Mamdani’s rent freeze makes him a fascist

 The New York City Rent Guidelines Board recently approved Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s key campaign promise to “freeze the rent,” and it will cause economic chaos.  More importantly, it exposes a point the far left wants everyone to forget: The left has used the same lies and playbook for 90 years, and the various forms of collectivism are closely related.  The far left will soon repeat its usual 90-year-old propaganda, claiming it is fighting “fascism.”

The definition of fascism from the Library of Economics and Liberty (Econlib) differentiates the two concepts.

As an economic system, fascism is socialism with a capitalist veneer. The word derives from fasces, the Roman symbol of collectivism and power: a tied bundle of rods with a protruding ax. ...

Where socialism sought totalitarian control of a society’s economic processes through direct state operation of the means of production, fascism sought that control indirectly, through domination of nominally private owners. Where socialism nationalized property explicitly, fascism did so implicitly, by requiring owners to use their property in the “national interest” — that is, as the autocratic authority conceived it. (Nevertheless, a few industries were operated by the state.) Where socialism abolished all market relations outright, fascism left the appearance of market relations while planning all economic activities.

Note the difference between the two collectivist concepts: Whereas socialism sought control through direct state operation of the means of production, fascism sought that control indirectly, through domination of nominally private owners.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines socialism as

a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.

 

In a fascist system, the means of production are privately owned but publicly controlled, as in Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s “freezing the rent” of privately owned buildings — as was the case in National Socialist Germany and other fascist regimes.  Therefore, it should be clear that there isn’t much difference between the two systems.

This was well known decades ago, before the far left started rewriting history, while accusing the pro-freedom right of rewriting history.  A number of prominent personalities have stated these obvious facts, such as Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., associate professor of history at Harvard:

In certain basic respects — the totalitarian state structure, the single party, the leader, the secret police, the consuming fear of political and intellectual freedom — fascism and Communism are clearly more like each other than they are like anything in between.

Also Democrat President Harry S. Truman, in a news conference on March 30, 1950:

There isn’t any difference between the totalitarian Russian Government and the Hitler government and the Franco government in Spain. They are all alike. They are police state governments.

Since then, the constant gaslighting has been that these two very similar collectivist ideologies are somehow far apart — on opposite ends of a mythical political spectrum, no less.  Dinesh D’Souza recently offered a short explanation on why this happened.

How did fascism — built on state control of industry, education, banks, churches, and media — end up labeled as “right wing” when those are traditionally left-wing platforms? Filmmaker and author @dineshdsouza joins PragerU CEO @realtalkwithmarissa to unpack how progressive academics redefined fascism after World War II to distance it from the left.

But as you can see, from the practical and definitional aspects of the word, fascism is clearly from the left.  As articulated by President Trump, it demands absolute allegiance.

In our schools, our newsrooms, even our corporate boardrooms, there is a new far-left fascism that demands absolute allegiance.

This is going to be very important in the next few months, for these critical reasons:

• Zohran Mamdani is a collectivist; a communist; and, as we have proven, a fascist.
• It should also be clear that these ideologies belong on the far left.
• And as sure as the sun rises, the fascist far left will trot out the lie that it is fighting “fascism.”

Thus, it will be vitally important to have these facts at hand to counter the lies we know are coming.  The fascist far left has been able to get away with this gaslighting for far too long.  It’s time to fight back with the facts.

D Parker is an engineer, inventor, wordsmith, and student of history, former director of communications for a civil rights organization, and a long-time contributor to conservative websites.  Find him on Substack.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2026/07/mamdani-s-rent-freeze-makes-him-a-fascist/