Mamdani is a Democratic Socialist and so are Trump and the Republicans
When New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani gave his inauguration speech on New Year’s Day, he made a promise to govern as a Democratic Socialist who would replace “rugged individualism” with “collectivism,” Donald Trump and so-called conservative Republicans went into overdrive calling out the mayor for his far-left declaration.
Mamdani’s inauguration speech was given outside City Hall in New York City to cheering throngs. Here a few excerpts (via Real Clear Politics):
My fellow New Yorkers, today begins a new era. I stand before you moved by the privilege of taking this sacred oath, humbled by the faith that you have placed in me and honored to serve as either your 111th or 112th mayor of New York City. But I do not stand alone.
Seldom do we hold such an opportunity to transform and reinvent. Rarer still is it the people themselves, whose hands are the ones upon the levers of change. And yet we know that too often in our past, moments of great possibility have been promptly surrendered to small imagination and smaller ambition.
To those who insist that the era of big government is over, hear me when I say this. No longer will City Hall hesitate to use its power to improve New Yorkers’ lives. For too long, we have turned to the private sector for greatness while accepting mediocrity from those who serve the public.
We will transform the culture of City Hall from one of no to one of how. We will answer to all New Yorkers not to any billionaire or oligarch who thinks they can buy our democracy. We will govern without shame and insecurity making no apology for what we believe.
I was elected as a democratic socialist and I will govern as a democratic socialist. I will not abandon my principles for fear of being deemed radical. As the great senator from Vermont once said what’s radical is a system which gives so much to so few and denies so many people the basic necessities of life. (Emphasis mine)
Clearly, the political baton in New York City has been handed to a man who firmly believes in Democratic Socialism. But based on the changes Donald Trump has made to the Republican Party and conservatism, they should be cheering Mamdani, not criticizing him (via FOX News):
“Zohran Mamdani is a dangerous communist who is likely to DESTROY NYC through his dedication to communist ideology. Let’s be clear: COMMUNISM HAS FAILED everywhere it has been tried. NYC will be no different,” House Chairwoman Lisa McClain asserted in a post on X.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, responded to Mamdani’s controversial remark on Thursday by asserting, “When communists rule, individual rights — invariably — are taken away.”
“Collectivism isn’t warm,” Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, declared in a post. “It’s as cold as ice and locks the poor into perpetual poverty,” he continued. “Free markets have elevated more people out of poverty than any government program ever could.”
Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, who is running for Lone Star State attorney general, asserted in a post, “The Marxist and the Islamist are the enemy. The Mayor of New York is both.”
As I pointed out some time ago, Trumpism and Nationalism have blurred the lines of conservatism to such a degree that positions held by today’s Republican Party are indistinguishable from the leftist ideals held by Mamdani, going back to 2016. For example, we have this tidbit from pre-Trump Mark Levin when he compared Trump’s policies to those of Bernie Sanders on the August 25, 2016, edition of his radio show:
“His position is the same position he trashed in the Republican primary process and now he sounds like those he trashed. Given Trump’s position now on immigration, given his position on the minimum wage now, given his Bernie Sanders position on trade, it now turns out one of the most liberal men running in the Republican primary for President of the United States was Donald Trump!
“Finally, the Alt-right rejects Constitutional conservatives. Some of their surrogates trash the constitution and call us purists. Most of the people in the Alt-right movement have nothing to do with racial hatred but some do. Though one thing is certain, the Alt-right is not conservative. They overlap with the Communist left which is why they outreach to Bernie Sanders supporters.” (Emphasis mine)
This is nothing, however, compared to the Nationalist makeover of conservatism and the embrace of Democratic Socialist ideals made by the Republican Party.
At the July 2019 inaugural meeting of the National Conservatism Conference (NCC), we learned that the motivation for this get-together was to explore new ways to empower government with the means necessary to right the wrongs brought about by traditional conservatism. And if a Republican version of Democratic Socialism was required, that was a price nationalists were willing to pay.
“Today we declare independence,” NCC organizer Yoram Hazony said, “from the set of ideas that sees the atomic individual, the free and equal individual, as the only thing that matters in politics.”
It its coverage of that conference, Reason.com concluded:
“The true object of the nationalists’ ire is much closer to home: They cannot abide individual Americans making social and economic choices they do not like. For consumers, the question might be whether to buy foreign or domestic. For a business owner, it might be where to open a factory.
“Regardless, the new nationalists have decided not only that there is a right answer from a moral perspective but that government should force you to choose correctly.” (Emphasis mine)
One of the so-called conservatives in attendance was none other than Sen. Josh Hawley (MO). Hawley, a darling of the faux-conservative crowd, had already established his Democratic Socialist bona fides in April that year when he co-sponsored a bill with Sen. Rick Scott to impose price controls on prescription drugs — an idea Trump also endorses — that was so socialistic in nature it was described as legislation Bernie Sanders could have written.
In a keynote speech that sounded more like something you’d hear from a Democratic Socialist, Hawley attacked the “powerful upper class and their cosmopolitan priorities,” and called for “a new consensus” to address the “discontent of our time.”
Many Republicans tried to disconnect Donald Trump from the goings-on at the NCC, but he promised in 2016 to create a Bernie Sanders-styled “worker’s party” to address America’s “unjust” economic system. In a nutshell, the self-proclaimed nationalist occupying the White House is completely simpatico with the tenets of the NCC and Democratic Socialists.
And let’s not forget that shortly after Mamdani’s victory, Donald Trump praised the Democratic Socialist as “a very rational person” who “really wants New York to be great again.”
Trump and the Republican Party claim that being a Nationalist is the same as being a conservative, but it’s not. It’s merely their version of the Democratic Socialist ideals held Zohran Mamdani — and there’s nothing conservative about it!
David Leach is the owner of the Strident Conservative. He holds people of every political stripe accountable for their failure to uphold conservative values, and he promotes those values instead of political parties. He is the author of The New Axis of Evil: Exposing the Bipartisan War on Liberty.
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