Venezuela has arrived in New York City in two forms.
One arrives carrying the wreckage of a socialist system that hollowed out a country by redefining private property as moral corruption and state control as virtue. That experiment ended in scarcity, corruption, and mass flight. Its leaders now face judgment far from home, a coda to a long collapse.
The other arrival is quieter, bureaucratic, and far more consequential. It moves through City Hall.
Words That Become Policy
“Private property — especially homeownership — is a weapon of white supremacy masquerading as wealth-building public policy.”
Those words were written by Cea Weaver, who now holds authority inside New York City government over housing regulation, landlord enforcement, and real estate policy.
This is a moral judgment about ownership itself. Homeownership is framed as harm. Property is recast as a moral hazard. The implication is straightforward: what has long been treated as legitimate must be dismantled.
Knowing full well her position about private real estate and home ownership, Weaver was elevated into a role designed to shape housing outcomes by Democratic Socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
Real Estate as the Lever
Because housing is where ideology becomes operational.
Weaver’s portfolio centers on real estate because real estate concentrates independence, savings, and permanence. It is immobile, heavily regulated, and politically sensitive. Those traits make housing the easiest sector in which to normalize forced redistribution through regulation rather than spectacle.
Within Democratic Socialist thought, housing functions as the primary front for structural change. The stated objective is “decommodification” — removing housing from private markets through eminent domain and insulating it permanently from profit. Achieving that objective requires stripping ownership of legitimacy and transferring control to the state or state-backed collectives.
Jacobin Makes the Case Explicit
That program is reinforced repeatedly in Jacobin, the flagship publication of democratic socialism. Its housing coverage goes well beyond expanding public housing or strengthening tenant protections. It openly endorses removing homes from private ownership.

Jacobin has praised campaigns such as Berlin’s Deutsche Wohnen & Co Enteignen, which was approved by voters in 2021, calling for the expropriation of privately owned residential housing and its transfer to public control. It regularly argues that landlord property rights must yield to collective ownership if housing justice is to be achieved.
The logic is consistent: justice requires taking housing out of private hands.
Venezuela’s Sequence Is Familiar
Venezuela followed this same sequence.
Ownership was recast as exploitation.
Returns were constrained.
Controls expanded.
Maintenance collapsed.
Scarcity spread.
By the time property was openly seized, the groundwork had already been laid. Confiscation felt justified because ownership had already been condemned. Language prepared the public long before policy completed the transfer.
History records this pattern with grim consistency.
Ideological Alignment at City Hall
Zohran Mamdani placed Weaver precisely where her beliefs carry consequence.
“Impoverish the “white” middle class. Homeownership is racist/failed public policy.” – Cea Weaver
Democratic Socialists today debate pace and scope more than premise. Housing is the testing ground because it touches wealth, stability, and autonomy simultaneously. Alter the rules of ownership there, and broader economic control becomes easier to assert.
Donald Trump Begins to Align with Democratic Socialists on housing
And it seems that President Donald Trump is getting on board.
Trump just announced that he will ban institutional investors from buying single family homes. The goal is to keep the housing market acting rationally based on normal individual demand, rather than bowing to the force of massive realtors controlling rent prices.
It is not stripping individuals of their homes the way Weaver desires, but a first step in meeting the mission part way.
Naming the Mechanism
When government redefines private assets as illegitimate and reallocates them through enforcement, penalties, and regulatory attrition, the economic effect remains consistent regardless of branding.
Control shifts away from owners.
Value erodes.
Decision-making migrates to the state.
“As landlords exit the market, using state action to acquire properties and leverage divestment to convert thousands of homes into publicly and democratically controlled land/housing.” – Cea Weaver
“The president and his team are discussing a range of options to pursue this important foreign policy goal [of seizing Greenland], and of course, utilizing the U.S. military is always an option at the commander-in-chief’s disposal.” – Trump’s White House
Language about equity or justice does not change outcomes for families whose homes become conditional assets rather than protected property. Redistribution through regulation or seizure is theft.
People think of Donald Trump as a true Conservative; he is not. He spent years as a Democratic real estate developer in New York City. Owning, controlling and licensing property is in his bloodstream.
We are entering a dangerous moment when government leaders of the right and left are converging on the thesis that the state is the arbiter of private property, including your house.
The Question That Matters
A society either treats private property as legitimate or places it at the discretion of the state.
Once ownership depends on ideological approval, it no longer functions as a right. Capital withdraws. Investment slows. Stability erodes. Liberty disappears.
Venezuela already supplied the answer.
History rarely announces itself as collapse. It usually arrives disguised as compassion, long before the consequences become unavoidable.






















