The Rise of Zohran Mamdani and Socialism in America - Heartland on the Lars Larson Show

On November 20, 2025, Donald Kendal, director of the Glenn C. Haskins Emerging Issues Center at The Heartland Institute, was a guest on the Lars Larson Show. He was asked to be on to talk about the election of socialist Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York City, and a new Heartland Institute Rasmussen Reports poll showing the growing appeal of socialism to younger voters. 

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Episode Transcript

Jim Lakely (00:00):
This is the Heartland Daily Podcast. The

(00:11):
other day, Donald Kendall,director of the Glenn C. Haskins
Emerging Issues Center at theHeartland Institute, was a guest
on The Lars Larsen Show. He wasasked to be on to talk about the
election of socialist ZoranMamdani as mayor of New York
City and a new HeartlandInstitute Rasmussen Reports poll
showing the growing appeal ofsocialism to younger voters.
Have a listen.

Lars Larson (00:35):
A large license show. Welcome back to the
program. Are teachers andparents brainwashing young
Americans into supportingsocialism? It's one of the
current questions that's beentroubling me a lot because a
stunning number of youngAmericans are saying today that
they are likely to vote in thenext presidential election and
that they would like to see aDemocrat socialist in the Oval

(00:57):
Office. I'll get the thoughts ofDavid Donald Kendall, who is
director of the Emerging IssuesCenter at the Heartland
Institute.
Donald, welcome back to theprogram.

Donald Kendal (01:06):
Alright. Thanks for having me.

Lars Larson (01:07):
Do you have a theory as to why so many young
Americans seem to like socialismeven though I I would swear most
of them don't seem to understandthat place awful places like
Venezuela and Cuba are areexamples of what socialism does.

Donald Kendal (01:21):
Yeah. Well, I don't think they have the the
best grasp on the history ofsocialism. I mean, the blood
soaked history is so clear.Anytime this kind of
collectivist Marxian, ideologyis put into practice, it ends in
just horrible, horrible outcome.So I don't think that has
anything to do with it.
They don't definitely don't knowthe the history. And I think

(01:43):
it's just the rhetoric. I Ithink they they go out there and
they hear this rhetoric about,you know, the the cost of
housing and all of these things.And you've got people like AOC,
Bernie Sanders, Zoran Mamdanipromising solutions to this. And
I think the the the core issuein this you could actually flush
this out in the Rasmussen pollresults that we that we just got

(02:06):
back, that one of the biggestissues for younger voters is the
affordability of housing.
And right now, you got Zohr andMamdani going out there saying,
hey. I've got the solution tothis. It's a terrible solution.
In practice, it's gonna beawful. It's gonna make things
worse.
But younger people see that andsay, hey. At least this guy is
trying.

Lars Larson (02:25):
Yeah. But but but trying, I mean, that's like the,
it's the thought that countskind of thing when you get a,
you know, kind of a a bum giftat your birthday or Christmas or
something. You say, well, yeah,aunt Susie got me a sweater I'm
never going to wear, but it'sthe thought that counts. I guess
it works in those kind ofcircumstances. Does it work when
it comes to practical thingslike feeding yourself or getting

(02:46):
housing or providing medicalcare?
Because I don't think it does.

Donald Kendal (02:50):
Oh, it absolutely does not. Again, the track
record for that is is extremelyclear, but it'll be met with the
the same response that socialistapologists have been saying for
years when it comes to peoplepointing out the history of
socialism. Well, that wasn'treal socialism. They'll try to
deflect to lay blame ontoothers, and the same thing will

(03:12):
happen here. Zoran Mamdani, evenif he is able to get his agenda
across in New York City, and itdoes result in the disaster,
which it would, you know, he'snot gonna self reflect.
He's not gonna say, oh, yeah.You know, these policies aren't
good. They'll just blame it on,you know, all of the wealthy
people that uprooted and leftthe the city before he took

(03:32):
power, or he'll talk about theestablishment Democrats that are
keeping him from getting hisagenda truly across. It'll be
the same sort of thing. That'snot true socialism.
That but that's what it'll bemet with.

Lars Larson (03:43):
Well, except that right now and maybe you're
right. He he will blame it onestablishment of Democrats
because, for example, one of thesimplest, lowest hanging fruit
things that he's proposed isfree transit for everyone. Okay.
So you no longer have to pay toride the bus or the subway in
New York City, except KathyHochul, the governor of New
York, who's not exactly the mostconservative person in the

(04:04):
world, has already said that's anonstarter because they look at
the numbers and say, how theheck are we gonna pay for it if
we don't have the revenue, atleast even the minor amount of
revenue that they get fromriders of transit? It doesn't
pencil out, and even Democratsrecognize that.

Donald Kendal (04:20):
Oh, yeah. And this is gonna be my this is one
of my bigger predictions of thisyear is that we're gonna see a
further fracturing of theDemocratic Party when it comes
to kind of the, quote, unquote,establishment Democrats and the
Democratic socialist wing. Ithink we are really seeing an
uprising in that, thatdemocratic socialist kind of
wing of the party as being ableto appeal to this populist

(04:43):
sentiment that's kind of ragingthroughout the country. Donald
Trump was able to do that from aconservative point of view. He
was able to to to gainpopularity based on that kind of
populist route.
On the flip side, on the liberalpart of it, that's democratic
socialism. And I think thatwe're gonna be seeing that
rising more and more. You'regonna see people like Bernie

(05:03):
Sanders, Zoran, a AOC. They'regonna be pushed into the
spotlight because the Democratsare gonna say that's their best
bet on getting the youth vote.

Lars Larson (05:13):
Okay. So let me ask you this, Donald. I'm talking to
Donald Kendall who's at theHeartland Institute. Is the
media gonna run cover for thesedemocratic socialists and their
ambitions? Are they gonna go inand say, hey.
Mamdani promised this didn'thappen for practical reasons,
not because he was opposed bycertain figures, but because the
numbers make no sensewhatsoever, or are they gonna

(05:34):
actually, you know, are theygonna tell the audience what's
really going on and say thisfailed, he promised it, and it
is a failure of his DSA agenda?Or are they gonna run cover for
the guy and make excuses for it?

Donald Kendal (05:47):
Well, that will be the the determining factor on
whether or not my predictioncomes to be true or not because
we've kinda seen them kinda talkout of both sides of their mouth
just as recently as thereplacement of Joe Biden on the
top of the ticket, you know,during the twenty twenty four
election where they're they'reall run and cover for Joe Biden.

(06:07):
Hearing water form, oh, no. He'sdoing fine. What are you talking
about? And then that, that,terrible debate happened, and
then they had to yank thesupport from them.
So it kinda just depends onwhere they see their power
lying. If there's a a betteravenue towards gaining power by
supporting Zoran and putproviding cover for them or

(06:28):
doing the opposite, they'llthey'll just go where the wind
is blowing.

Lars Larson (06:31):
Okay. So tell me this. Is this agenda being
pushed in public schools, andwho's making that happen and
why?

Donald Kendal (06:39):
I think that's just, like, in a passive sense,
it is happening. And I thinkthat's just kind of like the the
the type of, you know, peoplethat kinda seek those positions,
whether it's just kind of yourliberal arts professors that are
saying, oh, you know, Isupported Bernie back when it
was cool, you know, that sort ofthing.

Lars Larson (07:00):
You mean the socialist who now owns four
houses? That's the socialistyou're talking about.

Donald Kendal (07:05):
Yeah. Yeah. And only rails against the
billionaires now that he becamea millionaire. You know, he
doesn't rail against themillionaires anymore. Yes.
Exactly. So I think that thereis that. I ran into that in
school. I know many of my peersran into that in school. I
actually had a very liberalprofessor that we had kind of a

(07:26):
give and take relationship inclass that's actually drove me
more towards conservatism, but Idon't think that's the the
standard in in colleges and highschools.

Lars Larson (07:37):
You know, at least in public schools do you know
the one that has it gets undermy skin every year? Last August,
they all had the back to school,and they encourage parents, come
down and buy all the schoolsupplies for your child. Then
they put it in the backpack, andthey tell the child to take it
to school. And then I haven'tfound a school that doesn't do
this among the government runfailure schools, but the kids

(07:57):
walk in and they say, okay. Takeall your crayons and all your
pens and all these supplies thatyour parents bought for you.
We're gonna dump them into onebin, and everybody is going to
get, you know, from eachaccording to his abilities to
each according to his needs. Andthey do this at that level.
They're and and it really bugsme because I think you're
telling kids, you can't haveyour set of tools, your set of

(08:19):
crayons, your set of pencils.They all belong to the entire
classroom. I think that is thefirst lesson in socialism.
That is Donald Kendall, who iswith the Emerging Issues Center
at the Heartland Institute.You're listening to the Lawrence
Larson show and the RadioNorthwest Network.