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The Dictatorship

What Democrats must learn from Mamdani’s win — and the backlash that followed

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What Democrats must learn from Mamdani’s win — and the backlash that followed

Zohran Mamdani’s”https://www.BLN.com/top-stories/latest/mamdani-wins-nyc-mayor-race-election-results-rcna240589″ target=”_blank”> victory in the New York City mayoral race is more than an improbable municipal election win; it is a template for Democratic revival, one that can marry socioeconomic policies and message discipline to unambiguous moral clarity.

I first interviewed Mamdani shortly after Donald Trump’s victory over Kamala Harris left the Democratic Party in tatters. Already a declared candidate, the unabashed democratic socialist spoke with hyperfixation on affordability and the need to reorient the Democratic Party away from Wall Street and toward the working class. I interviewed Mamdani multiple times over the next year, including amid a surge of Islamophobic attacks in the final weeks of the mayoral campaign.

Mamdani’s victory is a rebuke of an ugly fear permeating American politics. Voters responded to his message that treated dignity and pocketbook concerns as inseparable from some of the pressing moral issues of our time, such as deportations of immigrants and the genocide in Gaza.

The significance of Mamdani’s triumph, and the lessons it underscores, cannot be fully appreciated without understanding the political context in which it happened. His campaign was fought under the shadow of organized disinformation and overt bigotry.

His campaign was fought under the shadow of organized disinformation and overt bigotry.

For months after his primary win, Mamdani faced an onslaught of Islamophobic attacks and thinly veiled suggestions that his faith and background made him unfit to govern — a pattern documented across mainstream media outlets as well as individuals online. Those criticisms were not incidental; they were designed to distract from the substantive arguments at the heart of the campaign and to erode the very principle of equal citizenship.

Compounding that climate, the pro-Israel advocacy group known as the Anti-Defamation League, or ADL, has established a “Mamdani Monitor” — an unprecedented public tracker that promises to scrutinize the incoming administration’s appointments, policies and funding decisions.

The head of the ADL, Jonathan Greenblatt, says the organization wants to make sure that Mamdani “doesn’t create an environment where Jewish people are unsafe.” To be clear, watchdog coverage of public agencies and officials is a legitimate democratic function. But the monitor’s very name and focus on a single Muslim mayor-elect raises questions about the ADL’s motivations at a time when every major-city administration is making dozens of personnel and policy decisions.

Why is the ADL putting the scourge of antisemitism — which predates Mamdani’s victory and will surely outlast him — squarely on his shoulders when the group has never done such individually targeted initiatives against other elected officials, in New York or elsewhere?

Is it because the mayor-elect has been a staunch critic of Israel’s genocide in Gaza and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom the International Criminal Court has accused of committing war crimes (and who is on trial on corruption charges)?

The Council on American-Islamic Relations condemned the monitor this week as hypocritical and anti-Muslim, noting the bigotry in singling out one Muslim mayor for an industry-grade surveillance project. Its critique that such a monitor promotes a double standard is not an argument against protecting Jewish New Yorkers from hate; it is a plea for consistent standards and for safeguards against normalizing extra scrutiny of Muslim leaders. Democracy cannot function if certain people and communities are policed more heavily than others simply because of their religion.

For the record, Mamdani has repeatedly denounced violence against Jews, including acts of vandalism committed the day after his election victory. Even if Greenblatt and the ADL are committed to defending Israel, they could do so without exploiting the fears of Jewish Americans to benefit Israel. Doing so at the expense of a mayor-elect for speaking out against Israeli actions undermines our democracy.

Democrats should lean into a politics of competence combined with moral clarity.

So, what should Democrats learn from Mamdani’s win — and from the backlash that has followed?

First, offer substantive economic solutions that improve everyday life for voters.

Second, invest in grassroots organizing that builds durable, multiracial coalitions.

Third, fight prejudice and defend pluralism proactively, not performatively.

Democrats should lean into a politics of competence combined with moral clarity. Demonstrating that progressive governance can deliver safe streets, economic prosperity, secure neighborhoods and thriving schools will blunt the arguments of fearmongers.

In America today, winning office does not end efforts toward delegitimization. President Donald Trump spent four years out of office undermining and delegitimizing the 2020 election he lost — and he continues to disparage the result.

Heading into 2026, Democrats should not cower from this fight, nor should they allow legitimate concerns about hate to be used as political cover to attack policies of duly elected officials.

If the party can take this model seriously — funding grassroots power, articulating concrete economic remedies and fighting bigotry consistently across all communities — Mamdani’s victory could evolve from an anomaly to a turning point. New Yorkers have chosen hope over fear. The rest of the country should follow their lead.

Ayman Mohyeldin is an BLN anchor who has long reported on the Middle East and the Arab world. He is a host of “The Weekend: Primetime”which airs at 6 p.m. ET Saturdays and Sundays.

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The Dictatorship

French company Capgemini to sell subsidiary working with ICE

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French company Capgemini to sell subsidiary working with ICE

PARIS (AP) — French company Capgemini announced Sunday it is selling off its subsidiary that provides technology services to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, during global scrutiny of ICE agents’ tactics in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

France’s government had pressured the company to be more transparent about its dealings with ICE, whose actions in Minneapolis in recent weeks have raised concern in France and other countries. The government’s campaign against immigrants in Minnesota’s capital has led to the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens at the hands of federal immigration officers.

Capgemini said in a statement Sunday that it will immediately start the process of selling off its subsidiary Capgemini Government Solutions. It said the rules for working with U.S. federal government agencies ″did now allow the group to exercise appropriate control over certain aspects of the operations of this subsidiary to ensure alignment with the group’s objectives.″

It didn’t give further explanation for the decision, but noted that the subsidiary represents only 0.4% of the company’s estimated 2025 revenue.

Capgemini CEO Aiman Ezzat said he was only recently made aware of the subsidiary’s contract with ICE. In a LinkedIn post, he said, “The nature and scope of this work has raised questions compared to what we typically do as a business and technology firm.’’

The company selloff announcement came after French Finance Minister Roland Lescure, speaking to parliament last week, urged Capgemini ″to shed light, in an extremely transparent manner, on its activities … and to question the nature of these activities.″ Lescure’s office did not comment on the company’s decision.

Non-governmental organization Multinationals Observatory reported that Capgemini Government Solutions provided ICE technical tools to locate targets for the immigration crackdown. CapgemiSni did not immediately respond to a query about the tools.

Capgemini is a consulting and technology company that employs more than 340,000 people in more than 50 countries.

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The Dictatorship

‘Melania’ opens with strong ticket sales for a documentary

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‘Melania’ opens with strong ticket sales for a documentary

NEW YORK (AP) — Promoted by President Donald Trump as “a must watch,” the Melania Trump documentary “Melania” debuted with a better-than-expected $7 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates Sunday.

The release of “Melania” was unlike any seen before. Amazon MGM Studios paid $40 million for the rights, plus some $35 million to market it, making it the most expensive documentary ever. Directed by Brett Ratner, who had been exiled from Hollywood since 2017, the film about the first lady debuted in 1,778 theaters in the midst of Trump’s turbulent second term.

While the result would be a flop for most films with such high costs, “Melania” was a success by documentary standards. It’s the best opening weekend for a documentary, outside of concert films, in 14 years. Going into the weekend, estimates ranged from $3 million to $5 million.

But there was little to compare “Melania” to, given that presidential families typically eschew in-office memoir or documentary releases to avoid the appearance of capitalizing on the White House. The film chronicles Melania Trump over 20 days last January, leading up to Trump’s second inauguration.

Marc Beckman, left, shake hands with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and his wife Jennifer as they arrive for the premiere of first lady Melania Trump's movie

Marc Beckman, left, shake hands with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and his wife Jennifer as they arrive for the premiere of first lady Melania Trump’s movie “Melania” at The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center For The Performing Arts, Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

On Thursday, Trump hosted a premiere of the film at the Kennedy Centerwith attendees including Cabinet members and members of Congress. There, Ratner downplayed its box-office potential, noting: “You can’t expect a documentary to play in theaters.”

The No. 1 movie of the weekend was Sam Raimi’s “Send Help,” a critically acclaimed survival thriller starring Rachel McAdams and Dylan O’Brien. The Walt Disney Co. release debuted with $20 million. The film, with a $40 million budget, was an in-between kind of release for Raimi, whose hits have typically ranged from low-budget cult (“Army of Darkness”) to big-budget blockbuster (2002’s “Spider-Man”).

The microbudget sci-fi horror film “Iron Lung,” directed by YouTuber and filmmaker Markiplier, came in second with $17.9 million, far exceeding expectations. The Jason Statham action thriller “Shelter” debuted with $5.5 million.

But most of the curiosity was on how “Melania” would perform. A week earlier, the White House hosted a black-tie preview attended by Amazon chief executive Andy Jassy, Apple chief executive Tim Cook and former boxer Mike Tyson.

The audience waits in a movie theater for the start of the screening of a documentary about Melania Trump in Ljubljana, Slovenia, Friday, Jan. 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Darko Bandic)

The audience waits in a movie theater for the start of the screening of a documentary about Melania Trump in Ljubljana, Slovenia, Friday, Jan. 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Darko Bandic)

The film arrived in a week dominated by coverage of federal immigration tactics in Minnesota after a U.S. Border Patrol agent fatally shot 37-year-old Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.

“Melania” didn’t screen in advance for critics, but reviews that rolled out Friday, once the film was in theaters, weren’t good. Xan Brooks of The Guardian compared the film to a “medieval tribute to placate the greedy king on his throne.” Owen Gleiberman of Variety called it a “cheese ball informercial of staggering inertia.” Frank Scheck of The Hollywood Reporter wrote: “To say that ‘Melania’ is a hagiography would be an insult to hagiographies.”

But among those who bought tickets over the weekend, the response was far more positive. “Melania” landed an “A” CinemaScore. Audiences were overwhelmingly 55 and older (72% of ticket buyers), female (72%) and white (75%). As expected, the movie played best in the South, with top states including Florida and Texas.

David A. Gross, who runs the movie consulting firm FranchiseRe called it “an excellent opening for a political documentary.”

“For any other film, with $75 million in costs and limited foreign potential, it would be a problem,” said Gross. “But this is a political investment, not a for-profit movie venture, and if it helps Amazon with a regulatory, taxation, tariff or other government issue, then it will pay back. $75 million is insignificant to Amazon.”

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump arrive for the premiere of her movie

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump arrive for the premiere of her movie “Melania” at The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center For The Performing Arts, Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

“Melania” is Ratner’s first film since he was accused of sexual misconduct in 2017. Multiple women, including the actor Olivia Munn, accused Ratner of sexual harassment and misconduct. Ratner has denied the allegations. Last fall, after Trump’s reported intervention, Paramount Pictures said it would distribute his “Rush Hour 4.”

“Melania,” which will stream on Prime Video following its theatrical run, was released globally. Shortly before its debut, South African distributor Filmfinity said it would no longer release it. The company said it changed course “based on recent developments.”

International ticket sales for “Melania” were expected to be minuscule.

Top 10 movies by domestic box office

With final domestic figures being released Monday, this list factors in the estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore:

1. “Send Help,” $20 million.

2. “Iron Lung,” $17.9 million.

3. “Melania,” $7 million.

4. “Zootopia 2,” $5.8 million.

5. “Shelter,” $5.5 million.

6. “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” $5.5 million.

7. “Mercy,” $4.7 million.

8. “The Housemaid,” $3.5 million.

9. “Marty Supreme,” $2.9 million.

10. “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple,” $1.5 million.

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The Dictatorship

‘ICE out’: Bad Bunny uses Grammy speech to speak out

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‘ICE out’: Bad Bunny uses Grammy speech to speak out

As awards season progresses, celebrities continue to speak out against the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown — especially in Minneapolis. Though some stars have opted for a slight nod of resistance with pins that say “ICE out,” others have been more vocal in their stances.

Upon accepting the Grammy Award for Best Música Urbana Album on Sunday night, Bad Bunny got straight to the point.

“Before I say thanks to God, I’m going to say ICE out,” the Puerto Rican performer said as soon as he approached the podium with award in hand.

After a standing ovation and cheers from the crowd, he continued.

“We’re not savage, we’re not animals, we’re not aliens. We are humans and we are Americans.”⁣

This is not the first time the artist has spoken out against the Trump administration’s rhetoric against immigrants in the United States. Last year, he announced he would no longer tour in the U.S., which drew criticism from some right-wing commentators.

Despite that pushback, Bad Bunny scored the headlining spot at this year’s Super Bowl and said he decided to “do just one date in the United States.”

The album Bad Bunny accepted the award for, “Debí Tirar Más Fotos,” also won Album of the Year, becoming the first primarily Spanish-language album to win the distinction in the ceremony’s 68-year history.

Kathleen Creedon is a platforms editor for MS NOW. She previously worked as a web producer for Vanity Fair.

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