Outrage as Zohran Mamdani’s father Mahmood compares Abraham Lincoln to Hitler in resurfaced video

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: A resurfaced video of Mahmood Mamdani, the father of Socialist Zohran Mamdani, has sparked widespread outrage online after he appeared to compare former President Abraham Lincoln to Adolf Hitler.

In the clip, the Columbia University professor is seen arguing that Hitler was inspired by Lincoln, which was labelled as offensive by social media users. 

Controversial remarks by Zohran Mamdani's father

In the clip that went viral days before Tuesday’s election, internet video editor Maze posted on X, “Zohran Mamdani's father: America is the root of all evil and was the inspiration for the Nazis," along with a video of Mahmood Mamdani that garnered over 10 million views. "Hitler learned genocide from Abraham Lincoln. I'm sure Zohran loves America though. Nice job NYC."

The clip is from 2022, during a panel discussion hosted by the Asia Society, where Mahmood Mamdani argued that America was the "genesis of what we call settler-colonialism" around the world. 

"With the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln generalized the solution of reservations. They herded American Indians into separate territories," Mamdani, Columbia's Herbert Lehman professor of government, said. "For the Nazis, this was the inspiration. Hitler realized two things: One, that genocide is doable. It is possible to do genocide, that's what Hitler realized. Second thing Hitler realized is that you don't have to have a common citizenship."

Conservatives slam the remark as anti-American

The video was slammed by conservatives on social media. Many describe Mamdani’s comment as outrageous and anti-American, with some drawing parallels between his views and those of his son Zohran Mamdani.

Political figures such as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and those from Fox News condemned the statement, framing it as a hostility towards American values.

Political commentator Dave Rubin said, "This is one of the most insane things I’ve ever heard, and I say that as someone who used to work at the Young Turks."

Laura Ingraham wrote, "Like father like son."

The backlash also reignited the criticisms against younger Mamdani’s political stance and his association with his father’s controversial writings, in which one of them was dedicated to him and his peers.

Mahmood Mamdani's writings surface amid scrutiny 

Fox News digital previously reported, "Suicide bombing needs to be understood as a feature of modern political violence rather than stigmatized as a mark of barbarism," the elder Mamdani wrote in his 2004 book, 'Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror'. "We need to recognize the suicide bomber, first and foremost, as a category of soldier."

"He’s his own person," Mahmood Mamdani told The New York Times in an interview earlier this year headlined, 'The Parents Who Helped Shape Zohran Mamdani’s Politics.' "Now, of course, what we do as his parents is part of the environment in which he grew up, and he couldn’t help but engage with it. That doesn’t mean anything is reflected back on us."

"I don’t agree!" Mamdani's mother, Mira Nair, interjected in the interview. "Of course, the world we live in, and what we write and film and think about, is the world that Zohran has very much absorbed."