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Fake News Made Baseball Icon Ty Cobb a Dirt Bag — But He Wasn't

April 04, 2017
Staff

WRITER

Ty Cobb, baseball's first superstar, is remembered for being the worst racist and dirtiest player ever to take the field. But was he? A new PragerU video by Cobb biographer Charles Leerhsen provides compelling evidence to the contrary:

How could a man born in Georgia in 1886 not be a racist? Well, as it turns out, Ty Cobb descended from a long line of abolitionists. His great-grandfather was a minister who preached against slavery and was run out of town for his troubles. His grandfather refused to fight in the Confederate Army because of the slavery issue. And his father, an educator, once broke up a lynch mob.

In researching Cobb's legacy, Leerhshen found that nearly every accusation against the baseball legend found its roots in the same source: Articles and books that were not fact-checked and published after Cobb's death by a bitter, opportunistic journalist named Al Stump, whom Cobb had once threatened to sue for making up stories about him.

RELATED: Calling Good People ‘Racist’ Isn’t New: The Case of Ty Cobb

"I would like to hear who has been besmirched that needs to be restored? Whose credibility has been destroyed that needs to have it restored?" Glenn asked.

Glenn challenged listeners to email patgray@glennbeck.com with the names of historical figures --- from the 20th century or before --- whose legacy has been inaccurately portrayed.

Listen to this segment from The Glenn Beck Program:

Well, the latest thing is we just found this Ty Cobb Prager U discussion about Ty Cobb not being who you think he is.

STU: Now, because I'm a big baseball fan.

PAT: Yeah, me too.

STU: We're all sports fans.

PAT: And what have you heard about Ty Cobb? Do you know about Ty Cobb at all?

GLENN: No. I just know he's a bad guy. That's all I know.

JEFFY: Right!

PAT: Bad guy. That's all anybody knows about him. Great baseball player. Racist.

STU: Racist. Dirty player.

PAT: Killed a guy. Never paid for it. Spiked people when he slid into second base as often as he could, you know, that kind of thing. Well, listen to this.

VOICE: He was Major League Baseball's first superstar. The first man ever inducted into the baseball Hall of Fame, and he still has the game's highest career batting average, 366, almost 90 years after he retired.

PAT: Wow.

GLENN: His name is Ty Cobb.

Yet, despite his historic achievements, he is often remembered for being the worst racist and the dirtiest player ever to take the field. If you know baseball, you've heard the stories. Ty Cobb would pistol whip black men he passed on the street. He once stabbed to death a black waiter in Cleveland, just because the young man was acting uppity. On the field, he was set to sharpen the spikes to cut up rival infielders. He supposedly had no friends.

In the movie, Field of Dreams, Shoeless Joe Jackson said that Cobb wasn't invited to the ghost league cornfield reunion (phonetic) because, quote, no one liked the son of a bitch.

A lifelong baseball fan, I believed these stories when I set out to write the first authoritative biography of Cobb in 20 years. I had been hearing them all my life. And like a lot of people, I took the repetition as evidence.

But to my astonishment, as I delved into the source material, newspapers, census reports, and personal letters, I couldn't find any proof that they were true.

On the contrary, Cobb's teammates on the whole seemed to respect him, defending him on the field and off. His opponents said he played the game hard, but clean. Wally Schang, a veteran catcher, was typical, he once said Cobb never cut me up. He was too pretty a slider to hurt anyone who put the ball on him right.

One famous photograph of 1912 shows Cobb flying foot first into the crotch of St. Louis Brown's catcher Paul Krichell. It looks bad. But pictures can be deceiving. In reality, Cobb is kicking the ball out of Krichell's glove. He didn't spike the catcher. Krichell later said, in a way, it was really my fault. I was standing in front of the plate, instead of on the side where I could tag tie as he slid in.

Indeed, in 1910, Cobb actually asked the League to require that players dulled their spikes.

And what about the bigotry? How could a man born in Georgia in 1886 not be a racist? Well, as it turns out, Ty Cobb descended from a long line of abolitionists. His great-grandfather was a minister who preached against slavery and was run out of town for his troubles. His grandfather refused to fight in the Confederate Army because of the slavery issue. And his father, an educator, once broke up a lynch mob.

On the subjects of blacks playing with whites, Cobb said, "The Negro should be accepted whole-heartedly and not grudgingly. The Negro has the right to play professional baseball. And who is to say he has not?"

PAT: It doesn't sound like a racist.

VOICE: Cobb attended many Negro League games, sometimes throwing out the first pitch. And sitting in the dugout with the players, he said Willie Mayes was the only modern day player he'd pay to see.

As for that black waiter he supposedly killed, well, in reality, he was a hotel night watchman. And Cobb didn't kill him. He just scuffled with him. And, oh, yeah, the guy was white.

Now, Ty Cobb was like the rest of us. A highly imperfect being. Too quick to take offense. Too intolerant of those who did not strive for excellence with the same almost crazy zeal that he did.

But a racist? A dirty player? Not true.

What is true is that almost every accusation against Ty Cobb's character finds its roots in the same source, un-fact-checked articles and books published after his death by a bitter opportunistic journalist named Al Stump, whom Cobb had once threatened to sue for making up stories about him.

It didn't matter that Stump had spent little time with Cobb or that all of Stump's sources were anonymous. That sportswriters who knew Cobb rushed to his defense. Or that Stump himself had been banned from publications for writing lies. The scandal was titillating. And it stuck. When the legend beats the facts, print the legend.

Meanwhile, a good man's reputation lies in ruins. There are lessons to be learned here. First, it's all too easy to believe lies about people, especially successful ones. Lies take achievers down a few notches. And we like to hear that. And second, if a lie is repeated often enough, it becomes accepted as fact.

This has consequences because lies are the source of much of the world's evil, like the evil of destroying a man's legacy. In this case, a legacy that should be celebrated.

Ty Cobb was the most exciting baseball player of all time. He once stole second, third, and home on three consecutive pitches. He once had a (inaudible) to the pitcher, to an inside-the-park home run. He's not a racist or a cheat. It's time to tell the truth about Ty Cobb.

PAT: That's crazy. Yeah.

GLENN: Jeez.

VOICE: I'm Charles Leerhsen, author of Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty.

PAT: I mean, that's everything --

STU: Yeah.

PAT: -- everything you didn't believe about Ty Cobb in five minutes.

JEFFY: Nothing is sacred anymore.

PAT: That's amazing.

STU: It's incredible too. And you think about it in today's context with fake news -- first of all, fake news been going on for a long time apparently.

GLENN: Fake news -- if anybody doesn't think the king wasn't paying the town cryers to go out and cry out with fake news, you're crazy.

PAT: Oh, please.

GLENN: Of course, they were.

STU: It's been going on forever. And this is one, even as a person who has spent way too many hours focusing on sports -- we're all huge sports fans with, of course, the exception of Glenn who doesn't know the difference between baseball and football.

GLENN: I do. Yes, the ball size.

STU: Yes, right. That's it. That's the only difference.

PAT: Very good.

STU: But we spend a lot of time talking about baseball and --

GLENN: And the color. One is brown. One is white.

STU: There you go. Very good.

PAT: You could go with the shade. A little bit different.

JEFFY: Don't give him the answers.

GLENN: Okay. The shape. I said one is smaller. One is bigger.

STU: The point is, I even believed it. Right? I totally thought that was true. Great player, dirtbag. That was my whole -- you just believed that about Ty Cobb.

PAT: Yeah. Well, that's always the name that comes up when you're talking about Pete Rose in the Hall of Fame. You're telling me Ty Cobb is in the Hall of Fame, but not Pete Rose? I mean, look what he did compared to Pete Rose. I've heard that 100 times. One hundred times.

STU: Yeah. And look at, like, we all recognize this is true in the area, for example, for politics. FDR ended the Great Depression. Like, all these things that we know -- over time, you look at, and you're like, wait a minute. That's not right. This isn't right.

But when we get to -- there's a certain level of interest. Like if you hit -- like with sports, I'm interested in Ty Cobb because I think it's -- you know, I like sports. I haven't dedicated my life to looking at Ty Cobb like this author has. And it's like, when you actually look at these things, so many times, they're the opposite.

PAT: Tokyo Rose.

STU: Yeah, Tokyo Rose. You've done with Tokyo Rose.

GLENN: Woodrow Wilson. Woodrow Wilson.

STU: Woodrow Wilson.

It struck me -- it hit me initially because it was a sports reference. We had John Ziegler in here a couple weeks ago talking about the Penn State thing. And Joe Paterno being the main part of that. Of like, here's a guy who was fired, his reputation ruined, and really, in retrospect, it's pretty hard to make the case that Paterno in particular -- I mean, Ziegler goes even further than this. But Paterno in particular, it's hard to make the case that this guy had lengthy knowledge of these things and did something horrific because he wanted to endanger children. You know, it's -- it's really -- it's bizarre when you stop and you can get past the sort of craziness of the moment and really examine these things, how your opinion changes.

GLENN: I would love to hear -- in fact, no, I guess -- send it to PatGray@GlennBeck.com. I would like to hear who has been besmirched who needs to be restored?

PAT: That would be really interesting.

STU: Yeah, yeah.

GLENN: Whose credibility has been destroyed that needs to have it restored? And let's take it out of the last 20 years.

STU: Yeah.

GLENN: You know, because you can't --

STU: It's hard.

GLENN: It's too controversial the last 20 years.

PAT: Because you know it doesn't end at Ty Cobb and Tokyo Rose. There's got to be hundred of people --

GLENN: Of course not. That Tokyo Rose thing below blew me away. Blew me away.

PAT: Yeah. We had no idea. None.

GLENN: Yeah. You know, another thing I thought of is we should start -- because when Tokyo Rose -- she died in 2006. She died in 2006.

PAT: She was alive for a long time.

GLENN: Yeah, most of my life she was alive. Why didn't I ever talk to Tokyo Rose? Why didn't I ever reach out to Tokyo Rose?

PAT: We didn't know the story then.

GLENN: Right. But even not knowing the story, what happened? Why wouldn't we do that?

PAT: Uh-huh.

GLENN: Who was it, somebody that just died -- and then today I saw the picture, the guy who -- you remember that really famous firefighter in the Oklahoma City bombing that was carrying the baby?

STU: Oh, yeah.

GLENN: The little girl. Remember that? He's just retired.

PAT: Oh, wow.

GLENN: It's hard to believe because he was young in that -- he's just retired from the fire department.

PAT: Jeez.

GLENN: We should find people from history -- the Tokyo Rose size, that are here, available, and just nobody is talking to, before they die.

PAT: Yeah, we should.

GLENN: I'd love to talk to some of those people.

PAT: That would be great. By the way, did you know that Ty Cobb hit over 300 three separate years?

STU: See, this is --

GLENN: This is going to happen now for three weeks.

PAT: Easily.

STU: We will be in the middle of a conversation about something totally different. And like, did you know he hit 420 one year? 420. 420.

PAT: The highest batting averages of all the time.

GLENN: And that's all he'll say. That's all he'll say. And we'll all go, huh. And then right back into the conversation.

Is the U.N. plotting to control 30% of U.S. land by 2030?

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

A reliable conservative senator faces cancellation for listening to voters. But the real threat to public lands comes from the last president’s backdoor globalist agenda.

Something ugly is unfolding on social media, and most people aren’t seeing it clearly. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) — one of the most constitutionally grounded conservatives in Washington — is under fire for a housing provision he first proposed in 2022.

You wouldn’t know that from scrolling through X. According to the latest online frenzy, Lee wants to sell off national parks, bulldoze public lands, gut hunting and fishing rights, and hand America’s wilderness to Amazon, BlackRock, and the Chinese Communist Party. None of that is true.

Lee’s bill would have protected against the massive land-grab that’s already under way — courtesy of the Biden administration.

I covered this last month. Since then, the backlash has grown into something like a political witch hunt — not just from the left but from the right. Even Donald Trump Jr., someone I typically agree with, has attacked Lee’s proposal. He’s not alone.

Time to look at the facts the media refuses to cover about Lee’s federal land plan.

What Lee actually proposed

Over the weekend, Lee announced that he would withdraw the federal land sale provision from his housing bill. He said the decision was in response to “a tremendous amount of misinformation — and in some cases, outright lies,” but also acknowledged that many Americans brought forward sincere, thoughtful concerns.

Because of the strict rules surrounding the budget reconciliation process, Lee couldn’t secure legally enforceable protections to ensure that the land would be made available “only to American families — not to China, not to BlackRock, and not to any foreign interests.” Without those safeguards, he chose to walk it back.

That’s not selling out. That’s leadership.

It's what the legislative process is supposed to look like: A senator proposes a bill, the people respond, and the lawmaker listens. That was once known as representative democracy. These days, it gets you labeled a globalist sellout.

The Biden land-grab

To many Americans, “public land” brings to mind open spaces for hunting, fishing, hiking, and recreation. But that’s not what Sen. Mike Lee’s bill targeted.

His proposal would have protected against the real land-grab already under way — the one pushed by the Biden administration.

In 2021, Biden launched a plan to “conserve” 30% of America’s lands and waters by 2030. This effort follows the United Nations-backed “30 by 30” initiative, which seeks to place one-third of all land and water under government control.

Ask yourself: Is the U.N. focused on preserving your right to hunt and fish? Or are radical environmentalists exploiting climate fears to restrict your access to American land?

Smith Collection/Gado / Contributor | Getty Images

As it stands, the federal government already owns 640 million acres — nearly one-third of the entire country. At this rate, the government will hit that 30% benchmark with ease. But it doesn’t end there. The next phase is already in play: the “50 by 50” agenda.

That brings me to a piece of legislation most Americans haven’t even heard of: the Sustains Act.

Passed in 2023, the law allows the federal government to accept private funding from organizations, such as BlackRock or the Bill Gates Foundation, to support “conservation programs.” In practice, the law enables wealthy elites to buy influence over how American land is used and managed.

Moreover, the government doesn’t even need the landowner’s permission to declare that your property contributes to “pollination,” or “photosynthesis,” or “air quality” — and then regulate it accordingly. You could wake up one morning and find out that the land you own no longer belongs to you in any meaningful sense.

Where was the outrage then? Where were the online crusaders when private capital and federal bureaucrats teamed up to quietly erode private property rights across America?

American families pay the price

The real danger isn’t in Mike Lee’s attempt to offer more housing near population centers — land that would be limited, clarified, and safeguarded in the final bill. The real threat is the creeping partnership between unelected global elites and our own government, a partnership designed to consolidate land, control rural development, and keep Americans penned in so-called “15-minute cities.”

BlackRock buying entire neighborhoods and pricing out regular families isn’t by accident. It’s part of a larger strategy to centralize populations into manageable zones, where cars are unnecessary, rural living is unaffordable, and every facet of life is tracked, regulated, and optimized.

That’s the real agenda. And it’s already happening , and Mike Lee’s bill would have been an effort to ensure that you — not BlackRock, not China — get first dibs.

I live in a town of 451 people. Even here, in the middle of nowhere, housing is unaffordable. The American dream of owning a patch of land is slipping away, not because of one proposal from a constitutional conservative, but because global powers and their political allies are already devouring it.

Divide and conquer

This controversy isn’t really about Mike Lee. It’s about whether we, as a nation, are still capable of having honest debates about public policy — or whether the online mob now controls the narrative. It’s about whether conservatives will focus on facts or fall into the trap of friendly fire and circular firing squads.

More importantly, it’s about whether we’ll recognize the real land-grab happening in our country — and have the courage to fight back before it’s too late.


This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

URGENT: FIVE steps to CONTROL AI before it's too late!

MANAURE QUINTERO / Contributor | Getty Images

By now, many of us are familiar with AI and its potential benefits and threats. However, unless you're a tech tycoon, it can feel like you have little influence over the future of artificial intelligence.

For years, Glenn has warned about the dangers of rapidly developing AI technologies that have taken the world by storm.

He acknowledges their significant benefits but emphasizes the need to establish proper boundaries and ethics now, while we still have control. But since most people aren’t Silicon Valley tech leaders making the decisions, how can they help keep AI in check?

Recently, Glenn interviewed Tristan Harris, a tech ethicist deeply concerned about the potential harm of unchecked AI, to discuss its societal implications. Harris highlighted a concerning new piece of legislation proposed by Texas Senator Ted Cruz. This legislation proposes a state-level moratorium on AI regulation, meaning only the federal government could regulate AI. Harris noted that there’s currently no Federal plan for regulating AI. Until the federal government establishes a plan, tech companies would have nearly free rein with their AI. And we all know how slowly the federal government moves.

This is where you come in. Tristan Harris shared with Glenn the top five actions you should urge your representatives to take regarding AI, including opposing the moratorium until a concrete plan is in place. Now is your chance to influence the future of AI. Contact your senator and congressman today and share these five crucial steps they must take to keep AI in check:

Ban engagement-optimized AI companions for kids

Create legislation that will prevent AI from being designed to maximize addiction, sexualization, flattery, and attachment disorders, and to protect young people’s mental health and ability to form real-life friendships.

Establish basic liability laws

Companies need to be held accountable when their products cause real-world harm.

Pass increased whistleblower protections

Protect concerned technologists working inside the AI labs from facing untenable pressures and threats that prevent them from warning the public when the AI rollout is unsafe or crosses dangerous red lines.

Prevent AI from having legal rights

Enact laws so AIs don’t have protected speech or have their own bank accounts, making sure our legal system works for human interests over AI interests.

Oppose the state moratorium on AI 

Call your congressman or Senator Cruz’s office, and demand they oppose the state moratorium on AI without a plan for how we will set guardrails for this technology.

Glenn: Only Trump dared to deliver on decades of empty promises

Tasos Katopodis / Stringer | Getty Images

The Islamic regime has been killing Americans since 1979. Now Trump’s response proves we’re no longer playing defense — we’re finally hitting back.

The United States has taken direct military action against Iran’s nuclear program. Whatever you think of the strike, it’s over. It’s happened. And now, we have to predict what happens next. I want to help you understand the gravity of this situation: what happened, what it means, and what might come next. To that end, we need to begin with a little history.

Since 1979, Iran has been at war with us — even if we refused to call it that.

We are either on the verge of a remarkable strategic victory or a devastating global escalation. Time will tell.

It began with the hostage crisis, when 66 Americans were seized and 52 were held for over a year by the radical Islamic regime. Four years later, 17 more Americans were murdered in the U.S. Embassy bombing in Beirut, followed by 241 Marines in the Beirut barracks bombing.

Then came the Khobar Towers bombing in 1996, which killed 19 more U.S. airmen. Iran had its fingerprints all over it.

In Iraq and Afghanistan, Iranian-backed proxies killed hundreds of American soldiers. From 2001 to 2020 in Afghanistan and 2003 to 2011 in Iraq, Iran supplied IEDs and tactical support.

The Iranians have plotted assassinations and kidnappings on U.S. soil — in 2011, 2021, and again in 2024 — and yet we’ve never really responded.

The precedent for U.S. retaliation has always been present, but no president has chosen to pull the trigger until this past weekend. President Donald Trump struck decisively. And what our military pulled off this weekend was nothing short of extraordinary.

Operation Midnight Hammer

The strike was reportedly called Operation Midnight Hammer. It involved as many as 175 U.S. aircraft, including 12 B-2 stealth bombers — out of just 19 in our entire arsenal. Those bombers are among the most complex machines in the world, and they were kept mission-ready by some of the finest mechanics on the planet.

USAF / Handout | Getty Images

To throw off Iranian radar and intelligence, some bombers flew west toward Guam — classic misdirection. The rest flew east, toward the real targets.

As the B-2s approached Iranian airspace, U.S. submarines launched dozens of Tomahawk missiles at Iran’s fortified nuclear facilities. Minutes later, the bombers dropped 14 MOPs — massive ordnance penetrators — each designed to drill deep into the earth and destroy underground bunkers. These bombs are the size of an F-16 and cost millions of dollars apiece. They are so accurate, I’ve been told they can hit the top of a soda can from 15,000 feet.

They were built for this mission — and we’ve been rehearsing this run for 15 years.

If the satellite imagery is accurate — and if what my sources tell me is true — the targeted nuclear sites were utterly destroyed. We’ll likely rely on the Israelis to confirm that on the ground.

This was a master class in strategy, execution, and deterrence. And it proved that only the United States could carry out a strike like this. I am very proud of our military, what we are capable of doing, and what we can accomplish.

What comes next

We don’t yet know how Iran will respond, but many of the possibilities are troubling. The Iranians could target U.S. forces across the Middle East. On Monday, Tehran launched 20 missiles at U.S. bases in Qatar, Syria, and Kuwait, to no effect. God forbid, they could also unleash Hezbollah or other terrorist proxies to strike here at home — and they just might.

Iran has also threatened to shut down the Strait of Hormuz — the artery through which nearly a fifth of the world’s oil flows. On Sunday, Iran’s parliament voted to begin the process. If the Supreme Council and the ayatollah give the go-ahead, we could see oil prices spike to $150 or even $200 a barrel.

That would be catastrophic.

The 2008 financial collapse was pushed over the edge when oil hit $130. Western economies — including ours — simply cannot sustain oil above $120 for long. If this conflict escalates and the Strait is closed, the global economy could unravel.

The strike also raises questions about regime stability. Will it spark an uprising, or will the Islamic regime respond with a brutal crackdown on dissidents?

Early signs aren’t hopeful. Reports suggest hundreds of arrests over the weekend and at least one dissident executed on charges of spying for Israel. The regime’s infamous morality police, the Gasht-e Ershad, are back on the streets. Every phone, every vehicle — monitored. The U.S. embassy in Qatar issued a shelter-in-place warning for Americans.

Russia and China both condemned the strike. On Monday, a senior Iranian official flew to Moscow to meet with Vladimir Putin. That meeting should alarm anyone paying attention. Their alliance continues to deepen — and that’s a serious concern.

Now we pray

We are either on the verge of a remarkable strategic victory or a devastating global escalation. Time will tell. But either way, President Trump didn’t start this. He inherited it — and he took decisive action.

The difference is, he did what they all said they would do. He didn’t send pallets of cash in the dead of night. He didn’t sign another failed treaty.

He acted. Now, we pray. For peace, for wisdom, and for the strength to meet whatever comes next.


This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Globalize the Intifada? Why Mamdani’s plan spells DOOM for America

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

If New Yorkers hand City Hall to Zohran Mamdani, they’re not voting for change. They’re opening the door to an alliance of socialism, Islamism, and chaos.

It only took 25 years for New York City to go from the resilient, flag-waving pride following the 9/11 attacks to a political fever dream. To quote Michael Malice, “I'm old enough to remember when New Yorkers endured 9/11 instead of voting for it.”

Malice is talking about Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist assemblyman from Queens now eyeing the mayor’s office. Mamdani, a 33-year-old state representative emerging from relative political obscurity, is now receiving substantial funding for his mayoral campaign from the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

CAIR has a long and concerning history, including being born out of the Muslim Brotherhood and named an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terror funding case. Why would the group have dropped $100,000 into a PAC backing Mamdani’s campaign?

Mamdani blends political Islam with Marxist economics — two ideologies that have left tens of millions dead in the 20th century alone.

Perhaps CAIR has a vested interest in Mamdani’s call to “globalize the intifada.” That’s not a call for peaceful protest. Intifada refers to historic uprisings of Muslims against what they call the “Israeli occupation of Palestine.” Suicide bombings and street violence are part of the playbook. So when Mamdani says he wants to “globalize” that, who exactly is the enemy in this global scenario? Because it sure sounds like he's saying America is the new Israel, and anyone who supports Western democracy is the new Zionist.

Mamdani tried to clean up his language by citing the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, which once used “intifada” in an Arabic-language article to describe the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. So now he’s comparing Palestinians to Jewish victims of the Nazis? If that doesn’t twist your stomach into knots, you’re not paying attention.

If you’re “globalizing” an intifada, and positioning Israel — and now America — as the Nazis, that’s not a cry for human rights. That’s a call for chaos and violence.

Rising Islamism

But hey, this is New York. Faculty members at Columbia University — where Mamdani’s own father once worked — signed a letter defending students who supported Hamas after October 7. They also contributed to Mamdani’s mayoral campaign. And his father? He blamed Ronald Reagan and the religious right for inspiring Islamic terrorism, as if the roots of 9/11 grew in Washington, not the caves of Tora Bora.

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

This isn’t about Islam as a faith. We should distinguish between Islam and Islamism. Islam is a religion followed peacefully by millions. Islamism is something entirely different — an ideology that seeks to merge mosque and state, impose Sharia law, and destroy secular liberal democracies from within. Islamism isn’t about prayer and fasting. It’s about power.

Criticizing Islamism is not Islamophobia. It is not an attack on peaceful Muslims. In fact, Muslims are often its first victims.

Islamism is misogynistic, theocratic, violent, and supremacist. It’s hostile to free speech, religious pluralism, gay rights, secularism — even to moderate Muslims. Yet somehow, the progressive left — the same left that claims to fight for feminism, LGBTQ rights, and free expression — finds itself defending candidates like Mamdani. You can’t make this stuff up.

Blending the worst ideologies

And if that weren’t enough, Mamdani also identifies as a Democratic Socialist. He blends political Islam with Marxist economics — two ideologies that have left tens of millions dead in the 20th century alone. But don’t worry, New York. I’m sure this time socialism will totally work. Just like it always didn’t.

If you’re a business owner, a parent, a person who’s saved anything, or just someone who values sanity: Get out. I’m serious. If Mamdani becomes mayor, as seems likely, then New York City will become a case study in what happens when you marry ideological extremism with political power. And it won’t be pretty.

This is about more than one mayoral race. It’s about the future of Western liberalism. It’s about drawing a bright line between faith and fanaticism, between healthy pluralism and authoritarian dogma.

Call out radicalism

We must call out political Islam the same way we call out white nationalism or any other supremacist ideology. When someone chants “globalize the intifada,” that should send a chill down your spine — whether you’re Jewish, Christian, Muslim, atheist, or anything in between.

The left may try to shame you into silence with words like “Islamophobia,” but the record is worn out. The grooves are shallow. The American people see what’s happening. And we’re not buying it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.