Mayor Mamdani is flirting with what may very well be his Jan. 6 moment that may stain his administration forever and nix any plans for his political future.
While he has been obsessed with casting Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu a war criminal and threatening to have him arrested when he visits New York for the opening of the United Nations General Assembly next month, it was clear from the outset that he didn’t have the legal authority to do so.
But Mamdani took an even more sinister turn when called uncle on his ability to arrest, instead calling on New Yorkers for civil unrest — to come out and protest the prime minister’s visit to the city. There has been numerous reporting that mayor himself plans to join those protests.
Will this be Mamdani’s Jan. 6 moment? We all recall with horror the Jan. 6 protests in Washington where President Trump fired up the crowd and urged action that convulsed into a Capitol uprising that killed police officers, wounded many, threatened to kill the vice president, caused extensive damage and became a permanent stain on our republic.
Even the head of New York City’s police union issued statements calling for the mayor to back off inflaming language calling for mass protests.
Protest is most definitely a right in our country. We have a long and storied history of peaceful protest that has contributed to the strength of our democracy. Protests for the rights of women to vote and the civil rights protests in the 1960s, for example, all led to legal reforms that were long overdue in America.
What makes those protests different were that they were led by responsible people who carefully monitored their language and used protest to expedite change. Any violence that occurred in these movements came from counter protests or legal authorities who took an overly aggressive stance against those participating.
Jan. 6 was different. A sitting president stoking the crowd and did nothing to stop them as they pillaged our nation’s Capitol.
In my business, words matter. We work with our clients everyday to carefully craft their messages, assuring that there is the right balance of tone and volume. We carefully advise them that any action — deploying words — will have a reaction, and that they must be prepared for that.
We just need to contrast the vitriol of Mamdani with the iconic speech of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King. King is widely quoted and respected for his leadership on civil rights. His words were powerful and strong, yet responsible. He motivated his followers to push for change, but never at the expense of people, property or the rule of law.
The brief history of Mamdani has proven that his constant bashing of Israel and its prime minister has led to one of the greatest increases in violent antisemitism in our lifetime, with no end in sight to its escalation.
The mayor of New York sits at a precipice. He needs to careful modulate his words to assure that in his passion to fire up his base he does not foment a Jan. 6 moment that leads our region, and possible our country to a point of no return.
Steinreich is the president and CEO of Steinreich Communications Group, one of the country’s largest public relations firms with offices in New York, New Jersey, Washington, North Carolina, Los Angeles, London, Frankfurt, Tel Aviv and Dubai.