“Wall Street shivers over ‘hot commie summer’ after Mamdani’s success… When Zohran Mamdani, a 33-year-old self-described socialist, won New York’s mayoral Democratic nomination last week over a seasoned but scandal-scarred veteran, the city’s financial elite had a meltdown.” — The Guardian

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With temperatures across the country rising, and the “red wave” of the election giving way to a different kind of “red wave,” here’s everything you need to have a hot commie summer to remember.

A Good Beach Read

Nothing says summertime like reading a book on the beach, which is why every good worker will have all three volumes of Das Kapital with them when they hit the sand. Just be sure to bring a tote for your tomes. Why else do you think NPR and The New Yorker have been giving totes away for years? They clearly knew this day would come.

Beard Oil

Any communist worth their salt has luscious facial hair. But it’s challenging to maintain a clean and tidy beard during summer’s oppressive heat and humidity. Be sure not to leave your housing co-op without a nice bottle of beard balm—preferably one made from seed oils.

Pickleball

Soon, your kids will be attending a new universal childcare program, so you’ll no longer have an excuse not to join that pickleball league your child-free friends keep inviting you to. So get a head start and spend your summer dinking away—just as Lenin would have wanted.

A Box of Chocolate Almond Croissants

As conservatives have repeatedly warned, Marxists want everyone to live in fifteen-minute city hell holes, complete with walkable, tree-shaded streets lined with successful, locally owned businesses. Since all the wealthy people will have fled this dystopia, you’ll have to do your part by frequenting these businesses (usually bakeries—communists love pastries) and purchasing something from your comrades at the government-mandated price. Be prepared to eat tons of chocolate almond croissants while lying on a blanket in the shade at your local park. You have been warned.

Local Artwork

Now that your rent is frozen, you have a dilemma: You no longer have to move from apartment to apartment every year because you can no longer afford the place you were in before. And since you’re no longer in the yearly apartment-hunting rat race, you’ll likely be staying in the same spot for a while, which means you’ll no longer have a good excuse for why your walls are so bare. So you have no choice but to furnish your apartment with more than just a couple IKEA bookshelves and that couch of unknown provenance that you inherited during college and never parted with. Thanks a lot, commies. Fortunately, due to the rent freeze, you will have some savings, so sprucing up your pad with a couple of paintings you found at the Anticapitalist Art Festival shouldn’t be a problem.

United States Citizenship

Communists from overseas have been playing the long game for decades. It’s a tale as old as time

  • Step 1: Move to the United States at age seven.
  • Step 2: Graduate from Bronx High School of Science.
  • Step 3: Earn a degree in Africana Studies from Bowdoin College.
  • Step 4: Become a popular local politician
  • Step 5: Seize the means of production.

What seven-year-old aspiring communist hasn’t concocted an elaborate five-point plan to surreptitiously become an American? So get your US citizenship and start a Marxist revolution in your city (by being democratically elected to public office) today. Before you know it, you’ll be shouting “Workers of the world, unite!” while shoving croissants down your constituents’ throats all summer long.