“The terror comes from the capitalists and their pawns… The terror comes from their fascist government and their ICE squads.”
That’s Gustavo Gordillo — co-chair of the NYC Democratic Socialists of America and member of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s transition team.
He’s not some random protester. He’s advising on New York City’s economic policy.
And he’s just one of three radical socialists Liz Wheeler exposed inside the Mamdani administration.
The Cuckoo Strategy
The DSA doesn’t hide what it’s doing.
A Canary Mission video explains their approach: “DSA candidates run as Democrats in safe blue districts. They slip through low turnout primaries, and once inside, they use the Democratic label as camouflage while advancing an extremist anti-American agenda far beyond the party’s mainstream.”
“Once in office, DSA candidates take orders from DSA’s internal enforcers and working groups. City halls and state houses start running as socialist machines controlled by the organization, not the Democratic Party and certainly not voters.”
Mamdani is the most successful example yet. America’s largest city is now run by a socialist machine answering to DSA, not New Yorkers.
Radical #1: Cea Weaver — The Property Seizer
Weaver is Mamdani’s director of the Office to Protect Tenants. We’ve covered her before — the communist who cried when reporters asked about her mom’s $1.6 million house.
But her statements deserve revisiting.
“For centuries we’ve really treated property as an individualized good and not a collective good, and… in transitioning to treating it as a collective good and towards a model of shared equity will require that we think about it differently.”
Translation: property will be collectivized. Ownership will end.
“It will mean that families, especially white families but some POC families who are homeowners as well, are going to have a different relationship to property than the one that we currently have.”
Translation: racial wealth redistribution. White families specifically targeted for property seizure.
Wheeler’s summary: “That is, in essence, Zohran Mamdani walking down the street and seizing private property, implementing racially biased, racially discriminatory policies that prevent white people specifically from having the same relationship with property (also known as ownership of property) that they have had in the past.”
This woman runs NYC tenant policy. Sleep tight, landlords.
Radical #2: Alex Vitale — The Police Abolisher
Vitale serves on Mamdani’s transition team for the Committee on Community Safety.
He’s a Brooklyn College sociology professor who wrote a book titled “The End of Policing.” Not reforming policing. Not improving policing. Ending it.
He’s pushed to abolish the NYPD’s gang database — the tool police use to track violent criminal organizations.
“He’s very open about this,” Wheeler noted.
This is the person advising Mamdani on “community safety.” His position: police shouldn’t exist.
New York City — with its eight million residents, its crime problems, its subway system — is taking public safety advice from someone who wants to abolish the police department.
Radical #3: Gustavo Gordillo — The ICE-Is-Terror Guy
Gordillo is co-chair of NYC’s DSA chapter. He architected the electoral strategy that put Mamdani in office. He now serves on the transition team’s economic development committee.
At a 2025 DSA rally, he delivered this message:
“They make figures like Hamas and, quote, unquote, terrorists into effective enemies. I think all of us in the working-class movement need to spend more time villainizing too.”
He’s calling for more villainization — while defending Hamas.
“There are actual terrorists in the United States, but they are not Mahmoud Khalil, nor are they the students and working-class people protesting Israel’s genocide. And it is definitely not the Palestinian people.”
So who are the “actual terrorists”?
“The terror comes from the capitalists and their pawns… The terror comes from their fascist government and their ICE squads.”
ICE agents enforcing immigration law are terrorists. Hamas is not.
This person advises on New York City’s economic policy.
The DSA Takeover Is Complete
Wheeler’s warning is clear.
“[Mamdani] has saturated New York City with DSA members — DSA members who want to orient themselves towards insurrection, who want to overthrow the empire, who believe that you’re not just pushing socialism, you are tearing down a nation built on capitalism.”
These aren’t moderate progressives. They’re not mainstream Democrats. They’re revolutionary socialists who view America as an enemy to be destroyed.
And they’re running the largest city in the country.
“Sometimes the Most Detrimental Impacts…”
Wheeler closed with an important reminder.
“Remember: Sometimes the most detrimental impacts are from policies that are imposed on us by people whose names we’re not even familiar with.”
Most New Yorkers have never heard of Cea Weaver, Alex Vitale, or Gustavo Gordillo.
But these people are shaping housing policy, public safety policy, and economic policy for eight million Americans.
The mayor gets the headlines. The radicals in his inner circle get the power.
What This Means for New York
If these advisers get their way:
Property will be collectivized. Homeownership will become “racist.” Private landlords will be eliminated.
Police will be abolished. The gang database will be scrapped. Criminal organizations will operate freely.
ICE will be treated as terrorists. Immigration enforcement will be obstructed at every turn. Sanctuary policies will expand.
Capitalism will be “torn down.” Businesses will face hostile regulation. Wealth will be redistributed by force.
This isn’t speculation. These are the stated positions of the people advising Mamdani.
The National Implications
New York City is the test case.
If DSA can capture America’s largest city, they can capture others. The “cuckoo strategy” — infiltrating Democratic primaries in safe blue districts — works everywhere Democrats dominate.
Los Angeles. Chicago. San Francisco. Philadelphia. Every deep-blue city is vulnerable to the same takeover.
Mamdani is the proof of concept. If his administration succeeds, DSA will replicate it nationwide.
Voters Didn’t Choose This
Here’s the darkest part.
New Yorkers didn’t vote for property seizure. They didn’t vote for police abolition. They didn’t vote for advisers who call ICE “terrorists” and defend Hamas.
They voted for a Democrat in a low-turnout election. The DSA did the rest.
“City halls and state houses start running as socialist machines controlled by the organization, not the Democratic Party and certainly not voters.”
The voters are irrelevant. The machine is in control.
New York City belongs to the Democratic Socialists of America now.
And most New Yorkers have no idea what’s coming.