The moment Zohran Mamdani said he was going to replace "rugged individualism" with the "warmth of collectivism" is the moment many people knew that New York was so boned that news reports about it should be classified as pornography.
However, the fact that rugged individualism has become such a societal villain, when it was once praised as a truly great virtue, is a testament to the left's ability to play the long game by seeding ideas into the populace and slowly letting them take root.
NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani: "We'll replace rugged individualism with collectivism" pic.twitter.com/dhUqGm2X26
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) January 1, 2026
Rugged individualism built America. There's no way around that. Our penchant for self-reliance and free expression was a wide-open door to innovation and prosperity, which resulted in abundance on a level the world had never seen before. America's concept of it caused people to board boats for generations and brave death, disease, poverty, and every danger under the sun to practice it. It brought gutter rats into palaces.
But since the system that enabled all of these miracles made common to happen became the enemy of authoritarians everywhere, and the long quest to bring it crashing to the ground to implement what is sold as "fair" has been ongoing since the Frankfurt School. The idea is that Western values have to go, and nothing quite holds up those Western values like white people, or so the Left likes to sell it.
Watch: Mamdani's Chilling Inaugural Remarks Are a Harbinger of Trouble to Come
One of the strategies was to connect rugged individualism to white culture, and with white people being the villains of our time, all the Left had to do was wait for the concept to take on a negative connotation for its connection.
As reported by Newsweek back in 2020, the first time this idea popped up in popular culture was when the Smithsonian itself pushed racial guidelines, making a list of traits associated with "white culture." At the very top of this, above "the scientific method" and "protestant work ethic" was "rugged individualism":
"White dominant culture, or whiteness, refers to the ways white people and their traditions, attitudes, and ways of life have been normalized over tiem and are now considered standard practices in the United States," the introduction to the section reads. "And since white people still hold most of the institutuional power in America, we have all internalized some aspects of white culture— including people of color."
Another section says that white values include "steak and potatoes: 'bland is best'" and that white people have "no tolerance for deviation from a single god concept."
Other subsections deal with "family structure," "rugged individualism," "Protestant work ethic" and "aesthetics."
Fast forward to today, and a Muslim communist has been sworn into the mayoral office of New York on a Quran.
But let's be clear. Rugged individualism isn't, in itself, a socio-political concept. It's a state of mind that translates into a socio-political concept as it informs an ideological stance.
"Warm collectivism" is a socio-political concept right off the bat, because if you rip away the wrapping paper, you'll find communism underneath. That's all "warm collectivism is," a new term to replace "democratic socialism" as the wink and nod to a failed system that will surely work this time.
I think it's interesting that rugged individualism was born out of a desire for freedom from tyranny. I don't think it's any coincidence that "warm collectivism" was born out of a hatred for the West and fertilized with racial animus toward white people. The fact that it consistently has to dress itself in positive terms to convince the ignorant and the gullible is also worth noting. "Democratic" socialism and "warm" collectivism are just a continuation of reframing the bubbling hatred, greed, and prejudice underneath it. Before that, it was labeled the "people's democracy" and "democratic centralism."
It's verbal Febreeze to cover up the stink of what is ultimately institutionalized greed and hatred.
The kicker is, white people don't represent rugged individualism. American patriots do as a rule. It's kind of our default setting, and despite what the Left thinks, an American patriot can look a lot of different ways. Still, the Left has declared white people are bad, and therefore attaching a virtue to the race is a surefire way to get it to rot in people's minds over time.
If I didn't hate communism so much, I'd almost be impressed with its ability to brainwash people without them noticing.
