The Economist on Woke II: Nepo-baby socialists - America's left trades race for class

New York's tabloids have found a delicious target: Democratic Socialists railing against wealth while quietly sitting on trust funds. The New York Post can't get enough of it — a $1.5m brownstone bought by mommy and daddy, a chocolate heiress puffing cigars in a $400 jumper. Amusing, sure. But The Economist spots something bigger beneath the mockery. America's left is quietly trading the race-and-gender fixations of "Woke 1" for old-fashioned class politics — call it Woke 2. Zohran Mamdani's mayoral win in New York is exhibit A. Whether it revives the Democrats is another matter. Worth your ten minutes..From The Economist, published under licence. The original article can be found on www.economist.com© 2025 The Economist Newspaper Limited. All rights reserved..From The Economist.The jury is still out on whether Mayor Zohran Mamdani, with his commitment to “the warmth of collectivism”, will summon a new era of plenty for struggling New Yorkers. But his young administration is already a gift to one constituency: conservative readers of the city’s tabloid, the New York Post, which is affirming their opinion of the left by feasting upon the privileged lifestyles of some of Mr Mamdani’s fellow travellers in the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).“Anti-rich DSA leader Gustavo Gordillo lives it up in posh $1.5m NYC pad paid for by millionaire parents,” the Post blared last month. Noting the DSA “railed against property ownership”, the Post revelled in the “lush landscaping” of the row house bought “by his mommy and daddy through a dummy corporation”. The Post later reported that Mr Gordillo, the co-chairman of the city chapter of the DSA, studied art and literature at Yale; that he was fired from an electricians’ union apprenticeship programme for failing to show up; and that his mother drives a silver Porsche.Other leftist piñatas for the Post have included Tracy Rosenthal, who advocates abolishing rent and whose father is a successful music producer. (“Anti-rent radical and Mamdani pal who is ‘squatting’ in Brooklyn is Grammy nepo baby”.) The Post has branded Grace Ryan, “a 25-year-old chocolate heiress from Ohio”, as “one of the most shameless” members of the DSA for posting pictures of herself on social media “puffing a cigar on a boat in a $400 Ralph Lauren stars-and-stripes sweater”. To the Post’s unmistakable glee, Ms Ryan, who worked during the primary for a successful left-wing congressional candidate, defended herself on X by writing, “Like have y’all never heard of noblesse oblige?”This is an old game. Since Karl Marx relied upon Friedrich Engels not just for his ideas about communism but for his textile fortune, lefties have fattened upon fat cats, and righties have made fun of them for it. From the start, socialism has also, for certain bourgeois faddists, radiated a subversive glamour. More rigorous socialists have seen this as the ideology’s Achilles’ heel. “The worst advertisement for Socialism is its adherents,” grumbled George Orwell in “The Road to Wigan Pier”. The typical socialist was either “a youthful snob-Bolshevik” or “a prim little man with a white-collar job” who had “vegetarian leanings” and, above all, “a social position which he has no intention of forfeiting”.Yet Ms Ryan has a good point about noblesse oblige. She may never live like common people, but why should that bar her from trying to help them? Doesn’t it beat the alternative, a chocolate heiress in a $400 sweater who is indifferent to the plight of less fortunate Americans, if not out to screw them?Here, amid the posturing, one arrives at something that may matter: an emerging distinction between the two periods of lefty activism becoming known as Woke 1 and Woke 2. Any such distinctions must be fuzzy and provisional, since few Democrats have had the decency to explicitly repudiate radical positions they once embraced. Some have shrugged off former excesses, as when Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez quoted another Democrat saying “Woke 1 was crazy!” and then laughed as though every American was in on the joke. Some have tried to redefine the slogans, insisting that “defund the police” did not mean defunding the police. Others have not retreated; time will tell whether they are the vanguard or the dead-enders. Still, some time between Donald Trump’s second inaugural address in January 2025 and Mr Mamdani’s first inaugural the next January, America’s left began to shift its emphasis, from race and gender to class.Pick your causes or effects, whether the illiberal ideas that stampeded from the academy into social media; the rise of Mr Trump; the #MeToo movement; or the death of George Floyd under a policeman’s knee in 2020. These combined to concentrate the left on racism and gender bias. Identity became destiny. The poorest white person had privileges denied to the wealthiest black one. In theory the social-justice movement focused on policing; in practice it became obsessed with other preoccupations of America’s multiracial elite, such as preferential admissions to top schools. For prim little people with white-collar jobs, calling out advantages based on race became a way to prove enlightenment; so did disdaining the deplorables who voted for Mr Trump. Any true Marxist would have seen a classic attempt to split the working class, but Democratic leaders embraced this divisive politics.Nothing to lose but more electionsThen came new effects and new causes. Kamala Harris lost in 2024 and Mr Trump demonstrated growing support among non-white working-class voters. Mr Trump cracked down on diversity, equity and inclusion programmes and the Supreme Court struck down race-conscious admissions. Democratic activists became outraged by injustice in Gaza instead of in America. Perhaps most important, Mr Mamdani won with an inclusive message about making life more affordable—as did moderate Democratic candidates for governor in Virginia and New Jersey..Read more:.The two faces of America and why Zohran Mamdani matters for a world at the edge.For all the duelling between progressives and moderates, their agendas overlap when it comes to the precariat, if not the proletariat. From Georgia to Alaska, Democrats are all economic populists now, calling for higher wages, lower prices and more affordable health care. Victims and villains are judged not by the colour of their skin but by the content of their bank accounts. Billionaires are the bad guys, and in the capacious definition in use across the Democratic spectrum, anyone who works to pay their bills is working-class. This may not, in the end, revive the Democrats, let alone rescue struggling Americans. But if it does, the party will have at least some youthful snob-Bolsheviks to thank for helping remind it of the sorts of things it once stood for..Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox every morning on weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa's bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. 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The Economist on Woke II: Nepo-baby socialists - America's left trades race for class

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