Class, Perseverance, Politics...Why Mamdani Will Destroy the American Dream

People love talking about the “American Dream” like it’s some warm Hallmark card. For me, I’m just living one iteration of the dream I had as a kid, the one I built out of chaos, grit, and a whole lot of survival instinct. Nothing about my path was smooth. But here’s the truth: there is nothing “particularly special” about me. I simply refused to stay where I started. And I believe many people could do what I did, if they still have the freedom and the option to try for it.

Choice is the entire point of American living.

For those new to my spiel: I’m a working-class kid from Cleveland who moved my way out. Today, I’m raising four kids as a single mom in one of the most expensive places in the country, all while navigating leadership in one of the most competitive tech sectors on EARTH.

One example: when I threw myself into a massive platform leadership role (MSFT's SAP), I didn’t have a safety net. I had ambition and insomnia. But that insane level of risk was precisely what created the visibility that changed my career. That is the kind of opportunity American capitalism allows and that Mamdani’s system quietly eliminates.

Which brings us to Zohran Mamdani’s democratic-socialist agenda.

His ideas sound compassionate on the surface... rent freezes, government-run essential services, heavier taxation on high earners, public solutions for everything from transportation to food access. It’s the same far-left script we’ve all seen before. And like every version of this script, the moment you peel away the idealistic paint, the structure underneath collapses the very freedom and flexibility that made my story possible.

Mamdani’s “fairness” would suffocate the kind of mobility that launched me out of the working class. And here is why...

1. Mamdani’s Agenda Destroys the Upside — the Very Thing My Life Was Built On

His model flattens the competitive fields of talent. When ambition is punished with higher taxes while caution is rewarded, you don’t get a fairer world but you do get a smaller one. A quieter one. A world with fewer leaps, fewer risk-takers, and far fewer people clawing their way out of class levels they were born into. They are born to stay.

He’s not raising standards.

He’s lowering ceilings.

Translation: we should all settle?

Umm… what?

2. Mamdani Shifts Mobility From Personal Agency to Government Assignment

I succeeded because I chased opportunity and not because the state assigned me a track or pathway. I moved up by betting on myself, repeatedly, and always alone. Competitive edge does not come from waiting in line for a government program to approve your next move.

And to the people panicking about the “power” of Trump right now: Explain to me how expanding the government and increasing central control makes that less dangerous. It's the opposite.

Under Mamdani’s model, the government becomes the main engine of mobility. Your trajectory becomes predetermined by bureaucratic frameworks, eligibility rules, and political priorities. When the state has control, people like me and you lose the only advantage we had: spotting cracks others miss.

Bye American Dream!

Hello Mamdani, what is my assignment for life? Thank you!

3. Mamdani Turns Merit Into a Bureaucracy

My mobility came from execution. I didn’t have connections. I didn’t have safety nets. I had relentless work ethic and results. I failed often but each failure was mine to own and mine to climb out of. You don’t fill that void with government supplements. You fill it with skill-building, grit, and the next attempt.

Under Mamdani’s system, your advancement becomes about check-boxes, qualification categories, and alignment with government-designed outcomes. When success depends less on merit and more on compliance with administrative rules, people from nontraditional backgrounds lose their only real currency.

4. Mamdani Builds Comfort Instead of Climbers

People assume the opposite of poverty is comfort. Well, it's not.

The opposite of poverty is mobility.

Comfort does not create mobility. Friction does. Growing up in Cleveland forced me to hustle. Raising four kids on my own sharpened every skill I had. The messy, unpredictable nature of American capitalism gave me access to risk and risk gave me access to opportunities to escape.

Democratic socialism removes the danger, but it also removes the human will. You stop asking, “How do I break out of this?” and start asking, “Why break out at all?” The system becomes stable but stagnant.

Safety nets should catch you and not hold you in place.

Democratic socialism builds a net that wraps around you like a restraint.

5. Mamdani Flattens Everyone Into Sameness — And My Story Proves Sameness Isn’t Freedom

My rise is extraordinary because the system allowed for extremes. I could go from working-class to tech leader because the range of possible outcomes in a market-driven society is wide. Mamdani’s vision narrows that range dramatically.

It doesn’t kill all dreams, it kills exceptional ones.

Why would we not want a society full of excellence, ambition, innovation, and reinvention?

His democratic-socialist agenda doesn't breed excellence; it breeds “managed equality.” Only those favored by the system get to rise. Under his model, someone like me doesn’t get to make a wild career pivot, outrun class expectations, or reinvent myself through sheer force. You may survive but you don’t transcend. And transcending is the entire point of mobility.

My story is not theoretical. It’s not ideological. It’s lived reality. And I am not unique. I am like every other average American out there. My journey only happened because the American system, with all of its flaws, allowed volatility, risk, and individual agency.

Mamdani’s agenda replaces all three with predictability, redistribution, and state-managed life paths.

That’s not American.

That’s domestication.

And domestication is control.

For people like me and people like you...we learned to fight our way upward. Don't be fooled on his rhetoric, domestication isn’t compassion. Domestication is control. Domestication is DEVOLUTION. His agenda is a velvet-lined prison suit dressed up as "equity."

So here’s the question:

Do we want a future where we climb, or one where we are kept?

Do we want possibility, or permission?

Do we want mobility, or managed existence?

Your answer determines the country our kids inherit.