New York City is likely to elect a communist Muslim as its next mayor. Zohran Mamdani has made no secret about his plans to make America’s largest city worse, but lately, his angle of attack has been on religious grounds.

In a debate with another mayoral hopeful, Andrew Cuomo, Mamdani decided to push the fact that Cuomo never visited a mosque in the 10 years that he was governor of New York. This was a very telling attack in ways that Mamdani may not even fully understand.

According to the Pew Research Center, Muslims account for 3% of the population in the NYC metro area. (Jews make up 8% and Christians make up 57%.) So even though New York City is home to the highest number of Muslims in the U.S., they still only represent a small religious minority. Therefore, implying that a politician is bad just because he’s never entered a mosque is silly, to say the least. Cuomo, for his part, pointed out that he worked with the Muslim community during his time as governor, but that wasn’t enough for Mamdani.

Islam as a whole is incompatible with our Judeo-Christian structure of government. As John Adams stated, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Here’s the caveat: Not all people who count themselves as Muslim actually follow every teaching of Muhammad. Muslims who have assimilated into the West prefer peace. However, if Muslims are following the later teachings of Muhammad — which they are in the majority of Muslim countries — the religion of Islam only permits its adherents to live. All the rest, or the “infidels,” are to be subjugated and persecuted.

Scholar and historian Raymond Ibrahim sheds light on what this sort of push by Mamdani signifies. For Islam, those in the West who have to live among people of other religions tend to follow the teachings of Muhammad when he lived in Mecca. At this time in Muhammad’s life, he was marginalized and weak, and the corresponding verses in the Quran tend to be more peaceful and push for tolerance. Later, though, when Muhammad was in Medina and had power, his doctrine changed, calling for more bloodthirsty jihad and forcing into submission the “people of the book” (i.e., Jews and Christians).

You can see this quite clearly just by looking at the world today. In countries where Islam is the dominant religion, there is oppression of other religions, particularly Christianity. In the West, that conquest looks different — more like mass migration and lack of assimilation.

The Federalist’s Brianna Lyman points out another reason why Mamdani’s line of attack was so jarring:

What matters is that an American politician — in a city that was attacked by radical Islamists less than 25 years ago — apparently has to prove his worth by logging mosque visits. … Measuring political legitimacy by a prerequisite of pandering to religious frameworks that are incompatible with republican self-government illustrates how mass migration without assimilation can create systemic pressure on the very foundations of our country.

Political pundit Matt Walsh observes that Mamdani’s push for participation follows a familiar pattern in radical leftism. Leftists demand tolerance, then acceptance, then promotion, then participation. This happened with same-sex marriage, abortion, and gender identity. Now, to be a good politician, one must go to a mosque.

This was not the only questionable move from Mamdani regarding his religious affiliation. He also posted on social media about visiting radical Imam Siraj Wahhaj. Recall that the Blind Sheikh, who masterminded the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, was hosted by Wahhaj at his mosque. Wahhaj was also a character witness for one of the bombing defendants.

Wahhaj is a Medina-type imam, meaning he wants an Islamic supremacist takeover of the U.S. While he was not explicitly implicated in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, this was a very peculiar, if not cocky, move by Mamdani.

Zohran Mamdani is a Marxist Muslim vying to become mayor of a city that has suffered horrific terror attacks from Islamists. To the voters of New York City: Are you really going to do this? Are you really going to elect as mayor someone who has openly aligned himself with those who want to destroy America?

If you are, that’s not progress. It’s subjugation with your eyes wide open.