Comedians Call Zohran Mamdani a "Sneaky Muslim" Trying to Advance "Muslim Agenda"
These People Are All Just Racists, Part 10,000.
In a new episode of his podcast History Hyenas, co-hosted with Yannis Pappas, the Riyadh Comedy Festival headliner Chris Distefano, whose most recent special was released as part of Hulu’s new “Hularious” comedy slate, speculated that New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani is concealing his true radical Muslim faith in order to advance a secret Muslim agenda. Transcript below and discussion to follow:
Pappas: […] And here's the funny thing about Raymond Ibrahim, is he looks like a guy the Crusaders would kill first.
Distefano: Yeah, 100%.
Pappas: That's the irony of it.
Distefano: It is.
Pappas: He looks like a big Arab big.
Distefano: And he's big on that guys Mamdani and all that are committing a little thing called taqiyya. Do you know what a little thing called taqiyya is?
Pappas: Tell me, cuz. You know a little bit too much about this.
Distefano: So, a little bit. So what happens is, cuz, is sometimes you get a little banged up on the weekend, and you have a weekend and you sit up in your room that's been designated, that's your room and your space, and you just look into a little thing called the Crusades because you feel like maybe you have some invasions in your own household. So you start to say, "How did we do this historically?" And then you look into a little thing called taqiyya. And what taqiyya is in the Islamic faith or Muslims, what you can do is you are allowed to denounce your religion. And you are allowed to basically secretly say that you're not a Muzzy when you actually are a Muzzy if it's to push the Muslim agenda forward, which is what a little thing, which is what people think maybe a little man named Zohran Mamdani could be doing.
'Cause he's saying, "I support gays and blah, blah, blah, blah." But he's doing a little thing called taqiyya, which is allowed in Islam. And it was actually, a lot of people say, go back to the Spanish Inquisition, they're like, "How come so many Muslims all of a sudden renounced their faith and became Christians? That must've been a good thing, right?" It's like, well, the answer is taqiyya. That's why they did it. It's because they did that. They will basically go undercover to push Islam forward. It is A-okay.
Pappas: Holy shit.
Distefano: So this whole time I could be doing taqiyya. I could be an undercover Muzzy presenting as a Catholic.
[…]
Distefano: And what happens is, here's the interesting truth is when Mamdani becomes mayor, Muslim mayor. Muslims, you have to pay. You basically have to pay a tax. Anytime Islam takes over, you have to pay taxes.
Pappas: Jizya.
Distefano: It's called a jizya. It's called a jizya. They spell J-I-Z-Y-A. And I know how to do that, because I pay a little thing called a Jas-ya. [Ed. note: Distefano is referring to his fiancée, Jasmin.]
Pappas: Yeah, it's true. I know we haven't gotten to the topic of the day yet.
Distefano: Yeah. But we will because I'm off the fucking beef.
Pappas: Yeah, and we're having a good fucking time.
Distefano: Yeah.
Pappas: But yeah, I mean, you're basically saying is you gotta be careful of these sneaky Muslims.
Distefano: No, I'm not saying that. Beware of taqiyya.
Pappas: Just beware of taqiyya.
Distefano: Beware of taqiyya.
Pappas: But I mean, that's synonymous with sneaky Muslims.
Distefano: It is.
Pappas: So you're calling Muslims sneaky.
Distefano: Well, I'm just saying they have a part of their religion that could be a little sneak attack.
Pappas: Yeah.
Distefano: Yeah. And I'm just saying, I'm not saying Christianity is the answer, but I'm just saying put your faith in Jesus and everything will be okay.
There is much worth dwelling on here: Distefano’s remark about his home being invaded by Muslims; his suggestion that it would have been good, actually, for Muslims to renounce their faith during the Spanish Inquisition; his use of the slur “Muzzy,” unfortunately not unusual on this podcast; his characterization of a Mamdani win as “Islam taking over”; similarly, his characterization of taqiyya—historically a means of avoiding persecution—as a means of secretly taking power and even launching a “sneak attack”; his complete elision of the fact that Mamdani is quite open about and proud of his faith; and, of course, Pappas’s utter shamelessness about the argument they’re really putting forth here, which is that Muslims are bad and evil.
Seth Simons
I’m sharing this segment today because I believe it offers an illustration of the argument I made yesterday. This sort of racism is completely repugnant; it has no place in the public square, and yet it is a routine feature of this podcast by one-and-a-half popular mainstream comedians, and many other podcasts like it. So-called cancel culture is over, so-called wokeness is over; there exists no means for the general public to enforce norms of decency against artists like these, who use their platforms to spread outright hatred against marginalized people.
What that leaves is their colleagues and peers: people like Stavros Halkias, a friend of both these comics who recently guest-hosted 2 Bears 1 Cave with Distefano and reassured him it was fine to do the Riyadh Comedy Festival because all entertainment money is blood money anyway.
Looking back at yesterday’s newsletter, I neglected to touch on one significant problem with Halkias’s defense of comedy’s right-wingers: his characterization of their beliefs as “the dumbest thing they've ever said or put forward.” There is not a single one of these people whose bigotry is a thing of the past, nor would any of them characterize their own beliefs as dumb or shameful things they regrettably said years ago. They are all huge racists right now. If Halkias and comics like him see it as their role to kindly call in the likes of Chris Distefano without negatively polarizing them even further to the right, then it’s well past time they step up their game. And if diplomatically calling them in isn't working, then clearly it's time to change tack.
Seth Simons
This is not some idle thought experiment: it’s happened before. You may recall a little show called Million Dollar Extreme that aired on Adult Swim barely a decade ago, created by notorious neo-Nazis Sam Hyde, Nick Rochefort, and Charls Carrol. The sketch series, which featured coded and not-so-coded white supremacist imagery, was canceled in part due to criticism from other Adult Swim artists—like Brett Gelman, who departed the network in part due to its greenlighting of the show, and Tim Heidecker, who publicly supported Gelman’s decision. (Unfortunately, Gelman later suffered a drastic loss of his moral compass.) Following the cancellation, Heidecker personally took Hyde to task on his own podcast, and in the years since, Hyde and his ilk were relegated to the ash heap of comedy history—save for a few recent assists from Shane Gillis, one of their biggest fans.
In other words, it is not only possible for comedians to police their racist peers; it is precedented and it is effective. All they need is a little backbone.
