Mayor Mamdani appeared on Theo Von's podcast yesterday took the opportunity to explain socialism to the host. According to Mamdani, socialism is just dignity in every facet of life.
Zohran Mamdani explains his definition of socialism to Theo Von: “Socialism to me means you’ll have whatever you need to live a dignified life and that it is the government’s job to deliver on that. When people say dignity we’re talking about the things that allow you to take a… pic.twitter.com/as6dDrf1v3
— Marco Foster (@MarcoFoster_) October 1, 2026
Socialism to me, it means you’ll have whatever you need to live a dignified life and that it is the government’s job to deliver on that. It's a belief that you shouldn't live in a place where all you can do is pick your own leaders. You should also be able to have that power in the rest of your life. People talk about it as the extension of democracy from the ballot box to the rest of your life. What do people mean by the rest of your life? They mean your workplace, your home, things like that.
So when people say dignity, I want to be clear, we’re talking about the things that allow you to take a breath. Housing, childcare, public transit. No one should be priced out of these things. These are non-negotiables. You need these to live.
Mamdani then offers example of where the U.S. is already socialist: K-12 education and libraries. Everyone gets a free education and free access to books. He just wants to expand that to more things such as early childhood education.
"As a socialist, what I'm fighting for is that that nobody is priced out of dignity." Mamdani explained. He added, "There's just a comfort right now with living in a country where the market gets to determine everything, not just luxury but dignity too."
I have to say it's a good pitch. I can imagine a whole bunch of 15-year-olds listening to this and thinking he's a genius. As a salesman for one of the worst ideas in history he gets good marks.
The problem, of course, is that socialism doesn't work. Even the examples he offered, K-12 education and libraries, don't work. Our libraries have, in many places, been turned into de facto homeless shelters, often with the willing support of the librarians. Why? Because they want the homeless to have dignity and that supersedes the original point of having a safe place for people to get books. In reality, "dignity" often means having a public bathroom cleaned by someone else to smoke or shoot up drugs.
As for the K-12 schools, we just went through the whole story about Nikole Hannah-Jones sacrificing her daughter's education for a chance to create dignity for other people's children. And what did she accomplish? Nothing. Her pleas mostly fell on deaf ears. She discovered a cadre of teachers and administrators who were taking state money to teach and giving nothing in return. No homework was assigned, no assignments checked, not even any effort to stop fights in the cafeteria. No one gave a damn. That's socialism in a nutshell.
The schools that actually succeed have something more than the promise of a free education. They have teachers who care and engaged parents determined to see their kids get the best education possible. The government can't deliver that on its own. It never can.
Take Mamdani's promise of a rent freeze as another example. He's spinning that as dignity for all the people who can't afford more for rent, but what he's creating is more housing shortages and higher rents for everyone else.
None of what he's selling can possibly work well in the real world. If the government is responsible for providing everything people need, then you're likely to have a lot of disagreements about what and how much people actually need. And the bottom line will always be something crummy and miserable because you can't give mansions to everyone. It's not possible. So everyone has to settle for small, ratty and run-down apartments. New York already has Section 8 housing. Guess what...the conditions are often terrible.
This is a report about the New York housing program running out of emergency COVID funds from five months ago. "We're in the hands of a bunch of people who don't care," this woman says.
It's just like the bad public schools in New York City. Government mandates don't create dignity. What they create is dependency, long lines for scarce services and a sense that no one cares about anything. That's the actual outcome Mamdani would create for everyone if he had his way.
Giving everyone a vote in where everyone lives and works really looks like handing all of the decisions over to the government. And the government then does the bare minimum. We've seen this before in Cuba, in Venezuela, in the Soviet Union, etc.
Often the other feature of communist/socialist societies is authoritarian control by whoever runs the government. In demanding a vote in everything and handing all power to the government to decide what is fair, you actually wind up with a vote in nothing. Some of the response to Mamdani's explainer are very on target.
https://t.co/m6EfhDzAVO pic.twitter.com/AnAMWd5um9
— Burnie Senders (@BurnieSendersX) October 2, 2026
Because nothing says “dignity” quite like having the government seize someone else’s earnings so you can evade the responsibility of earning your own, then calling the burden you imposed on them a human right. https://t.co/9NOcvLYQLT
— Rock Chartrand (@RockChartrand) October 2, 2026
To summarize, he wants everybody to be provided everything ("for free"). No surprise, the socialist's is a child's view of the world. https://t.co/raePMxvqzp
— Per Bylund (@PerBylund) October 2, 2026
It is apparently “dignified” to be living completely at the unchosen expense of others. https://t.co/bXdtUGoAiX
— South Jersey Giants (@SouthJerzGiants) October 2, 2026
Before seizing power, Lenin promised Socialism wound bring “Peace! Bread! Freedom!”
— Will Collier (@willcollier) October 2, 2026
He went 0-for-3. https://t.co/g2Z2wpVAYt
I could go on for a while but just one more.
Traditionally, dignity is thought of as something that comes from within—how you comport yourself.
— Against Narrative (@3RenChengHu) October 2, 2026
As used by leftists, "dignity" is a completely different word that refers to a material standard of living which can be granted or denied by external forces. https://t.co/wnwQchRJVu
Bottom line, Mamdani is a menace because he'll convince a bunch of ignorant people that socialism is a great idea. By the time reality hits those dummies it will be too late.
Update: Bonus socialist moron.
I'd rather have an economy that makes 1,000 millionaires than 1 billionaire. pic.twitter.com/pVEnetgo6l
— Dr. Abdul El-Sayed (@AbdulElSayed) October 1, 2026
Billionaires don't "park" their money in the stock market. Most of them are billionaires because they own a large percentage of stock in a company they created. It's their ownership and control of the company that makes them billionaires. And often it's their leadership that is part of making the company so valuable. If you seize their wealth (as California is now threatening to do) you aren't taking away their passive investment in the S&P, you are stealing their ownership of their own companies and devaluing those companies in the process.
Also, every billionaire has made many, many millionaires along the way. When Space X went public recently, it instantly created more than 4,000 millionaires.
As Trevor Hise was getting ready to graduate from college in 2011, his parents wanted him to take what they saw as a stable job at General Electric. But Mr. Hise had landed an internship at a start-up he loved. Against his parents’ advice, he stayed for a full-time job at that young company for the next 12 years.
The start-up was Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
Today, Mr. Hise has more than 100,000 SpaceX shares that he earned from his time working there. With the rocket maker expected to go public this week at $135 a share, Mr. Hise’s SpaceX stock is likely worth at least $13.5 million — a sum that has left him in disbelief.
“The magnitude of this has been ridiculous,” said the 37-year-old, who worked as a SpaceX launch engineer and now considers himself semiretired.
El-Sayed doesn't know what he's talking about. Go figure.
Editor's Note: The Democrat Party has been infected by socialism, and it's spreading FAST. Democrats are claiming there's nothing to worry about, but we know the truth.
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