Was Democratic New York City mayoral candidate Zorhan Mamdani caught trying to deceive voters? Australian political activist Drew Pavlou pointed out something interesting Monday in a social media post.
Pavlou posted side-by-side pictures of Mamdani on the social media site X, highlighting how one photo shows Zohran is using “cutlery to eat food all the time (to the point of using it to eat a burrito on the subway),” but while the media’s cameras are live, he eats with his hands “like a costume performance thing for white people to find him exotic.”
It’s so funny that Zohran clearly uses cutlery to eat food all the time (to the point of using it to eat a burrito on the subway) but he eats with his hands on camera as like a costume performance thing for white people to find him exotic pic.twitter.com/kOn2EBEMti
— Drew Pavlou 🇦🇺🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 (@DrewPavlou) June 30, 2025
This is a fair point, especially given how often Mamdani has spoken about his upbringing in Uganda, claims to understand the Muslim struggle, and at one point didn’t even consider himself an American, according to his mother.
Pavlou’s post seems to have legitimacy because this isn’t the first time we’ve seen a far-left candidate hone in on their exotic cultural background, as if it’s something to be revered, and should somehow serve as a substitute for a common-sense platform.
There was the recent case of the Democratic Party trying to have it both ways with Kamala Harris by painting her as a black woman, then an Indian woman, then a black woman again.
Indian GOP leader Vivek Ramaswamy spoke out at the time and said Indian Americans in the U.S. were offended that Harris would reject her Indian heritage whenever it suited her.
While speaking with Fox News, Ramaswamy said: “On a very personal level, my parents were immigrants to this country, legal immigrants from southern India, the very same part of India that her mother also immigrated from.”
He added, “I think it’s a hard fact, it’s just a fact whether you like it or not, that many Indian Americans in the United States are indeed somewhat offended by the way Kamala has suddenly cast aside the Indian American side of her identity.”
Going one step further, white liberal Democrats seemingly tend to “dumb themselves down,” according to one report, using different word choices depending on the racial makeup of the audience they’re speaking to.
They’re hoping to gain points, no doubt, by pretending to be more like them.
This tactic was covered in detail by The Washington Post following the 2018 midterm elections.
The article quoted researchers who reported that “White liberals may unwittingly draw on negative stereotypes, dumbing themselves down in a likely well-meaning, ‘folksy,’ but ultimately patronizing, attempt to connect with the outgroup.”
They explained their findings in a paper titled ‘Self-Presentation in Interracial Settings: The Competence Downshift by White Liberals.’”
“The findings could provide a new arrow in the quiver of those who decry identity politics practiced by liberals,” the story continued.
We’ve seen it in the mainstream media, we’ve seen it on the national political stage, we’ve seen it on college campuses, and now it’s being used again to nudge New Yorkers into voting for a radical socialist.
This willingness to present one image when the reality is another amounts to mental manipulation at its finest.
Hopefully, voters are smarter than that and won’t fall for Mamdani’s cheap tricks, lest they elect a far-left communist and watch their city continue to spiral into ruin.
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