Democratic socialist New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani used part of his July 4th weekend to trash the country as a land of inequality.

Mamdani said, while seated at George Washington’s presidential desk, with recently naturalized U.S. citizen immigrants surrounding him, “You each hold a special power, the power to determine what America means.”

“The powerful have always known their answer,” he continued. “America, in their view, is an arena of supremacy where only a select few are allowed freedom, where not all are created equal.”

“America, they will tell you, belongs only to those with the right accent or the right shade of skin. The rest of us, they insist, should be grateful for merely being allowed to visit,” he added.

What in the world is he talking about?

Mamdani and his parents immigrated to the United States in the late 1990s. They were given the opportunity, like countless millions of others, to live out the American dream. Mamdani went to elite schools and is now mayor of the largest city in the country.

America allows approximately a million people to immigrate legally each year from all over the world, including in 2025 during President Donald Trump’s first year in office. The current fiscal year is on pace for just under 900,000.

Mamdani continued, “As we mark 250 years, what do we see? We see a city of contradictions within a nation of contradictions. We see the wealthiest country in the history of the world, one where children go to sleep hungry, while the world’s first trillionaire hungers for more.”

“We see a nation whose immense wealth has been built by those with calloused, dirt-streaked hands. Those who toil on factory floors and chisel into stone, and we see a nation that has allowed so much of that wealth to be held instead in the soft hands of a precious few,” the mayor added.

Communist NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who just came to this country, chose to become an American, is deciding he is the foremost authority to tell Americans what it means to be American.

He has the AUDACITY, on America’s 250th birthday, to call our great nation “an arena of… pic.twitter.com/sayf6IDu90

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) July 3, 2026

So Mamdani went full-Marxist, class warfare for the Fourth of July. Shameful.

The very reason America has the wealth the mayor is talking about is because of encouraging free enterprise and not over-taxing innovators and job creators.

The late talk show host Phil Donahue employed the same type of rhetoric in a famous exchange with Nobel-winning economist Milton Friedman in 1979.

“When you see around the globe the maldistribution of wealth, the desperate plight of millions of people in underdeveloped countries, when you see so few haves and so many have-nots, when you see the greed and the concentration of power within — did you ever have a moment of doubt about capitalism and whether greed’s a good idea to run on?” Donahue asked.

“First of all, tell me, is there some society you know that doesn’t run on greed?” Friedman asked. “You think Russia doesn’t run on greed? You think China doesn’t run on greed?”

“What is greed? Of course, none of us are greedy. It’s only the other fella who’s greedy,” he continued. “The world runs on individuals pursuing their separate interests.”

Friedman contended that Henry Ford did not revolutionize the automobile industry, making the car available to the masses, by taking directives from a government bureaucrat.

He continued, “The only cases in which the masses have escaped from the kind of grinding poverty you’re talking about, the only cases in recorded history are where they have had capitalism and largely free trade.”

Friedman argued that “the record of history is absolutely crystal clear that there is no alternative way so far discovered of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle to the productive activities that are unleashed by a free enterprise system.”

The economist asked, “Is it really true that political self-interest is nobler somehow than economic self-interest? You know, I think you’re taking a lot of things for granted.”

He offered the example of communist commissars who govern in their political self-interest.

Friedman wondered where we would find selfless angels who could reorder American society in a way better than the free enterprise system in which people make their own choices.

He then turned to Donahue, “I don’t even trust you to do that,” drawing laughter from the audience and prompting the host to go to a commercial break.

And I don’t trust Mamdani or his fellow socialists to organize society for us now.

Let freedom continue to ring!

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Contributing Journalist

SummaryMore Biographical InformationRecent PostsContact

Randy DeSoto has written more than 4,000 articles for The Western Journal since he began with the company in 2015. He is a graduate of West Point and Regent University School of Law. He is the author of the book "We Hold These Truths" and screenwriter of the political documentary "I Want Your Money."

Birthplace

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

Nationality

American

Honors/Awards

Graduated dean's list from West Point

Education

United States Military Academy at West Point, Regent University School of Law

Books Written

We Hold These Truths

Professional Memberships

Virginia and Pennsylvania state bars

Location

Phoenix, Arizona

Languages Spoken

English

Topics of Expertise

Politics, Entertainment, Faith