Reminder: It’s Only “Communism” When a Democrat Weighs in on Your Thermostat

The United States is poised to lose its collective mind this week like the neighborhood boiling over into a cauldron of rage and resentment at the end of Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing, thanks to a brutal heat dome moving over the country that is poised to make Europe’s recent, extremely deadly heat dome look positively mild in comparison. Never mind the recent scientific data showing how inextricably linked such heat domes are to human-derived climate change, though: The internet has apparently decided that the narrative of this heat wave is going to be individual liberty vs. the expectation to do anything to help the collective good, in classic post-pandemic American fashion. And who is starring in the center of the drama? Well naturally, it’s New York City’s democratic socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani–you know, the guy whose approval rating in NYC has steadily risen since he took office in October of last year. The well-liked mayor has thoughts about how to handle your thermostat during the climate crisis, and MAGA America is of course outraged by the thought they they should be expected to be briefly uncomfortable for the sake of any other person.

“New York: it’s hot out there, and the power grid is working overtime to keep us cool,” wrote Mamdani in a public statement that quickly threw opponents into a blind rage. “Set your AC to 78 degrees, turn off lights/electronics you’re not using, and unplug what you can.”

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— Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@mayor.nyc.gov) 4:05 PM · Jul 1, 2026

This was, clearly, the greatest outrage to occur in American politics since abolitionist Senator Charles Sumner was beaten nearly to death with a cane by pro-slavery Rep. Preston Brooks on the floor of the U.S. Senate in 1856. Imagine: An elected official for one of the country’s grandest, most wealthy and powerful cities, daring to ask the citizens of that city to modify their behavior accordingly in response to extraordinary conditions … which sadly, it should be noted, are becoming less “extraordinary” with every passing year. But the point is, the right-wing media landscape immediately threw itself into an apoplectic frenzy at the sheer injustice of it all.

“Welcome to communism people! Hope you enjoy!” chirped Barstool troll Dave Portnoy, who recently claimed he’d like to run for mayor against Mamdani, despite the fact that Portnoy’s wobbly legs appear to have severe difficulty standing, much less running. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis quickly jumped on the same bandwagon: “Is this what was meant by the warmth of collectivism?”

Leave it to mega-failed L.A. mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt, though, who won’t even be on the ballot come November, to take the condemnation to the most absurd extreme, with the following statement: “Communism always goes the same way. They smile & promise you the world. Free this, free that, abundance for all! How? Don’t ask! Then they get into power, and the rationing begins. First a smiley ask. Then a demand. Then a bullet. ‘You used too much energy, comrade.”

It’s a simple narrative: Mamdani is a democratic socialist, which is of course to the MAGA mind indistinguishable from the word “communism.” When he asks residents of the city to conserve energy at a time when the power grid is going to be dangerously overtaxed–while explicitly stating that state/government buildings will follow the same 78 degrees instruction–the request is depicted as an onerous, outrageous burden that is designed to strip you of freedom and liberty. It’s clearly the big, bad, evil state intruding into the fabric of American life!

But ah, what about when a Republican mayor or governor, or their own state governments, instructs you to do the exact same thing? Well of course that’s a horse of another color–if the GOP asks you to set your thermostat higher in the summer or lower in the winter, that is patriotism and common sense civic duty, just a bunch of Americans coming together with a wholesome common goal!

And wouldn’t you know it: Pretty much every politician calling Mamdani a communist for asking people to save energy has done the exact same thing themselves, or appointed bureaucrats to do exactly the same. Ron DeSantis? He appointed all the commissioners of the Florida Public Service Commission, and what does their website instruct residents to do in the summer? Oh you know, merely to set their thermostats to 78 degrees all summer long. Who would have thought that Ron DeSantis was an even more vociferous communist than Zohran Mamdani? Ditto Texas and Gov. Greg Abbott, whose office appoints its Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which likewise instructs residents to keep their thermostats at 78 degrees in the summer, and turn those same thermostats down to 68 degrees in the winter.

Florida’s 2026 thermostat advice from the state.

The heat even seems to be directly affecting the brains and memories of some former U.S. governors, blasting their synapses to such a degree that they would level accusations of communism against Mamdani while somehow forgetting that they publicly did the exact same thing during their own stint as a state’s chief executive. Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley did precisely that, flatly stating “welcome to socialism” about Mamdani’s statement, while ignoring the fact that she had tweeted the exact same type of plea for residents of her state to conserve power and change their thermostats when she was the governor.

Not that pointing out such blatant and glaring hypocrisy actually changes any minds, much as we feel compelled to do it, sharing as we do a memory of an earlier era where being caught being a massive hypocrite was actually damaging to a person’s political career. If the last decade has taught us anything, though, it’s that fierce partisan tribalism usually just leads people to volunteer to hurt themselves publicly in order to support their chosen side. And right on cue, this amusing quote rendered to the Big Apple’s finest rag, The New York Post, captures the tone of that type of partisan protest: “As a New Yorker I’ll be setting my AC to 62 degrees for the foreseeable future as a direct retaliation to your authority.”

Ah yes, the ever-popular “Send my own electrical bill through the roof in order to own the libs” method of patriotic protest.

The funny thing is, there are indeed avenues by which one might criticize Mamdani in such a moment–like pointing out that corporate America is not really expected to bear the burden of reducing energy consumption, but rather the common resident of New York City. You’re not going to see the advertisements of Times Square go dark in order to save power, or upstate data centers shut down, for instance. But at the same time, doing what we can in order to ease demands on the grid is genuinely of critical importance as well, because in temperatures like this, one brief failure of air conditioning is literally all it takes to kill you. But good luck, when it comes to trying to get the average MAGA American in 2026 to care whether members of their community live or die, when the alternative is being a few degrees warmer. In the face of such an unreasonable, deeply communist request, it’s clearly every man for himself.