The left condemns concentrated wealth while demanding concentrated political power—a form of authority backed by guns, prisons, and law.
In my career, I have spent considerable time engaging with self-described communists, democratic socialists, admirers of Bernie Sanders, and professors who argue that Lenin and Stalin were not sufficiently progressive.
After numerous faculty meetings, one begins to recognize that there are really only shades of red in the political spectrum.
The American experiment never depended on producing perfect citizens but rather on understanding that no political system could substitute for moral renewal.
Today, as younger voters embrace self-proclaimed socialists in places like New York, Americans naturally wonder what such movements would mean if they gained real political power. Mayor Mamdani has suggested that no problem is too large or too small for government intervention.
To explore this scenario, let us conduct a thought experiment.
