Socialism in the United States?

By Editor-in-Chief on November 6, 2025

Erick Macay Rubio | Enfoque Rebelde | Translated from Spanish for the Red Phoenix by Camilo Lazo–

Zohran Mamdani has just been elected mayor of New York City. A Muslim and an open democratic socialist, Mamdani’s victory is nothing short of historic. A win in a country that has spent decades teaching its citizens that hating socialism is a patriotic duty.

For generations, American politics has been a revolving door between two parties that serve the same class interests. The Biden administration proved that perfectly: More promises of “change,” more silence in the face of genocide in Palestine, and more deference to corporate power. Biden and Kamala Harris said nothing as bombs fell on Gaza, and they greenlit the Willow Project, a climate disaster waiting to happen in Alaska. Mamdani, by contrast, stood with the Palestinian people, breaking with the pro-Israel orthodoxy of both parties, whose leaders are up to their necks in corporate donations and foreign lobby money.

Mamdani’s platform of freezing rents, guaranteeing childcare, subsidizing groceries, and taxing the rich has rattled Wall Street and Washington alike. The very idea that public wealth should serve the public, not billionaires, is enough to send the bourgeoisie into panic.

Although Mamdani ran as a Democrat, he didn’t get the blessing of that party’s elders. Barack Obama, still the patron saint of neoliberal respectability, remained quiet. Old guard Democrats viewed Mamdani’s campaign with suspicion, not because it was radical, but because it represented something they fear: A glimpse of a new political direction.

Meanwhile, the conservative wings of both major parties closed ranks. Andrew Cuomo, the disgraced former governor, refused to accept his primary defeat and mounted an independent campaign, immediately endorsed by Donald Trump. Trump unleashed his usual barrage, calling Mamdani a communist, an antisemite, a terrorist, and even threatened to withhold federal funds from New York. The state’s governor chimed in, promising to block Mamdani’s proposed tax on the rich. The message was clear: Challenge wealth, and the whole political class will come after you.

New York may be the hub of modern capitalism, but it’s also its biggest casualty. The city’s obscene wealth sits atop staggering inequality. Rents skyrocket, wages stagnate, and Wall Street executives toast record profits while the working class struggles to survive. The same system that gave us 9/11 and endless imperial wars now delivers unaffordable housing, climate chaos, and permanent crisis.

Being the “capital of capitalism” has brought New Yorkers nothing but crisis, insecurity, and death. Across the country, Americans are beginning to realize the same truth. They see how both parties have lied to them; how self-proclaimed “progressives” govern like reactionaries; and how Trump’s populism was nothing but a con for the rich. The working class is starting to wake up to the fact that the system doesn’t work for them. And never has.

Socialism is no longer a slur in the United States. Decades of Cold War propaganda are cracking under the weight of reality. To be a socialist, a communist, or a Marxist is not to hate America. It is to reject the empire that uses its own citizens as cannon fodder abroad and cheap labor at home.

There are real winds of change blowing through the United States. The crisis of capitalism has shattered the credibility of the political establishment. Millions of people, moved by empathy and exhaustion, have begun to oppose genocide and authoritarianism alike. But many still believe the system can be reformed. That a “kinder,” “gentler” capitalism might save them.

Mamdani, ultimately, is a social democrat. His proposals are bold by American standards, but they stop short of confronting the system itself. He wants capitalism to be “more humane.” But capitalism cannot be made humane. It is built on exploitation. Those who hold real power will not surrender even a fraction of their wealth without a struggle.

Reform will not be enough. What New York, and the United States as a whole, truly need is rupture. A clean break from a system that feeds on inequality and war. That’s what the establishment fears most, what unites Trump, Biden, and Obama alike. Because Mamdani’s win might just be the spark that helps millions of Americans realize a deeper truth: That the fight isn’t for a fairer capitalism. It’s for a new world. One without billionaires, without imperialism, without genocide. A world built for the many, not the few.