America's 'useful idiots' — the left calls for revolution as the ultimate virtue signal

During the Cold War, Soviet communists reportedly referred to American liberals as “useful idiots.” Although the origin of the quote has been challenged (and attributed to both Lenin and Stalin), it captured many of the adherents of communism after World War II. From higher education to Hollywood, dilettantes on the left embraced Marxism with little real understanding of the philosophy or its implications.

We are now seeing the rise of a new generation of armchair revolutionaries who are calling for everything from the overthrow of the U.S. government to the seizure of factories and homes.

Democratic New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani personifies this new movement of young people lacking any memory of the failure of socialist and communist systems in the 20th Century.

Mamdani is perfect for trust-fund baby Trotskyites. The privileged son of a radical Columbia professor and a Hollywood producer, Mamdani went to the elite Bowdoin College, which charges over $70,000 annually in tuition. He is part of the “radical chic” of American higher education, where extreme views are fully mainstream.

Mamdani shows the appeal of mouthing Marxist manifestos as manifest truths. It is Marxism-lite — promises of everything from rent control to making “Halal eight bucks again.” 

In one speech before the Young Democratic Socialists of America conference, Mamdani even stated matter-of-factly how one of the goals is to “seize the means of production” in America.

“Right now, if we’re talking about the cancellation of student debt, if we’re talking about Medicare for all, you know, these are issues which have the groundswell of popular support across this country,” he said. “But then there are also other issues that we firmly believe in, whether it’s [boycott-divestment-sanctions against Israel] or whether it is the end goal of seizing the means of production, where we do not have the same level of support at this very moment.”

Mamdani offers few details of what it would mean to seize all industry in this country or how such a system would work in the United States after failing in literally every nation where it has been attempted.

He has also called for the seizure of unoccupied luxury condos in New York to turn over to the homeless. With pledges of state-run grocery stores and other proposals, many are thrilled by the prospect of Marxism coming to America.

Polls show increasing support among young people for socialism and even communism. That is reflected in the New York primary, where Mamdani received significant support from wealthy and young college-educated voters.

Like Mamdani, these young voters have no inkling of what life was like under socialist and communist governments. They were not alive when radical shifts to socialism in Great Britain and France destroyed their economies and had to be reversed. They did not see the collapse of the Soviet Union or the move toward capitalism by China to avoid economic meltdowns.

Yet, as Mamdani stated, the radical left has to wait to seize such powers until it has “the same level of support at this very moment.” Unfortunately, socialist programs can produce the very dire conditions that lead to even greater consolidation of state controls and power.

Notably, most of Mamdani’s proposals would violate the Constitution or bankrupt the city. For example, efforts to seize multimillion-dollar luxury condos would constitute unconstitutional takings unless he was prepared to buy the units at their market value — a virtually impossible proposition.

Such considerations are rarely raised, let alone resolved, in radical conferences. Earlier this month, University of Minnesota liberal arts professor Melanie Yazzie joined others for a “teach-in” in which she delighted the audience with calls for the overthrow of the country by “people who come from nations who are under occupation by the United States government.”

She added, “it’s our responsibility as people who are within the United States to go as hard as possible to decolonize this place because that will reverberate all across the world. Because the U.S. is the greatest predator empire that has ever existed.”

That includes forcing “[the] U.S. out of everywhere,” including “Turtle Island” (the Native American name used to describe North America). Yazzie insisted that “the goal is to dismantle the settler project that is the United States for the freedom and the future of all life on this planet. It very much depends on that.”

Yazzie is an example of how most faculties in this country now run from the left to the far left. Applicants who espouse center-right viewpoints are often rejected as lacking “intellectual rigor” or depth. However, you cannot be too far left to secure a position in many departments that do not have a single Republican or conservative.

Take University of Chicago Assistant Professor Eman Abdelhadi, who used her recent appearance at the Socialism 2025 conference to denounce the University of Chicago as an “evil” and “colonialist” institution. Nevertheless, she insisted that she wanted to remain at the evil institution — not for its intellectual community, but to “organize” and “leverage” to build a socialist coalition.

Keep in mind that the faculty not only decided that Abdelhadi was worthy of a faculty position in the university’s Department of Comparative Human Development, but then also made her the Director of Graduate Studies.

For some, the calls of professors like Yazzie to “dismantle” the U.S. constitute the ultimate virtue signal. Like demands to seize factories and homes, the willingness to burn down the system is a cheap and easy way to establish your bona fides as one of the enlightened — something to brag about with your other 20-something fellow travelers as you order your $7 latte on the way to your Hyrox workout.

Lenin once mocked many in the West as idiots who would “transform themselves into men who are deaf, dumb and blind [and] toil to prepare their own suicide.”  What he never imagined was how some would still be transforming themselves decades after the revolution failed.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University and the best-selling author of “The Indispensable Right.”

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