Ayn Rand WARNED us About the Dangers Wrought by Collectivists Like Zohran Mamdani

From the steps of New York City Hall, the new mayor’s socialist vision proves her decades-old warning went unheeded.

Yesterday, an 84-year-old socialist swore in a 34-year-old socialist as the new mayor of New York City.

Senator Bernie Sanders formally administered the oath to Zohran Kwame Mamdani — and the symbolism was impossible to miss.

As Sanders stood there, figuratively passing the torch, the crowd erupted in chants of “Zohran! Zohran! Zohran!” and a familiar refrain: “TAX THE RICH!”

It wasn’t a governing moment, it was a full fledged socialist rally.

And when Mamdani finally took the microphone, he didn’t try to soften the message or hide it behind political platitudes.

The mask was torn off.

He said exactly what he believes — echoing the very ideas that Ayn Rand warned America about nearly 70 years ago.

Standing outside New York City Hall moments after being sworn in, Mamdani dropped any remaining pretense. He spoke plainly, and anyone familiar with history could hear where this rhetoric leads.

MAMDANI: “We will draw this city closer together.”

Then came the line that told the entire story.

“We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.”

The crowd cheered.

Mamdani went on to frame his victory as a mandate for enforced solidarity, declaring that government should now foster it.

“If our campaign demonstrated that the people of New York yearn for solidarity, then let this government foster it.”

What he was describing wasn’t unity born of shared culture or common values. It was the deliberate sidelining of the individual in favor of the collective.

In other words, socialism — where individual rights, choices, and responsibilities are subordinated to what politicians define as “the greater good.”

History has shown where that road leads; to death and destruction. Repeatedly.

But how could this happen in America’s largest city? And why didn’t anyone warn us?

Well, actually, someone did.

Long before Zohran Mamdani landed on the shores of the United States preaching “the warmth of collectivism,” Ayn Rand saw this trajectory with unsettling clarity.

In a 1959 interview with Mike Wallace, Rand warned that America was drifting toward disaster unless it rejected welfare-state thinking.

She predicted a dangerous shift toward collectivism — and described it as a system of enslavement.

When Wallace asked her how she felt about the political direction of the United States, Rand didn’t hesitate.

WALLACE: “How do you feel about the political trends of the United States and the Western world?”

RAND: “The way everybody feels, except more consciously.”

“I feel that it is terrible, that you see destruction all around you, and that you are moving toward disaster until and unless all of those welfare state conceptions have been reversed and rejected.”

She explained that the rise of socialism was leading to a system where everyone is enslaved to everyone else — not by force at first, but by moral obligation disguised as altruism.

“It is precisely these trends which are bringing the world to disaster, because we are now moving complete collectivism or socialism.”

“A system under which everybody is enslaved to everybody, and we are moving that way only because of our altruist morality.”

That warning was issued in 1959.

Nearly seven decades later, it’s being replayed in real time — not in theory, not in academia, but from the steps of New York City Hall, cheered on by an elected crowd.

The ideas didn’t change. Only the stage did.

And now America’s once-great city would pay the price for the lessons that went unlearned and the warnings that went unheeded.

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