Talk about continental drift!

While South Americans are increasingly embracing freedom in places such as Argentina and rejecting socialist authoritarianism in countries such as Venezuela and Mexico – where revolution or regime change is in the air – Americans have just installed socialist mayors on each coast.

Like a lonely vehicle headed straight toward a hurricane as evacuees head the other way, the American left is rushing toward something that everyone else is trying to escape.

Among socialist Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s first actions since winning New York’s top spot Nov. 4 is a call to boycott Starbucks in support of its union’s demands for increased pay and more.

“Coffee drinkers of the world, unite?” a New York Post article wryly asks.

Across the nation, Seattle voters just elected a socialist mayor, Katie Wilson, who’s even further left than the outgoing one.

“Seattle’s new socialist mayor goes full communist, says she won’t allow private grocery stores to close,” warned a headline at The Daily Caller.

Meanwhile, the Democrat Party’s power center has lurched leftward: Even before Mamdani’s and Wilson’s wins, Politico trumpeted in a headline, “Poll: Capitalism is out … and socialism is in” – with an accompanying photo of socialist standard-bearers Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders locked hand-in-hand in an electoral victory pose.

“The socialist brand is on the rise,” Politico writes, citing a Gallup Poll ” showing Democrats and independents are cooling toward capitalism,” and one by the Democratic Socialists of America Fund that finds Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez and Mamdani are the new darlings of Democrats.

Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries and Nancy Pelosi? They’re old guard, and just not far left enough.

“Democratic socialism” and “democratic socialist politicians” are now the mainstream of the Democrat Party, Gabe Tobias, executive director of the DSA Fund says.

“Fifty-three percent of Democratic voters said they preferred politicians described as similar to Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez and Mamdani, while 33 percent favored those similar to Schumer, Jeffries and Pelosi,” Politico reports.

“In the poll, democratic socialists were defined as believing ‘that the government should take a more active role to improve Americans’ lives. They generally support higher taxes on corporations and high-income earners, support regulations that protect workers and consumers, and want more public ownership of key industries like housing, health care and utilities.’

“The survey described capitalists as believing ‘that the private sector is best equipped to make improvements to Americans’ lives. They generally support lower taxes, oppose government regulations of businesses, and want the private sector to own key industries like housing, health care and utilities.’

“After hearing each description, 74 percent of likely Democratic voters said democratic socialism comes closest to their viewpoint, while 16 percent said the same of capitalism.”

Our neighbors to the south certainly appear headed in the opposite direction.

“A Latin American experiment in socialism could be nearing its end,” blared a Washington Post headline in August.

Even as America’s is just beginning.

“I saw a lot of socialist experiments in Latin America and the results weren’t pretty,” writes FOX Business anchor David Asman in an article headlined “Latin America’s socialist experiments leave devastating trail of economic collapse and poverty.”

The devastation and misery-for-all of Cuba is only 90 miles off Florida, he reminds.

“If Americans want to see how badly socialism works, they don’t have to go far,” Asman opines.

Then there’s Venezuela – once one of the richest countries in the hemisphere, now one of the poorest after decades of socialist authoritarian rule.

“Many in the media have blamed Venezuela’s worsening humanitarian crisis on corruption, mismanagement, falling oil prices, or U.S sanctions – anything but the rise of socialism in what was once the wealthiest country in South America,” Daniel Di Martino, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, wrote in 2019.

“Yet corruption and mismanagement were the direct result of increased government control of the economy – socialism – and in reality, lower oil prices and U.S. sanctions have little to do with the crisis. Instead, the mass starvation and exodus faced by Venezuelans are the natural consequence of the socialist policies implemented by dictators Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro.

“There are three main policies implemented by Chavez since 1999 that produced the current crisis: Widespread nationalization of private industry, currency and price controls, and the fiscally irresponsible expansion of welfare programs.”

Those three destructive policies have a familiar ring, as incoming U.S. mayors talk of forcing private companies to stay open, imposing rent control and offering free child care and bus rides.

Still, the American left rushes on toward a Category 5 storm of socialist devastation, imagining that they, and only they in the rogue’s gallery of socialist history, can tame the wild winds of human need and desire.

An article as recently as last March expressed the conviction that Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, who took office a little over a year ago, “Is Showing How Mexican Socialism Can Be Done Differently.”

Really? Sheinbaum, as one X poster observed, this past weekend “orders her troops and police forces to crack down on protesters, including beatings, arrest and assassinations!! She is fighting her people instead of fighting the Narco Terrorist Cartels!”

“Mexico is experiencing a populist revolt against its narco-state government,” another posted as protesters stormed the presidential palace Saturday. “Sheinbaum and her socialist party have allowed many elected officials to be k*lled by the cartels. Is this the beginning of a revolution?”

If so, it’s a wholly different kind than the one here.