If there’s any “best” place to test socialism, it’s the United States, for one simple reason: socialism will not fail on its own.
Conservatives often joke about walling off California as progressives maintain a firm grip on the state, and now New York is drawing similar attention after Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral victory. That shift has only intensified as three Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)-backed candidates ousted establishment Democrats in recent primaries, including several long-serving members of Congress.
But abandoning these places misses the point. The broader U.S. economy is still anchored by free markets and continually cushions the consequences of socialist policies, blunting the very outcomes that might otherwise force the reckoning those on the right so badly want to see.
Let's take several examples.
California imposes some of the highest taxes in the nation and relentlessly pushes to tax the wealthy simply for being successful. Companies are leaving, but Silicon Valley continues to prop up the state’s economic output, masking deeper policy failures. Critics can hammer Governor Newsom and the state’s political class all they want, but one reality remains: California now has the fourth-largest economy in the world. That success has come despite progressive policy, not because of it, but it still hands progressives a powerful talking point as they try to sell their agenda to voters.
New York is following a similar path. However far Zohran Mamdani pushes his policies, Wall Street remains anchored in the city, and the Big Apple continues to serve as the financial capital of the world. While some may question how long that dominance will last, it remains an undeniable reality for now. Critics can sound the alarm over Mamdani’s socialist agenda, but that doesn’t change the underlying dynamic: New York’s immense financial sector provides a deep tax base that cushions the impact of his policies. And like in California, that economic strength exists in spite of the policy direction, not because of it, yet it still arms progressives with a powerful narrative, creating the appearance of success while establishing a new beachhead for a broader ideological takeover within the Democratic Party.
Moving more nationally, take the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Experts warned it would damage economic growth, kill jobs, and reduce full-time employment, but it appears to have had little to no real effect on any of those outcomes. Why? Because the American economy is still driven by the free market.
What does this all mean?
Conservatives are going to have to do the hard thing: break Democrat strongholds, or at the very least launch a full-scale assault on the DSA and progressive economics. Waiting around for socialism to fail on its own is a losing strategy, and it forgets a lesson Republicans once understood well, especially in the Reagan era and before: ideologies like communism spread like wildfire.
If conservatives keep sitting back and waiting for the collapse to come naturally, it may not happen until after too many Americans have already fallen for the illusion. In other words, by the time it fails, it may already be too late.