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Let's get into it:
Everyone's favorite agreeable socialist told everyone's favorite agreeable podcaster that the US should join the International Criminal Court and "enforce its warrants", and claimed socialism provides "a dignified life" for all people under its system. Theo Von agreed with him on pretty much every point. They smiled, they laughed, they agreed, they were well-costumed.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani does a decent job of identifying domestic problems, and that's what makes him so attractive to voters. The problem comes when you look at his solutions. Von was just on board with all of them.
The ICC, however, should just be a non-starter for all Americans. Joining the ICC would mean that international law, whatever that is, created by whatever people we did not vote for, supersedes our own American foreign interests. Many in the DSA have spoken out in favor of the ICC, saying that the US should be part of it.
"I believe that we should become a member," Mamdani told Von. "I believe that we should enforce its warrants because I think this gets back to the question of, you know, when you're asking, can you hold greed to account? Can you hold impunity to account? The more people see someone break a rule or a law, and there is no accountability for that... it calls into question whether it has any worth anymore.
"And we always speak about the laws," he went on, "the international laws of the world, the things that started to be created after World War II, the United Nations, the idea of multilateralism, and the lack of enforcement of it also calls it into question. So that's what I believe that the U.S. government should join the ICC. It should enforce its warrants for everyone that has that has been issued."
And let's be clear, that's what the DSA is all about, international law, international courts, international standards of justice. In his speech to the UN last week, Trump made it clear that the United States is not now and never will be beholden to these bodies. We're American. We make our own rules. They are better rules than all the other rules, and we won't be judged by the collectivist whimsy of global socialists.
When asked by Von what socialism is, Mamdani provided his champagne socialist definition that bears no resemblance to actual socialism. This is how socialism is defined by a standard online dictionary: "a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole."
Here's how Mamdani defines it: "It means that you will have whatever you need to live a dignified life and that is the government's job to deliver on that. It's a belief that we shouldn't live in a place where all you can do is pick your own leaders, you should also be able to have that power in the rest of your life. People talk about it as the extension of democracy, from the ballot box, to the rest of your life. What do people mean by the rest of your life? They mean your workplace, your home, things like that. So when people say dignity, I wanna be very clear, we're talking about the things that allow you to take a breath. Housing, childcare, public transit. No one should be priced out of these things. These are non-negotiables."
That's not socialism, that's fantasy. And that's what this podcast between Mamdani and Von was all about.
Libby