New York’s mayor-elect—Zohran Mamdani—is a self-described socialist. Socialist! Like that’s a bad thing?

Mamdani’s critics, of course, quickly turned the word into a bludgeon. And if “Socialist!” didn’t carry enough weight, they used “Communist!”

But the demonization of the term socialist is misguided. If we think of our economy as a spectrum with unfettered free markets at one end and communism at the other, there’s no bright line on that scale that separates capitalism from socialism.

The “social” part of socialism says it all: At some point in civilization’s development, someone figured out that everyone’s house is threatened if anyone’s house catches on fire, so he (or she) came up with the brilliant idea of everyone pitching in to pay for fire departments with trucks, ladders and hoses in order to keep everyone’s house—the whole city, in fact—safer.

We apply this principle to public safety, as well. Thus we have police departments, building inspectors, public health experts and so on, paid for by the public to serve the public’s interests.

We’ve also determined that we can make our communal life better, as well as safer. Not long ago, even in America, many elderly citizens lived in near-destitute poverty. Sick people without resources simply suffered and eventually died. We’ve developed a “social” safety net—flimsy though it might be—so that citizens who can’t help themselves aren’t completely abandoned.

To defend our country, we’ve pooled our resources to create and fund the world’s most powerful military. Somewhat less lavishly, we fund public education for the overall benefit of society. We can travel to any town in the U.S.—with a few exceptions, perhaps—and feel confident about drinking the water from the tap because of our investments in public health.

We sometimes disagree about how many resources we should devote to these various activities, but most of us, at least, think that most of them are good things.

In this sense, all of us are socialists. Even farmers, who are often conservative, small-government voters, do not refuse to be rescued from the treachery of the free market when Trump’s tariffs destroy their profits. In Trump’s first term, the bailout was $28 billion; this time, it’s $12 billion, so far. Socialism!

Mamdani’s “socialism” isn’t qualitatively different from our current economy; it’s just a little further along the scale.

Technically, Mamdani is a Democratic Socialist, a party with some goals that might be unrealistic, but not unreasonable. Its platform supports a 32-hour work week. It’s unlikely, but not outlandish; the 40-hour work week was only an aspiration until 1940.

But the Democratic Socialist platform also includes a lot that many Americans favor: for example, abolishing the Electoral College. A 2024 Pew Research Center poll showed that 63 percent of Americans support electing our presidents by popular vote.

The Democratic Socialists support Medicare for All. And according to a recent YouGov/The Economist poll, so do 59% of Americans.

And the Democratic Socialists aren’t afraid to say that we need to tax the rich. Maybe they can help us get over our reluctance to impose on rich people, whose fortunes depend on our nation’s natural resources, the labor of the hardworking, creative non-rich and the security provided by a military that relies heavily on the middle class.

Elon Musk just became a trillionaire. If we asked him to contribute .8 of a percent of that amount to feed hungry Americans for a month, would he really leave the country?

In short, Democratic Socialism might tug us a little further to the left, but it’s not going to destroy our nation. And it might produce some changes that many Americans want.

As part of his rationalization for the results of the Nov. 4 election, President Donald Trump noted that he wasn’t on the ballot. But, these days, isn’t Trump always on the ballot?

As Americans tire of his grandiose bluster, his corruption and self-enrichment, his impulsive, ill-considered foreign policy, his cheating, on his wives, in business, in golf, his unashamed bragging and his ever-more-obvious incompetence, they may be willing to elect nearly anyone.

Even a socialist!

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