New York City just elected Zohran Mamdani as mayor, and that victory has sent a surge of alarm through conservative circles who see it as part of a broader leftward and ideological shift in our institutions. Mamdani’s win — the first Muslim to hold New York’s top office — was driven by a radical, big-government playbook that promises higher taxes, free services, and a redistributionist agenda that will be paid for by hardworking taxpayers. For Americans who still believe in limited government and public safety, this is not merely a local drama; it’s a test of whether our cities will remain places where the rule of law and free enterprise protect ordinary families.
Prominent commentators like Dr. Alex McFarland have warned that this is about more than policy: it’s about political movements using faith as a vehicle to seize power and reshape public life. McFarland’s warning on CBN—that there is concern about the “encroachment of Islam” and the “infiltration of Islamists into American government”—echoes a real fear among patriots that ideological actors will weaponize religious identity to advance illiberal ends. Conservatives must be blunt: criticizing a political ideology that seeks to supplant constitutional law is not bigotry, it is protecting the legal bedrock of our republic.
Texas leaders have responded by moving to close loopholes and protect Texans from any attempt to impose parallel legal systems on American soil, signing legislation aimed at banning what officials call “Sharia compounds” and other schemes that would blur the line between private religious practice and public coercion. Governor Greg Abbott framed the measures as common-sense protections for freedom of religion and property rights, a reminder that the state’s duty is to uphold one set of laws under the Constitution, not accommodate parallel rule sets. If local communities seek to live by their faith privately, fine — but when religious codes threaten to govern nonconsenting neighbors or undercut American law, leaders must act.
Legislatures in states like Michigan are also taking up bills to make clear that courts cannot enforce foreign or religious codes when they violate constitutional rights, a debate that has stirred controversy but is fundamentally about preserving legal clarity. Opponents scream “Islamophobia,” but the bills are narrowly framed to prevent any foreign law — whether from authoritarian regimes or extremist religious courts — from superseding our Constitution. This is not an attack on private worship; it is a defense of the American legal order.
At the federal level, Republican lawmakers are even introducing legislation to make explicit that Sharia, or any foreign legal system, has no place in American courts or governance, signaling a growing appetite in conservative Washington to legislate constitutional common sense. Senators from Texas and Alabama recently unveiled proposals billed as the “No Sharia Act” to enshrine that principle into law and restrict entry for foreign nationals who would attempt to subvert our legal system. Voters who care about sovereignty and the uniform application of law should applaud lawmakers who put patriotic principle above political correctness.
Make no mistake: defending America’s legal and cultural norms is not a license to demonize millions of peaceful Muslim Americans who cherish freedom and contribute to our country. The conservative argument is narrowly focused on political Islamism — an ideology that seeks power through institutions and law — and on preventing any effort to place us under foreign legal codes or parallel jurisdictions. We can, and must, separate respect for individual faith from vigilance against political movements that would hollow out our constitutional guarantees.
The remedy is plain and patriotic: enforce the Constitution uniformly, strengthen civic assimilation and shared American values, elect leaders who put the country first, and hold local institutions accountable when they flirt with legal or cultural parallelism. Hardworking Americans deserve government that protects families, secures borders, and ensures one law for all — and conservatives should meet this moment with clarity, courage, and conviction rather than silence.
