The Democratic Socialists of America just wrapped up a Hajj to their Mecca: Havana, a city so buried in detritus after decades of communism that it’s a wonder why any politician would want to be associated with it.
Comparing photos of the Cuban capital today with those from the 1950s is an anti-socialist campaign ad that writes itself.
And yet, to Cuba, some 40 DSA “elected leaders and rank and file members” trotted off for five days, Oct. 14 to 18. But the DSA is hardly alone. Despite this bleak record of economic disaster and political tyranny every single time it has been tried anywhere in the world, Marxism is experiencing a resurgence that at first blush beggars belief.
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In the DSA’s case, Havana’s decrepitude has become so hard to ignore that the group had no alternative but to mention the pervasive degradation in social media posts, though of course it blames U.S. sanctions, not socialism’s utter failure.
“The resilience of the Cuban people inspires us, but we also saw firsthand the hardships they face. From blackouts to shortages of basic goods, the U.S. blockade grips daily life, and things are worsening as sanctions tighten and Trump beats the drums of war in the region,” wrote DSA on X.
“We return more determined than ever to end the cruel U.S. blockade and stand with the Cuban people,” read another post.
To which some wag on X who goes by the name Henry Hub retorted, “You went to Cuba, saw how poor the peoples living standards are and how limited their economic opportunities and resources are and returned still communist? What was it you took notes on – how to decimate a country with fascist totalitarianism?”
Apparently so. We have high-profile candidates and journalists again donning the mantle of Marxism, and even waxing poetic about the Soviet Union. It’s as if the 1930s have returned, and Walter Duranty is dishing out pro-Soviet propaganda in the New York Times. The lessons learned from fighting the existential struggle against Soviet communism seem to have been forgotten.
The DSA has four full-fledged members sitting in Congress, including high-profile players such as Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who may be preparing to primary Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY). It also includes a candidate who may soon become the DSA’s best-known member in power.
In New York City, the world’s flagship financial hub, Zohran Mamdani is rapidly closing in on a victory in the mayoral election to be held on Nov. 4. Recent polls show Mamdani, a Marxist Muslim born in Uganda who emigrated to the U.S. in 1998, with a commanding lead of 43.2% support, against 28.9% for former governor Andrew Cuomo and perennial Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa at 19.4%.
In Maine, a conservative bastion until not too long ago but which voted for Kamala Harris by seven percentage points, a rough-hewn candidate by the name of Graham Platner has captured the imagination of progressive voters. He has a 58% support against the sitting governor, Janet Mills, who trails at 24% in a mid-October poll for primary elections to be held in mid-2026.
On a Reddit thread about people becoming more conservative as they age, Platner wrote that he “became older and became a communist.” He also stated, “I did used to love America, or at least the idea of it. These days I’m pretty disgusted by it all.” The latest thing is that he’s had a Nazi SS tattoo for 18 years, which he said he got in Croatia as a Marine while drunk on leave.
But it’s not just drunken soldiers and DSA members who pine for Marxism. Julia Ioffe, a journalist of some renown, has just penned a book which, judging by an interview she gave on “Morning Joe,” is nothing but a paean to the country of her birth: the Soviet Union.
Yes, the good old USSR of gulags, show trials, bread lines, oppression, and dreary lives.
In the interview, Ioffe almost waxes poetic about how the Soviets educated women while America did not, comparing her family’s many female PhDs to those of benighted Americans with none.
The Soviets did this because they wanted to “emancipate women,” Ioffe said at one point, though later she shows more leg and admits the Soviets were seeking to “abolish the nuclear family.” But Ioffe curiously passes no judgment on a strategy so damaging to the nation, society, and individuals, especially children, so responsible for the drabness of Soviet life, and so clearly aimed at clearing the field for totalitarianism.
Ioffe is an opinionated liberal, but she is also a skillful writer who does her homework and knows Russia well. She shares with Mamdani that she came here at the age of seven, also in the 1990s, and therein may lie the nub of the problem. The people voting for Mamdani and pining for communism are predominantly young or foreign-born.
Patriot Polling reports that Mamdani has the support of a gigantic 62% of the foreign-born vote in New York City. Cuomo leads Mamdani among the native born, 40% to 32%. Sliwa gets 25%.
If you are young or if you are a foreign-born American of any age who immigrated after the 1970s, the chances are that you did not benefit from the focus on civics education and the assimilationist ethos that were the hallmark of America till then. Ditto for a learned mistrust of Marxism of any flavor.
“We have a financial literacy problem, and it’s affecting the politics in America,” said the journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin on Bill Maher’s show the other night. He was referring to support for Mamdani’s promises of free stuff, but he could have been referring to all the others.
We also have a literacy crisis on civics, the virtues, and the reality of Marxism, and it’s affecting politics in America.
Mike Gonzalez is the Angeles T. Arredondo senior fellow on E Pluribus Unum at the Heritage Foundation and the author of NextGen Marxism: What It Is and How to Combat It. Heritage is listed for identification purposes only. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect any institutional position of Heritage or its board of trustees.
