Had Zohran Mamdani been white, his campaign would have ended on July 3. That was the day that a New York Times report revealed that Mamdani — an Indian Muslim born in Uganda — identified himself as “Black or African-American” when he applied to a handful of U.S. colleges and universities some 15 years ago.

But Mamdani — who succeeded in his attempt to become New York City’s 111th mayor on Tuesday — is brown and Muslim and, most of all, champions Palestinian rights and denies Israel’s legitimacy as a Jewish nation.

Mamdani’s ability to elide his unrepentant race-baiting goes a long way to explaining his highly improbable candidacy — and victory. America is a nation steeped in identity-based protocols and codes of conduct — and Zohran Mamdani has bafflingly been allowed to break them all

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