The slogan of the American Marxist movement, the Democratic Socialists of America, should be “slackers unite!” Far from advocating for the actual working man or woman, the DSA is filled with a bunch of upper-middle-class young adults who appear to believe that everything should be free and no one should have to work for any of their “basic” needs.
The DSA has seen significant growth in its movement during the current election cycle, spurred by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s election victory last year.
DSA members have leaned into this growing popularity by asserting that capitalism is failing to deliver for the average American, and they present socialism as the “solution” to the affordability problem.
The trouble is, even their own leaders demonstrate the false premise of their economic and social argument.
Take the co-chair of New York City’s DSA chapter, one Gustavo Gordillo. The 38-year-old has recently been making the cable news rounds, including an interview on Fox News hosted by Martha MacCallum. During that interview, Gordillo hit on the high cost of housing across the country, placing the blame on landlords seeking a return on their investment.
Gordillo framed this as the result of an immoral system that enabled the greedy fleecing of people who struggle to pay rent.
Indeed, Gordillo himself is facing eviction for failing to pay about three months’ rent on an apartment he was renting in Crown Heights. However, the reason Gordillo, a college-educated man with a degree from Yale, was renting the apartment in the first place was that his $1.5 million, 2,400-square-foot home in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant was being renovated.
You see, Gordillo is the son of Gustavo Gordillo, a wealthy Florida construction mogul who emigrated to the U.S. from Peru when Gustavo was just three years old. Gordillo’s father’s story is that of the classic American dream. He came with little and, through hard work and wise investing, has founded and built a multimillion-dollar company. According to estimates, his father’s company pulls in roughly $90 million a year.
It was Gordillo’s parents who bought the house for him in Brooklyn, so the notion that the young DSA leader is too poor to afford rent on his apartment is dubious.
The greater irony is that Gordillo has had the privilege of wealth and top-tier education, all provided to him by capitalism. Yet his message is that capitalism and the free market are the problem that is supposedly keeping people poor and downtrodden. The truth, of course, is the opposite. The socialism that Gordillo is peddling would produce massive poverty rather than spread wealth.
So, why would a young man from such privilege be pushing the nonsense of socialism? Part of it likely lies in a desire for relevance, maybe even a sense of misplaced guilt for growing up wealthy. Clearly, he’s seeking to make a name for himself, to advocate for the Marxist cause. But he, like so many socialist leaders before him, does not practice what he preaches. He will maintain his privileged status while setting himself up as a “savior” looking out for the economically disadvantaged.
Republicans and conservatives need to face the hard reality that, especially for the current generation of young Americans, life seems economically impossible. It is true that the costs of housing, food, and gas are high. It is true that certain barriers to success stand in their way.
However, it is also true that nearly every generation feels this way as they look at the success of the prior generations. Every generation faces challenges. But the solution is not to dismiss these challenges as minimal or not real. The solution lies in helping the younger generation see that opportunities always outnumber obstacles.
At no time in history have Americans had more options and opportunities for self-employment and wealth generation. The tools at their fingertips are astounding compared to those of previous generations. Indeed, in so many ways, there is no better time to be alive than today.
But even with all these advantages and opportunities, it can be easy to become discouraged or complacent, or just plain lost in the magnitude of life. Here is where the younger generation needs encouragement: to be bold, to be adventurous, to take advantage of America’s free-market capitalist system, which rewards the industrious and dedicated as no other system on earth.
Gordillo would do himself and his generation a whole lot of good if he actually looked for ways to make housing more affordable, rather than blaming capitalism and smearing landlords as greedy.
But of course, that would mean Gordillo would actually have to work and produce, rather than scheme, complain, and falsely frame capitalism as the problem.
