Mamdani just wants a few city-owned grocery stores. Trump wants control of global corporations.

The MAGA rants about the scourge of "socialism" ring more hollow every day.

Fox News, both on its broadcasts and its website, is doing everything under the sun to demonize Zorhan Mamdani, the Democratic candidate in New York’s mayor’s race.

But none of it seems to work. Mamdani continues to hold a wide lead in the polls.

One melodramatic attack on FoxNews.com points to how a super PAC supporting Mamdani received a $250,000 donation from a liberal philanthropist, framing it as some sort of a revelatory example of hypocrisy that should upend the race immediately.

But how on earth is this action (by an outside group, by the way, not Mamdani’s campaign) supposed to hurt Mamdani with any of his core voters? Sure, we’d all like to see the influence of billionaires curtailed. But we’re okay for now with billionaires who agree with us on that, and who will use their money to end economic inequality and tax the rich more.

Do people care what Mamdani calls himself?

Mamdani proudly calls himself a democratic socialist, as do AOC, Bernie Sanders and other popular politicians. Fox and other MAGA media condemn socialism as the worst thing imaginable. The impulse is understandable if ugly; most Americans, though they disagree exactly on what democratic socialism means, don’t favor it in polls.

But most Americans don’t view it as something evil and dangerous either. Many understand that a slew of their favorite European countries, which they flock to for their summer vacations, are under the banner of democratic socialism to one degree or another, having a strong social safety net within a free market economy, while electing their representatives within a democracy.

That’s why MAGA pundits and Donald Trump himself have to make the leap, with no evidence, to calling Mamdani a “communist.” It’s laughable, but pretty telling. They need a sinister term that connects to oppressive and undemocratic regimes, past and present.

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But most New Yorkers don’t seem to care what Mamdani calls himself, or what he’s called by those on the right.

They support Mamdani because he’s talked about housing affordability, transportation and bringing the cost of groceries down.

Ironically, it’s like calling Trump a fascist—almost

What is quite hilarious about the smears by Fox using socialism as a boogeyman is that they almost sound like those of us who tried to warn Americans that Trump is a fascist. And a lot of his supporters couldn’t have cared less about that, we’ve learned, voting for him anyway.

No, I’m not saying that they’re the same. Democratic socialism—having a strong social safety net within a democratic society—is a good thing. And it’s all around us, including, historically, within our own country. Mamdani proudly connects himself to that legacy.

Fascism, of course, is Hitler and Mussolini, and Trump rejects being called a fascist even as he is every bit the authoritarian and has said he wanted to be a dictator on day one. The former chairman of the Joint Chiefs warned of Trump as a fascist, as did his former chief of staff, John Kelly, sounding the alarm for Americans about the dark times we’re now living in.

What is similar, however, is that a core group of supporters of both Trump and Mamdani haven’t cared about these terms regarding the candidate they supported.

In Trump’s case, many were deluded or indoctrinated into a cult based on lies like election denial, or were drawn to Trump’s racial bigotry.

But some were just worried about high prices and looked the other way of Trump’s authoritarianism as they rejected the status quo, believing he was going to make things more affordable. Many of those people, judging by Trump’s sinking poll numbers, are now looking all around themselves and are realizing that we were right. Some of them in New York City have even now voted for Mamdani, because he has actual plans.

And, who, really, is the socialist or communist?

Let’s be clear that Mamdani calls himself a democratic socialist as opposed to a plain old socialist. Again, it’s about having a government with strong social programs within a democracy. With the European countries, it’s more of a mixed economy, both public and private ownership of major industries.

Mamdani would like city-owned grocery stores to operate in food deserts. Unlike Trump, he’s not talking about taking over existing businesses, but rather having the city open and operate new grocery stores. It’s something that’s been done in other American cities and was even proposed in New York by none other than Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a hyper-capitalist and Republican-turned-independent (the project never got off the ground), who actually shares many of the same ideas as Mamdani.

Trump, meanwhile, took $400 million in taxpayer dollars to grab a 15 % stake for the federal government in the rare earth mineral mining company MP Materials; the US became the company’s largest shareholder. Trump is forcing Nvidia and AMD to give the U.S. government a 15% share of profits of any chips they sell to China.

Trump boasts of the U.S. now owning 10% of Intel, in the latest action worrying corporations, and is talking about a U.S. share or even takeover of other companies He’s extorting Apple and carmakers regarding where they make their products, and he’s telling Coca-Cola to use sugar rather than corn syrup.

Now, the administration is thinking about taking stakes in defense firms, including Lockheed Martin. White House economic advisor Kevin Hassett says all of this is like a “down payment on a sovereign wealth fund.”

Trump has also threatened companies like Walmart and Mattel with punitive measures if they raise prices amid his tariffs, which are causing inflation.

On the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial page, Daniel J. Smith, director of the Political Economy Research Institute, warns:

Recent developments—a proposed stake in Intel to accelerate chip production, a “golden share” granting veto power over many of U.S. Steel’s decisions following its acquisition by Nippon Steel, and the Pentagon’s 15% equity in the rare-earth mining company MP Materials—would all expand federal control over the means of production.

Hayek warns in “The Road to Serfdom” that state ownership threatens both prosperity and liberty. As he defined it, socialism involves state ownership and direction of the economy, which President Trump’s policies increasingly resemble.

Republican Senator Rand Paul shared the piece on X, with the comment: “If socialism is government owning the means of production, wouldn’t the government owning part of Intel be a step toward socialism? Terrible idea.”

I’m not bashing socialism; just laughing at how it’s Trump who’s now being called a socialist!

And actually, what Trump is doing it not socialism, and certainly the intent is not about the greater good of the people; it’s state capitalism, akin to what is happening in China and Russia, where privately-owned businesses only operate under government control.

Trump is copying his favorite dictators, wanting to control global corporations solely to give himself more political power. Greg Ip, the Wall Street Journal’s chief economics commentator, called it out:

State capitalism is a means of political, not just economic, control. [China’s President] Xi ruthlessly deploys economic levers to crush any challenge to party primacy…

Trump has long admired the control Xi exercises over his country, but there are, in theory, limits to how far he can emulate him.

American democracy constrains the state through an independent judiciary, free speech, due process and the diffusion of power among multiple levels and branches of government. How far state capitalism ultimately displaces free-market capitalism in the U.S. depends on how well those checks and balances hold up.

What Trump is doing sounds lot more nefarious and threatening to American capitalism and big business than city-owned grocery stores any day, no matter how much Fox News unsuccessfully tries to manufacture a massive panic about Mamdani.