Over the weekend, Los Angeles City Council Member Nithya Raman launched what may be the most revealing mayoral campaign in the country. ...
Over the weekend, Los Angeles City Council Member Nithya Raman launched what may be the most revealing mayoral campaign in the country. A member of both the Democrat Party and the Democrat Socialists of America, Raman is now running for mayor in 2026, positioning herself as the “accountable” alternative to Mayor Karen Bass.
In reality, her candidacy exposes a deeper truth: the Democrat Party is no longer drifting toward socialism—it has embraced it.
Raman’s announcement was wrapped in familiar Democrat rhetoric—talk of accountability, urgency, affordability, and compassion. She positioned herself as ideologically aligned with Zohran Mamdani, the socialist who won the New York City mayoral race. Beneath the polished language, however, was a worldview that has failed everywhere it has been tried.
Raman is not just a progressive Democrat; she is an open socialist, part of an organization that explicitly advocates for government control over housing, energy, and large segments of the economy.
Democrats often insist that “democratic socialism” is different from socialism, and socialism is different from communism. History tells a different story.
Every communist state in the world began as a socialist project. The Soviet Union. Mao’s China. Castro’s Cuba. Venezuela. Each promised fairness, equity, and government “accountability.”
Each delivered shortages, corruption, repression, and economic collapse. The labels changed. The outcomes did not.
Raman’s own remarks highlight the contradiction. She criticizes City Hall for fiscal mismanagement while supporting the same tax-and-spend ideology that created Los Angeles’ budget crisis in the first place.
She acknowledges that voters approved higher taxes for homelessness and housing, yet admits the city has failed to deliver results. That failure is the inevitable product of socialist governance—high spending, low accountability, and no consequences for failure.
Los Angeles already serves as a warning sign. Streetlights can take a year to fix. Homeless encampments persist despite billions spent. Housing costs continue to soar. Public trust has collapsed.
Raman’s solution is not reform—it is doubling down. More government control. More centralized planning. More promises that this time will be different.
Raman believes Mayor Bass has not gone far enough, not that she has gone too far.
This is not a debate between moderation and extremism. Rather, it is a competition between two wings of the same failing party—one progressive, the other openly socialist.
Even when pressed on basic questions—public safety, women’s spaces, fiscal responsibility—Raman deflected, hedged, or claimed she had not yet “had those conversations.”
Socialist candidates rarely offer specifics because specifics expose the cost of their ideology.
The Democrat Party once claimed to represent working families and the middle class. Today, it increasingly represents activists, ideological experiments, and centralized power. Raman’s candidacy is not an outlier, but rather the direction of the party.
Los Angeles does not need another theory about government. It needs leadership that understands limits, respects taxpayers, and prioritizes results over ideology. Socialism has been tested across the world. It has failed every time.
Voters should recognize Raman’s campaign for what it is: a warning sign, not a solution.
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