I pay little attention to Zohran Mamdani. The nice thing about being this old is that I know that, no matter what, the Mayor of New York will not have a major impact on my life here in Chicago. When I was a little girl, John Lindsay was all the rage. Batman even featured a character based on him. Remember when Bloomberg and Giuliani were going to be President? It was all much ado about nothing.
No mayor of any major city has ever become President. In fact, no mayor has been President since Coolidge, and he held higher office before ascending to the Presidency. Not that Mamdani could be President anyway. I know my Constitution.
So why is my aunt obsessed with Mamdani? She lives in a small town outside of Tampa, for fuck's sake. He has no power over her. Yet she follows his public statements so she can share her outrage.
It's because he's Muslim. "Can you believe that New York City elected a Muslim?" She posted those very words, with pictures of the World Trade Center. How ridiculous is that? Mamdani was 10 years old in 2001. By the way, Muhammad Ali was a Muslim. Was he involved in 9/11, too?
Now her Facebook feed is abuzz because Mamdani had the temerity to ask New Yorkers to use power wisely.
Notice that was a request. It's not like masked agents would be knocking on doors demanding to see your thermostat. (As opposed to the ICE agents who ... don't get me started. You have no idea how ugly, dispiriting and scary it was here.)
And it sounds like commonsense to me. Preserves the grid, makes sure we all have comfort during a heatwave. Here in Chicago, ComEd pays us to do that. During peak times, if we reduce our consumption we get a break on our bills. (I saved $3.00 last week.)
But according to my aunt, Mamdani is Communist who is placing an unreasonable burden on his citizens. "This is how it starts," she says. Her friends agree. Creeping Socialism in on the way! (Wait, weren't we talking about Communism? Oh, never mind.)
My aunt is grateful that she lives in The Land of the Free – Florida! Where Ron Desantis is governor! She seems blissfully unaware that just weeks before, the Florida Public Service Commission — chosen by and answering to Gov. DeSantis — issued the very same suggestion that residents to set
their AC units to 78ยบ degrees in the summer.
If I were to ask her, I'm sure that she'd say "Ron" (whom she adores) is civic minded. He's looking out for the people who elected him.
Don't you agree we're about hip deep in bullshit and hypocrisy?
She's my aunt. She's one of two people left on the planet who held me as a baby. She's my last direct tie to the grandparents I adored. I respect and treasure that connection, so I bite my tongue and keep the lines of communication open.
But here's the most disturbing part. She's my godmother. When I was downstairs in Sunday School in the church basement, learning about Jesus and His love, she was upstairs in a pew. Same building. Same Jesus. When I was a little girl, I remember she had a framed photo of JFK in her bedroom. But now she seems to get satisfaction not from brotherhood but from knee-jerk negativity about Muslims, gays, blacks, and immigrants.
While my aunt's rants gets lots of "thumbs up" from her Tampa buds on Facebook, she no longer hears from one of her sons and two of her grandchildren. She has a great grandchild she has never held. If it wasn't for me, she'd never have seen a photo of my niece's daughter, Violet.
I hope living in a Fox News bubble and spouting the glories of living in "The Land of the Free – Florida" is worth what it's cost her.
