By Douglas V. Gibbs
There’s an old song from a simpler time, a vaudeville tune that got a laugh from a contradiction: “Yes, We Have No Bananas.” It was funny because it was absurd. Today, that same joke is back, but it’s not wearing a comedy costume. It’s wearing a suit and carrying a government clipboard, and the laugh it’s getting is from the devil himself. The contradiction is the promise of a socialist paradise in a world where, as the American Thinker so aptly put it, “The numbers have no political affiliation.”
The surge of candidates from the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) isn’t some quirky political phase; it is a full-scale assault on the very foundations of American exceptionalism, God-given rights, Jeffersonian/Lockean liberty, and economic reality. From the halls of New York City to the heartland of Michigan, a movement that fundamentally denies our God-given rights is methodically laying the groundwork to seize power, not by the ballot alone, but by purging the institutions that made this Union of States great.
Let’s start with the simple things, like a gallon of milk. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a proud socialist, promises government-run grocery stores with prices slashed by 30 percent. It sounds wonderful until you ask the one question politics despises: Who pays? As the American Thinker explains, grocery stores run on pennies, not mountains of cash. A 30 percent discount doesn’t vanish; it’s absorbed. And who absorbs it? You, the taxpayer. It’s the oldest trick in the socialist playbook: the fruit is cheaper at the stand because the bill has been moved to your back pocket where you aren’t looking.
We’ve seen this movie before, and it always ends in tragedy. The article points to Baldwin, Florida, whose admirable attempt to run a municipal grocery store collapsed because a small government store can’t compete with the efficiency of a national chain. The Soviet Union learned this lesson in blood and misery. When economist Nikolai Kondratiev’s research challenged Stalin’s political orthodoxy, he wasn’t proven wrong with facts; he was executed. For the socialist, empirical conclusions must always bow to political will. They erase the price signals that warn of scarcity, and in doing so, they eliminate the warning system that protects society from collapse.
This isn’t just bad economics; it’s a spiritual crisis. As Peter Schweizer was reported as noting in Breitbart, the core problem with these progressives is that “they don’t believe our rights come from God. They believe our rights come from government.” This is the fundamental divide. As Justice Clarence Thomas, growing up in the segregated South, understood, when the government determines your rights, you are not free. You are merely a subject waiting for the next whim of the ruling class. Our entire constitutional framework, built on the truth that our rights are endowed by our Creator, is rendered null and void by this godless ideology.
And who are the standard-bearers of this movement? Look no further than Michigan’s new Democratic Senate nominee, Abdul El-Sayed. He may deny being a “technically or practically” a DSA member, but he was boosted by Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. His victory, Schweizer argues, is a “massive sea change,” proof that the red tide has reached America’s heartland. His strategy was a masterclass in coalition-building: unite the anti-Israel, pro-Hamas enclaves with the overwhelmingly white progressives in university towns. It’s a marriage of convenience between radical Islamism and godless Marxism, both of which seek to tear down the Christian foundations of this nation.
But where does the money come from? Conservative Brief revealed that El-Sayed’s campaign was flush with over $115,000 from individuals tied to CAIR, an organization named as an unindicted co-conspirator in a terrorism financing case and designated a terrorist entity by the UAE. His own father-in-law, a CAIR-Michigan board member, was a major donor. This isn’t just about policy disagreements; this is about a candidate funded by those with alleged ties to organizations that do not share America’s interests. When your platform includes dismantling the system that funds the military that protects us from those very entities, the conflict of interest isn’t just a red flag; it’s a five-alarm fire.
Of course, the DSA’s candidates couldn’t get this far without help. They’ve had a powerful, if unwitting, ally in Hollywood. As Christian Toto argued in Hollywood in Toto, La La Land has failed us. Instead of making films like “The Lives of Others” to show the crushing reality of socialist regimes, Hollywood has churned out endless attacks on capitalism. They’ve used their immense cultural power not to warn us, but to soften up a generation of Millennials who, as Schweizer points out, “don’t remember history and did not grow up during the Cold War.” They have no understanding of the Soviet, Cuban, or Venezuelan varieties of socialism because no one has shown them the mass graves and breadlines.
This brings us to the fatal flaw, the point where the velvet glove comes off to reveal the iron fist. Podcast giant Joe Rogan nailed it: “You can’t just steal people’s money.” To enforce their utopian vision, Rogan explains, socialists need “massive authority and usually guns.” It’s the truth Margaret Thatcher knew all along: they eventually run out of other people’s money, and when they do, they must use force to take more. The promise of “free” stuff is always a down payment on future tyranny.
The proof is in the purging. In New York, Mayor Mamdani isn’t just proposing bad policy; he’s consolidating power. As The Daily Signal reported, he systematically purged all business leaders from the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City, a nonprofit dedicated to public-private partnerships. Why? Because, as the article states, his goal isn’t effective management; it’s securing power. He is replacing the “kulaks” – the job creators and civic leaders – with his “apparatchiks,” the community organizers and union loyalists who will carry out his agenda without question. He is rigging the system, breaking the bones of the financial capital of America to turn it into a socialist plaything.
The tragic irony is that the Democrat establishment is only now waking up to the monster they’ve nurtured. As Townhall reported, moderates are finally declaring war, launching a $15 million effort to “discredit democratic socialism.” They’re terrified that El-Sayed’s win in a swing state paves the way for a presidential disaster in 2028. But it’s too late. Their voters are flocking to socialism not because it’s a good idea, but because they’re disillusioned with an establishment that has offered them nothing but the status quo. The establishment is trying to treat the cancer while the DSA is offering to burn down the whole hospital.
This is where we are, folks. We are facing a movement that believes rights come from government, that economics can be bent by ideology, that is funded by those with alleged terror ties, and that consolidates power by purging its opposition. They are the inheritors of every failed, tyrannical regime of the 20th century, but they’ve repackaged it in a slick, Americanized format for a generation that doesn’t know any better.
The fight against this is not just political; it is spiritual and constitutional. It requires us to stand firmly on the truth that our rights are God-given, not government-granted. It demands we teach our children the history of socialism’s failures, not the fairy tales of its promised utopia. And it means we must have the courage to call this ideology what it is: a direct threat to the liberty, prosperity, and soul of this country. The bill is coming due, and if we don’t stop them, it will be our children and our grandchildren who pay the ultimate price.
— Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
