Watching the latest resurfaced video of Democrat New York mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani is like seeing a dodo bird walk up to you on the beach: "I could have sworn those things were extinct."
Mamdani is an old-school communist, as you'll see below.
As I've written on many occasions here over the years, even America's first Red Diaper president, Barack Obama, was no Marxist — because the problems with Marxism are so acute that leftists can't deny them.
Nobody buys into the whole "dictatorship of the proletariat" or "seizing the means of production," and hasn't for a long time. Dictators make easy targets for revolts — just ask the Ceaușescus. Much better, then, to give the people (mostly) free elections, but limit their choices to nominees acceptable to the nomenklatura.
And Another Thing: That's why Donald Trump was, is, and will remain a threat to the American Left — twice (thrice?) elected from outside the establishment's roster, he represents the people's rejection of leftism.
And seize the means of production? Where's the money in that? Obama wrecked everyone’s health care costs, but his support for bandwidth rationing — sorry, net neutrality — landed him a $40 million Netflix deal. Unlike most people now, he can afford the premiums.
Old-school Marxism is fine for college stoners, but the grown-ups have hedge funds to think about. Modern leftists — except perhaps for Mamdani, whom I'll return to momentarily — are influenced by Marx but are not Marxists.
Call them Marxians. The Marxian worldview uses Marxist tools selectively without buying into the whole revolution thing.
Marx and Engels were wrong about economics, but they did produce useful philosophical tools for seizing all that money and power. The most potent of those tools is a little something Engels came up with called "false consciousness."
False consciousness originally applied to "class traitors" — members of the working class who weren't good Marxists or maybe just insufficiently militant. But when class warfare didn't produce the desired results, the Left expanded the definition.
"Black Republicans aren't real blacks." "Female conservatives aren't real women." "If you don't support trans rights, you aren't a real gay."
And we all know what happens to traitors.
It works, too. Social proof is almost irresistible to most people. Obama was the master of false consciousness. If you examine his presidency through that lens, it all makes sense. First, stoke racial tensions. Then, highlight grievance culture. Finally, establish the "permanent Democratic majority" based on majority-minority rule.
It almost worked, too, derailed only by Democrats going overboard on their worst policies.
While the means used now to enforce conformity are much softer than they used to be — no more GULAG or concentration camps, at least for now — the results are no less effective. Possibly even more effective, since there are no conspicuous signs of totalitarianism for people to revolt against.
But now comes along Zohran Mamdani and the old-school Marxism that grown-ups like Obama left behind in their smoke-filled dorm rooms. Watch the first 36 seconds of this clip from 2021:
“The end goal is seizing the means of production”
— AG (@AGHamilton29) June 30, 2025
Best of luck, NYC
pic.twitter.com/3IvNHG8n8j
Marxism, straight up.
If — and this is a big if — anything will get New Yorkers to re-embrace common sense (and literally any other major mayoral candidate in November), it might just be Mamdani's embrace of old-school Marxism.
But, judging by the way even centrist Democrats like Bill Clinton have embraced Mamdani since his primary win last week, it looks like "Marxism, straight up" is the future of the Democratic Party, not its past.
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