The concept of communism has fascinated people worldwide for centuries.  I refer to it as a concept, because in reality there is no such thing as pure communism.  Just as laissez-faire capitalism has never existed, neither has pure communism.

Government makes laissez-faire capitalism an unrealistic goal in a constitutional democracy where lawmakers are compelled to please their constituents and donors in order to stay in office.  In the United States, for example, there are more than 500 individuals in Congress, and each of them is focused on their own needs and desires.

This is a reality that can never be changed, because human nature never changes.  Each House member and each senator casts their votes in line with what they believe will help keep them in office in their district or state.  This, of course, flies in the face of free markets, which by definition must be devoid of government interference.

The same is true of pure communism, but to more of an extreme.  As with conservative politicians, those who lead communist revolutions and those who join the ruling class as bureaucrats are focused on their own needs and desires.  Again, this can never be changed, because human nature never changes.

In the Soviet Union, these bureaucrats became known as the nomenklatura — the freeloaders who carried out the wishes of the top brass in exchange for caviar and special privileges.  Ultimately, the bloat of the nomenklatura helped to collapse the Soviet Union and its pretense of being a genuine communist country, which it never was.

Thus, the claim that communism is about “giving power to the people” and redistributing wealth to the masses is an empirical joke.  The evidence makes it inarguable that communism is about nothing more than a system designed to centralize power in the hands of its leaders.

That said, what is different today is that so-called communists in America are aligned with angry, unhappy groups of misfits, including LGBTQ fanatics, anti-Semites, transgender lunatics, radical Islamists, and the open-borders crowd — a coalition of unhappy people who lack meaning in their lives.  Anyone miserable enough to want to overthrow the existing order fits comfortably into the coalition of the unhappy, and the more violent the unhappy person is prepared to be, the more welcome he is.

Over the years I have written about the future of the Democrat Party if it ceases to exist as a functioning political party, opining that it would likely become a domestic terrorist group much like the Weather Underground or Black Liberation army.  This transformation has been accelerating since Barack Obama first took office and promised to fundamentally change the United States of America, and that attempted transformation now has the Democrat Party on the verge of extinction.

Which brings me to the latest wannabe commie leader, Zohran Mamdani, the trust-fund kid who’s promising to save dark-blue New York City from the evils of capitalism and bring a Cuban-style paradise to the financial capital of the planet.  Even though communism has become passe in 21^st century America, Mamdani has dared to resuscitate it from the ashbin of history in the hope that there are enough angry Jacobins roaming the streets of Gotham to anoint him mayor.

When he boldly stated that he wants to “control the means of production,” even the doubters stopped laughing.  Everyone in today’s Internet world knows that controlling the means of production is a euphemism for controlling every aspect of everyone’s life.  Karl Marx was very clear on this point.

In addition, Mamdani is promising government-owned grocery stores, rent control, defunding the police, free buses, raising the minimum wage to $30, free childcare, and more.  Free stuff always sounds good, so long as you ignore Margaret Thatcher’s warning about running out of other people’s money.  Of course, no person this side of Bidenmentia believes that any of this will work, but there are always enough unhappy people so hopelessly mired in hate and envy that they will follow the next Lenin, Castro, or Hugo Chavez over the free-fantasy cliff.

Because history makes it clear that communism has failed everywhere it has been tried, anyone serious about gaining power through this ruse has no choice but to resort to lying as a way of life.  Normal people are uncomfortable with excess lying, but it’s not a problem for radical leftists who believe their noble end justifies any means necessary.  As Vladimir Lenin put it, “To tell the truth is a petty bourgeois habit, whereas for us to lie is justified by our objectives.”  This is why Democrats do not just lie some of the time or even most of the time.  Democrats lie all the time.

To finish on a high note, if Mamdani becomes mayor of NYC, the Big Apple is guaranteed to see a dramatic increase in violent crime, backbreaking taxes, and shortages of all kinds.  This would result in wealthy people and businesses leaving the city in record numbers, and at some point in time the only people left would be card-carrying members of the coalition of the unhappy.  While that would be catastrophic for New Yorkers, it would almost certainly result in the 2026 midterms being the biggest red wave in American political history.

It’s a thought that tempts one to hope for a Mamdani victory.