Is Socialism as Popular as the Media Think?

Their newest crush, as New Yorkers already know, is jihadi-apologist and Marxist New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani.

In a 4,500-word cover story headlined "The Meaning of Zohran Mamdani," Time magazine paints a caricature of a well-meaning, authentic and not-really-so-radical go-getter. An "ideologue interested in creative solutions" is how Time puts it.

Sure, Mamdani might support genocidal rhetoric, but the Jewish community will be pleased to learn that he "often talked about the problem of antisemitism and the need for anti-hate-crime funding."

Is Mamdani, as many would have it, a generational talent whose campaign should be mimicked nationally by Democrats?

Yes, the resentful young have convinced themselves they're living in the worst era ever to have befallen man. "People our age have never experienced American prosperity in our adult lives — which is why so many millennials are embracing democratic socialism," is how Harvard-educated writer Charlotte Alter once put it in a Time cover piece on a previous darling, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

But George Will recently argued that a Mamdani win would be beneficial in reminding the nation of "socialism's many harms." Collectivist ideas always fail, yet they never die.

Sen. Bernie Sanders championed Hugo Chavez in the 2000s — and even after Venezuelans predictably began foraging for food, Sanders, one of the most popular politicians in the country, was still championing the same system. So it's not as if we don't have the lessons already.

Indeed, we've been having the same debates in perpetuity. The zero-sum fallacy that capitalism is inherently evil and rigged has been hammered into our conscience for centuries. We've convinced millions of Americans that a gaggle of rich people can trigger economic havoc for profit, control the economy to undermine the working class, and push commodity prices higher to reap the profits.

It is a tragedy that Democrats continue to stagger leftward on all fronts to mollify and placate their activist class. And it's not merely economics. The modern "democratic" socialist comes with a slew of positions that not only undermine quality of life but clash with the moral outlook of normies: the pro-terrorist, pro-identitarian rhetoric; the championing of criminality and illegal immigration; the anti-modernity climate hysteria; and the deranged social science quackery on gender — just for starters.

So I wonder how popular socialism really is.

Right now, there is no real evidence that a socialist outlook plays in most places. It barely plays in cities. If NYC's Democrats didn't split the vote between Mayor Eric Adams and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and perhaps found themselves a candidate who hadn't already tarnished themselves with scandal, Mamdani would likely lose.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, former Chicago Mayor and would-be 2028 presidential hopeful Rahm Emanuel pushed back on hard-left ideas, contending Democrats should run on centrist slogans, such as "build, baby, build."

How Democrats plan on doing this without rolling back the climate hysteria that undermines growth and squanders billions on half-baked energy plans is going to be interesting. But he has a point. Centrist Democrats are poised to win entire purple states like Virginia, showing far wider appeal than Mamdani — but they can barely get any attention.

One of the most popular governors in the country right now is Kentucky's Andy Beshear, a Democrat in a state with a Republican-controlled legislature that Trump won by over a 30-point margin. Why isn't he the way forward for Democrats? Other governors in the top 10 have similar dispositions, including North Carolina's Josh Stein and Pennsylvania's Josh Shapiro, both in states Trump won. All of them take moderated left-of-center positions without a full-throated embrace of anti-market, anti-Western, racialist positions that are in vogue in cities.

No GQ covers for them.

The Democrats have become a party of the rich and the dependent poor — because the rich can afford socialism and the poor marginally benefit.

Since the market-fueled gentrification of the '90s, cities have become increasingly progressive and correspondingly more expensive and poorly run.

California, Illinois, Massachusetts and New York have seen significant net outward migration since then, while market-driven states with lower regulations and taxes like Florida, Nevada, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas have seen significant increases in newcomers. This is before New York City installed a socialist mayor.

How popular is socialism? Far too popular. But not as popular as Democrats and the media would have us believe. At least, not yet.

(COMMENT, BELOW)

Previously:
• 08/15/25: Save the Little Sisters of the Poor!
• 08/08/25: RFK Jr.'s War on Vaccines and Public Health Continues
• 08/01/25: Europe's Recognition of 'Palestine' Is a Cynical Joke
• 07/18/25: Legacy Media Still Covering for Biden
• 06/27/25: Trump Learned the Lessons of Iraq
• 05/30/25: We Have No Constitutional or Moral Duty to Subsidize Harvard
• 05/30/25: Welcome to the Intifada, America
• 05/16/25: Scapegoating Biden Isn't Going to Solve the Dems' Problems
• 05/09/25: The Pulitzer Prizes Have Become a Sad Joke
• 05/05/25: How Do You Do, Fellow White People? Tim Walz Says Hello!
• 04/25/25: Ketanji Brown Jackson Makes a Powerful Argument for School Choice
• 04/18/25: If Everyone Is an Expert, No One Is
• 03/31/25: The Left's Imaginary COVID 'Reckoning'
• 03/21/25: Sorry, Conspiracy Theorists -- Lee Harvey Oswald Acted Alone
• 03/03/25: Mitch McConnell: A GOP Hall of Famer?
• 02/21/25: RFK's Dangerous Autism Lie
• 02/14/25: It's Time to End the EV Racket
• 02/07/25: If You Really Support Immigration, Stop Excusing Chaos
• 02/03/25: Trump's Gaza Proposal Makes Complete Sense
• 01/24/25: How Biden's Pardons Normalize Abuse of Power
• 01/17/25: Israel Makes a Deal With the Actual Devil
• 01/13/25: Why Javier Milei Matters
• 12/20/24: The Obama Doctrine Is Dead
• 12/13/24: It's time for a national conversation about left-wing violence
• 12/09/24: It's time for a national conversation about left-wing violence
• 11/08/24: Don't Trash the Constitution to Dunk on the Libs
• 11/08/24: This 'liberation' will NOT be reported
• 11/01/24: HARRIS Is the Bigger Threat to the Constitutional Order
• 09/20/24: Fact checked! Harris Is the Extremist
• 07/13/24: Explain Yourself, Kamala Harris!
• 07/05/24: How Biden's Mental Decline Went From 'Misinformation' to Fact in a Week
• 04/12/24: Biden Is Now Chasing the 'Death to America' Voter
• 03/15/24: Turns Out Biden Lied About Hur, Beau, And Why He Pilfered Classified Docs
• 02/09/24: Why Biden Is Threatening to Veto Aid to Israel
• 02/09/23: Electric Cars Are a Scam
• 06/30/23: Americans Have Never Been Less Threatened by 'Extreme Weather'
• 03/03/23: Questioning Biden's Ukraine Policy Doesn't Make You an 'Isolationist'
• 01/20/23: No ribbons? Don't hide behind religion!
• 01/13/23: On Classified Documents, Joe Biden Is Out of Excuses
• 04/29/22: Biden's Ministry of Truth
• 04/08/22: The Most Radical Abortion Law in the Nation
• 04/01/22: Recuse Yourself, Joe Biden
• 03/25/22: No, School Boards Are Not 'Banning Books'
• 03/11/22: Let Them Drive Teslas
• 01/28/22: It's Not Government's Job to 'Root Out' Misinformation
• 01/14/22: Biden's Big Elections Lie
• 01/07/22: Schumer's Ugly 'Voting Rights' Gamble
• 12/24/21:AOC's Grasp on American Governance Is a 'Farce'
• 12/17/21: Dems Pivot from Build Back Better to Useless Extremism
• 11/19/21: Reckoning' Over Steele Dossier?
• 10/15/21: The Biden White House Will Pay for Playing Inflation Games
• 09/24/21: The most demonstrable political scandal still ignored
• 09/17/21: Sorry, AOC, The Rich Already Pay Their Fair Share
• 09/02/21: Why Isn't Biden to Blame for COVID-19 Deaths?
• 08/06/21: Biden's Unprecedented Attack on the Constitution
• 07/30/21: Jan. 6 Was Deplorable. It Was NOT a Coup
• 06/21/21: The Myth of Republican Obstructionism
• 05/21/21: What Does Putin Have on Biden?
• 04/16/21: Kristen Clarke Is Unfit to Be in Government
• 03/26/21: No to DC Statehood is far from GOP being reflexive
• 03/22/21: Biden Prepares to Strip College Students of Due Process Rights The Hypocrisy of the Filibuster Busters
• 03/12/21: Biden Prepares to Strip College Students of Due Process Rights
• 03/05/21: AOC's Terrible Minimum Wage Argument
• 02/12/21: The Dem Party Is Radicalizing against the Constitution
• 02/05/21: What NOT to Do with Marjorie Taylor Greene
• 01/15/21: Free Speech Is a Value Not Just a Right
• 12/31/20: It Can't Get Any Worse Than 2020. Here's a 2021 Political Wish List
• 10/26/20: Wanted: An Honest Debate about the Death Penalty
• 10/26/20: These are the questions 'Big Guy' Biden must be forced to answer about Hunter's emails
• 09/11/20: The Dems' Dangerous Delegitimization of the Election
• 08/28/20: Biden Is Underperforming Hillary in Battleground States
• 08/14/20: Kamala Harris, Imaginary Centrist
• 07/24/20: Who you calling a fascist?
• 07/17/20: Speech Police have finally gone too far
• 07/03/20: 'But Gorsuch' Is Still Trump's Best Argument
• 06/22/20: Welcome to America's Cultural Revolution
• 06/12/20: The color of my skin is not an indictment of my morality, nor does it strip me of my agency
• 06/05/20: What this son of immigrants knows about bulding bussinesses --- and the dismay of destruction
• 05/28/20: The Folly of Twitter's Fact-Check
• 05/22/20: Dems Warning Trump Will Reject Election Results Should Look in the Mirror
• 05/15/20: Obamagate Is NOT a Conspiracy Theory
• 05/08/20: Really, Joe --- due process is the opposite of justice?