Anti-Capitalism, Not Pro-Socialism

Last week, Zohran Mamdani won New York City’s mayoral race with 50.4% of the vote, defeating runner-up Andrew Cuomo by nearly 10 points. Mamdani proudly identifies as a democratic socialist and campaigned on bold wealth-redistribution policies: rent freezes, free city buses, a higher minimum wage, and universal childcare.

In an interview with The Free Press, PayPal founder and ISI alum Peter Thiel discusses what Mamdani’s victory means for America. To Thiel, the landslide win doesn’t reflect young Americans’ embrace of socialism so much as their disenchantment with capitalism. Rather than scolding young voters for naïveté or entitlement, Thiel urges leaders to confront the genuine economic pressures driving this disillusionment.

He highlights two crushing realities for the younger generation: student debt and a housing market that feels forever out of reach. Establishment figures on both the right and the left have offered no answers to these problems, creating a vacuum that allows candidates like Mamdani to push the Overton window toward far more radical solutions. Many of his plans are likely to prove unworkable in practice, but right now voters are happy just to be hearing a different tune.

Read the rest of the interview with Thiel here.

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The Once and Future-less King

Last month, millions of Americans took to the streets to demand what the Constitution already guaranteed them: No Kings. Yet across the Atlantic, in a nation still nominally governed by an actual monarch, the United Kingdom may be facing some real trouble.

For his column in The New York Times, Ross Douthat examines the quiet crisis facing the British royal family. He describes how the monarchy is well-known yet largely incapacitated, meaning Charles III doesn’t have much left to lead ceremonially amid economic, social, and spiritual upheaval. Douthat points to the stripping of Prince Andrew’s royal titles—prompted by his ties to Jeffrey Epstein—as evidence of the monarchy’s remaining feeble power.

Nor does Douthat see Prince William as the strong leader who could save the UK from its troubles. But he wonders whether another member of the royal family could ambitiously seize real power and push back against Britain’s mounting troubles. If not, Douthat wonders, how long can a purely ceremonial monarchy survive in a country that feels increasingly splintered, secular, and detached from its past?

Read more of Douthat’s thoughts here.

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Compendium

Every article we feature here is available to read for free. Articles from paywalled publications are available through gift links.

1. Anna Louie Sussman on a renewed vision of feminism that embraces dependence and selflessness in The Atlantic (available via gift link).

2. Ken Burchfiel on the marriage market for young women and men in Institute for Family Studies.

3. The editors of The Free Press on Helen Andrews’ feminization thesis and the future of the American workplace in The Free Press (free with email sign-in).

4. Nathan Pinkoski on the FBI’s secretive “Arctic Frost” investigation under Jack Smith in American Mind.

5. Matt Stoller on the coercive nature of corporate-run gambling and online sports betting in BIG.

6. Robert Pondiscio on the sharp decline in academic preparation among college freshmen in AEI Ideas.

7. Adam Willems on the attempted Christianization of Silicon Valley in The Guardian.

8. Jillian Parks on the growth of Catholic colleges in First Things.

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This week, from ISI’s Digital Media:

In the latest episode of Modern Age with Dan McCarthy, Dan asks: Can President Trump impose tariffs on his own authority? This episode dives into a recent Supreme Court case involving the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), and Dan explains why the ruling could dramatically reshape presidential power over trade and foreign policy for years to come.

Subscribe to Modern Age with Dan McCarthy here.

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This week, from the Collegiate Network:

ISI’s Collegiate Network supports over 80 student-run publications across the country, empowering students to run independent college newspapers, magazines, and journals that report on important issues ignored by the mainstream media.

• The Soldier via The Jacksonian
  A Veteran’s Day reflection on the modern American soldier and the burdens they carry long after the mission ends.

• Is the US Prepared for New NATO Obligations? via The Pennsylvania Post
  Trump’s NATO thunder ignites a 5% defense surge by 2035—is America ready to pick up the bill?

• Clothes Make the Man via The Fenwick Review
  On how the Franciscan Habit and priestly vestments transform humble clergy into living emblems of Christ’s eternal love.

• What is an Honor Violation? The White Book Can’t Tell You via The Washington and Lee Spectator
  A critique of Washington and Lee’s subjective, inconsistently applied Honor System and a call for its urgent reform.

• Notre Dame Admissions: Covering up Catholicism? via The Irish Rover
  Is the University of Notre Dame soft-selling its Catholic identity to highlight diversity instead? This deep dive suggests the tour scripts and intern hiring quietly shift the narrative.

Visit our Student Journalism section to read more from the Collegiate Network.

Rebuilding America Brick by Brick

Although modern technology enables us to be more “connected” than ever, many Americans feel isolated and alone. The civic and religious institutions that once drew people together into tight-knit communities have been fading for decades, and the decline shows no sign of slowing.

In his 1953 book The Quest for Community, sociologist Robert Nisbet warned about what the erosion of local, voluntary institutions meant for America. For this week’s article from Modern Age, Clifford Angell Bates Jr. shows how chillingly accurate Nisbet’s warnings have turned out to be. When people become detached from traditional institutions, Nisbet argued, they lose their sense of belonging and become dangerously susceptible to coercive forces. Thus, the decline of institutions naturally results in the centralization of government power and the rise of ideological movements.

Bates urges conservatives today to heed Nisbet’s warning and commit to the painstaking work of rebuilding local institutions from the ground up. As he puts it: “To take Nisbet seriously is to recognize that the preservation of liberty depends on more than slogans about freedom; it requires the patient cultivation of the moral and social foundations that sustain it.”

Read more about Nisbet’s enduring relevance here on the Modern Age website.

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Modern Age is ISI’s flagship publication. Visit modernagejournal.com and subscribe for a free daily newsletter.

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