Do Muslims vote for Islamist? Leftists sure do.

The common assumption is that, once Muslims are free to vote, they naturally elect Islamists. But that is not what we generally see. In Muslim-majority countries with genuinely competitive elections, governments usually remain nationalist, pluralist, or relatively secular, even when Islamic parties participate. Indonesia and Senegal are examples.

Across a Muslim world of roughly 2 billion people, only a handful of regimes openly justify their rule in hardline Islamist terms: Afghanistan under the Taliban, Iran, and, if we include it, Hamas-ruled Gaza. And these are brutal dictatorships—the farthest thing from democratic expressions of Muslim public opinion. Islamists maintain power by crushing elections, opposition, dissent, and individual freedom: not because Muslim populations freely choose them, but in spite of what those populations want.

And yet NYC leftists just voted for Mamdani. Apparently even Westerners, when given the vote, can choose an Islamist.