{"id":1200,"date":"2026-06-04T10:38:01","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T10:38:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=1200"},"modified":"2026-06-04T10:38:01","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T10:38:01","slug":"i-stood-up-to-zohran-mamdanis-rabid-thug-and-you-can-too","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=1200","title":{"rendered":"I stood up to Zohran Mamdani’s rabid thug \u2014 and you can, too"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Beware, New Yorkers: Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s got a cadre of humorless, hypersensitive goons on his side \u2014 and they\u2019re all too willing to bully you for opposing him.<\/p>\n

Read more In a win for public safety, Mamdani\u2019s breaking yet another core campaign promise<\/a><\/p>\n

That\u2019s what I learned Monday, when a bearded Hezbollah-supporting Mamdani stan confronted me on my commute home aboard an uptown 6 train.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019d hopped on at 51st Street and had just settled into my seat, closed my eyes, and pulled up my hoodie to listen to a podcast when I heard someone call my name.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMichael Benjamin. Michael Benjamin. I see you. You can\u2019t hide.\u201d<\/p>\n

I opened my eyes to find a black-masked man standing over me, angrily shaking what looked like a pager in my face.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It slowly occurred to me that this unhinged individual was calling me out for a post I\u2019d made on X nearly two years ago, in October 2024, commenting on the party Mamdani threw to launch his mayoral campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs it true that no pagers were allowed?\u201d I\u2019d snarked \u2014 referring to Israel\u2019s famous exploding-pager operation of the previous month.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe writes for The New York Post and tweets about killing people,\u201d the furious stranger announced to the other passengers in the car, clearly hoping to have them join his effort to condemn me.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I wasn\u2019t shocked to be recognized \u2014 my Post columns, an active Twitter\/X account and eight years in public office have made me something of a public person.<\/p>\n

But the man\u2019s menacing manner was startling to say the least.<\/p>\n

My mind raced to assess the situation: \u201cIs he alone? Is he armed?\u201d<\/p>\n

I quickly realized he was the owner of the big black e-bike I\u2019d glanced at when boarding IRT subway car 1675.\u00a0A young woman was sitting alongside him.<\/p>\n

I stood up to confront him and the ranting coward retreated, still waving his black pager in my direction.<\/p>\n

A couple of young, able-bodied men scrambled away toward the far end of the car, dishearteningly reluctant to come to an innocent commuter\u2019s aid.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cRemove the mask,\u201d I demanded \u2014 he seemed familiar, but with his swarthy face obscured by his black surgical cover, I couldn\u2019t be sure.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He shouted that I thought I was a tough guy because of where I grew up, but that I\u2019d grown old. (Gosh, I realized, this loon really does<\/em> read my tweets.)<\/p>\n

\u201cYou and Mayor Mamdani support terrorism,\u201d\u00a0I roared back, as adrenaline surged and heightened my senses.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not afraid of you.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when another passenger approached and told my accuser to step away from me.<\/p>\n

Read more Trump claims Dems \u2018trying to steal\u2019 California primaries, launches probe into sluggish vote counts<\/a><\/p>\n

He refused, and the would-be mediator flashed his badge: an off-duty police officer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a supporter of violence,\u201d the Mamdani fan implored.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The back-and-forth continued, with the officer between us, all the way to 86th Street, where the train operator signaled for the NYPD.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Two officers boarded. They asked what happened.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The male cop threatened to arrest me unless I got off the train; I told him and his female partner that I didn\u2019t do anything wrong and promptly sat down.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cRemove him,\u201d I said, gesturing to the straphangers who had witnessed me being accosted in hopes they\u2019d back my story.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fortunately, two commuters \u2014 a man and a woman \u2014 nodded in agreement.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Eventually, the officers persuaded my aggressor and his now-crying girlfriend to disembark with his beater e-bike.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When the off-duty cop got off at 138th Street, he patted me on the shoulder as if to say, \u201cTake it easy, brother.\u201d<\/p>\n

Looking back, it\u2019s kind of funny that a bearded pro-Palestinian thug brandishing a pager in a threatening fashion thought it right to cast me<\/em> as a supporter of state violence.<\/p>\n

But bottom line: These Mamdani simps have repeatedly shown us all that they feel free to accost blameless people without incurring any penalty.<\/p>\n

That has to change.<\/p>\n

Since the brutal Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas and the subsequent war in Gaza, Jewish New Yorkers have been relentlessly targeted by masked, antisemitic hooligans in restaurants, in front of synagogues, on city streets \u2014 and on the subway, with other riders all too often sitting silently by.<\/p>\n

Now I\u2019ve gotten a taste of what they have endured.<\/p>\n

Gov. Kathy Hochul must reinstate New York state\u2019s public mask ban without delay.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

Disguised antifa, pro-Palestinian bullies and nut jobs are have proven themselves to be as dangerous as the Ku Klux Klan ever was.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Masks permit bad actors to anonymously harass, intimidate and vandalize with impunity.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, we need more New Yorkers to stand their ground against these goons.<\/p>\n

Together, we can send them crawling back beneath the filthy rocks from whence they came.<\/p>\n

My stalker won\u2019t scare me off the 6 train \u2014 or keep me from calling out Mamdani\u2019s tacit support for Hezbollah, Hamas and anti-Zionist radicalism around the world.<\/p>\n

Read more Knicks\u2019 Landry Shamet picks up rusty teammates as heroics continue in NBA Finals Game 1<\/a><\/p>\n

Michael Benjamin is a member of the New York Post Editorial Board.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My stalker won\u2019t scare me off the 6 train \u2014 or keep me from calling out Zohran Mamdani\u2019s tacit support for antisemitic radicalism around the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1199,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-michael-benjamin","category-opinion"],"yoast_head":"\nI stood up to Zohran Mamdani's rabid thug \u2014 and you can, too - Metro Transit Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=1200\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"I stood up to Zohran Mamdani's rabid thug \u2014 and you can, too - 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