At a street festival in Takoma Park, Maryland, this past Sunday, several residents told Fox News Digital they would support the government seizing their private property, including their own homes, if it meant redistributing land and housing to others.
Takoma Park sits just across the Washington, D.C. border and is known as one of the most liberal communities in the country, with homes and businesses displaying pride flags and Black Lives Matter signage.
Maryland resident Matt Volk said he would support the government taking his home “broadly.” “It’s highly situational, but I definitely think that there’s a lot of privately owned land and property that would be better put to use for public use, for resources and housing and things like that for people who are in need of things like that,” he said.
Karen Irwin, wearing a t-shirt reading “Auntifa: Making White men uncomfortable since 1975,” agreed. “I mean, if we were all doing it, I’d be so game,” she said, adding the condition that it happen “through democratic means.” She also raised the question of how far back property claims should be examined: “You want to be able to keep your property. From what time are we talking? … Or, you know, 100 years ago, when someone else had it. But the government might have taken it away for whatever reason.”
Another Maryland resident, Jaw Blake, said he would at least consider having his home seized. “I don’t know that I would necessarily love it, but I mean, if it was something that was beneficial I’d at least consider it,” he said. “Nobody wants what they have to be taken away from them, but there is something we said about like you can set up things so that they’re available for everybody.”
Not every attendee agreed. Jenny Sniderman said she wouldn’t want to give up her property outright, though compensation could change her mind. “Of course I don’t want to give up my private property,” she said. “Are they going to reimburse me fairly? That would be helpful in making my choice.”
Steve Ney opposed seizure of his own home but backed rent stabilization, the policy recently championed by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. “I think the idea of rent stabilization, for example, is an excellent idea where you limit the rate of increase in rent in order to help people stay in their homes,” he said.
New York’s Rent Guidelines Board voted 7-1 in July to freeze increases on one- and two-year leases for rent-stabilized apartments, a policy that has drawn legal challenges and criticism from landlords. Real Estate Board of New York President James Whelan told Fox News Digital in August that the policy misses the underlying problem. “The mayor’s report focuses on symptoms, not causes,” he said. “New Yorkers are paying record-high rents because there is not enough housing, and many of the reported conditions are concentrated in heavily rent-stabilized buildings that are facing significant operational and financial challenges.”
Historian Nina Gilden Seavy, also at the festival, rejected the idea of government-controlled resource allocation outright. “I think that’s a ridiculous idea. I mean, that’s, it’s a fool’s errand,” she said. “The idea that somehow we’re gonna be better off if the government is in charge of allocating all resources that sounds not in any way desirable.”
The comments come as a Fox News poll from March found 38% of respondents said moving away from capitalism toward socialism would be a good idea. Among very liberal voters and Democrats under 45, support for that shift reached 66%. More than half of all Democrats (55%), Black voters (55%) and those under 30 (53%) also favored moving away from capitalism. Only 51% of all Americans said capitalism is working well, with 49% saying it is not.
