In August, Washington Post columnist George Will told HBO host Bill Maher on “Real Time” that he wanted Zohran Mamdani to win New York City’s mayoral election. Will doesn’t support Mamdani’s socialist policies, but rather argues that once in every generation, “we need a conspicuous, confined experiment with socialism so we can crack it up again.”
Will’s wish has come true, and Americans may have to learn the hard way about the dangers of collectivism. It is ironic, but perhaps most impactful, that this “confined experiment” with socialism will occur in America’s gateway city, the epicenter of global capitalism and the world’s financial markets, where the Statue of Liberty has welcomed millions of immigrants fleeing despotism and persecution, yearning to live free in the land of opportunity.
The poorest and most vulnerable New Yorkers, who voted in the majority for Andrew Cuomo, will suffer the worst consequences of Mamdani’s proposed policies…
Young professionals in New York City represent Mamdani’s base, with over three-quarters (78 percent) of voters under age 30 casting their ballot for the self-described “democratic socialist.” This demographic might learn a valuable lesson about the grim reality of socialism, but it will come at a heavy price. The poorest and most vulnerable New Yorkers, who voted in the majority for Andrew Cuomo, will suffer the worst consequences of Mamdani’s proposed policies, such as rent control, city-owned grocery stores, and minimum wage hikes. Mamdani’s mayorship is a victory for champagne socialism, but not for the working class of New York City. (RELATED: Mamdani: The Miracle Hair-Growth Salesman Who Claims to Have Found the Master Formula)
Even on Wall Street’s home turf, this election result should not surprise anyone since nearly two-thirds (62 percent) of American adults under age 30 say they have a “favorable view” of socialism. Millennials and Gen Z came of age, or were born, years after the Berlin Wall collapsed and the Soviet Union dissolved. It’s been half a lifetime since the communist menace and the prospect of world revolution haunted the globe and threatened to destroy the American way of life. (RELATED: Mamdani Is NOT a New Phenomenon: He’s the Center of the Democrat Party)
Today, the word “socialism” no longer invokes dystopian images of breadlines and gulags, particularly among young adults. Despite communism’s defeat abroad, Western university departments and humanities curricula became enamored with the revolutionary ideology that circulated in the 1960s counter-culture — the newfangled Marxism of Herbert Marcuse’s “repressive tolerance” and Max Horkheimer’s Critical Theory. Radical professors and activists promulgated New Left philosophy to millennial and Gen Z students, eager as always to change the world for the better. (RELATED: Electing the Image: Mamdani and the Mimetic Turn in Democracy)
Mamdani, the son of an Ivy League, anti-colonialist academic, is a poster child of the neo-Marxist worldview. He attended Bowdoin, a private liberal arts college in Brunswick, Maine, where he co-founded a Students for Justice in Palestine chapter and earned a bachelor’s degree in Africana Studies. As a member of the New York State Assembly in 2021, he did not hold back from divulging “the end goal of seizing the means of production.” (RELATED: Comrade With a Condo: The Mamdani Myth Exposed)
Jeremy M. Peters wrote in The New York Times that Mamdani represents a new generation of progressives “whose formative years as young adults were shaped by elite colleges where, over the last decade, theories of social and racial justice became even more deeply ingrained in liberal arts education.” (RELATED: How Universities Created Zohran Mamdani)
Mamdani’s mayoral win was secured by his fellow college-educated transplants of New York City, but natives of the Big Apple broadly rejected his smiley-faced socialism. Among those born in New York City, only 38 percent supported Mamdani, compared to 85 percent of those who have lived in the city for less than five years. Residents with 2024 family incomes between $200,000 and $300,000 voted for Mamdani over Cuomo, while those earning less than $30,000 backed the former governor over the socialist candidate.
The poorest New Yorkers will be hit the hardest by policies like “freeze the rent,” which will limit housing availability and drive up rent, disproportionately impacting low-income tenants. City-owned grocery stores will require massive state subsidies and boost demand beyond supply. Instead of cheaper groceries for struggling residents, New York City will get empty shelves. Doubling the minimum wage will increase labor costs and may reduce employment among low-skilled workers, especially through automation. Exorbitant taxes on the rich will incentivize businesses and capital to flee the city, further undermining economic opportunity and prosperity.
As F.A. Hayek wrote, “Socialism has never and nowhere been at first a working-class movement.” From the Fabian Society to the Frankfurt School, the revolution begins not in the factories and ghettos, but among a clique of overly zealous intellectuals convinced that they can usher in a perfectly just and equitable society. A harrowing legacy of 100 million perished souls blotting the endless road to utopia is ample reason to spurn the revolutionary idealism of the Marxist creed; however, it is repackaged each new generation. (RELATED: The Socialist Order … It’s Not Pretty)
Mamdani probably won’t achieve his end goal of “seizing the means of production,” but when history nonetheless repeats itself with the dismal failure of yet another socialist experiment, perhaps America’s young voters can be reoriented toward a lasting embrace of the tried and true.
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Aidan Grogan is a history PhD candidate at Liberty University, a senior contributor with Young Voices, and the donor communications manager at the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER). His work has been published in National Review, The Daily Wire, The Federalist, Law & Liberty, and AIER’s The Daily Economy. Follow him on X @AidanGrogan.
