Professor Gad Saad coined the term &#8220;suicidal empathy&#8221; to describe a kind of empathy so extreme it ends up harming you. 
A prime example would be the way the West has approached immigration from third-world countries. You feel bad for people. You open your borders. A plethora of people come in and harm your civilization.
But now, it seems like we are moving beyond suicidal empathy into what I would call “homicidal empathy.” That would be exemplified by your empathy for someone getting them killed.
There’s a good example in New York City with Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who promised, “We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.”
That collectivist warmth is manifesting in people freezing to death on the streets of New York City. Despite all of Mamdani’s photo ops showing him shoveling the snow (for a man who cannot bench press 135 pounds once), I don&#8217;t think the people of New York can count on his shoveling skills.
What he usually shovels is horse crap.
Mamdani has embraced a hands-off policy with regard to homelessness. This was the policy in California. It remains the policy in places like Los Angeles. This policy is empathetic toward the homeless to the point where you&#8217;re killing the homeless.
The policy argues that they should be able to live out on the streets, that it is a form of cruelty and intolerance to involuntarily commit people who are usually drug-addicted or schizophrenic, people who can&#8217;t take care of themselves. Somehow, it is more empathetic to leave them out on the streets to get scabies or to die in the cold.
This seems to be the way the left-wing brain is working in Mamdani-land, California, and other liberal areas of the country. 18 people have died in the cold snap that has hit New York City.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-2367-mamdani-leaves-homeless-to-freeze-to-death?elementPosition=5&amp;row=6&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-974957 aligncenter" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp" alt="DailyWire+" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-300x50.webp 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-768x128.webp 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1536x256.webp 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-2048x341.webp 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
Brian Stettin, who served as a senior advisor to former Mayor Eric Adams in his administration, told the New York Post, “When a person is in imminent danger, there&#8217;s no debate. Whatever ideological divides we have should not have any impact on these policies during a Code Blue.”
A mumbling homeless woman who braved some Antarctic temperatures was featured on the front cover of the Post on Monday.
The Post <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/02/08/us-news/mumbling-homeless-woman-left-to-spend-night-on-nyc-sidewalk/">reported</a>:
<blockquote>The unidentified woman was wearing a hooded sweatshirt, slippers and two blankets as she clipped her nails, put lotion on her hands and talked to herself while hunkered down on East 34th Street across from NYU Langone Hospital as temperatures neared 0 degrees early Sunday. She refused repeated offers for help from EMS workers and cops — who explained to The Post they had to leave the shivering vagrant in the extremely dangerous bone-chilling weather because she could answer basic questions — a factor that helps meet the threshold of Dem Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s controversial homeless policies.</blockquote>
That’s Mamdani&#8217;s shtick: If you can answer basic questions such as “What day of the week is it?” “What is your name?”, then they will leave you out on the streets to freeze. 
Mamdani held a press conference over the weekend. “Stay warm. Stay inside if you can. And please, stay safe,” he said.
“You&#8217;ve implored the people on the streets who feel more comfortable on the streets to come inside. But what happens if they don&#8217;t at this point? &#8230;20 minutes out in the cold could lead to a fatality. So are you not using as a last resort at this point to bring them inside and volunteer, even if just a few hours doesn&#8217;t lead to a placement?” a reporter asked.
“Involuntary transport continues to be used in the same manner it was as the prior administration,” Mamdani replied. “And thus far, we have seen clinical determinations of a number of New Yorkers who have been deemed to be a danger to themselves or to others. And sometimes that designation comes from an assessment that a New Yorker is not adequately clothed, given the weather that they are living through in that moment. And that is going to continue to be part of the assessments that outreach workers are making over the course of tomorrow or the next day.”
Mamdani’s last resort policy says that you can only be forced indoors if you are deemed a danger to yourself or others. The problem, of course, is that if you are Zohran Mamdani and you have spent your entire career ripping down cops and treating people as though they&#8217;re committing a human rights violation by pushing people indoors, people might be a little hesitant to actually take responsibility for calling somebody a “danger to themselves or others.”
The New York Post <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/02/10/us-news/mamdani-wont-budge-on-involuntary-removal-of-homeless-new-yorkers-from-streets-as-cold-deaths-reach-18/">reported</a>:
<blockquote>Down in Baltimore, Mayor Brandon Scott — whom Mamdani once praised for his crime reduction efforts — late last month called the cold a life-or-death issue and ordered the police department to take people off the streets even if they were refusing services. “That direction order came from me because we cannot allow folks to be out in this kind of weather,” Scott said.</blockquote>
The fact that this has become a matter of public controversy is totally insane.
Zoran Mamdani apparently has so much sympathy for people. I&#8217;m going to put it out there: If you are out on the streets sleeping on the sidewalk, that is not a housing problem in the middle of a cold snap. That is a crazy problem if other options are given to you. No sane and rational person, by definition, who is not a danger to themselves, is sleeping out on the street in zero-degree weather. That is not a thing that sane and rational people do unless they are Arctic explorers of some type.
This comes down to Mamdani’s bizarro world empathy that legitimately gets people killed. This sort of policy, when you apply it to crime, leads to more criminals on the streets. When you apply it to homelessness, it leads to more homeless people on the streets.
The empathy that you have for the purported victim of America&#8217;s “evil, racist, abusive” system leads to the very people you are supposedly trying to help sometimes dying.
On February 6, the New York Post reported that Mamdani was still refusing to clear homeless camps and forcibly remove people from the streets, despite a rising death toll and a fresh snap of deadly deep freeze. Instead, he implored people to come inside.
If people refuse to come inside in the middle of zero-degree weather while living on the streets, it will not be solved by you imploring them.
City Journal <a href="https://www.city-journal.org/article/zohran-mamdani-homeless-deaths-cold-weather">reported</a>:
<blockquote>During last year’s campaign, Mamdani promised to end a program initiated by his predecessor, Eric Adams, that deploys clinicians, backed by police officers, to assess people’s ability to care for themselves and, if necessary, to transport them involuntarily to a hospital for psychiatric evaluation. He repeatedly said that involuntary commitment was a “last resort,” preferring instead an approach that would have civilian workers “help that person navigate their housing options.” He has also disavowed dismantling homeless encampments. </blockquote>
That was a proactive move by Adams to determine whether somebody ought to be on the streets or not. And Mamdani wanted to kill that. I guess the presumption was that unless they were in the throes of some sort of crime, they should never have an engagement with law enforcement.
The message being sent to the homeless is, basically, you have a right to live on the streets. And the message being sent to public service workers, cops, and mental health professionals is that you&#8217;re going to be called on the carpet if you make the mistake of bringing somebody in.
It&#8217;s nuts, it&#8217;s bad, and it&#8217;s stupid.
It&#8217;s indicative of a deeper brain rot that has set in large parts of the Left: That empathy amounts to humoring people in their delusions, even if it’s dangerous to them.

New York Governor Hochul Holds Press Conference Highlighting Her Administration’s “Let Them Build” Agenda

Mamdani Leaves Homeless To Freeze To Death 

Death

Democratic Socialism

Homeless

Homelessness

New York

New York City

Opinion

Zohran Mamdani

The following is an edited transcript excerpt from <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1904-zohran-mamdani-freezes-16-new-yorkers-to-death?elementPosition=1&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=Recent+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">The Michael Knowles Show</a>.
* * *
Zohran Mamdani just made a really sad and totally predictable announcement.
When the recent winter cold front made it to New York, it was not nearly as bad as the ice storm Nashville residents experienced. There was very little ice in New York, mostly just snow. Nevertheless, 16 homeless New Yorkers died during that brief little cold snap.
Here is the new mayor of New York:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Mayor Mamdani confirms sixteen deaths during dangerously cold weather in NYC <a href="https://t.co/pQ0L9i5Yzz">https://t.co/pQ0L9i5Yzz</a> <a href="https://t.co/zHAPfvu95u">pic.twitter.com/zHAPfvu95u</a>
— New York Post (@nypost) <a href="https://twitter.com/nypost/status/2018388455508656233?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 2, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Credit: @nypost/X.com
Mayor Mamdani says,
<blockquote>A severe cold front continues to bear down on our city. Today is our 11th consecutive day of below freezing weather, and we could very well be in the middle of the longest period of consecutive sub-32-degree weather in our city&#8217;s entire history. Without temperatures rising above freezing, snow has hardened into blocks of ice. But the greatest danger posed by the sustained cold is to vulnerable New Yorkers who remain exposed to the elements. As of this morning, 16 of our fellow New Yorkers have passed away outside during this brutal stretch of cold. In 13 of these cases, preliminary findings indicate that hypothermia played a role, and three of these deaths appear to be overdose deaths. We await final results from the medical examiner&#8217;s office and will inform New Yorkers as we learn more. Each of these lives lost is a tragedy. My heart was with the family of those mourning their loved ones.</blockquote>
Mamdani blames the deaths mostly on nature, though he admits a few of them were drug deaths. 
Unlike other areas of the country where recent ice storms knocked out power for weeks, New York City is built for cold weather. Cold weather hits New York every single year. New Yorkers knows how to deal with cold weather, especially when they have competent management and government.
The people who died in New York did not die because their power went out. New York didn&#8217;t lose power. They died because they were left to die on the streets. Why were they left to die on the streets? Is this just some immutable characteristic of New York? What can we do? Throw our arms up in the air? A long-standing problem?
No, it&#8217;s not.
They were left to die on the streets specifically because Zohran Mamdani, who has been in office for just one month now, left them to die on the streets. In fact campaigned to leave them to die on the streets.
Don&#8217;t take my word for it. Here is CBS News.
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Mamdani says he&#039;ll end homeless encampment sweeps in NYC" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CWjUfoi6YCg?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Credit: @CBSNewYork/YouTube.com
The reporter states,
<blockquote>Local New York Mayor Alexander Mamdani says that he will end the Adams administration&#8217;s practice of removing homeless encampments from city sidewalks. But advocates argue it will be a step backwards for the city&#8217;s quality of life. Ali Bauman questioned the mayor-elect about this tonight. For the past three years, the NYPD has been systematically removing homeless encampments from New York City sidewalks, a practice mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani vows to end once he takes office — vows to end it.</blockquote>
This is Mamdani campaigning and saying we are intentionally going to leave the homeless — who are almost entirely drug addicts and mentally ill — on the streets. And this is supposedly going to be compassionate. That&#8217;s a change of policy from the previous administration, which just left office.
A little history of New York City during the 1970s and 80s may be helpful. Back then, there were a lot of bums, a lot of criminals, and a lot of homeless people on the streets. Then-mayor Rudy Giuliani came in in the 1990s and got rid of all that. He said, No, no, no — if you&#8217;re homeless, you need to go to shelters or we&#8217;re going to arrest you, but we&#8217;re not going to leave you on the streets.
After he was mayor of New York, Giuliani reiterated the same idea about the Occupy Wall Street protests. When people set up encampments all over the city, he said, No, no, no, you can&#8217;t do this. Sleeping on the street is a dysfunctional act which harms society and the individual.
In other words, letting the homeless stay on the street is contrary to the common good.
It&#8217;s not just that letting the homeless stay on the street is good for the homeless but bad for the rest of the New Yorkers who don&#8217;t want to see them — that&#8217;s how Mamdani is presenting it. The real argument, however, is no, it&#8217;s actually bad for everyone. Because it&#8217;s bad for the law-abiding New Yorkers who don&#8217;t want criminals and drug addicts and crazy people running around the streets all the time.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1904-zohran-mamdani-freezes-16-new-yorkers-to-death?elementPosition=1&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=Recent+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">WATCH: The Michael Knowles Show</a></h3>
It’s also bad for the homeless because they&#8217;re susceptible to crime — susceptible to being assaulted or raped or killed. And they&#8217;re also vulnerable to the elements. It&#8217;s very, very dangerous to leave them on the streets year round, especially in the winter. And now we see the results.  This is the “warmth of collectivism.”
This is the compassion that Mamdani has promised. Leaving 16 New Yorkers dead during a totally predictable, minor cold front. And he even gives away the game in his speech by trying to mitigate his culpability by saying, “In 13 of these cases, preliminary findings indicate that hypothermia played a role, and three of these deaths appear to be overdose deaths.”
They basically froze like Jack Nicholson at the end of “The Shining.”
He then seems to avoid taking responsibility by saying, “&#8230;and three of these deaths appear to be overdose deaths.”
Like that&#8217;s better. Like it’s good that they chose to die, as if they were consenting adults. First of all, you can&#8217;t consent when you&#8217;re crazy, or when you&#8217;re addicted to all kinds of vices, or when you&#8217;re underage, or when there are all sorts of things that compromise our consent.
So Mayor Mamdani&#8217;s whole policy is based on a misconception of freedom — what freedom really is. Like all liberals, he thinks freedom is just neutrality in choosing. Well, some people choose not to do heroin, but some people choose to do heroin, and who are we to say which is the better choice?
It&#8217;s a misconception of freedom. It&#8217;s a misconception of the common good. It&#8217;s a misconception of what&#8217;s good for everybody. The common good is not just the random collection of all the individual goods of people, some of which are contrary to each other. In this kind of utilitarian calculation that tries to lead to the greatest utility for the greatest number, the common good is what we all share — what is good for all of us, what is not diminished by any individual good.
It’s also a misunderstanding of compassion. It is not compassionate to just ignore people. It&#8217;s funny because the Left accuses the Right of this: you just ignore people. You retreat to your nice neighborhoods and your penthouses and your money, and you ignore your common man. You don&#8217;t think you&#8217;re your brother&#8217;s keeper.
Sometimes the Right is guilty of that, especially the more Libertarian Right. The Left is just as guilty of that. Oh, just leave people to their degradation. Leave people to their vices. Leave people to their destructive behaviors — be it sexual ideologies, be it just license more broadly, be it with regard to living on the street — just leave them there.
It&#8217;s fine. You know, who are you to intervene? Who am I?
Well, I&#8217;m a reasonable person, and I&#8217;m a member of society, and I&#8217;m a citizen. And the consequences of all three of those misconceptions from Zohran Mamdani are that 16 people die on the street, whether from drugs or from exposure. That&#8217;s the “warmth of collectivism.”
What would have been more compassionate for the homeless: Zohran Mamdani, who says all sorts of sweet things about the homeless and leaves them to die on the street, or Rudy Giuliani, who talks a little tougher, who seems a little bit meaner, but who protects those people?
Where&#8217;s the real compassion?
That&#8217;s it. We&#8217;re one month into Mamdani — one month in — and you&#8217;ve got homeless ice cubes lining the streets of New York, some of which also have heroin and fentanyl in their blood.
We&#8217;re in for a real treat with Mamdani.

NYC Mamdani Holds News Conference On Healthcare At New York City Health Clinic

The Deadly Consequences Of Zohran Mamdani’s Homelessness Policy

Liberals

Snow

Winter Storm Fern

Socialism is back. We see it with the election of Zohran Mamdani as Mayor of New York. We also see it in polling from the <a href="https://www.cato.org/blog/81-say-they-cant-afford-pay-higher-taxes-next-year">Cato Institute</a> that suggests many young Americans view socialism favorably: “Among Americans under 30, 62 percent feel favorable toward socialism…”
Beyond the obvious economic and political dangers of socialism, one component receives relatively little attention: the culture of work.
People who live and work in socialist societies often report being far less satisfied and motivated than those who work in relatively free markets. When a nation’s government controls businesses, they lose a competitive advantage. As a result, employees who derive dignity from achievement and contribution experience disappointment.
At the same time, people uninterested in hard work are more likely to be coddled and protected. This often perpetuates an environment of mediocrity.
Talk to any driven person who has ever worked in a socialist country, or in an industry controlled by government regulation, and you’ll hear this sentiment. Hard work is not rewarded. Mediocre employees can’t be let go. Innovation is harder to sustain. Work becomes a matter of showing up, biding your time, and accepting that upward mobility is not possible.
I work with a young man who took great risks to escape a socialist country, and I have other colleagues who have lived in socialist countries. Their experiences convey a muted sense of hope that most people have about their employment.
Anecdotes aren’t proof, but they often show you what certain systems tend to produce. A vivid lesson about the dangers of socialism on the culture of work comes from a surprising source: people who have worked in “socialist-like” industries that exist within free markets.
When traveling for business, I’ve spoken to many flight attendants about their work experiences. The vast majority work in heavily unionized environments, and many have told me there is little incentive to do their job well other than their intrinsic desire to make people happy. Their careers are determined by seniority, and chronically underperforming colleagues are tolerated, rarely addressed, and almost never dismissed.
The fantastic flight attendants I met can’t be recruited by competitors — or even move to airlines that pay more or treat employees better — because they’d have to start over at the back of the seniority line. So the next time you experience great service on a flight, show some respect knowing they are often doing what they do out of love for others, not because they are rewarded.
The purpose of work should be to give people the freedom to provide for their families, use the gifts that God has given them, and experience the dignity of serving others well. When leaders organize work with these purposes, they give individuals incentive to tap into their best potential.
However, when organizations tolerate poor performance and remove the extrinsic rewards of achievement, they do a terrible disservice to the dignity of customers and employees alike. It’s important to understand that even underperforming employees lose dignity in socialist societies and organizations as they are prevented from experiencing the tough love necessary to become the best versions of themselves.
This is the real tragedy of socialist workplaces: people rarely become the best versions of themselves. In other words, they settle.
Despite all of this being true, why do large numbers of Americans still say they have a positive view of socialism? I believe there are three reasons.
First, many have never really experienced the impact of socialism. To them, socialism is merely a theory that involves more sharing and kindness. For example, according to actress Amanda Seyfried, socialism means <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/actress-amanda-seyfried-calls-socialism-gorgeous-idea">“taking care of each other.”</a>
Second, many people who say they like socialism already work in socialist organizations and have settled. They are accustomed to roles where competition is muted, and pay and advancement are constrained by rules, not results.
Finally, too many Americans work in very large organizations that mimic some aspects of socialism via crony capitalism and corporate welfare. Their industries are protected by lobbyists and elected officials who thwart authentic capitalism.
When addressing the false hope of socialism, we must not attempt to split the difference. In fact, we must advocate for more competition in all industries, as well as for real consequences for people who consistently underperform. Additionally, we must push for the enforcement of antitrust laws that prevent dangerous monopolies and oligopolies.
Perhaps most important of all, America must support one of the best sources of employment, dignity, and innovation in our society: small businesses. These small companies, where most Americans work, still have great incentives to find new ways to please customers and to attract and retain great employees. But in socialist countries, there is less capital and fewer incentives for entrepreneurs to take risks and start small businesses.
If America truly wants to defend human dignity, we can’t romanticize systems that smother the very drive that makes people come alive. Socialism doesn’t just weaken economies; it weakens people. America doesn’t need more managed mediocrity. It needs the freedom that lets workers, and the work itself, succeed.
* * *
Pat Lencioni is one of the founders of The Table Group, a pioneer of the organizational health movement, and the creator of <a href="https://www.workinggenius.com/about?gad_source=1&amp;gad_campaignid=21520445429&amp;gbraid=0AAAAAD4dDHRyei0FFfuRCa63VdPO11RDk&amp;gclid=CjwKCAjwlaTGBhANEiwAoRgXBSUpr89SSKKSTeoiFk-LdSAKpBsTFlfYYrEIm9MHWtUL1HjC7imP1RoC65MQAvD_BwE"> The Working Genius</a>, which helps leaders understand workplace efficiency. He is the bestselling author of “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team,” as well as 12 other books, which have sold over 10 million copies and been translated into more than 30 languages.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Mamdani Takes Reins Of New York City After Historic Election Win

Why So Many Americans Romanticize Socialism — And Why They’re Wrong

Communism

Employers

Gen Z

Labor Unions

Millennials

Socialism

In 1988, after escaping socialism in Romania, I celebrated my first Christmas in America. It was a profound experience marked by joy, gratitude, and reflection. It was the first time I was able to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ without fear of being arrested by a totalitarian socialist regime. I enjoyed the freedom to attend church and the joy of discovering new cultural traditions. It marked a significant milestone in my journey toward freedom and renewal.
But before that journey was even an idea, I attended my first Socialist Party Christmas as a child. As we arrived, my father said very sternly, “We are at the Socialism Party headquarters, where Santa’s party will take place. Remember, only say yes or no, nothing more.”
The large reception room was decorated in red, and on each wall there was a large portrait of our “Beloved Leader” Nicolae Ceaușescu, flanked by Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin. On the left side of the room, a small Christmas tree stood, decorated with pictures of soldiers who had died, a picture of Ceaușescu, and topped with a big, red socialist star with a yellow hammer and sickle.
There were no angels, no silver Bethlehem stars, no nativity scenes.
Santa was a Socialist Party leader, and all the gifts had a Communist theme. The boys received Communist soldier toys or books about Ceaușescu. The girls received red-scarfed socialist dolls. The following year, Santa was replaced with Dictator Ceaușescu’s name, and no gifts were given.
<div id="attachment_1017011" style="width: 790px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1017011" class="size-large wp-image-1017011" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/GettyImages-3438665-780x576.jpg" alt="circa 1985: Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu (1918 - 1989) and his wife Elena with a large group of children in national costume. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)" width="780" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/GettyImages-3438665-780x576.jpg 780w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/GettyImages-3438665-300x221.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/GettyImages-3438665-768x567.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/GettyImages-3438665.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 780px) 100vw, 780px" />circa 1985: Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu (1918 &#8211; 1989) and his wife Elena with a large group of children in national costume. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)</div>
Now, years later, I’ve watched as the influence of socialist ideologies and policies has infiltrated and changed how Christmas is celebrated in America.
Since 1971, court cases, like <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/403/602/">Lemon v. Kurtzman</a> and <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/492/573/">Allegheny County v. ACLU</a>, have scrutinized the use of religious elements in public Christmas displays, often resulting in the restriction of nativity scenes on government property to avoid the perception that the government favors one religion over another.
The fear of appearing “too religious” or “exclusive” has transformed Christmas celebrations, shifting them toward a more secular, inclusive holiday focused on community and festive cheer rather than its core religious meaning. This secularization has diluted the profound significance of Christ’s birth.
As governments and institutions increasingly strip Christ from Christmas, our religious freedoms are slowly eroding – and could soon vanish entirely if we don&#8217;t stand against it.
Make no mistake. This is exactly what happened in Romania.
Ceaușescu&#8217;s rise to power in Romania was due to his charm, enthusiasm, anti-capitalist rhetoric, and how he portrayed himself as a man of the people. These qualities all resonated emotionally with citizens and framed socialism as a path to equality and justice.
As soon as Ceaușescu took power in Romania, his regime systematically attacked religious freedom by promoting atheism, controlling religious institutions, and demolishing churches. This created an environment of repression that stifled religious expression and contributed to the decline of organized religion in Romania during his rule.
Ceaușescu used <a href="https://2001-2009.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2006/71402.htm">Decree 177/1948</a> for further repression that significantly curtailed religious freedom in Romania. He established a framework for state control over religious organizations and practices.
New religious groups faced significant difficulties in obtaining official recognition. Religious literature, including Bibles and other texts, faced heavy censorship. Many publications were banned in socialist Romania or required state approval before distribution. Nativity scenes, crosses, and other religious imagery were often removed from public spaces, and churches faced restrictions on displaying decorations that highlighted the religious significance of Christmas.
Some families in socialist Romania, risking cruel punishment, jail time, or death, created small altars or displays in their homes featuring religious icons, candles, and nativity scenes, allowing them to express their faith privately.
While initially Ceaușescu’s anti-capitalist rhetoric resonated, the reality of his regime’s failures ultimately led to widespread disillusionment.
George Barna&#8217;s research recently found that <a href="https://www.arizonachristian.edu/2021/02/03/americas-thirst-for-socialism-plummets-in-wake-of-2020-election/">support for socialism</a> is growing in America. Socialism is now deeply rooted in New York City after the election of self-proclaimed Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani.
And Mamdani is following Ceaușescu’s playbook. He strongly criticizes capitalism as corrupt and exploitative, while socialism is a path to equality and justice. He plays on the emotions of New Yorkers who struggle to survive in one of the most expensive cities in the world.
Mamdani hopes people will see the true reality of his policies years from now. He advocates for religious freedom by emphasizing the importance of maintaining a secular government approach to it. He frames religious freedom within the broader context of social justice, racial equality, economic justice, and immigrant rights. He believes in promoting government policies grounded in ethical and secular principles rather than religious doctrines.
<div id="attachment_1017055" style="width: 778px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1017055" class="size-large wp-image-1017055" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/GettyImages-2250069091-768x576.jpg" alt="NEW YORK, NY - DECEMBER 04: Crowds gather for a look at a Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center on December 4, 2025 in New York City. The tree, which is an icon of New York City's holiday season, was lit up on the night of December 3 in midtown Manhattan. (Photo by Liao Pan/China News Service/VCG via Getty Images)" width="768" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/GettyImages-2250069091-768x576.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/GettyImages-2250069091-300x225.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/GettyImages-2250069091.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px" />Liao Pan/China News Service/VCG via Getty Images</div>
The election of progressive candidates who openly identify with socialist principles in America has changed the political landscape, challenging traditional party norms and policies.
Socialism stands in direct opposition to God, replacing Him with an all-powerful government that demands total allegiance. It erodes our God-given religious freedoms and brands faithful Christians as obstacles to its agenda.
My own life bears witness to this truth. I fled a socialist regime in 1988, escaping the brutal oppression that crushed religious rights and silenced believers. Those same poisonous lies of socialism, now spreading rapidly in America, are gaining ground, especially among those who despise our nation&#8217;s founding principles and Judeo-Christian heritage.
We cannot remain silent. Those of us who have endured the horrors of socialism will never stop sounding the alarm. It is time to rise up and fiercely defend our freedoms before they are lost forever.
* * *
<a href="https://www.virginiaprodanbooks.com/">Virginia Prodan</a> is an international human rights attorney, best-selling author of the memoir “<a href="https://virginiaprodanbooks.com/get-the-book-2/">Saving My Assassin</a>,” and host of the “<a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/courageous-leadership-with-virginia-prodan/id1590554517">Courageous Leadership with Virginia Prodan</a>” podcast. She serves as an ambassador on the President’s Council for National Religious Broadcasters, a member of the Advisory Board of the American Christian Leaders for Israel, and an Allied Attorney with Alliance Defending Freedom.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
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Christmas in Rockefeller Center – Season 2025

Don’t Let Socialism’s Red Star Top America’s Christmas Tree

Bible

Christmas

Europe

Karl Marx

Marxism

Religion

Does more government involvement in the socioeconomic sphere make the life of an average New Yorker better? Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani thinks so, with big-government policies prioritizing economic redistribution, a fundamental aspect of socialist ideology.
Mamdani’s platform includes city-owned grocery stores, free buses, no-cost childcare, rent freezes, a $30 minimum wage, and small business reforms.
While the latter proposal is commendable and bipartisan, Mamdani’s solutions are, unfortunately, not. He has promised small businesses, which account for <a href="https://www.nyc.gov/assets/smallbizfirst/downloads/pdf/small-business-first-report.pdf">98%</a> of firms in the city and employ over half of the private sector workforce, a regulatory reform package focused on improving compliance.
Mamdani alleges to be a <a href="https://www.zohranfornyc.com/platform">champion for the little guy</a>, claiming he will “cut small business fines in half, speed up permitting and make online applications easier, and increase funding for 1:1 small business support by 500%.” While his message resonates and it correctly identifies that the city’s systems can be punishingly slow, his agenda does not target root concerns for businesses.
Rather than removing any of the <a href="https://nyc-business.nyc.gov/nycbusiness/index">6,000 regulations</a> that cost small businesses time, money, and resources, Mamdani proposes that minimally <a href="https://www.nyc.gov/mayors-office/news/2022/05/mayor-adams-reduces-burdens-nyc-small-businesses-jumpstarts-city-s-economic-recovery-by">reducing compliance expenses</a> is the best strategy for making business operations faster, easier, and cheaper.
Violations such as labor non-compliance, sanitation issues, or building code infractions can cost owners <a href="https://cei.org/blog/american-small-businesses-are-paying-through-the-roof-for-regulations/">thousands of dollars annually</a>. The right solution is deregulation — to remove needless and onerous regulations and to ensure compliance with essential safeguards.
Instead, he has proposed more government bureaucracy, namely the <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wuZ-s8VnnAHqHhqtHESwgzINiN7D95vy/view">“Mom and Pop Czar” Office</a>. This entity, allegedly designed to promote small business interests, will work to halve fines and eliminate fees. Leaving thousands of bad regulations on the books and simply arbitrarily reducing fees is more likely to lead to confusion, harmful non-compliance, and situations that can be easily gamed — in short, a profit for lawyers and accountants but not for workers and customers.
This is more likely to undermine local trust in regulatory fairness. Firms that have invested in compliance in the past may feel penalized, creating an environment of social decohesion. This is a politically motivated and poor substitution for deregulation.
Speeding up permitting and making online applications easier should quicken the timeline for which small businesses can begin operations. New York City’s permitting process is complex and slow, taking several months and costing owners time, money, and resources. However, the mayor-elect’s plan lacks any detail on how to achieve a simpler <a href="https://www.permitflow.com/blog/nyc-building-permits">permitting process</a> and is more likely to be a false campaign promise than a serious effort to ease the burdens of New York City’s businesses.
Increasing funding for small businesses by 500% is intended to offer personalized support for owners in the form of grants, loans, and technical assistance. Mamdani will finance and expand the <a href="https://www.nyc.gov/site/sbs/about/pr20220907-nycbest.page">Business Express Service Teams (BEST)</a>, which offer one-to-one support and assist small businesses with bureaucratic hurdles.
Over-reliance on government assistance may harm entrepreneurial independence as it fosters governmental dependence and crowds out numerous private sector entities that provide the same kind of support to businesses. Scaling up BEST requires hiring and training more staff, risking inefficiencies and mismanagement of funds.
Instead of <a href="https://comptroller.nyc.gov/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/RedTapeReport.pdf">eliminating useless or obsolete regulations</a>, he offers <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/14-aM9DKG337SDMilmfQtLRR-pDwyWSTc/view">crushing tax increases</a> and false promises mired in government bureaucracy. Mamdani’s policies do not address leading concerns for small businesses, those being the over 6,000 regulations that impede operations. He targets operational burdens and small fees, completely ignoring the primary costs for entrepreneurs — regulations.
Making compliance requirements less restrictive can best be achieved by eliminating the compliance requirement altogether. Removing the regulatory burdens that plague small business owners best fosters free market competition and economic growth.
Mamdani should recognize a simple truth: prudent deregulation is the only viable long-term solution, not government intervention.
* * *
Nicole Huyer is a Senior Research Associate in The Heritage Foundation’s Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
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US-POLITICS

Mamdani’s ‘Mom-and-Pop’ Plan Doesn’t Cut Red Tape

Mamdani’s 'Mom-and-Pop' Plan Doesn’t Cut Red Tape

bureaucracy

Heritage Foundation

Manhattan

Small Businesses

Seattle’s incoming mayor, Katie Wilson, will inherit a homelessness crisis that will define her ability to lead.
Seattle’s homeless population needs more than another round of aspirational promises. They need and deserve an operational reset grounded in compassion, accountability, and the courage to confront realities the city has failed to address for years.
She must replace press releases and ceremonial groundbreakings for housing that may never materialize with programs that support the homeless in reclaiming their lives from the grip of untreated mental illness, addiction, and dangerous encampments that have taken root throughout the city.
The scale of Seattle’s crisis is staggering. HUD’s 2024 Point-in-Time count identified <a href="https://kcrha.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Point-in-Time-Count-2024_King-County_final.pdf">16,868 people struggling with homelessness in King County</a> — 7,058 sheltered and 9,810 unsheltered — yet even this understates the emergency. It omits the thousands of K-12 students and their families couch-surfing or scraping together money for a few nights in a motel. And at the current 23% growth rate, Mayor Wilson will walk into office confronting a humanitarian emergency approaching 22,500 people.
Meanwhile, encampments proliferate, fentanyl deaths continue at historic highs, and families, businesses, and public workers bear the daily trauma of a system that is not working.
For years, Seattle has clung to the comforting illusion that more subsidized housing units alone will solve homelessness. Despite billions in public spending, housing pipelines remain clogged, construction timelines stretch into decades, and operating costs soar.
But for the majority of those living unsheltered — 78% of whom are struggling with serious mental illness or addiction — homelessness is not merely a housing shortage. It is the downstream consequence of untreated disease.
Often further complicating their illnesses is a condition called anosognosia that prevents them from recognizing their own illness. Consequently, they decline help not because they choose the street, but because their minds cannot see another path.
The mayor must change this trajectory.
If she intends to succeed where past administrations have failed, she must look to the <a href="https://www.discovery.org/m/securepdfs/2025/11/Local-Jurisdictions-Leverage-Homelessness-Reforms.pdf">Discovery Institute’s new report</a>, which details exactly how cities can harness forthcoming federal reforms to drive real results. 
Her reset must include:
<h3>1. Prioritize transitional and treatment-based recovery models</h3>
Seattle must stop investing disproportionately in permanent supportive housing that takes years to build and rarely addresses root causes. It must instead prioritize transitional recovery housing that is staffed with clinicians, case managers, and vocational supports, and must require engagement in these services as a condition of stay.
<h3>2. Partner with high-performing recovery organizations</h3>
Non-profits such as We Heart Seattle and Union Gospel Mission Rescue Missions have a great track record in helping individuals transition to stability. These organizations know how to walk with people through trauma, detoxification, relapse, and rebuilding. Make these organizations central to the city’s strategy — not an afterthought.
<h3>3. Empower and deploy multidisciplinary “CARE+” outreach units</h3>
Combine mental health professionals, emergency responders, and trained law enforcement to intervene proactively, stabilize crises, and compel psychiatric or addiction evaluations when individuals pose clear risks to themselves or others. Washington’s Involuntary Treatment Act already provides necessary tools, but they must be used more consistently and, of course, humanely.
<h3>4. Enforce public health and safety laws to restore order while providing pathways to treatment</h3>
In City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, the Supreme Court affirmed that Seattle can ban public camping to restore order and safety for all residents. In tandem with this effort, the city must provide the homeless with restorative programs.
<h3>5. Demand performance, not platitudes, at every level of the system</h3>
Seattle must instill accountability at every level of the homeless system: from the individual, to the non-profit, to the government officials responsible for the homeless system.
It must measure outcomes and provide quarterly dashboards on those outcomes and the spending required to achieve those outcomes. Housing without treatment is a revolving door. Harm reduction without recovery is slow-motion abandonment. But it doesn’t have to stay this way.
Katie, you have the chance to lead Seattle into a future where compassion is not a slogan, but a force that restores people and the city they call home.
This is your moment. History will remember the mayor who chose courage over habit, transformation over stagnation. Seattle’s soul is waiting to be mended. Now is the time to lead the city there.
* * *
Michele Steeb is the founder of Free Up Foundation and author of “Answers Behind the RED DOOR: Battling the Homeless Epidemic,” based on her 13 years as CEO of Northern California’s largest program for homeless women and children. She is a Visiting Fellow with the Discovery Institute’s Fix Homelessness Initiative. Follow them on Twitter: @SteebMichele and @DiscoveryCWP.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
* * *
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Seattle Street with Homeless Encampment and Space Needle

‘Humanitarian Emergency’: Seattle’s New Mayor Must Bring An End To The City’s Homelessness Crisis

'Humanitarian Emergency': Seattle's New Mayor Must Bring An End To The City's Homelessness Crisis

Leftists

Mental Illness

Seattle

Washington State

Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani (D-NYC) raised eyebrows with a recent addition to his transition team: sociology professor and author of &#8220;The End of Policing,&#8221; Alex Vitale.
Mamdani had to dial back his own anti-police rhetoric during his mayoral campaign, apologizing to New York City police officers for previous comments when prompted by Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum, but his selection of Vitale appears to be a sign that he&#8217;s reverting back to his original positions.
&#8220;I&#8217;m excited to announce that I have been asked to join the Mamdani Transition Team to work on community safety issues. A New Era for NYC,&#8221; Vitale <a href="https://x.com/avitale/status/1993053108663198202">announced via X</a> on Sunday.
As critics quickly pointed out, Vitale&#8217;s position has always been decidedly anti-cop. His book, &#8220;The End of Policing,&#8221; imagines a word where &#8220;modern policing&#8221; is broadly replaced by a combination of decriminalization and community empowerment. He argues that policing is designed to reinforce inequality, and that giving police officers diversity training is not enough to bridge the gap.
He has called for the decriminalization of offenses such as prostitution and drug use, and advocates for private corporations or government programs that would provide permanent housing for the homeless population. In addition, he has repeatedly attacked Israel, claiming that Israelis are &#8220;occupying&#8221; land belonging to Palestinians — and tied that in to his negative views on policing as well, complaining that American police should not be training with Israelis: &#8220;I’m not happy with these exchanges of policing to Israel. Israel is engaged in an occupation.&#8221;
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Video circulated of Vitale, in an interview, referring to police as &#8220;violence workers&#8221; and adding, &#8220;if you don’t want racism and violence, don’t get the police involved.&#8221;
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
🚨 New Mamdani Transition Team Member Says Cops Are “Violence Workers” and NYPD–Israel Training Trips “Pervert American Politics”
Alex Vitale — author of The End of Policing, sociology professor at Brooklyn College, CUNY Graduate Center, and now officially part of Zohran… <a href="https://t.co/n6REJNfbjH">pic.twitter.com/n6REJNfbjH</a>
— Stu Smith (@thestustustudio) <a href="https://twitter.com/thestustustudio/status/1993101611804049914?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 24, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The overall assessment, as shared by a number of people via X, is that Mamdani had simply reverted to the same anti-police, anti-Israel socialist that his opposition had spent the entire campaign warning people he was.
&#8220;The biggest risk of a Mamdani mayorship? Mass exodus from the NYPD. This occurred in SF under the radical left DA, Chesa Boudin. When police aren&#8217;t supported, they quit, retire early, or never join in the first place,&#8221; one <a href="https://x.com/michelletandler/status/1943321480466424104">posted</a>.
&#8220;Huge step backwards for Mamdani. This guy wants to defund and abolish policing. You can find him wherever prep school lefties congregate, zero working class New Yorkers adhere to these ideas,&#8221; <a href="https://x.com/lhfang/status/1993123594474566090">another added</a>.

Residents Cast Ballots In New York City Mayoral Election

Mamdani Names ‘End Of Policing’ Author Who Called Cops ‘Violence Workers’ To Transition Team

Crime

Defund The Police

New York Police Department (NYPD)

Politics

NewsNation host Chris Cuomo warned on Wednesday that some of the intra-party dynamics he&#8217;d seen among Democrats — both during and immediately following the government shutdown — had led him to believe he was witnessing the end of the Democratic Party.
Cuomo delivered the assessment — along with some of the evidence he&#8217;d weighed to get there — in a short monologue, saying that he believed the far Left was quickly taking over the reins of power and the moderates would soon be forced out entirely.
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
🚨NEW: Chris Cuomo: &#8220;I think the Democratic Party, as we know it, is about to end.&#8221;<a href="https://twitter.com/DailyCaller?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@DailyCaller</a> <a href="https://t.co/GmnuVnrAwk">pic.twitter.com/GmnuVnrAwk</a>
— Jason Cohen 🇺🇸 (@JasonJournoDC) <a href="https://twitter.com/JasonJournoDC/status/1988780347870572913?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 13, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;I&#8217;m not impressed by the history of this being the longest government shutdown, it&#8217;s a regrettable history,&#8221; he began. &#8220;I think this is a historic moment for another reason: I think the Democratic Party, as we know it, is about to end. I think that this is the birth of the new Left.&#8221;
Cuomo went on to point out the comments that came from House members on the far Left as it became clear that enough Senate Democrats would vote with Republicans to end the shutdown, and suggested that when they were willing to call out members of their own party as &#8220;traitors,&#8221; the eventual split was inevitable.
&#8220;I think the reason that you see so many high-profile Democrats, especially in the House, accusing the Democratic senators for ending the shutdown of basically being traitors,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;Did you hear AOC? She was literally accusing them of a conspiracy, and she said, &#8216;in exchange for nothing.&#8217; It&#8217;s really interesting to me. It makes so little sense on the merits that I have to believe it&#8217;s a ploy.&#8221;
Cuomo pointed out that it would essentially be a losing argument to claim they should have kept the shutdown going despite the increasing number of Americans suffering from its impact.
&#8220;That&#8217;s not an easy thing to want more of,&#8221; he added. &#8220;So was there some deal on the table that we don&#8217;t know about?&#8221;
If not, he argued, &#8220;What this really is, is a line in the sand for them. That we&#8217;re not with them anymore.&#8221;
Cuomo went on to argue that &#8220;capitulation&#8221; from the party in the majority — in this case, the Republicans — &#8220;has never happened&#8221; when it was the minority party keeping the government shut down and making demands.
&#8220;I get why you would want to believe that something could happen,&#8221; he added, tying in the Democratic socialists as he explained that the only logical conclusion was a fairly simple one: &#8220;They want to divide the party. They want maybe to blow up the party, get new leaders, and a new direction.&#8221;

2017 Turner Upfront

Chris Cuomo: Shutdown Dynamics Herald The Democratic Party’s Demise

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Chris Cuomo

Democratic Party

Government Shutdown

Media

There is a serious battle happening inside the Democratic Party, ranging from the radicals — led by people like Zohran Mamdani, AOC, and Bernie Sanders — to the more traditional liberals, who don&#8217;t seem to have any sort of systemic immunity, to the moderate Democrats who are increasingly feeling out of step with their own party. 
Meanwhile, President Trump just keeps trucking along. Yesterday, the president of the United States spent Veterans Day <a href="https://www.c-span.org/program/white-house-event/veterans-day-observance-ceremony/668831">speaking</a> about the value of our veterans, stating:
<blockquote>This morning, on these hallowed grounds where generations of American heroes rest in eternal glory, we gather to fulfill the sacred duty of every free man and woman. On Veterans Day, we honor those who have worn the uniform, who have borne the battle, who have stood to watch, whose ranks have formed the mighty wall of flesh and blood, bravery and devotion, that has defended our freedom for 250 years. Today, to every veteran — we love our veterans — we say the words too often left unsaid: “Thank you for your service.”</blockquote>
President Trump has a baseline level of patriotism that comes through in everything that he does. The man truly loves this country and obviously loves the American flag and the American military.
He continued by speaking about what we owe to the military — something the radical Democrats do not believe — saying:
<blockquote>Yet every captain of industry, every pioneer of science, and every star whose brilliance has lit up the lights of Broadway, all share one thing in common. They only had the chance to show up because the veterans had the courage to serve. They took care of those people. They took care of all the stars. The stars that you read about wouldn&#8217;t be here without our veterans. Everything we have, everything our country has achieved, has been purchased by the muscle, spine and steel of the United States military. We owe it all to the fierce and noble men and women of the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, Space Force, Coast Guard, and the United States Marines.</blockquote>
Contrast that with how Hasan Piker has been spending the last few days. He went to China, and while he was in China, he decided that he was <a href="https://x.com/DrewPavlou/status/1988137151666811252?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1988137151666811252%7Ctwgr%5Ef2722b4aaef4e9a3eebbeeca5a382b177a407c5a%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mediaite.com%2Fmedia%2Fnews%2Fhasan-piker-declares-i-dont-have-any-patriotism-for-america-while-streaming-from-tiananmen-square%2F">going to blather</a> about how America is terrible —  in a country that legitimately censors everything you do, kills its opposition, and runs them over with tanks. Hasan Piker was in Tiananmen Square, where protesters against the Chinese government were murdered.
“I don&#8217;t have any sort of patriotism in my heart for America, but just in general. &#8230; I care about people,” he declared.
If that is the choice that Americans are given, and if Democrats continue to embrace this sort of radicalism, they are in some real trouble.
Hasan Piker is, of course, fairly close with Zohran Mamdani, the new mayor-elect of New York. He attended his victory party in New York, where he was going around saying on camera that it was a tragedy that the Soviet Union had collapsed.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-2316-the-democrats-circular-firing-squad-continues?elementPosition=5&amp;row=2&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-974957" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp" alt="DailyWire+" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-300x50.webp 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-768x128.webp 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1536x256.webp 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-2048x341.webp 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
So, radicals are taking over the Democratic Party. There&#8217;s no question they are the ones with the momentum at this point, if the Democratic Party refuses to stand up and say no.
On Monday, there was a protest that turned into <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/chaos-breaks-out-at-tpusa-event-as-leftist-agitators-harass-attendees">a small riot</a> outside a TPUSA event at the University of California, Berkeley. This sort of thing has become common; Antifa radicals and their allies show up at events such as the TPUSA event.
Are there enough normie Democrats to stop this radicalism from taking over the party? The problem for them is that they are perfectly willing to go along with this sort of thing.
The liberal mainstream Democratic Party wants to capture what they think is the jet fuel of the radicals. Thus, Gavin Newsom <a href="https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2025/11/11/gavin-newsom-shames-democrats-who-caved-in-shutdown-battle-pathetic-capitulation-and-a-betrayal/">raged</a> against the end of the shutdown. His press office <a href="https://x.com/GavinNewsom/status/1987703732600184837?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1987703732600184837%7Ctwgr%5E807c3bcc7a79a3fba5814b124ef44e98f88738fd%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.breitbart.com%2Ft%2Fassets%2Fhtml%2Ftweet-5.html1987703732600184837">put out</a> a <a href="https://x.com/GovPressOffice/status/1987664398014677442?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1987664398014677442%7Ctwgr%5E07e1858e7a95c5c9a4f8972a44bd6f9566a290ab%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.breitbart.com%2Ft%2Fassets%2Fhtml%2Ftweet-5.html1987664398014677442">statement</a>: “Pathetic. This isn&#8217;t a deal. It&#8217;s a surrender. Don&#8217;t bend the knee!”
That’s Gavin Newsom linking arms with the radicals in his own party. J.B. Pritzker, who, like Newsom, wants to run for president, also said that the government should remain closed. 
California Rep. Ro Khanna <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/11/12/ro-khanna-senate-democrats-shutdown-schumer/">says</a> the Democratic leadership is “out of touch.”
To understand what’s now happening inside the Democratic Party, look no further than the historical analogy found in the Russian Revolution. There were some soft socialists, the so-called Russian whites, led by a guy named Alexander Kerensky. They were trying to hold off the Reds, and started off in an unenviable position militarily, but ended up winning because eventually there wasn&#8217;t enough systemic immunity to stop them.
That&#8217;s where we are right now. The systemic immunity is gone.
We&#8217;ll see how long this current Democratic Party can last without splintering into pieces.

New York Mayoral Candidate Zohran Mamdani Holds Election Rally With Bernie Sanders And Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Democrats Aim Inward: The Circular Firing Squad Continues

Ben Shapiro

Bernie Sanders

Democrats

Donald Trump

Gavin Newsom

The Free Press has <a href="https://www.thefp.com/p/inside-the-dsas-hostile-takeover">reviewed</a> internal Democratic Socialists of America documents that show the organization&#8217;s leaders view Mamdani as a tool in their agenda to abolish prisons and borders and ultimately end what they call the “barbaric order of capitalism.”
The Free Press continued:
<blockquote>The DSA, founded in 1982, is a political body dedicated to the doctrine of democratic socialism, which is a variety of socialism that simply specifies how it would like revolution to occur: peacefully, through the subversion of democracy. Mamdani, a dues-paying DSA member since 2017, is the tip of that spear. </blockquote>
The Left constantly screws around with the definitions of terms. Socialism, typically speaking, is government control of the market-based order, nationalization of resources, getting rid of the pricing system, etc.
There are touches of socialism in a capitalist economy. This is called a mixed system. The United States obviously has a mixed system. So do Denmark and Norway. Fully socialist countries include Cuba and North Korea. China is an economically fascist system that has maintained aspects of nationalization, but then allowed certain aspects of the private market to operate so they could actually have a workable pricing system.
When people say democratic socialism, sometimes they mean Norway and sometimes they mean the DSA, which is to say, communism achieved through democratic means. 
<blockquote>The DSA held its <a href="https://convention2025.dsausa.org/">annual convention</a> in August, with the theme “Rebirth and Beyond: Reflecting on a decade of DSA’s growth and preparing for a decade of party building.” There, delegates voted to adopt a resolution titled “Principles for Party-Building,” which stated that the purpose of the DSA is “to unite workers to win the battle for democracy and bring about socialism, not to seek a governing coalition with a perceived lesser evil under the current undemocratic political system.” The resolution stated that the goals go beyond the White House. “A socialist party in the United States,” the document said, “must be a part of the global political movement of the working class.” </blockquote>
These are communists. They have nothing to do with the traditional Democratic Party, and yet they have more and more power. They have made it a full-time job to infiltrate school boards and majorities all over the country.
And they&#8217;re not being stopped.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-2312-fear-and-loathing-reds-take-new-york?elementPosition=6&amp;row=2&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-974957" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp" alt="DailyWire+" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-300x50.webp 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-768x128.webp 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1536x256.webp 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-2048x341.webp 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
There&#8217;s going to be a whole new wave of DSA-inspired candidates all across America. State Rep. Ruwa Romman is running for Georgia governor in 2026. She, of course, has talked about how Israel is a fascist government, which is table stakes for the DSA. She canvassed for Mamdani. She&#8217;s mainly driven by radical Third Worldism that is deeply connected to antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment. Her bid is a long shot in that Democratic primary, but she is running.
Graham Platner is very likely to win the Senate nomination in Maine in 2026. He, too, is a radical in the mold of Zohran Mamdani. He&#8217;s taken some hits because he had a giant Nazi tattoo on his chest, which he then denied was a Nazi tattoo, and then covered it up with an even uglier tattoo. But he is a democratic socialist.
Kat Abughazaleh is a candidate for Illinois&#8217;s ninth congressional district in 2026. She has a lot of followers on TikTok. She, like Mamdani, is very social media-savvy. She was indicted by a federal grand jury recently for allegedly blocking vehicles outside an ICE facility. Although she&#8217;s not formally DSA, her platform basically mirrors DSA.
There’s Kshama Sawant, who’s running for Washington&#8217;s ninth congressional district in 2026, and is an open Marxist. There’s Abdul El-Sayed, running for U.S. Senate in Michigan in 2026.
These candidates are very much to the Left, and the Democratic Party seems to have very little systemic immunity to them.
And all it&#8217;s going to cost you if they win is all your money and all your freedom.

Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani Holds News Conference Day After Being Elected Mayor Of New York City

The Democratic Socialist Plan To Take Over America

Mamdani Makes History With Decisive Win In NYC Mayor’s Race

The Pundits Are All Wrong About Why Mamdani Won

Elections

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Matt Walsh

Mayor

“You did it! You really finally did it, you maniacs! You blew it up, damn you!”
The Statue of Liberty is half-buried in the sand now, and Charlton Heston is yelling at it because of what New York City just decided to do.
By an overwhelming margin, New Yorkers handed over the financial center of planet Earth to a Marxist pro-jihadist named Zohran Mamdani, who has never held a real job.
It&#8217;s a bold strategy, Cotton. We&#8217;ll see how it works out for them.
Mamdani is not hiding the ball. He intends to implement major changes in America&#8217;s financial center, the financial center of planet Earth. He intends to make a new system that is going to destroy capitalism. 
Will he be able to accomplish that? There are some checks on him. 
Many of the promises he has made are like a third-grader running for school president who promises: “Free ice cream for everybody and no homework” was basically his campaign. If he said “affordability” over and over and over and then threw out a bunch of random things that he would never be able to do, he would be elected mayor.
It worked.
We now live in a political era characterized — on both sides — by people accurately diagnosing problems and then not proposing any real solutions while saying, “If you give me ultimate power, I will solve it for you.”
It never works.
Democrats are resistant to the idea that Mamdani is the future of the party. Hakeem Jeffries suggested that he was not the face of the party. But I&#8217;m old enough to remember when Democrats said AOC, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib were not the face of the party.
And now they are.
It will be interesting to see how the Democratic Party treats him. Do they treat him as an outsider? Do they say that he&#8217;s “sort of quirky,” the way they treated Bill de Blasio, or do they embrace him and try to draft off of the energy that he obviously captured in the middle of this campaign?
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/bss-ep-2311"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-974957 aligncenter" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp" alt="DailyWire+" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-300x50.webp 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-768x128.webp 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1536x256.webp 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-2048x341.webp 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
One of the lies that is constantly told about socialist candidates like Mamdani is that they are the people who get blue-collar voters, that they excite blue-collar voters. But America and Europe are different; historically speaking, European blue-collar workers tend toward socialism, but that does not happen in America. In America, blue-collar workers have always been fond of capitalism because it is what provides their jobs. Even in the early union days of the United States, the unions were quite actively anti-communist in the United States in a way that they simply were not in Europe. That remains true today.
What drove Mamdani to victory were immigrants, extreme leftists, and college-educated young women. Some of the latter is because Mamdani, with the smarmy grin and the inability to bench-press 135 pounds, seems particularly non-threatening, as opposed to Andrew Cuomo, who was ousted from office over his inability to keep his hands off the asses of women.
If this is the future of the Democratic Party, go for it, guys. It&#8217;s playing with fire. New York City is playing with fire. Mamdani’s policy proposals are trash. If he implements any of them, the city is in serious trouble.
There are systemic checks and balances that prevent Mamdani from single-handedly destroying the city. If he wants to raise taxes, he has to go to the state level. And the state legislature is very unlikely to want to increase taxes again. He says that he wants to make all the buses free, and he&#8217;s going to pay for it. How&#8217;s he going to do any of this stuff?
He won&#8217;t be able to get any of that stuff done, and then he will rail against the system.
Mamdani will make the business climate disastrous. Crime will go up. His proposals are foolish in the extreme.
Typically when you win, you tend to quote the founding ideals of the country. Mamdani did not. His entire victory speech was about how America historically is trash and how all of the fundamental principles of America are trash, and how he&#8217;s here to change things on a radical, fundamental level.
He quoted Eugene Debs, a socialist candidate from the 1910s and Nehru, the socialist leader of the non-aligned India in the post-partition era. There was no Washington; there was no Jefferson; there was no Lincoln. He said there&#8217;s a mandate for a new kind of politics, a mandate for a city we can “afford.”
All of these plans are trash.
He says that there&#8217;s a “mandate for change.” There&#8217;s always a mandate for change. That&#8217;s what elections are.
I&#8217;m very much looking forward to never having to pay for a hotel again in New York. I&#8217;m just gonna ride the buses around. I&#8217;ll just get on and ride them for free. Why the hell not? As long as I don&#8217;t get stabbed in the face, which may very well happen in a city of New York governed by Zohran Mamdani, who thinks that the police are inhibitors of human freedom.
H.L. Mencken, the famous columnist from the early 20th century, once said that democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.
I hope you enjoy what you wrought, New Yorkers.
And I&#8217;m glad that I have some Florida real estate that is available at a fetching price.

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