Zohran Mamdani’s civic immorality

Class warfare. We’ve not heard the term much in recent years, even as the most aggressive neo-Marxist currents have been expressed via critical race theory and gender ideologies. But the political platforms of New York City’s radical Zohran Mamdani and his confederates, such as AOC and others, are a dangerous call to arms—and they are a call for class warfare.

There are two ways to look at Mamdani’s political platform. For those who’ve been hoodwinked by his youthful charm, his political platform looks like Christmas for all: government-provided baby baskets, costless public transportation, state-controlled and subsidized rent, complimentary healthcare, and more.

But just below the surface lurks something deeply troubling, a 21st-century version of class warfare. It is the renunciation of the American way of life and the public targeting of enemies.

The American way of life privileges the fundamental rights and responsibilities of individuals, families, and their voluntary associations. This is an issue of civic morality. Individuals are the focus point for freedoms of religion, speech, association, and private property. It is individuals and families who make choices about where to live and where to work, how to raise their children, and how to work together through houses of worship, civic organizations, clubs, neighborhoods, and other voluntary associations to cooperate, collaborate, build, and serve their neighbors.

Moreover, the American way of life allows for innovation and hard work to pay off, and for sloth and irresponsibility to receive their just deserts as well.

In contrast, Mamdani’s socialist platform seeks to rob neighbors and communities of the opportunity and responsibility to care for their neighbors. Why take a meal or a gift to a young family if the state is going to provide it?

True, prices and rents are high in New York City. Mamdani’s website header trumpets, “Zohran will lower costs and make life easier.”

Mandani’s pledge is like that of every Marxist party, a glimmering promise of a life without having to make hard economic choices. Why move to a less expensive area if the government will foot the bill? Why economize and make hard choices if the government will provide free transportation, free college, free, free, free …?

The other side of the coin is this subtle declaration of class warfare: you deserve it, because someone has taken advantage of you. As Hannah Arendt observed, all totalitarian ideologies seek an “objective enemy” to blame societies’ ills upon. For the Nazis it was the Jews, but for Marxists of all stripes it is typically “owners.” Recall, for instance, that Lenin called for the elimination of all small family farms because those sturdy farmers, called “kulaks,” were actually the most independent and the most resistant to communism.

A careful look at the statements of Mamdani and other socialists suggests that “owners”—shop owners, business owners, property owners—are the enemy. Somehow, and the reasoning is obscure, They are taking advantage of You.

This is civic immorality. A call to create a system of welfare dependency, rob individuals and communities of their fundamental rights and responsibilities, and declare warfare on any class of people is contrary to the American ethos. And that is precisely what the Mandani platform really does.

With the 2026 election cycle just a few months ahead, all of America should be carefully watching what is happening right now in the New York mayor’s race. We can hope New Yorkers will resist the delusions of Marxism, reject class warfare, and make choices in tune with America’s heritage of civic morality.