The woke revolutionary can never be appeased

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani began the third anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre by posting perhaps the most odious examples of victim-blaming I’ve ever seen from an elected official.

After 40 perfunctory words about the Jews who were murdered, raped, and kidnapped by his Palestinian friends three years ago, Mamdani spent the rest of his message spreading his usual morally and historically illiterate case for the creation of another anti-American terrorist state in the Middle East. The “Free Palestine” activists will do virtually anything for his cause except read a book.

Yet, not even that message, or Mamdani’s sad little video from a few weeks ago lamenting that the fact that he’d been unable to fulfill his dream of arresting the prime minister of Israel, was enough for the pro-Hamas extremists of the Left. Because nothing is ever enough for the revolution.

Before heading out for a dinner at a Palestinian restaurant on the Upper West Side, one assumes to celebrate the anniversary of Oct. 7, Mamdani had attended a candlelight vigil in Union Square organized by a Marxist front group, “Israelis for Peace.” For the sin of his performative acknowledgment of the dead, a throng of Hamas cosplaying protesters surrounded Mamdani, calling him a “traitor,” accusing him of “genocide” and of weaponizing “being brown” and “selling all your people out.”

“Seven hundred thousand dead — Mamdani, your hands are red,” the crowd chanted.

All of this might seem insane to any morally grounded or rational person. But in the world of radical ideological movements, status is won by demonstrating the highest level of adherence to the cause. Any deviation is a sign of treachery.

And things move fast in the world of unhinged extremism. Today’s leaders of revolution can easily become tomorrow’s counterrevolutionaries or collaborators. This is nothing new.

“Like Saturn, the revolution eats its own,” was Mallet du Pan’s famous line describing the violent self-immolation of the French Revolution. Like “Free Palestine” activists, Maximilien Robespierre believed terrorism was a legitimate political tool and supported executions until the revolutionaries finally lobbed his head off.

Leon Trotsky was also an enthusiast of the revolution up until a pickaxe was plunged into his skull. The Cultural Revolution famously ate its own. The Marxists of the Iranian revolution were dealt with soon after the Islamists took power. And when the Palestinians of Gaza elected Hamas in 2006, they immediately began defenestrating Palestine Liberation Organization officials.

All of which is to say, even revolutions have some upside.

The modern revolutionary, however, can move quickly from one cause to the next, and then envelop all other causes. These days, the movement is all about “Palestine,” a cancer that devours everything in its path. In this world, Greta Thunberg seamlessly morphs from acting like the Joan of Arc of climate change to dressing up like a mini Hamasnik — aesthetics are highly valued in revolutionary movements.

“If you, as a climate activist, don’t also fight for a free Palestine and an end to colonialism and oppression all over the world,” Thunberg has argued, “then you should not be able to call yourself a climate activist.”

Not long ago, one could not support environmental justice without supporting Black Lives Matter. People who began protesting police shootings were soon engaging in embarrassing ritualistic genuflections like washing the feet of black people and participating in “die-ins.” Elected officials who swore to uphold the Constitution donned Ghanaian Kente stoles and kneeled in subservience, while others gave “Wakanda Forever” salutes to a fake country.

The diktats to remain in good standing kept ratcheting up.

And still, that wasn’t enough. Embracing Martin Luther King Jr.’s view that all lives have equal worth was decried as racist. Pseudohistorical revolutionary textbooks were produced, reimagining history by casting the United States as uniquely evil.

Of course, there were also the most destructive riots in the history of the U.S. Because with every strain of insurgent leftism, violence is a given.

It got so bad that my lawn care provider and exterminators would declare support for the BLM movement in emails. Indeed, for the revolutionary, not speaking up is also an act of treachery. Silence is violence, as Ed Sheeran recently found out. Boy, I hope he’s OK.

Take Scott Wiener, a Jewish lawmaker and champion of “transgender rights,” who was harassed by a group of protesters at San Francisco’s Trans March, for refusing to repeat the Gaza genocide hoax. I’m sure the transgender community in Rafah was very grateful. After a struggle session, Weiner gave in. They always do.

But sometimes even a struggle session isn’t enough. Recall, Jewish Democrat Brad Lander, a Mamdani ally, who campaigned at the Al Khoei Islamic Center in Queens, where the sheikh is a Holocaust-denying Hamas booster. Lander stood up and accused Israel of engaging in genocide before reading chapter from the Quran in Arabic that began, “In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate.”

MAMDANI DRAWS HEAT OVER OCT. 7 STATEMENT: ‘CANNOT GIVE JEWISH NEW YORKERS EVEN A SINGLE DAY TO MOURN’

But not even a hardcore quisling such as Lander can escape his Jewishness. When the future congressman showed up to protest a Hindu event inside Madison Square Garden, fellow demonstrators began shouting, “We don’t want no Zionists here,” “Get the f*** out,” “paid Zionist,” and “F*** you, Zionist,” until he scurried away.

In the “Zionists,” wink wink, the revolutionary has found the perfect strawman to dehumanize — the imaginary “colonialist,” “racist,” and “genocider.” Make no mistake, people who cover their faces with keffiyehs and march against vigils for the dead are morally on par with other murderous movements. The only reason they aren’t in the same league as other revolutionaries is that they don’t have the power. If they ever did, we’d have our own shallow graves. Because revolutionary purity spirals always lead to evil.

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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]