Zohran Mamdani, the choice of Democratic Party voters in New York City, is anathema to the billionaire class. So much so that the New York Times elevated the work of a white supremacist in an effort to derail what the people want.
“i think you should tell readers if your source is a nazi.” - Jamelle Bouie, New York Times columnist, in a now deleted social media post.
The elite liberal class are having a collective fit of hysteria at the prospect of Zohran Mamdani becoming mayor of New York City. The hand wringing caused by Mamdani’s victory in the recent Democratic Party primary proves to anyone who wasn’t paying attention, that the people allegedly represented by the democrats in fact have no representation at all. The possibility of even a small amount of liberal reformism is terrifying to the ruling class and that can clearly be seen in the way Mamdani has been treated not just by Democratic Party elected officials who don’t want to support him, but by corporate media as well.
On July 3, 2025 the New York Times published an article entitled, “Mamdani Identified as Asian and African American on College Application.” The story revealed that when Mamdani applied to Columbia University as a high school senior in 2009 he identified himself as Asian and as African-American. He was born in Uganda to a family of Indian ancestry and no one argues about whether he is Asian, but his choice of African American was questioned by many people.
The term African American has been used to describe the descendants of enslaved Africans in this country, famously declared as official nomenclature by Jesse Jackson in a 1988 statement. While the need for the term vis a vis the word Black has long been debated, there is still a consensus of who should be considered African American. Questions arose about whether Mamdani, who said he checked the box because his origin was not included among the choices, was claiming to be Black to gain some advantage. He didn’t receive any advantage. He wasn’t admitted to Columbia, even though his father was a professor there. Any debate about Mamdani’s youthful decision making was soon eclipsed when the New York Times ethics and journalistic standards were found to be sorely lacking.
“While Mr. Mamdani was not a target of the hack, the information about him was included in a database of millions of student applications to Columbia going back decades. The data was shared with The Times by an intermediary who goes by the name Crémieux on Substack and X. He provided the data under condition of anonymity, although his identity has been made public elsewhere. He is an academic who opposes affirmative action and writes often about I.Q. and race.”
The New York Times was being disingenuous in the extreme in describing the person known as Cremieux as someone who “writes often about I.Q. and race.” Cremieux was already identified by another major corporate media outlet, the Guardian, as Jordan Lasker, a eugenicist who advocates for discredited “race science.” Lasker’s writings are all public on the X platform as well as on his Substack. He is quite open about believing in the intellectual superiority of white people. In short, Lasker is a racist and he hacked Columbia’s records in order to discredit affirmative action policies. By its own admission the New York Times knew about his politics but chose to amplify him and his racist beliefs anyway. Nor is Jordan Lasker an academic of any sort. “Lasker's only impactful paper, which claimed white people are smarter, is infamous: it misused data so badly it got his tenured co-author fired.”
The New York Times did more than show unethical journalistic judgement. They showed their readers that they have joined the rest of New York City’s billionaire oligarchs in wanting to see Mamdani defeated in November when he will run against mayor Eric Adams and former governor Andrew Cuomo. The Times stands with the bipartisan oligarchy who are devoted to the immiseration and subjugation of New Yorkers and everyone else in the country. These forces have declared any change, even small liberal reforms, to be off limits and the New York Times is on their side. The Times proved which side they have chosen by overlooking the theft of confidential information on thousands of people that was carried out by a eugenicist whose identity they hoped would remain a secret. Thanks to their eager and ham handed effort to join in smearing Mamdani, the New York Times ended the debate about how he identifies, or at least how he did on a form he filled out while still in high school.
One of the Times’ Black columnists, Jamelle Bouie, was rightly incensed about how his employers handled their desire for an anti-Mamdani scoop. He spoke of one of the three reporters whose byline appeared in such a harsh manner that his bosses ordered him to stop. “Everything i have seen about him screams a guy with little or no brain activity” and “no surprise that one of the biggest dumbasses in journalism is involved in this.” Bouie vented for a few posts that were saved in screenshots but he was finally forced to declare defeat. “I deleted several posts about a Times story because they violated Times social media standards.”
Defenders of the New York Times explain away the debacle by saying the newspaper didn’t want to be scooped by Christopher Rufo. Rufo is a racist, conservative blogger who was also in possession of Lasker’s hacked information. The New York Times, the Gray Lady, the newspaper of record, chose to work with and cover up for one racist in order not to be bested by another, at least that is the excuse of the moment.
Zohran Mamdani’s campaign has exposed the rot and corruption at the heart of the liberal elite class. They want to preserve their power and their money while also putting gender pronouns in their email addresses. How do they really differ from Donald Trump and his supporters who they still consider to be in Hillary Clinton’s famous words, deplorables? This sorry episode has so far elevated Mamdani in the public consciousness and in a positive way. The New York Times has shown itself to be part of the corporate and ruling class media, whose main goal is to provide cover for the worst deplorables in the country.
The New York Times owes its readers an explanation but that is not at all likely to happen. New Yorkers registered in the Democratic Party made clear that they want Mamdani to be their mayor. Should he win, the victory will not be against his opponents on the ballot, but against the most powerful people in the country, who are dedicated to maintaining control over the rest of humanity.
Margaret Kimberley is the author of Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents. You can support her work on Patreon and also find it on the Twitter, Bluesky, and Telegram platforms. She can be reached via email at margaret.kimberley@blackagendareport.com.
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