Elizabeth Warren is placing a risky bet on socialism, one that could prove to be the undoing of her own party. The Massachusetts senator this week gave her full throated support to New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani and in the process, put her Democrat colleagues in a box. They must now either support the socialist agenda of Mamdani or repudiate it.
Until August 4, when Warren publicly backed Mamdani’s campaign, congressional Democrats had the option of simply writing off his candidacy as a local election, a quirk of an electorate outside their own constituencies. Warren changed that dynamic by chirping “you bet” when asked whether her party should look like Mamdani.
The question now, for every Democrat on every ticket in every election between now and November, 2026, is whether they think Elizabeth Warren is right; if their party should embrace the socialism Mamdani seeks for New York City. If they do, they betray the agenda many Democrats have quietly sought for many years and risk revulsion among voters. If not, they risk the rage of leftists who demand total ideological purity among their party’s candidates.
No more can Democrats like New Jersey Senator Cory Booker blithely deflect the question of whether they support Mamdani by claiming they’re focused on races closer to home. They must now decide whether they share Warren’s vision for their party, a vision wrapped in policies more closely associated with Soviet communism than American capitalism.
The bet Warren is making is that enough Americans are naive enough to believe the lies of Marxist/Socialist/Communist ideology. A great many of our fellow citizens already do, but is it enough to elect a self-described socialist to a powerful office and enact an agenda that history has proved to be a social and economic failure? We shall see.
The drum Warren and her fellow travelers are beating for now is the broad issue of affordability. In one respect, it’s a smart idea. Warren, Mamdani and a few other Democrats have finally decided to be for something rather than being against everything happening in the Trump administration. The word ‘affordability’ can mean whatever one wishes and its implementation is easily glossed over with relatively simple campaign messaging.
Recommended
Affordable day care, affordable housing, affordable groceries, affordable health care - they all sound great. The words themselves are appealing because everybody wants affordable things. The problem is that these and other things are made affordable to some by taking money away from others. It is the inescapable flaw in all wealth redistribution ideologies. As former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher observed,“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
While Warren and Mamdani claim to want more affordable things, President Trump and the Republican Congress are already making things more affordable. Gasoline prices year-over-year are down nine-to-sixteen percent, depending on where you live. The rise in home and apartment rents is slowly reversing and flattening out. Grocery prices are stabilizing as overall inflation drifts lower. Trump is taking steps to lower prescription drug costs.
When Elizabeth Warren said this week that affordability “is the Democratic message,” she neglected to mention that affordability is the Republican achievement. The Trump administration isn’t seven months old, yet the president’s policies are already showing positive results and the affordability trends are likely to continue.
There are, of course, degrees of affordability and nothing is more affordable than free stuff. But the Warren-Mamdani promise of affordability could easily result in the kind of perverse incentives that ultimately ruin cities and states. Mamdani’s agenda of making things affordable through punitive taxation will drive even more hard working New Yorkers out of the city while potentially attracting others to whom government subsidized services appeal. Analysts are already sounding alarm bells over the state’s declining population and Mamdani’s brand of socialism doesn’t seem likely to reverse that trend, at least not in any desirable way.
Warren is betting that America is finally ready for socialism and she’s encouraging her fellow Democrats to climb aboard her bandwagon. It’s important for any public official to be for something rather than against everything, but when what they’re for is repellant to a majority of voters, it’s a recipe for political disaster. If Warren’s bet goes bad, Democrats will find themselves in the wilderness for a very long time.
Editor’s Note: Help us continue to report the truth about corrupt politicians like Elizabeth Warren.
Join Townhall VIP and use promo code FIGHT to get 60% off your membership.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member