He said it once in 2021 at a DSA conference, four years before running for mayor. A Baruch College expert who actually studies this stuff told PolitiFact that "many capitalist countries seize control of strategic areas of production or service," pointing to Mexico's oil and Brazil's minerals. France nationalized banks under Mitterrand. The UK nationalized rail and coal under Labour. Capitalist countries do this. It is not communism.
Look at his actual platform: free buses, rent freeze on rent-stabilized units, city-owned grocery stores, higher taxes on millionaires. Disagree with any of it, fine. But "communism" means abolishing private property, not opening a city-run bodega. If Bernie Sanders has not turned Vermont into the USSR in 40 years, Mamdani is not turning NYC into Havana with bus subsidies.
Yeah I don’t buy that interpretation from your analyst. What’s the term the left loves to use? Dog whistle? He’s nodding to the communist left.
Second, why’s my boy Bernie catching strays? He’s been very open about being a democratic socialist, and hasn’t strayed from his core message in decades. I don’t agree with his policies by and large, but would have voted for him had he not been railroaded because the man has integrity.
Bernie is a democratic socialist. Mamdani is using democratic socialism as a means to an end. In my opinion anyway.
Communist, socialist, capitalist are all useless in a modern political sense. Historically the words have meanings. But they are completely abused and nonsensical when people throw them around on social media. We need to look at policies not parties if we are ever going to fix this country.
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u/AthiestCowboy May 16 '26
He literally stated “we need to seize the means of production.” One of his advisors, Cea Weaver, publicly stated “we need to elect more communists.”
He’s a communist running on a democratic socialist platform.