The Defeat of Denial
Ben Everidge for Thomas
Photo Credit: Adobe Stock by gismo2015
Condemning Socialism Is Congress Ignoring Its Causes and Still Not Understanding America’s Economic Anxiety
This week, the United States House of Representatives, where I worked on staff for nearly a decade, passed a symbolic resolution “condemning socialism.”
It was a largely performative vote. A political reflex rather than a governing act. But it landed with usual irony, coming just days after Zohran Mamdani, a self-described socialist, won the mayor’s race in America’s largest city.
That fact alone should have been a wake-up call. Instead, Washington once again chose theater over introspection.
The House Condemns Socialism While Voters Elect a Socialist
Members of Congress stood on the House floor, warning of the dangers of socialism, invoking Venezuela, Cuba, and Russia – the usual script.
And yet outside the Capitol bubble, millions of Americans are asking a different question: “If capitalism is working so well, why isn’t it working for me?”
Because for a growing share of voters, especially young people, capitalism feels rigged, unresponsive, extractive, and indifferent.
They’re not turning to socialism out of ideology. Thank God.
They’re turning to socialism out of frustration.
Washington condemns the symptoms.
It ignores the disease.
Mamdani’s Victory Wasn’t About Socialism – It Was About Survival
When Zohran Mamdani captured the New York City mayoralty with more than 50% of the vote, commentators framed it as a leftward shift. But beneath the surface was something more profound:
Unaffordable housing
Impossible childcare costs
Rising transit failures
Stagnant wages
Oppressive rent burdens
The sense that the “system” works for developers, banks, and special interests, not residents
Young people – renters, students, gig workers, new families – aren’t voting for socialism.
They’re voting against the status quo that refuses to fix itself.
The duopoly’s failure is socialism’s fuel.
The Irony of Condemnation Without Correction
The House can pass 100 resolutions condemning socialism, and it will not change one fact: A distorted capitalism is generating the frustration that makes socialist rhetoric appealing to some voters, such as Washington’s refusal to deal with:
Monopolistic corporate practices
Financialization of housing
Inflationary tariffs
Healthcare price-gouging
Student loan burdens
Broken labor markets
Extreme wealth concentration
An unfair tax system
All of this, and more, creates the very conditions that push voters toward alternative systems.
The more Congress ignores economic reality, the more voters look elsewhere.
Capitalism Isn’t Failing – It’s Being Mismanaged
The United States does not need socialism.
It needs structural repair to capitalism.
In earlier articles and posts, I’ve outlined ways to preserve capitalism by making it fairer, more dynamic, and more accessible.
Here are some of the reforms that save capitalism from itself:
1. Affordable Mobility: Housing, Transit, and Wages
A market system cannot function when a generation must spend 60% of its income on rent. Expanding workforce housing, reforming zoning, and advancing modern transit solve this.
2. Tariff Reform to End Inflationary Price Distortion
Tariffs are a hidden tax on working families. Ending blanket tariffs reduces inflation and restores price sanity.
3. Capital Access for Small Business and Young Entrepreneurs
Capitalism dies when only large corporations have capital. Small-business credit programs, community financing, and start-up-friendly tax reforms change the game.
4. Healthcare Reform to Restore Market Functionality
Healthcare is the most anti-competitive sector in America today. Price transparency, nonprofit hospital accountability, and insurance reform restore competition.
5. Wage Growth Through Productivity, Not Mandates
Investing in mobility infrastructure, skills, and technology upgrades builds real wage growth.
6. Ending Monopolistic and Anti-Competitive Practices
Tech giants, hospital conglomerates, energy monopolies, and financial institutions have grown too concentrated. Anti-monopoly enforcement keeps markets healthy.
7. A Balanced Budget Framework That Protects Public Trust
The government’s inability to manage its own finances drives cynicism and feeds anti-system politics. Stabilizing the budget restores credibility.
In short: Fix capitalism, and socialism fades. Ignore capitalism’s failures, and socialism grows.
Not to be just a commentator on all these angsts, I have proposed several detailed potential solutions to capitalism’s failings, which you can see in our Independent Quill newsletter featuring The Prosperity Republic series.
The Duopoly Is the Real Threat, Not Socialism
A surprising truth: The real divide isn’t socialism vs. capitalism.
It’s status quo vs. reform.
Democrats and Republicans have allowed the system to calcify:
Democrats resist zoning reform to protect entrenched urban interests.
Republicans resist tax fairness and corporate accountability.
Both resist structural reform that threatens donor power.
Both tolerate monopolies and price manipulation.
Both weaponize tariffs and subsidies for political gain.
This duopoly dysfunction is pushing voters into ideological alternatives, not because they want ideology, but because they want relief.
Why the House’s Condemnation Rings Hollow
When Congress condemns socialism but refuses to:
Lower housing costs
Reform healthcare
Stop inflationary trade policies
Break up monopolies
Stabilize the budget and federal spending
Modernize the labor market
Put simply, Congress is condemning an economic theory while ignoring economic reality.
It’s like condemning hunger while refusing to feed people.
Symbolism without solutions.
The Thomas Take: Fix What’s Broken or Lose What Works
America does not need to become a socialist nation.
But America absolutely must confront how capitalism has drifted from competition to extraction.
Mamdani’s win was not the victory of socialism. It was the defeat of denial.
And unless Washington starts making capitalism work for the people who live inside it – renters, workers, young families, new entrepreneurs – the political landscape will continue to shift.
The House can condemn socialism all it wants. But until it fixes capitalism, voters will keep searching for alternatives.
