Mamdani and the “Woke Jihad”Legal Insurrection by Nora Dimitrova Clinton Saturday, January 10, 2026
“Judeo-Christian and American values treat men and women of all races as created in the image of God and possessing equal inherent worth and rights.” I happened to spend New Year’s Eve in the year 2000 and January 1st of 2001 in New York City. On the first morning of the actual new millennium (not the falsely celebrated one in 2000), I took the dizzying elevator up to the top of the Empire State Building and admired the iconic skyline. I wanted to commemorate the moment and had my photo taken with the Twin Towers in the background.
It was a time of innocence, when no one knew what would befall the free world nine months and ten days later. New York was bustling, invigorating, and safe under Giuliani, and so symbolically American that people on both sides of the political spectrum could revel in a genuinely good time together on New Year’s Eve at Times Square.
Fast-forward to December 31, 2023. My family and I were enjoying a festive drink at home in anticipation of 2024 and switching through the TV channels. We watched Paul Anka sing “Imagine” at Times Square. I have always instinctively disliked the lyrics of “Imagine,” despite the phenomenal musical talent of John Lennon and the Beatles, whom I adored in my youth.
Authors like Melanie Phillips have pointed out the fallacy of the message promoted by “Imagine.” Kathleen Hayes explains:
“Imagine there’s no countries | It isn’t hard to do | Nothing to kill or die for | And no religion too.”
What could be wrong with John Lennon’s “Imagine” — a song many of us listened to endlessly in high school — and his dream of a peaceful “brotherhood of man”? Everything, says Melanie Phillips in her brilliant new book “The Builder’s Stone: How Jews and Christians Built the West — and Why Only They Can Save It.”
There are things worth dying and, terrible as it is to contemplate, killing for. A society that no longer believes this is spiritually empty and threatened with collapse. Lennon’s anthem isn’t just saccharine (as those high schoolers often decide when they get older) but, in a sense, the perfect expression of what’s wrong today in the West.
More:
https://legalinsurrection.com/2026/01/mamdani-and-the-woke-jihad/