Happy New Year.
As we step into 2026, I hope you’re entering it grounded in faith, focused on your family, and clear-eyed about the world we’re living in.
The calendar flipped this week - and in New York City, so did the mask.
Yesterday, I shared a short reel reacting to the inaugural address of NYC’s new mayor, Zohran Mamdani.
If you haven’t seen it yet, you can watch the 60-second clip here: ▶️ Watch the reel
What stood out wasn’t the tone or the theatrics. It was the clarity.
For once, there was no doublespeak.
Mamdani said it plainly:
“I was ELECTED as a Democratic Socialist, and I will GOVERN as a Democratic Socialist.”
He went further, promising to replace rugged individualism with what he called “the warmth of collectivism,” and declaring a return to “the era of big government.”
So let’s be honest about what this is.
This isn’t about helping the poor.
It isn’t about compassion.
And it isn’t about progress.
It’s a philosophical rejection of the very ideas this country was built on.
America was founded on a dangerous idea…dangerous to kings, tyrants, and those who love centralized power.
That the individual matters.
That right comes from God, not the state.
That government exists to protect liberty, not manage lives.
That responsibility and freedom are inseparable.
Rugged individualism didn’t break America. It built it.
And that’s exactly why it’s always the target.
Collectivism always enters the conversation the same way.
Soft language. Warm promises. Moral certainty.
But history doesn’t lie.
When leaders tell you the individual must be subordinated to “the collective,” they are never talking about shared responsibility; they’re talking about centralized control.
We’ve heard these words before:
“The individual is nothing; the collective is everything.”
— Joseph Stalin
“The interests of the individual must be subordinated to the interests of the collective.”
— Mao Zedong
“Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State.”
— Benito Mussolini
Different countries. Different centuries.
Same worldview. Same outcome.
The erosion of responsibility.
The expansion of bureaucracy.
And eventually, the loss of freedom.
And collectivism doesn’t just fail morally, it fails practically.
It destroys incentives.
It rewards dependency.
And it collapses under the weight of its own promises.
You don’t need ancient history to see it either.
Within hours of Mamdani’s inauguration, a heavily promoted public celebration descended into disorder: no food, no bathrooms, no planning, no accountability.
That isn’t a coincidence. It’s a preview.
Big government excels at rhetoric. It consistently fails at execution.
So what does this mean for the rest of us?
2026 won’t be a year for passive optimism. It will reward clarity and conviction. Bad ideas don’t disappear if we ignore them, and they don’t collapse on their own. They have to be named for what they are, rejected without apology, and replaced with something stronger.
That means defending the principles this country was built on: individual liberty, personal responsibility, limited government, and the belief that free people govern themselves better than the state ever could.
That’s the tradition this country was built on.
Socialism isn’t just ineffective. It’s fundamentally un-American.
It treats the individual as a problem to be managed rather than a person to be trusted. It replaces self-government with supervision, responsibility with dependency, and liberty with promises that always come with strings attached.
Every generation gets tested on this question.
Ours just happens to be facing it openly.
The path forward isn’t complicated, even if it isn’t easy.
We raise our children to think for themselves.
We build strong families instead of stronger bureaucracies.
We take responsibility for our own lives rather than handing it over to the state.
And we stand unapologetically on the principles America was founded on because they work.
A new year always forces a choice: comfort or conviction.
Rugged individualism built this country, and without it, the American experiment cannot endure.
🇺🇸 Freedom > Government. Always.
-Dave