“Democratic socialists” have been getting the teen-idol treatment from giddy reporters and editors at legacy media outlets for years. Their newest crush is on the jihadi-apologist and Marxist New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani.

In a 4,500-word cover story about the candidate, “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.”

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Is Mamdani, as many would have it, a generational talent whose campaign should be mimicked nationally by Democrats? For me, it’s difficult to see much “meaning” in the trope-ridden rhetoric he offers. “I think the most important thing,” the candidate, who, like most socialists, is a child of privilege, notes, “is that people see themselves and their struggles in your campaign.” Deep stuff. His “creative solutions” entail fresh ideas like rent control, a policy Mamdani benefits from personally that was instituted in 1943.

While journalists are mightily impressed, the truth is that Mamdani is running in a hard-left city against a gaggle of unlikeable, corrupt has-been Democrats. Much like Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), his fame is propelled by his radicalism and youth. Neither of them has passed a single consequential piece of legislation, come up with a new idea, much less a solution, or delivered a memorable speech.

Anyway, as one commenter pointed out, New York City is already something of a “socialist” city, with 40% of its residents living in rent-controlled apartments, 600,000 working for the city, and another 600,000 working for nonprofit groups largely funded by government.

You may recall that elegant gown Ocasio-Cortez donned with the slogan “Tax the Rich” written on it at the 2021 Met Gala, where guests selected by Vogue’s Anna Wintour ponied up about $35,000 a pop to hobnob with the rich and famous at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Well, the top 1% pay about 48% of New York City’s bills, and .01% pay nearly 31%. New York’s top 1% pay a combined 52% top tax rate, the highest in the country. The top 10% of earners paid about two-thirds of the city’s income tax revenue. In 2023, 41% of taxes were paid by millionaires, who make up about 4% of the population.

Technically, socialism entails the state controlling the means of production and distribution. “Democratic socialism,” on the other hand, entails young people demanding that others pay for all the benefits of the market system they pretend to detest.

And there is no doubt that “socialism” is gaining popularity and normalization, especially among the young. A recent poll by the Cato Institute and YouGov found that though 59% of Americans still had a favorable view of capitalism (41% unfavorable), 62% aged 18 to 29 said they hold a “favorable view” of socialism. Then again, more than a third of young people hold favorable views of communism. Do they really understand that 100 million died trying to make it work? Maybe. 

The truth is that we don’t even have a shared understanding of socialism. Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) defined socialism as “neighborliness.” Google AI’s definition of socialism is the control of production by the “community as a whole,” which is a cheery euphemism for the state taking your stuff by force. There is even, according to artificial intelligence, a “market-based” socialism.

Meanwhile, 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 headlined, “’Change Is Closer Than We Think.’ Inside Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Unlikely Rise.”

George Will recently argued that Mamdani’s winning New York City would be beneficial in reminding the nation of “socialism’s many harms.” Collectivist ideas always fail, yet they never die. Since the market-fueled gentrification of the ’90s, cities have become increasingly progressive and correspondingly more expensive and poorly run. The Left will scapegoat corporations, billionaires, President Donald Trump, or Israel. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) championed Hugo Chavez in the 2000s. Even after Venezuelans predictably began foraging for food, Sanders, one of the most popular politicians in the country, was still championing the same system. It’s not as if we don’t have the lessons already.

Indeed, we have 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. 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. I wonder how popular socialism really is.

Maybe our outlook will change one day, but right now, there is no real evidence that a socialist outlook plays in most places. It barely plays in cities. If Democrats didn’t split the vote between New York City Mayor Eric Adams and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and perhaps found themselves a candidate who hadn’t already tarnished themselves, Mamdani would likely lose.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, former Chicago Mayor and would-be 2028 presidential hopeful Rahm Emanuel champions resisting hard-left ideas, contending Democrats should run on centrist ideas, 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, who 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.

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The Democrats have become a party of the rich and the dependent poor because the rich can afford socialism and the poor marginally benefit. California, Illinois, Massachusetts, and New York have seen significant net outward migration since 1990, 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 implementing socialism. 

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