TRIGGERnometry - July 01, 2025


The Real Reason Socialism is on the Rise - Konstantin Kisin


Episode Stats

Length

7 minutes

Words per Minute

167.36978

Word Count

1,296

Sentence Count

93

Hate Speech Sentences

3


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In the wake of Zoran mamdani s stunning victory in the Democratic primary for mayor of New York City, there s been a glut of commentary from people who didn t see it coming, attempting to understand what is happening.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Why Socialism is on the Rise
00:00:02.060 In the wake of Zoran Mamdani's win in the Democratic primary for mayor of New York,
00:00:11.100 there's been a glut of commentary from people who didn't see it coming,
00:00:14.680 attempting to understand what is happening.
00:00:16.880 Some, like investor and former Trigonometry guest Bill Ackman,
00:00:20.620 argue that Mamdani is a uniquely talented retail politician who outworked the competition.
00:00:26.200 In this conception, his policies were not the determining factor.
00:00:30.140 Others, like fellow investor Tyler Winklevoss,
00:00:32.860 believe that it's simply time for young people to be reminded of the realities of socialism.
00:00:37.900 According to this view, indoctrinated at school and university
00:00:41.300 and let down by parents who failed to prepare them for the real world,
00:00:44.800 millennials and Gen Z just won't wake up until they face the reality of Mamdani's insane policies,
00:00:50.180 like government-run grocery stores and rent freezers.
00:00:53.220 Others still take a dimmer view of the next generation,
00:00:56.220 proclaiming that Mamdani won because of vibes.
00:00:58.720 The center-left, on the other hand, consoles itself with the notion
00:01:02.040 that he was up against a terrible candidate in Andrew Cuomo.
00:01:05.620 All of these people are right, and all of them are wrong.
00:01:09.120 It's true that Mamdani appears to have the common touch,
00:01:12.420 but many people who do are unable to produce the stunning victory he achieved.
00:01:16.940 It's true that young people do not understand the history of socialism
00:01:20.120 and have little idea of just how terrible the consequences of Mamdani's policies will be.
00:01:25.080 It's true that vibes were a powerful force in this election,
00:01:28.820 but politics has always been about vibes.
00:01:31.520 The elections of Barack Obama and President Trump were about vibes too.
00:01:35.580 And yes, it's true that Cuomo is a terrible candidate
00:01:38.160 who's facing allegations of sexual harassment,
00:01:41.200 as well as scrutiny for his disastrous decisions during the pandemic.
00:01:44.980 But that doesn't explain the popularity of Mamdani,
00:01:48.040 only the unpopularity of Andrew Cuomo.
00:01:50.000 The reality is that none of these variables on their own
00:01:53.060 are sufficient to explain the rising popularity of socialism
00:01:55.920 in many Western countries, or, more specifically, many large Western cities.
00:02:01.380 Every comedian has to learn this lesson the hard way.
00:02:04.640 You may have great jokes, but people will only laugh
00:02:07.500 if they agree with the premise of those jokes.
00:02:10.020 The fact that for at least a decade our schools and universities
00:02:12.940 have acted as work madrassas
00:02:14.600 is sufficient to prime young people for receptivity to socialism.
00:02:18.560 But it does not explain why the ideas are landing as hard as they are.
00:02:23.620 So, why is socialism becoming popular?
00:02:26.260 I tried to remind my conservative friends of this
00:02:28.700 at the end of my speech at the first R conference, when I said,
00:02:32.600 Many of you here are conservatives.
00:02:35.080 I'm not. I look terrible in tweed.
00:02:38.820 That's why I identify as politically non-binary.
00:02:43.780 But I can tell you conservative something.
00:02:46.020 You will never get young people to want to conserve a society
00:02:50.260 and an economy that is not working for them.
00:02:53.660 We will not overcome woke nihilism
00:02:56.040 as long as young people are locked out of the housing market,
00:02:59.240 unable to pair up, unable to have kids,
00:03:02.060 unable to plan for the future.
00:03:03.440 Born in 1982, I am what you might call a geriatric millennial.
00:03:10.900 I entered the workforce in 2003 and worked solidly for over a decade,
00:03:15.360 making a good income as a translator and then as a circuit comedian.
00:03:19.120 Together with my wife's modest income as an artist,
00:03:21.520 we earned a little above the median household income in Britain.
00:03:25.140 We bought our first property, a tiny apartment, at the age of 35.
00:03:29.380 Far from being unusual, this is becoming normal.
00:03:32.020 In London, the average age of a first-time buyer is 35.
00:03:36.940 In New York, it's now 37.
00:03:39.220 The counter often wheeled out against this argument
00:03:41.900 is that while certain aspects of life have become more challenging,
00:03:45.520 young people now enjoy access to an immense array of consumer goods,
00:03:49.520 electronics, food variety, and so on.
00:03:52.260 But the problem is that some things matter more than others.
00:03:55.720 Housing is one of them.
00:03:57.600 Most people, for example, would not want to have children
00:04:00.100 until they have a place of their own.
00:04:02.320 And as any parent will tell you, having kids changes everything.
00:04:06.280 If you can't afford to buy your own place and settle down,
00:04:09.520 you're stuck in a permanent adolescent limbo
00:04:11.960 in which making the right decisions no longer makes sense.
00:04:15.500 I know many people of my generation and younger who, it could be said,
00:04:19.880 waste lots of money on coffees, eating out, and so on,
00:04:23.760 while paying rent instead of saving up for their own place.
00:04:26.520 The problem is, though, that saving £200 a month towards a deposit
00:04:30.660 on your first property makes very little sense
00:04:33.120 when the price of that property grows by tens of thousands every year.
00:04:37.580 The sense that the things you actually want deep down
00:04:40.160 are speeding away from you on a train you'll never catch
00:04:43.160 is the real driving force behind the popularity of politicians like Mamdani.
00:04:48.640 Young people are open to socialist demagogues
00:04:51.000 not because they've sat down and done the sums on their policies.
00:04:54.040 They're open to them because they're desperate and see no way out.
00:04:58.260 This, by the way, is always how radical and unworkable ideas become popular.
00:05:03.420 The rise of communism and fascism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries
00:05:07.440 was the direct result of the excesses of the Industrial Revolution.
00:05:11.760 During that period, human wealth shot up.
00:05:14.920 But so did wealth inequality,
00:05:16.560 with the people at the top accumulating most of the gains.
00:05:19.960 By the middle of the 19th century,
00:05:21.600 the top 1% of people in Britain owned 50-60% of the wealth.
00:05:26.640 Sound familiar?
00:05:27.500 The rise of socialist politicians
00:05:29.160 and the popularity of left-wing commentators like Gary's Economics
00:05:32.560 are not the problem, they are a symptom.
00:05:35.860 And until the real problems are addressed,
00:05:38.140 it's Mamdani's all the way down.
00:05:39.480 If you enjoy these videos,
00:05:41.800 you should know that they're available as articles on my sub stack
00:05:44.920 at www.constantinkission.com
00:05:48.740 days, weeks, sometimes months ahead of time.
00:05:51.980 So head on over to www.constantinkission.com now and subscribe.
00:05:56.420 The news doesn't just tell you what's happening.
00:05:59.980 It so often tells you what to think is happening.
00:06:02.720 And these days, the biggest red flag isn't what's said,
00:06:05.740 it's what gets left out.
00:06:07.200 That's why I use Ground News.
00:06:09.160 It's the only site and app that compares coverage
00:06:11.840 from across the political spectrum
00:06:13.340 and highlights which stories are being ignored entirely.
00:06:17.140 See for yourself at ground.news.com
00:06:19.420 trigonometry.
00:06:20.400 Their blind spot feed is one of my favorite features.
00:06:23.240 It surfaces around 20 stories a day
00:06:25.420 that are being overlooked by either the left or the right.
00:06:28.280 It's a simple but powerful way to track media bias in real time.
00:06:32.220 Like this, NIH scientists recently published a declaration
00:06:35.900 criticizing Trump's cuts to public health research.
00:06:39.060 That's a major move.
00:06:40.400 And yet, only 2% of the coverage came from right-leaning outlets.
00:06:44.640 A new study found that 2024 saw the most armed conflicts
00:06:48.700 globally since 1946.
00:06:50.800 A staggering statistics.
00:06:52.460 But you would have missed it
00:06:53.300 if you'd only read left-wing news sources.
00:06:55.460 Ground News gives you the full picture.
00:06:57.440 Headlines, ownership, bias ratings, and context.
00:07:00.440 So you can actually understand what's going on,
00:07:02.800 not just react to what you're told.
00:07:04.880 Head to ground.news.com
00:07:06.420 for 40% off their unlimited vantage plan.
00:07:10.900 The same one we use.
00:07:11.920 And start thinking for yourself.
00:07:18.700 And start thinking for yourself.
00:07:29.940 As long as we can hear.
00:07:31.940 Go ahead.
00:07:32.840 And start thinking for yourself.
00:07:33.480 Tobias says,
00:07:34.260 and start to think about what's going on.
00:07:36.540 And start thinking for yourself.
00:07:37.420 You're not going to get inside control.
00:07:38.400 By doing so,
00:07:39.700 get inside control.
00:07:40.160 Let it be.
00:07:41.400 And start thinking for yourself.
00:07:43.260 And then,
00:07:43.840 after we watch theUSTR bertrandes,