. We are catering to every demand from people who reject our culture, but demand respect for every tenet of theirs. I just read that DFW airport is installing foot washing facilities in the terminals. Eh? I don’t recall snake handling rooms for people whose religion involved that bit of nuance. Well, the comparison may be a reach, but there is a valid point. Who do you cater to and who not?
It goes beyond that level of madness, however. We are incrementally sacrificing basic rights. There are published reports of people awakened at dawn by seriously amplified calls to prayer in neighborhood mosques; and local authorities either fear to take action, or are oblivious. There are murmurs of demands for Sharia Law in certain enclaves.
Sharing Physicsguy’s concerns; I am saddened. Having just celebrated my 91st with daughters and grandchildren, I realize in retrospect that I lived in the best of times. I fear for their future.
How many Mad Anthony Wayne’s are in.this group?
Well, Islamist ideation is incompatible with the Constitution. Will the Democrats choose Islam over the Constitution? We know the odds of that.
Power above all.
Democrats, in my opinion, welcome authoritarian rule. And Islam is a perfect vehicle for that. Woe betide us. Freedom of thought will be our undoing. But bad thoughts like Islam must be suppressed.
Related: A worrisome triad…
“The Dangerous Neo-Ottomans and the Great Bat Ye’or: A Conversation with Alexandre del Valle, Part II”—
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/22781/neo-ottomans-bat-yeor
“The Dictatorship of Virtue”—
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/22662/dictatorship-of-virtue
“The Arab-Islamic Formula for ‘Peace’: Ignore Hamas, Blame Israel”—
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/22782/arab-islamic-peace-ignore-hamas-blame-israel
+ (Worrisome) Bonus:
“Hamas’s Secret Weapon to Continue Ruling Gaza”—
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/22788/hamas-secret-weapon-elections
The DPUSA’s Existential insanity…in a NUTshell:
‘The “Big Tent” Dilemma: Marxist Hasan Piker Pleads With Democrats For Help, But Will They Answer’—
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/big-tent-dilemma-marxist-hasan-piker-pleads-democrats-help-will-they-answer
Short version:
“Please, please, PLEASE HELP ME…so TOGETHER we can f*** this ZIO-JEW country over…good and hard!!!…
…Aw, c’mon man! Just DO it!…
…I’m serious. No really, I AM SERIOUS, you MFers…
…But YOU NEED ME!!…
(…Uh, pretty please?…)”
Heh, BIG TENT(TM) indeed!
“Two federal agencies routed taxpayer dollars to terror-linked charities, new reports find”—
https://justthenews.com/government/federal-agencies/two-federal-agencies-routed-taxpayer-dollars-terror-linked-charities
+ Bonus (Fraudball—the latest most popular global pasttime):
“White House report details ‘Great Transshipment Scam’ costing tens of billions in tariff evasion”—
https://justthenews.com/government/white-house/white-house-report-details-great-transshipment-scam-costing-tens-billions
But—pace “Biden”—ya’ gotta admire their panache, their verve, their esprit!
File under: Fraudiale
Speaking of “panache”, etc.:
“Gas Is So Expensive In Britain That Fuel Theft Is Surging.”—
https://instapundit.com/816362/
OTOH, nice to see some initiative in a place that seems well on the way to becoming a Communist(!) Monarchy!!
(OTOH, how can one trash a Constitutional Monarchy if there’s no Constitution to trash?)
I don’t see this as “out of the blue.” This is standard strategy in a three-player game.
According to game theory, it’s called a “balancing coalition” when the two weaker players temporarily unite to knock out the strongest, then resume competing with each other,.
The left-Islam coalition has been going on since 9-11, no doubt earlier. The DSA-Muslim coalition only seems surprising today because the socialists and Muslims have grown particularly strong lately in their blue strongholds.
Wonderful Cicero quote Geoffrey Britain. I’ve been reading a lot of him lately. Brilliant man. Seneca too.
Happy Birthday, Oldflyer! 91 years! Wonderful!!
Like many phenomena…
They are obvious in retrospect. All you say is true and from a practical matter they are immune to certain lines of attack lest they be deemed racist. An articulate anti-Western Muslim is pure gold to the left.
Note, though, that this warped and delusional, though currently popular, “phenomenon” may not last much longer.
+ Bonus:
The paper of record (er, one of them) chimes in:
https://instapundit.com/816635/
Serious shit. One of the most important posts by Neo this year.
In an almost fresh video on YT by Raymond Ibrahim, he makes the case that Islam is in long-term decline. It is the West that lost confidence in Western values, like enlightenment and the patriotic nation state.
Does the above post here that suggest our American decline is accelerating?
Or just that the long descent outlined by Mark Steyn in “America Alone” from 2006.
I remember finding his case and foresight so depressing that I could not finish reading it. Instead, I found myself in occasional visits to the daily compendium of Islamic jihad stories at the web site gatesofvienna.net.
DESCRIPTION FROM Wikipedia:
“ ‘America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It’ is a 2006 non-fiction book by the Canadian newspaper columnist and writer Mark Steyn. It forecasts the downfall of Western civilization due to internal weaknesses and Muslim population growth in Western countries and the world generally. Based on his own observations, Steyn says that the fall of the Western world is caused by three factors: demographic decline, unsustainability of the advanced Western social democratic state, and exhaustion of civilization.
“By 2007, Steyn’s America Alone had already convinced many American conservatives that there was an imminent and inevitable Muslim invasion.” Many? No, not enough — look at the US Senate’s too many RINOs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America_Alone
Is this where we’re at? I think so. Is it also “Trump Alone”? (No wonder he’s the regular and frequent target of assassination plots and attempts— a new one exposed by the Daily Caller’s investigative work.) So, yes — this is too depressing. And sobering.
Earlier today, when I listen to a new interview with Clinton advisor Rahm Emanuel (All-In podcast at YT), I heard an economic realist combined with a fully Propaganda Media captured voice. For example, he smeared the anti-Muslim immigrant AfD party in Germany the “New Nazi party. (Comments posted in reaction were routinely harsh on Emanuel, as was I.)
I think we’re at a “Get Your Head On Straight NOW” moment. The CommieKKKrats have to be pushed against to develop and unite serious opposition to this Muslim invasion because of what it means for everything we love. The goal of dividing the Far Left from the loyal simpatico Left should become a major campaign against the “Hate America First” evil.
Where I live, just South of downtown, there is a Super Walmart at the edge of the lowest income neighborhoods further away. The store must employ a dozen or more Muslim women in burkas there, restocking shelves, mostly. And on Saturday, the Muslim men bring their wives in religious clothing — which announces that they are serving Allah — and families to shop for the week.
With the premiere of the action movie “Run Hide Fight — The Infidels,” coming in Mid-September, I am seriously tempted to hoist a placard to the daytime traffic coming and going by this Walmart, to read “Muslim? Go HOME” — with this film’s title on the other side of my sign.
Confronting this threat and organizing others to join us is now essential for defense of the West. Liberty is always one generation from expiring, as Reagan said decades ago.
Unfortunately, I expect to be abroad in mid September. What will you do?
Raymond Ibrahim is interviewed currently, from Budapest. And he makes plain and obvious how Islamic Doctrine has practically been applied in conquering the Unbelievers throughout the 7th Century. He says, It’s not really any different today.
Ibrahim’s 60 second minute introduction to the hour-long interview presents the single best compressed case of too many Muslims mean rising local and domestic threats to our good life and needless increasing of danger to our safety. Muhammad taught that unless they win, “enmity and hatred” will rule over us! Ergo, Jihad, in all its guises, is a virtue for the Submitter. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-s95U4O1jk
Ibrahim quickly and helpful,y unpacks what this means for the non-Muslim in 12 the next minutes.
Our Western virtues of tolerance and neighbourliness are getting used against us, by these invaders. The open society’s tolerance can invite inside it those seeking to destroy it. Karl Popper called this threat the “Paradox of Tolerance.” (The Wiki entry on it is important to explain to anyone objecting to my “Muslim, GO HOME” messaging. SEE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance)
Popper “argues that a truly tolerant society must retain the right to deny tolerance to those who promote intolerance.” We must campaign for this freedom to protect ourselves from Islamic death happy invasion.
So. THIS is where we’re at. Can we develop enough unity and will to do defend ourselves?
Powerline Blog is on a roll with some necessary pushback, encouragement and RESOLVE, e.g.,
This, for a rather different perspective than the one you’re SUPPOSED TO have:
“Tehran is losing its grip on Hormuz, and with it all its leverage”—
https://nypost.com/2026/08/12/opinion/tehran-is-losing-its-grip-on-hormuz-and-with-it-all-its-leverage/
This, for rekindling us of some vitally crucial historical memory:
“Revisiting The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich”—
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/revisiting-the-rise-and-fall-of-the-third-reich-20231221/
And this in-depth analysis of why Gavin Newsom DESERVES to be the Democratic Party’s candidate for 2028 and beyond:
“What Is Gavin Newsom Hiding?“—
https://www.city-journal.org/article/newsom-california-transparency-public-records
To our host, Neo. THANK YOU !
Especially for this thoughtful and rich post, no matter how depressing.
I wonder if you could share it with bloggers like William Jacobson? At LegalInsurrection.com) Maybe, American Thinker or even American Greatness? It deserves a larger, much larger, audience.
We have got to make rejecting the root of this threat to our future respectable — and respected.
” are more sympathetic to Palestinian Arabs than Israelis”
I point out that there has never been a country called Palestine. It is an imaginary country like Wakanda and Palestinians are the imaginary citizens.
The will is not there. 20 years ago I was telling family and friends Islam and the West cannot coexist. Pooh poohed, racist, nutjob I was called. They still would rather not face this. On the gravestone of this country will be engraved “Prefered sweet lies to bitter truths.”
An important cautionary post, Neo. Thank you.
Yes, as you point out, we have had many other waves of immigrants coming predominantly from one country. And it is not unusual for them to settle near each other to share customs and traditions. The difference this time, unlike with the Poles, the Irish, and other groups, is that the countries they are coming from are financing their attempts to get involved in the political process. That is scary especially since those countries spend money in huge sums. And they are willing to do so, as we saw during the Obama campaign, in ways that avoid running afoul of campaign finance laws. Making a million donations of $35 rather than trying to dump $35 million into someone’s campaign, for example.
They have co-opted the Democratic Party, giving the impression they share the same political goals and gradually inserting their political objectives (anti-Israel, for example) into the host’s platform. It’s a clever process, and I wonder how many Democrats see what is happening and go along with it thinking it is their road to political success and hoping the alligator won’t eat them.
I have said for a long time the Democrats need to understand what is happening to their party, and cut ties with this Muslim invasion. Or else they need to face the fact that the alligator will indeed eat them too.
When I was in high school, I wrote a story about a young girl and her grandmother in a dystopia future in the US — which had been taken over by Islam. The girl and her grandmother were basically crypto-Jews in this dystopia, and the grandmother decided to escape with her granddaughter to the Free Zone.
My high school years were the late seventies. So, this was before a LOT of stuff happened. And to be honest, it was more inspired by reading about the crypto-Jews in Spain during the Inquisition combined with the fact that at the time, I read a lot of dystopia science fiction stuff. But I am getting a little concerned that I did actually write about the future in the US.
Here is something tht gets me: The original waves of Arabic speaking “Middle Easterners” in MIchigan were mostly Christians who came here to escape persecution. Assyrians, Copts, Chaldeans, other Christians from Arab Moslem countries. (To some degree, Lebanese, though mostly, they came for economic opportunities. But they weren’t fans of their Moslem neighbors back home.) But when waves of Moslems started invading Dearborn, they welcomed them! To be fair, this was the grandchildren, or great-grandchildren of the original immigrants. I saw some of this personally — Chaldeans from Dearborn chumming up with the children of Moslem immigrants from Syria and Iraq. Whose grandparents or great-grandparents probably chased out — or tried to kill — the grandparents or great-grandparents of the Chaldean kid.
My great concern is if Democrats gain power, they will open our gates to the “poor” Gazans, and we will be flooded with anti-American Arab Muslims sucking $$$ out of our welfare systems, washing their feet in toilets. They may or may not end up in Detroit, where imams now call Muslims to prayer 5x per day from minarets in auditory pollution, and Halal groceries are common.