Socialists don't care only about trillionaires and billionaires. They want to put limits on all of us.

By Gary Abernathy

King Mamdani and Queen Ocasio-Cortez are leading a new generation of socialists ‘to change this country’

“Exactly what is the limit on how much money someone should be allowed to make? Can you give us an exact number?” That’s the question every socialist running for office in America should be asked, and reporters should not accept anything but a specific answer.

The success of socialists during the Democratic Party’s primary season would be startling if it had not been so clearly telegraphed over the past few years. The bold declarations of the socialist candidates about their beliefs and intent offer an in-your-face challenge to all Americans who understand the threat and believe in defending and preserving freedom, democracy and free market capitalism.

There are, to be clear, Democrats who also understand that threat. Last month, the Democratic Party’s two leading propaganda sheets, the Washington Post and the New York Times, produced stories relaying the panic setting in among Democrats who are slow to join the socialist party.

“Centrist Democrats launch new pledge: ‘We are capitalist, not socialist,’” the Post headline proclaimed in early June. The Times followed up in late June with, “Centrist Democrats Rebuke Party’s Left Wing: ‘We Are Capitalist, Not Socialist.’”

What is immediately striking, of course, is the use of “centrist” to describe the Democrats who are worried. Only by comparison to socialism and communism do any leading Democrats on the national stage qualify as centrists. By any reasonable standard, the top positions in the party, whether in Washington or in the states, have long been completely populated by the far left.

The Post story centered on Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-New York) and Rep. Adam Gray (D-California) getting behind a pledge designed to be circulated to Democratic candidates, “calling for a ‘politics of persuasion over purity’ and declaring that ‘we are capitalist, not socialist.’”

For the record, Suozzi votes with his party leadership about 90 percent of the time, while Gray, a freshman, clocks in so far at over 80 percent. So, compared to their far-left party, the media calls them “centrists.” Compared to Congress as a whole, and the American people in general, they’re liberals.

The Times waited to produce its story until after the pledge had been circulated for a while. “In Congress and elsewhere, some moderates have quickly distanced themselves from the victorious far-left candidates, worrying Republicans will use them to paint the entire party as extreme,” the Times reported.

Excuse me. The entire party IS extreme. Know how we know? The pledge had so far picked up all of 15 signatures, according to the Times. Suozzi told the Times that “the group aimed to secure signatures from 20 Democratic candidates, 200 state and local officials, and 2,000 activists — and to ‘build a movement.’”

Sorry to burst anyone’s bubble, but no one’s going to “build a movement” across the nation with only 20 Democratic candidates willing to sign the “We Promise We Aren’t Socialists” pledge.

Yes, the Democratic Party is now the Socialist Party, backed by the majority of the mainstream media, which supplies the fuel powering the movement.

Mamdani lectures us all

Sen. Bernie Sanders, socialist of Vermont, will always be the godfather of the socialist movement in America. But he is supplanted in actual leadership now by New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, whose speech commemorating Independence Day was treated by the media as a major national address.

Mamdani, who became a U.S. citizen all the way back in 2018, lectured us all on what it means, or should mean, to be an American. His remarks established a battle between the races and the classes, describing past immigrants who “could not yet see the nativism they would face.”

He wasted no time in identifying that standard far-left boogeyman, “the powerful,” never clearly identified, but serving its obvious purpose.

“America, in their (the powerful) view, is an arena of supremacy, where only a select few are allowed freedom, where not all are created equal,” Mamdani claimed, without evidence. “America, if you ask them, becomes less the more people it welcomes. America, they will tell you, belongs only to those with the right accent or the right shade of skin. The rest of us, they insist, should be grateful for merely being allowed to visit.”

Good grief. He and Tucker Carlson actually have a lot in common, always pointing fingers at a mysterious and evil entity known only as “they.”

“Division is the oldest trick in politics, and the cheapest,” said Mamdani, and he should know. But he was just getting warmed up.

“We see the wealthiest country in the history of the world — one where children go to sleep hungry while the world’s first trillionaire hungers for more.”

For more what?

“We see monopolies that dominate every industry and oligarchs who buy elections.”

Like the election you won?

“We see masked agents terrorizing our streets, eating food cooked by our undocumented neighbors before spiriting them away in unmarked vans.”

And risk going hungry because nobody’s cooking for them anymore? I think not.

“We see a nation whose immense wealth has been built by those with calloused, dirt-streaked hands — those who toil on factory floors and chisel into stone — and we see a nation that has allowed so much of that wealth to be held instead in the soft hands of a precious few.”

We get it. You already want a raise.

“We see America each time those young and old stand in the beating rain or the stifling heat to cast their ballots.”

Didn’t you tell them about mail-in voting?

On and on Mamdani whined and droned — the politics of grievance, the media would say if Trump was painting such a dark picture of America.

The voices of socialism — i.e. most of our mainstream media — are doing their part, building animosity toward the “rich and powerful.”

Elon Musk is the first trillionaire!

Donald Trump’s wealth grew last year!

Hey wait — so did Melania’s and J.D. Vance’s!

Hate the rich! Get your pitchforks and torches! Take their money! Redistribute it to the masses!

Socialism anyone?

Yes, socialism equals communism

It is true that the U.S. has let socialism slowly creep into our lives in ways that we not only accept, but often welcome. From entitlement programs to tax subsidies to regulations that essentially put government in control over much of the business sector and the economy in general, a generic form of socialism has at least one foot already firmly planted in America’s front door, co-existing with old-fashioned capitalism. But that’s not enough for actual socialists. They want the real deal, with the last remnants of capitalism fully banished.

In his own July Fourth remarks, Trump was right to skip right past warning about socialism and instead identifying the coming threat as full-blown communism. Socialism always morphs into communism.

"There is now a resurgence of the communist menace in our land, including from newcomers to our country who embrace ideas totally opposed to our way of life and our great success," Trump said. "You can be a communist, or you can be a patriot. You cannot be both."

Novelist Ayn Rand said, accurately, “There is no difference between communism and socialism, except in the means of achieving the same ultimate end: communism proposes to enslave men by force, socialism — by vote. It is merely the difference between murder and suicide.”

If Mamdani is the new king of socialism, the queen is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New York congresswoman and media darling who apparently can’t demonstrate enough ignorance of world affairs or history for mainstream “journalists” to give a care.

AOC blatantly declared back in May, “What’s funny is they assume my ambition is a title or a seat. My ambition is to change this country.”

That’s exactly what she, Mamdani and their growing army are on their way to accomplishing if we don’t take them seriously and turn out in November to stop them.

The thing for everyone to remember is that the Democrats — even their growing socialist movement — really aren’t just after the rich. They have plenty of billionaires on their side, and their side will get to keep their money. They’re actually laying the groundwork to define how much is enough for the rest of us — a philosophy that will impact every working American if Democrats end up controlling government.

How much makes you rich? There should never be an interview of a socialist that does not include this line of questioning: “How much is too much? A billion? A hundred million? One million? Five hundred thousand? A hundred thousand? Fifty thousand?”

Make them define it, precisely. It’s one thing to let them complain about trillionaires and billionaires — to vilify the “one percent.” But nail them down. How much, exactly, is too much? What should be the ceiling?

The answer, of course, is that in their view, no one needs incomes at all. We just need a government that takes care of all our needs, with all commodities equally distributed. The level of healthcare we receive, the amount of food we’re allotted, the size of our housing, the cars that we drive, the clothes that we wear, the source and effectiveness of our heating and cooling — they believe that’s all for government to decide.

If Americans don’t wake up, shake off our apathy and vote decisively against socialism, generations to come will pay for our indifference.

“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction,” President Ronald Reagan warned us. Are we the last generation before the fall?

Gary Abernathy is an award-winning journalist and columnist with a long career in news media and politics, including as a contributing columnist for the Washington Post and a frequent analyst on PBS NewsHour. He is the author of “MAGA Republican Are Already Normal — And Other Shocking Notions.” Never miss an update from Abernathy Road, where Gary offers opinion and analysis about political and cultural developments.