I always find it amusing when capitalism apologists try to demonstrate their rhetorical maturity by acknowledging the anxieties of those (particularly younger people) who are “warm to socialism”. They make remarks such as those made by New York Post columnist Rikki Schlott:

“. . . I also am sympathetic to my peers who came of age being told constantly by politicians that they simply can’t get ahead — whether it’s artificial intelligence coming for their jobs, student loans promising to drown them, a housing market they’ll never break into, or climate change always lingering in the background. This is a generation who has had the rug pulled out from under their feet. . . and they’ve been fiscally anxious ever since.”

This sympathy, however, rings hollow. The writer spends the entire column up to this point belittling and insulting the 6 out of 10 young New York City voters who were supposedly “hoodwinked” by the socialist proselytizing of Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani. What is amusing about Schlott’s attempt at concession is that the anxieties she describes are the result of capitalist systems already in place and not the product of some phantom socialist agenda. The largely unregulated explosion of AI has been driven by capitalist interests. The student debt crisis was brought on, at least in large part, by corporations and for-revenue universities pushing the narrative that more (and more expensive) degrees will equal more income and then pushing the goalposts further and further away. Perhaps no Zoomer anxiety has deeper roots in existing capitalist systems than the runaway costs of housing and real estate, and yet young NYC voters are being chastised and berated for foolishly thinking capitalism might be the problem and for embracing alternatives.

Another favorite tactic of socialism alarmists is to accuse leftists of being historically ignorant. Writers like Schlott enjoy reminding their ideological opponents of the millions killed in China, the Soviet Union and Cambodia under the banner of communism. Whether such admittedly horrific atrocities were a result of leftist ideology or a corruption of those ideologies by dictators and sociopaths is debatable. If, however, we assume Stalinism, Maoism and the actions of Pol Pot were a direct product of socialism, would we not then have to say Pinochet’s police state, Argentina’s ‘Dirty War’ and the numerous right-wing coups and resulting despotisms the United States supported in Central and South America were a direct product of capitalism? Deploying the “Pol Pot fallacy” in this context is, at best, a weak attempt to undermine leftist ideologies and, at worst, a suggestion that voting for Mamdani is voting for a mass-murdering autocrat. Both positions, I expect, are acceptable to the New York Post‘s editorial board.

Schlott makes it clear she believes the country’s supposedly liberal education regimes have blinded young voters to the economic truths of the world and so they’re left with an unrealistic view of ‘how things are done’. This has left them susceptible to politicians promising “free goodies and an affordable life in New York City”. While she is quick to denounce Mamdani’s supporters as “fiscally illiterate” she makes no effort to present an argument as to why those young voters should instead subscribe to continued neoliberal economic policy. In other words, the writer is saying to those 6 in 10 Zoomers “You are stupid for wanting free things but I can’t tell you why paying for them is better. You’re idiots for looking to socialism to address your problems but I can’t explain how capitalism is going to do anything other than make those problems worse.” This is the fundamental flaw in much right-wing editorializing: in spite of decades of anecdotal and objective evidence that the average American (regardless of political affiliation) is suffering, the conservative position is to never question the system that brought us here. How do you defend the indefensible? If your job is to protect the wealthy and support the elite, you focus on the perceived shortcomings of the opposing systems and pretend the very real failures of your own system don’t exist. If you’re able to present the problems your system created as unavoidable and inviolable or features rather than flaws, all the better.

Furthermore, what is so horrible about aspiring to an affordable New York City, or any city for that matter? The fact that these young voters would like to wrest the city back from banks, big business and multi-millionaire developers should be applauded and not ridiculed. We should be encouraging these Zoomers to find ways to bring the cost of living down from the stratosphere so that they can work and live in the Five Boroughs. Whether or not municipal supermarkets and transit vouchers will accomplish that I don’t know, but I feel it will go a lot further than maintaining the same neoliberal policies that have made the city so expensive for all but the most elite of the elite. The real issue writers like Schlott and their employers have with youth voting for people like Zohran Mamdani is that it shows Reagan’s (by way of John Winthrop) “shining city upon a hill” is crumbling and that the decades long narrative that hard work and clean living will get you everything you need is being shown to be a myth. Capitalism apologists will never question the ethical and moral ramifications of Wall Street firms managing assets in the trillions of dollars, but they will declare a mayor’s plan to open five city-run grocery stores the first step in our own Great Leap Forward.