The return of the socialist heresy

The city and state elections in late 2025 gave us a first – the first socialist elected as mayor of New York City.

Self-declared Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani was elected on November 4, 2025, by a 51% to 42% margin, handily defeating former governor Andrew Cuomo, who ran as an independent. (Republican Curtis Sliwa came in a distant third at 7%.)

While Mamdani is the first socialist mayor of New York City, he’s not the first in American history. After Mamdani was elected, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel noted that Milwaukee had three socialist mayors in the 1900s, who led the city for almost four decades, collectively.

According to a report issued by the University of Washington, 353 cities and towns elected socialist candidates to public office between 1901 and 1960. For all offices of socialist electees combined, the number exceeds a thousand.

There was even a socialist member of the U.S. House of Representatives well before socialists Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) were elected in 2018. Starting in 1911, Victor Berger was elected to Congress several times by Wisconsin voters.

Characteristics of socialism

As others have noted throughout the years, socialism is a heresy – a significant spiritual error as well as a political, economic, and cultural blunder.

Socialism’s core assertion is that the means of economic production and distribution should be in the hands of a dictatorial state, which would eventually put that control into the hands of the working class.

Here are some of this heresy’s characteristics:

It is atheistic. True socialism denies the existence of God, and ironically, declares religion to be the heresy. Religion is identified as the bane of human existence and an impediment to human happiness.

It is materialistic. This ideology locates the cause of human suffering solely in economic realities and an oppressor-versus-oppressed model of human society. While economic injustices are not to be ignored by Christians, socialism’s materialism denies the existence of the spiritual realities that are frequently behind the more evident cultural problems.

It is utopian. The promise of socialism, like all utopian endeavors, assures it will create heaven on earth. However, like the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9), such movements are doomed to failure because in refusing to acknowledge and honor God, they first turn foolish, then violent, and finally self-destructive.

It is idolatrous. Socialists see the state as the ultimate power that will save mankind from its long history of misery. This is why socialism – regardless of its empty promises – ultimately demands the loyalty and obedience of all citizens. Since it declares there is no God, the socialist state becomes god to the people.

Cycle of socialism

Why is socialism still a thing? How did Mamdani get elected?

One would think that past socialist disasters – such as the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies – and all the current malignant manifestations of this wretched ideology (China, Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela, etc.) would have cured Americans of the temptation to stumble into the socialist abyss.

Heresies, including socialism, can be cyclical because they are rooted in human rebellion. When people reject God, they intuitively seek out what they believe are highways to happiness that avoid Him.

Until people turn to God, the heresy of socialism will remain a contagion that repeatedly infects humanity – like a virulent strain of flu that revisits the world every winter.

So, how should Christians respond to this current resurgence of socialist fervor? As the church has done throughout her 2,000 years of history, Christians should confront this heresy like any other – with the truth of God’s Word and the hope of the gospel.

Until Jesus returns, no victory or defeat is permanent. Christians must always remain vigilant – something AFA has been doing since its founding in 1977. As socialism spreads through a major political party in the U.S., we will continue to rally Christians to offer our fellow citizens the cure for what truly ails humanity.