During his inauguration address, New York City Mayor and avowed democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani declared he will transition the Big Apple away from “frigid rugged individualism” to a future defined by the “warmth of collectivism.”
He declared, “We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism."
This was chilling and scary for this child of Soviet Union escapees to hear. It’s inconceivable to me that NYC, the financial capital of the world, is now being overseen by a Marxist-Leninist. Anyone who was alive last century knows that 20th-century experiments with collectivism and socialism are anything but warm. They’re always ruinous as they are frigid, and ultimately, deadly. Whitewashing collectivism and socialism with cutesy qualifiers like “democratic” doesn’t change their notoriety as destructive ideologies.
My parents frequently recount their lived experiences in the Soviet Union to me. Naturally, they were disgusted by Mayor Mamdani’s comments. People, they often say, were lucky to experience any semblance of “warmth” under socialism. There was hardly anything “warm” and loving about central planning. Millions of people behind the Iron Curtain experienced food rations, property confiscation, 90% taxation, poor health and environmental conditions, crammed communal apartments, deportations to frigid places in the Arctic known as gulags, and death for many. Lest we forget, over 100 million people died under “warm” collectivism last century across Europe, Asia, South America, and Africa.
Mamdani defenders reassure us that this experiment with collectivism will be different. It’ll be more cuddly, equitable, cool, loving, and hunky dory this go-around. Basically, their movement will be akin to Scandinavia. (Much to their chagrin, the Nordics aren’t remotely collectivist; they’re generally free market economies. Bless their hearts!) But collectivism, no matter how it’s reimagined and reinvented, is still the same system rooted in authoritarianism. It’s unreasonable to expect peaceful outcomes from collectivists who threaten and promise to seize the means of production.
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Merriam-Webster defines collectivism as “a political or economic theory advocating collective control especially over production and distribution.” Collectivism, by nature, is authoritarian wherever it’s been adopted and applied. There’s no socializing and merriment; everyone is scared, timid, and depressed.
Several days after Mamdani’s swearing-in ceremony, Venezuelan socialist dictator Nicolas Maduro and his wife were captured by American special forces. As Townhall readers know, socialist Venezuela has been ruined and decimated by the “warmth of collectivism.”
Venezuela, under both Chavez and Maduro, is a collectivist hellhole, where the state seized the means of production, nationalized all industries, and made everyone collectively poor and miserable.
Talk to any Venezuelan refugee here in the United States. They’re overjoyed that the Trump administration captured Maduro and will bring him to justice.
“When I was born, the Chavista regime was already in power. For the first time in 26 years of life I can truly believe in the end of the dictatorship,” Erik Suarez, a Venezuelan freedom activist, said in a statement to Townhall.com.
Venezuelan-American journalist Germania Rodriguez Poleo expressed her disgust with Americans demanding the federal government “free Maduro,” telling Fox News Channel, "These people are disrespecting our tragedy, are disrespecting our political prisoners, those we have lost, those who are still in Venezuela's jails, those who are still starving."
Daniel Di Martino, a Manhattan Institute Fellow and conservative activist, has spoken out against the Maduro regime for years. He supports the Trump administration’s actions in his home country. He recently condemned the new NYC Mayor Mamdani’s endorsement of “warm” collectivism.
“The downfall of the Maduro regime will bring freedom to the most people trapped under socialism since the fall of the Berlin Wall,” Di Martino told Townhall.com in a statement. “Not only will it benefit 30 million Venezuelans worldwide, but likely cascade to end the Cuban and Nicaraguan dictatorships and bring immense economic benefits to the United States.”
I echo Daniel’s sentiments about Maduro being deposed, paralleling the Berlin Wall Fall and the 1991 physical dissolution of the former Soviet Union. It was a pivotal moment in history that restored freedom to my family members who remained in Lithuania. Although I was 10 months old at the time, I appreciate this turning point now as an adult and opponent of collectivism.
As I write this column, today, January 9th, marks 40 years since my parents, Lithuanian refugees, arrived in the U.S. For over the past decade, I’ve commemorated the occasion as their “Freedomversary” – or the anniversary of their arrival in the United States. If my parents hadn’t arrived here 40 years ago, I likely wouldn’t be writing this column. My parents came here virtually penniless and sacrificed a lot to later give my younger sister and me a good life in
America. As a result, I’m eternally grateful and appreciative to be American-born. I don’t take this privilege lightly.
Venezuela libre, and down with the “warmth of collectivism”!
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