Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look in an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth.

For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street.

In an inaugural address that was delivered on New Year's Day, New York City Mayor Zeran Mamdani,

promised, and I quote, to replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism. Social media quickly

filled with memes that paired the quote with images of the victims of Nazi, Stalinist,

and Maoist warm collectivism. For all of Mamdani's charisma, his choice of words was certainly

intentional. Regurgitating language from revolutionaries and ivory tower intellectuals.

He's not attempting to hide who he is or what he plans to do. And he said as much in his inauguration speech.

Quote, we will govern without shame and insecurity, making no apology for what we believe. I was elected as a

democratic socialist. I will govern as a democratic socialist. I will not abandon my

principles for fear of being deemed radical. Except, of course, that his principles are radical. In fact,

as Al Mueller put it over at World Opinions, they come right out of the Marxist nightmare. And we know how

this dream ends. As Mueller continued, quote, it's not that his ideas

haven't been tried, it's that they've produced a measurable human misery wherever they've been

adopted, end quote. Either Mamdani doesn't understand the history of his ideas, or he believes that

this time will be different. After winning the race on November the 4th, he declared, we will prove that

there's no problem too large for

government to solve and no concern too small for it to care about. That comment reminded many of what

President Reagan once called the nine most terrifying words in the English language. I'm from the

government, and I'm here to help. In fact, Mom Donnie sounds very much indeed like another politician, one who said all within the

state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state. That was Benito Mussolini. Now, at one time,

it would have been problematic for an American politician to essentially subquote a fascist dictator,

...