Zohran Mamdani ran for mayor of New York City promising fairness, compassion, and unity.
He spoke softly, smiled often, and painted a picture of a kinder, more caring government; a “government that helps everyone.”
(Whatever that means)
But before all the ballots were even counted, he gave a victory speech that sent a chill down the spines of anyone who has ever picked up a history book.
The mask fell (it always does), and we saw clearly that he is just like all the other would-be dictators who start to show you who they really are once power has been secured. Even CNN’s Van Jones was caught off guard by the sudden “character switch.”
I wasn’t surprised at all. I suspect you weren’t either. It’s always the same with these people.
And while his barely-veiled calls for class and even race-based warfare were alarming in their similarity to some of the most dangerous ideas that have ever destroyed once-peaceful and prosperous people, he said something even scarier:
“We will prove,” he said, “that there is no problem too large for government to solve and no concern too small for it to care about.”
Holy smokes.
That sentence captures the chilling nature of socialism in a single breath.
The belief that government can (and should) solve everything—and they do mean everything. That no corner of your life is too small for politicians to be aware of, and be involved in.
How many times has this exact language been met with cheering crowds in the beginning and ended with secret police and breadlines? Too many to count.
And once again, the majority of people fell for it. Once again, a million-plus people were willing to trade their liberty for ease of life and freedom from doing hard things.
Mamdani’s platform reads like a catalog of feel-good impossibilities: “free” buses, “free” housing, “free” childcare, higher wages, and higher taxes on “the rich.” Every socialist revolution starts this way—on the promise that the math will work this time, and that human nature will behave differently this time.
It never works. It never can.
Cities can’t run on slogans that cost billions and generate nothing, and you can’t make things affordable by punishing the people who produce them.
When politicians try to legislate “fairness,” developers stop building, landlords stop maintaining, and investors stop investing. Supply shrinks, quality collapses, and the prices of the few things that remain go through the roof.
Eventually, government takes over what’s left, and things only get worse from there.
That’s how every socialist story goes.
We even wrote a kids book about it. The Tuttle Twins and the Search for Atlas teaches kids what happens when producers “shrug” under the weight of exploitation in the name of “fairness”. It’s a tale as old as time, and one easy enough for kids to understand.
Kids, it turns out, have an uncanny ability to quickly identify what fairness actually is when they’re presented with true moral principles.
I worry that what’s happening in New York won’t stay in New York. I worry that other cities will follow this path because too many people have been raised to believe that their problems are someone else’s job to solve. They were never taught that freedom requires work, that wealth is created, not distributed, and that responsibility is the price of self-government.
And that’s not just an economic or academic failure—it’s a moral one.
It’s what happens when entire generations grow up without anyone teaching them how to develop real character.
We should call it what it really is: a parenting failure. Too many kids have had their most basic foundational construction outsourced to activist teachers because their parents never noticed that the schools had been captured by people who were committed to remaking the rising generation in their own image.
“Connor, you can’t just blame EVERYTHING on the public education system!”
Yes I can. The proof of it is quite literally all around us.
This *gestures at everything* is what happens when parents give up their rights to their own kids' hearts and minds. This is what happens when we send our kids to Caesar for the most formative years of their lives.
They come back as Romans.
When kids grow up without integrity, resilience, or a worldview grounded in moral truth, they grow into adults who vote themselves into despotism.
We just watched the biggest city in the "freest" country in the world do it.
I’ve spent the last decade of my life partnering with liberty-loving experts in education, entrepreneurship, and economics who share my dedication to creating resources to help parents teach their kids a better way to live. It’s working. But there’s so much more to do.
We just launched our new unit on Character in The Tuttle Twins Academy.
It’s a course that helps teens learn the virtues that make liberty, peace, and prosperity possible. It aims to help parents raise young people who take responsibility for their own lives, and who can quickly identify and reject dangerous ideas that promise comfort through the sacrifice of their agency.
Starting today, in honor of Veterans Day, we’re running a sale on all our best books and curriculum. We’ve even got great deals on our Academy tuition! It’s our way of saying “thanks” to the men and women who serve. You can shop the sale here.
It might be too late for NYC, but it’s not too late for the millions of moms and dads who are reading the signs and rethinking their willingness to just keep going along with the mainstream. I have a lot of hope that the rising generation is going to surprise us in all the best ways possible.
Honestly? It’s what keeps me going.
If New York’s election proved anything, it’s that freedom doesn’t collapse all at once.
It crumbles away slowly, as each generation forgets that self-government starts with governing yourself.
I want to stop it in its tracks.
— Connor
