After the disappointing, yet not unexpected, election news last night, I wondered if there might have been any silver lining at all in the frustrating results. The Greek tragedian Aeschylus famously wrote in Agamemnon that people learn through suffering:
Zeus, who sets mortals on the path to understanding, … has established as a fixed law that “wisdom comes by suffering.” But even as trouble, bringing memory of pain, drips over the mind in sleep, so wisdom comes to men, whether they want it or not.
Many of the voters who supported the anti-Israel, anti-American, and anti-Western socialist Zohran Mamdani were ignorant young people, who were indoctrinated to despise their country and Western civilization and espouse the false allure of seemingly free loading and globalist utopias.
Any parent knows that no matter how much one tries to advise and protect one’s children, it is life that eventually teaches them to avoid serious errors, although, unfortunately, a stubborn few may never learn. Similarly, when millions of hardworking and affluent people leave New York for welcoming red states, numerous Mamdani voters will likely realize that there is no such thing as a free lunch, let alone free bus rides. Even the communists did not make public transport free. Mamdani’s unbridled Marxist enthusiasm has surpassed their efforts in this regard.
If rent amounts are fixed well below market value, who will pay for the increasing maintenance costs of expensive New York City real estate? How will the economy function when major investors take their money elsewhere? It is well known that “a tide raises all boats,” and that a prosperous economy helps both the rich and the poor. When prohibitive taxation forces the wealthy into a mass exodus, who will remain to help the indigent raise themselves out of poverty through the benefits of capitalism? According to a popular communist-era joke, if socialists took control of a desert, they would start importing sand and exporting water.
One only needs to revisit the images of empty stores and endless queues in socialist countries to get a preview of the consequences of Mamdani’s agenda. An anonymous Soviet photo of 1991 says it all. The inscription on the wall reads “Happy New Year!”
Over the past several years, millions of Americans have fled pro-socialist and crime-ridden blue states with punishing taxation laws like New York, California, or Illinois, and relocated to safe and investment-friendly places like Florida, Texas, or Tennessee. The Babylon Bee satirical outfit has produced a brilliantly bitter-sweet mini-series titled “Californians move to Texas.”
Remember the popular song’s lyrics: “Even old New York was once New Amsterdam”? It seems that Florida would now become the new New York, and Texas the new California. I mean, of course, the new versions of the good old values that New York and California used to represent.
If there is any silver lining in this phenomenon, it is that it would bring prosperity and new congressional seats to pro-business states whose residents and governments cherish traditional America and value economic freedom. And many may become wiser through their painful personal experience of a socialist nightmare. I certainly do not wish socialism on anyone, but sometimes the only way to learn that fire burns is to touch the stove. Let us hope this lesson is learned sooner rather than later and at a minimal expense to our country.
Nora D. Clinton is a Research Scholar at the Legal Insurrection Foundation. She was born and raised in Sofia, Bulgaria. She holds a PhD in Classics and has published extensively on ancient documents on stone. In 2020, she authored the popular memoir Quarantine Reflections Across Two Worlds. Nora is a co-founder of two partner charities dedicated to academic cooperation and American values. She lives in Northern Virginia with her husband and son.
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