Whether Mayor Zohran Mamdani, with his commitment to "the warmth of collectivism," will usher in a new era of abundance for struggling New Yorkers remains to be seen. But his young administration is already a gift to a specific group: the conservative readers of the New York tabloid New York Post, who are having their opinion of the left reaffirmed as they revel in the privileged lifestyles of some of Mamdani's fellow travelers in the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).
"Anti-rich DSA leader Gustavo Gordillo enjoys life in luxurious $1.5 million New York apartment paid for by millionaire parents," the Post reported last month. Noting that the DSA "rattled against private property," the newspaper reveled in the "lush landscaping" of the townhouse purchased "by Mom and Dad through a shell company."
The Post later reported that Gordillo, co-president of the DSA's New York directory, studied art and literature at Yale; that he was fired from an electricians union apprenticeship program for failing to show up for work; and that his mother drives a silver Porsche.
Other easy targets for the Post on the left included Tracy Rosenthal, who advocates abolishing rents and whose father is a successful music producer. ("Anti-rent radical and Mamdani ally who is 'squatting' Brooklyn property is Grammy's nepo baby.") The Post called Grace Ryan, "a 25-year-old heiress to a chocolate fortune from Ohio," as "one of the most brazen members" of the DSA for posting on social media photos of herself "smoking a cigar on a boat, wearing a $400 Ralph Lauren stars-and-stripes sweater." To the Post's evident delight, Ryan, who worked during the primaries for a successful left-wing Democratic candidate for Congress, defended himself in X by writing, "Like, y'all never heard of noblesse oblige?" —the French expression means that those who have privileges also have a duty to act responsibly, generously and ethically towards society.
This is an old game. Ever since Karl Marx relied on Friedrich Engels not only for his ideas about communism but also on his family's textile fortune, leftists have fed off the rich, and rightists have mocked them for it. From the beginning, socialism also radiated, for certain bourgeois dandies and followers of fads, a certain subversive glamour. More rigorous socialists saw this as the ideology's Achilles' heel. "The worst propaganda for socialism is its own adherents," grumbled George Orwell in "The Road to Wigan Pier." The typical socialist was either "a snobbish young Bolshevik" or "a prim little white-collar man" who had "vegetarian inclinations" and, above all, "a social position that he had no intention of losing."
Still, Ryan has a good point when he talks about noblesse oblige. She may never live like ordinary people, but why should that stop her from trying to help them? Wouldn't that be better than the alternative, a chocolate heiress wearing a $400 sweater, indifferent to the plight of less fortunate Americans, if not bent on harming them?
Here, in the midst of all this theatrics, we arrive at something that perhaps really matters: a distinction that begins to emerge between the two periods of left-wing activism that have been called Woke 1 and Woke 2. Any such distinction needs to be vague and provisional, since few Democrats have had the decency to explicitly repudiate the radical positions they once defended. Some simply shrugged their shoulders at past excesses, as when Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez quoted another Democrat as saying "Woke 1 was crazy!" and then laughed, as if all Americans were in on the joke. Others tried to redefine the slogans, insisting that "defund the police" did not mean defund the police. Others still haven't backed down; Time will tell if they are the vanguard or the last holdouts. Yet, somewhere between Donald Trump's second inaugural address in January 2025 and Mamdani's first inauguration the following January, the American left began to shift its focus from race and gender to class.
Choose the causes or the effects, whether it is the illiberal ideas that have taken off from universities onto social media; the rise of Trump; the #MeToo movement; or the death of George Floyd under the knee of a police officer in 2020. All of this has contributed to focusing the left on racism and gender discrimination. Identity became destiny. The poorest white people had privileges denied to the richest black people. In theory, the social justice movement focused on policing; in practice, he became obsessed with other concerns of America's multiracial elite, such as preferential admission to elite universities. For straight-laced middle-class people with white-collar jobs, denouncing race-based privileges became a way of proving their degree of enlightenment; despise the deplorables who voted for Trump too. Any true Marxist would have recognized this as a classic attempt to divide the working class, but Democratic leaders embraced this divisive policy.
NOTHING TO LOSE EXCEPT MORE ELECTIONS
Then came new effects and new causes. Kamala Harris lost in 2024, and Trump has demonstrated growing support among nonwhite working-class voters. Trump cracked down on diversity, equity and inclusion programs, and the Supreme Court struck down college admissions policies that took race into account. Democratic activists have become outraged by injustice in Gaza rather than injustice in America itself. Perhaps most importantly, Mamdani won with an inclusive message about making life more affordable — just as moderate Democratic gubernatorial candidates in Virginia and New Jersey did.
Despite all the clash between progressives and moderates, their agendas overlap when it comes to the precariat, even if not the proletariat. From Georgia to Alaska, Democrats are now all economic populists, advocating higher wages, lower prices and more affordable health care. Victims and villains are judged not by the color of their skin, but by the contents of their bank accounts. Billionaires are the villains, and in the broad definition used across the Democratic spectrum, anyone who works to pay their bills belongs to the working class.
This may not ultimately revitalize Democrats, let alone save struggling Americans. But if it succeeds, the party will have at least a few young Bolshevik snobs to thank for helping it remember the kind of things it once stood for.
