The American Dream Built the Platforms Socialist Mayors Now Depend On — And This Thanksgiving, We Should Be Grateful for It

America now has two openly socialist mayors, and their rise has been celebrated as a sign of political transformation. But as the country takes a break this Thanksgiving weekend, it’s worth pausing to appreciate the immense irony of it all. You are reading this article on the internet — an invention of American ingenuity, expanded, commercialized, and made universally accessible by private companies competing in a capitalist system. In a socialist society, you may not be reading this article at all, because the tools that allow it to exist simply wouldn’t be there.

These new socialist mayors were not elevated by a state-run media platform or a government information bureau. They were lifted by Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, X, YouTube — the most aggressively capitalist products ever invented. These platforms depend entirely on private ownership, profit motives, venture capital investment, advertising revenue, and the relentless drive to innovate faster than any competitor. They exist because the American Dream rewards risk, ambition, and being first to market. They exist because this country embraces the idea that individuals with ideas — not committees with agendas — should shape the future.

That’s why the contradiction is so striking: politicians who advocate for more centralized control, more uniformity, and more state involvement built their power through systems that thrive only when the opposite is true. Their campaigns went viral through algorithms fueled by corporate advertising dollars. Their messages spread through engagement loops designed to sell products, not politics. Their followings grew on platforms that reward creators, entrepreneurs, and brands — all pillars of capitalism, not socialism.

It is unimaginable that a socialist economy could have produced Amazon, Instagram, Shopify, Meta, TikTok, or the creator economy. Under a centrally planned model, innovation must be authorized, not attempted freely. Risk becomes a liability, not an opportunity. Success must be rationed, not rewarded. No one becomes the next Jeff Bezos or Kevin Systrom, not because talent is absent, but because the system forbids anyone from rising that far above the collective. Progress slows because bureaucracy becomes the gatekeeper of creativity.

Yet here we are: millions of Americans, enjoying the conveniences and freedoms only capitalism can provide, are electing leaders who argue for the very system that would have prevented those conveniences from ever existing. It is a national paradox — a country dependent on fast delivery, instant communication, digital entrepreneurship, and privately funded innovation increasingly embraces rhetoric that would suffocate all of it.

The truth is straightforward: you cannot elevate socialist political movements through capitalist technology without acknowledging the contradiction. You cannot preach centralized economic control while using platforms built on decentralization, disruption, and private capital. And you cannot champion socialism while relying on profit-driven digital ecosystems that would never have survived under the very philosophy you promote.

As you reflect this Thanksgiving weekend, consider the freedom embedded in the simple act of reading this online. The internet as we know it — open, global, commercial, competitive — is a product of capitalism. The device in your hand, the software running it, the platforms hosting this article, the network delivering it to you instantly — none of that would exist under a socialist model. And without those tools, the modern political landscape, including the rise of these new socialist mayors, would look completely different.

So be thankful — genuinely thankful — that you live in a country where ideas can be tested, built, scaled, challenged, and shared. Be thankful that innovation isn’t rationed, ambition isn’t discouraged, and information isn’t controlled by a central authority. And be thankful that capitalism, for all its flaws, still provides the freedom that allows this article — and the entire digital world around it — to exist.

Because in a socialist society, you may not be reading this at all.