Sam Harris, the rationalist and New Atheist, recently went on a rant against New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani that offers one of the most vile, putrid displays of Islamophobic bigotry that I can recall ever seeing in my life. At its core is the belief that because Mamdani is a Muslim, he’s bad. You might think this is an exaggeration. But here’s what Harris said:

Q: [quoting an online comment] “I’m sorry, but Sam, equating Mamdani to Trump is insane. He’s infinitely more ethical than any person in the Republican party.” What do you have to say?

 

Harris: So apologies for one point of confusion there… He’s not the equivalent of Trump. He’s a very different sort of character than Trump, but also one who we should want nothing to do with politically. I think he’s a sinister figure. I think he’s a none-too-closeted Islamist, or at a minimum an apologist for Islamists.

He’s a sinister figure? That’s the word you use to describe Zohran Mamdani? “Sinister”? And does Harris have any idea what the definition of an Islamist is? An Islamist is somebody who wants to run the country, or in Mamdani’s case New York City’s government, by implementing Islamic law. Harris is effectively accusing Mamdani of being the equivalent of ISIS, the Taliban, or at least the Muslim Brotherhood.

There is zero indication that Mamdani wants political Islam to be the rule of law in New York City. Harris has no evidence. He pulled this out of his ass. Why, then, did he say it? Well, because when Harris looks at a Muslim, he thinks they’re all the same.

But Harris wasn’t even done.

He’s not ethically sane, by my lights, at all, though he can seem to be somebody who really just cares about people who are finding it hard to make ends meet.

Sam, maybe Mamdani seems to be like that because he is that. Maybe his democratic socialism is actually the defining characteristic that drives him. Maybe when he talks about raising working people’s living standards and implements ideas to address that, it’s because it’s what he believes. Or, no, he could be “sinister,” a secret Islamist determined to implement Sharia law in New York City.

Harris has been accused of bigotry and Islamophobia for a long time. Is he determined to prove these critics completely correct? There’s just no way to avoid concluding that Harris is just outright prejudiced against Muslims. Does Harris have any evidence at all? Well, he says that “if you double-click on many of his political allegiances and the kinds of things his wife likes on social media.” Mamdani’s wife’s “likes” on social media? Are you kidding me? Is that the best you have?

Harris goes on to call Mamdani “someone who's captured by a fairly sinister theocratic agenda and an antisemitic one. This is not about garbage trucks and cleaning up Central Park and really helping the city.” Here we should talk about what it means to support a “theocratic” agenda. Sam Harris is a strong supporter of the Israeli government and calls himself a Zionist. Yet he has the nerve to say Mamdani is motivated by a “theocratic” agenda. Has he heard of Benjamin Netanyahu? Itamar Ben-Gvir? Bezalel Smotrich? Has he heard them cite the Bible over and over again as they massacre men, women, and children? Has he heard of the Israeli settlers who steal Palestinian land because they believe God promised it to them? Has he seen the plan for a “Greater Israel” that takes more and more territory from its neighbors? How is this not a theocratic agenda? Yet it’s one Harris supports, and Mamdani doesn’t. Harris calls Mamdani a “shill for Islamist theocrats,” but he himself is a shill for Israeli Zionist theocrats.

Harris says that Mamdani doesn’t “really” care about garbage trucks and “helping the city,” but what “really seems to animate him are these political concerns that don’t have a lot to do with being mayor and have a lot to do with Israel and Islam.” Hey, Sam, question: how many policies has Mamdani implemented in New York on “Israel and Islam” versus how many on standard economic issues? How much of what he has done in his first hundred days is on the topics you say motivates him, versus how much is standard city governance? The mayor’s office actually put out a map showing everything they’ve been doing across New York in the first 100 days, including such things as repairing playground fencing, launching a small business loan program, expanding overdose protection services, replacing missing litter baskets, opening a recreation center, cracking down on predatory corporations, improving tenant protections, expanding childcare services, and much more. Tell me, Sam Harris, how much of this is on what you say is his real agenda? None. It all comes back to the same bigotry: because he’s a Muslim, he must be bad. He must be antisemitic. He must be theocratic.

“If we had a Mamdani character who was a viable presidential candidate who had these kinds of ties to obvious antisemites and Islamists and Muslim Brotherhood-adjacent evil, I would find that genuinely terrifying,” Harris concludes. My God, if we had a “Mamdani character” as a presidential candidate, that would be the best thing ever. He would win with 400 electoral votes. It would be glorious. There’s a reason why Mamdani is so popular, why New Yorkers have gone from being pessimistic about their city under Eric Adams to optimistic under Mamdani. Because he’s actually delivering for the people of New York. So, yes, let’s imagine the “terrifying” world in which someone like Mamdani, the popular, likable guy who’s right on all the policies and is helping tremendous numbers of people, is running for president. We might actually fix some things in this country.

Speaking in a monotone voice, acting like Mr. Serious and Intelligent, Harris has said nothing against the literal genocide that has happened in Gaza—in fact, he has defended it, ignoring the mountains of evidence and resorting to the mindless canard that what Israel has done in Gaza because “if the IDF wanted to kill every person in Gaza next week—that is, actually commit genocide—it could.” What’s terrifying is having someone treated as a respectable intellectual who is silent while World Central Kitchen workers are being bombed, people waving white flags are shot, hospitals and schools are bombed, children are being shot through the head, and sick kids are starved to death. Right now Israel is planning to execute Palestinian prisoners.