New Yorkers are Sleepwalking Into Socialism
Zohran Mamdani isn’t running as a moderate Democrat. He’s running as an open, unapologetic socialist. He’s not shy about it either. At the Democratic Socialists of America convention in 2023, Mamdani made it clear that once socialists get into office, their job is to stick together, resist compromise, and stay loyal to the movement above all else. He closed his speech with the words, “solidarity forever and socialism forever.” Since then, he has doubled down in interviews, saying plainly that his “political home” is the NYC DSA. The organization itself has confirmed that he doesn’t run as an individual at all, but as a representative of their movement.
So what does that movement actually want? At its core, the DSA platform calls for the end of capitalism as we know it. They don’t just want to regulate corporations more tightly; they want to replace free markets with government or worker control over production and resources. That means the nationalization of industries like energy, railroads, and even banking—industries that drive the American economy.
The platform also calls for a complete reordering of the justice system. Prisons would be abolished and replaced with “restorative justice” programs. Police departments wouldn’t just face cuts, they’d eventually be dismantled altogether, with budgets redirected into social services.
On immigration, the vision is wide open. The DSA calls for decriminalizing border crossings, abolishing ICE, and essentially removing restrictions on migration. They pair this with demands for trillions of dollars in reparations for Black and Indigenous communities, arguing that historical wrongs can only be corrected by massive wealth transfers.
Education and the economy would also be reshaped. The DSA wants to cancel all $1.6 trillion in student debt, make public education free at every level, and introduce a universal basic income for everyone—funded by sweeping new wealth taxes. On foreign policy, the program calls for slashing defense budgets, ending U.S. military interventions, and redirecting resources toward international aid and what they call “anti-imperialist solidarity.”
These aren’t fringe ideas Mamdani is quietly flirting with. They’re the platform of the movement he openly calls home, and he has pledged himself to it repeatedly. By his own admission, he is not a candidate who just happens to be a member of DSA. He is a candidate who exists to advance their cause.
New Yorkers deserve to understand this clearly. And if he wins, New York won’t just be electing a mayor. It will be electing a test case for a sweeping socialist program that seeks to tear down capitalism, gut the justice system, erase the border, cancel trillions in debt, and shrink America’s role in the world.
This is bigger than a local race. If Mamdani takes office, the city becomes the staging ground for a movement that aims to transform America at its core. So the question is: do New Yorkers really know what they’re voting for?