Democrats Decide the Answer Is to Democrat Harder

Turns out "eat the rich" polls better than "balance the budget."

What do you get when you mix sky-high housing costs, grocery prices that make you seriously weigh plasma donation as a side hustle, and a generation convinced they’ll never own a home—and then tell them it’s all the billionaires’ fault?

Apparently... not a red wave.

I nearly spit out my coffee when I saw that headline. Voters in New York City were fed up with the Democratic Party! Finally, I thought. It’s about time. Maybe they’re realizing that decades of progressive leadership haven’t exactly transformed the Big Apple into the dazzling paradise they were promised. Maybe they’ll adopt the radical policy of electing people who don’t actively make things worse.

Then I made the mistake of reading the article. Nope. They’re not moving away from the left. They’re moving even farther left.

Instead of rejecting progressive policies, they’re embracing the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) like it’s the stuffed kitten they lost in second grade. Because evidently if a little government doesn’t solve your problems, the obvious solution is... all the government.

“People not only want change, but they also want their elected officials to focus on the middle class and break up a system that currently favors the rich and powerful,” political strategist Doug Sosnik, former senior adviser to then-President Clinton, told The Hill. “That has been a consistent pattern throughout the primaries so far.”

For decades, it felt as if history had settled the debate over socialism. We’d all seen how it played out around the world, and while every system has flaws, putting the government in charge of literally everything has never exactly left folks shouting, “Let’s do that again!” Now, every time housing gets expensive, grocery prices spike, and Gen Z concludes home ownership is a fantasy up there with a 30-hour workweek and landlords who text back, someone pops up promising free buses, free childcare, free college, rent freezes, and the utter delight that is the city-owned grocery store. (If you’ve ever wondered what the DMV would look like if it also sold produce, wonder no more.)

Republicans think—with no small amount of sarcasm—what could possibly go wrong?

Democrats think—with no apparent knowledge of history—take my vote!

And here’s the thing: socialism as an ideology is one thing; socialism as a protest vote is another. A lot of newly-minted collectivists aren’t sitting around craving centralized medicine or state-run daycare because they spent a weekend reading Marx. When they can’t afford to go to a doctor or send their child to preschool, they reach for the loudest possible rejection of a system they think has failed them. That matters, because the appeal isn’t necessarily “this is brilliant.” Sometimes it’s just “anything is better than what we’ve got.”

Conservatives ignore that distinction to our peril. Because it’s easy to call everyone who votes far-left idiots. It’s easy to post memes about Venezuela. But people generally don’t embrace radical alternatives out of boredom or curiosity or even ignorance. They do it out of desperation.

See? Easy!

If you’re 28 years old, drowning in student loans, living on Ramen, and hearing pundits on television tell you how fantastic the economy is, you’re going to start listening to anyone who promises to blow the whole thing up. Some people arrive at Donald Trump. Some people arrive at Zohran Mamdani. The bumper stickers are different. The middle finger aimed at the establishment is exactly the same.

Like a lot of capitalists, I wanted to believe Mamdani was a fluke. A weird New York City hallucination that would remain safely contained somewhere between SoHo and Park Slope. Then Seattle picked DSA darling Katie Wilson. Next came Los Angeles, where democratic socialist Nithya Raman trampled over Spencer Pratt to advance to the mayoral runoff. (I mean, we all know the whole thing was rigged, but still.) Bernie Sanders is routinely packing arenas on his “Fighting Oligarchy” tour with Alexandria “Tax the Rich” Ocasio-Cortez. Washington D.C. appears poised to join the cult. This isn’t one eccentric guy in Brooklyn handing out “work less, get more” pamphlets. It’s an epidemic.

Obviously, I don’t believe socialism is the answer. History has been spectacularly unkind to that particular science project. The anti-market model has become the political version of the ex-boyfriend everyone warns you about. Every generation thinks: “Yeah... but this time it’ll be different.” Somebody should open a museum dedicated to failed socialist experiments. The gift shop could have one mug, three pencils, and a six-hour line.

And yet here we are. Again. What’s especially fascinating is that this isn’t happening because Americans suddenly woke up craving bread lines and government-issued cheese. It’s happening because faith in institutions has collapsed.

Young people don’t trust Washington. They don’t trust Wall Street. They don’t trust corporations. And increasingly, they don’t trust capitalism to deliver the American Dream they grew up believing they were entitled to.

Whether that assessment is accurate is almost beside the point. Politics runs on perception. If enough people conclude the current system isn’t working for them, they’ll start entertaining ideas that have their parents reaching for the Beefeater at three o’clock on a Tuesday.

The irony is that many of the cities now flirting with democratic socialism have spent years under progressive leadership already. Voters increasingly seem to believe that when housing is unaffordable, public services are deteriorating, and inequality is growing, the answer isn’t to reverse course—it’s to conclude they haven’t gone far enough.

WOMAN: OMG I cut bangs and I hate them!

NO SANE PERSON EVER: Maybe try cutting them shorter?

And that’s the strangest part of all. When a business fails, we question the business plan. When a dish is inedible, we question the recipe. When your house is on fire, the winning solution is hardly ever more gasoline.

Here’s what worries me. The left has an answer. I happen to think it’s a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad answer—but it’s an answer. And the way to beat terrible, horrible, no good, very bad ideas isn’t just by reminding people those same ideas have failed brilliantly before. It’s by offering something better. Because if the only people promising change are the ones selling socialism, we shouldn’t be surprised when more people start buying it.

I know you have thoughts. Don’t be stingy. Share them in the comments!

p.s. In my meme search, I came across one that had me LingOL. DO NOT click this link if slightly-vulgar humor isn’t your thing. (You were warned!) Otherwise, enjoy. :)

P.P.S. I was reading my comments yesterday and I’ll just say what I’ve said a hundred times and thought a million more: I absolutely have the greatest readers on the planet. You drop in there just to give me props. You commiserate with and offer prayers and support to one another. I ask you to kindly like and share my work, and you do. From the bottom of my optimistic little heart, please know how grateful I am for each and every one of you.