The What Ho! guide to being a good socialist
The Project 2026 handbook for Democratic (and some MAGA) voters
Ever since the prestigious What Ho! Report pivoted to full-on socialism, the phone has been ringing off the hook, mostly to berate and call me a commie. There has also been a smattering of American people who have anxiously asked, “How can I be good socialist?” To help you make the perilous journey across the chasm, I have put together a handy guide in the form of a Q&A.
Q: What is rule number one of being a socialist?
There are good socialists and there are bad ones. For god’s sake, be one of the good ones. This is rule number one. Don’t feel compelled to wear army green t-shirts with Che Guevara’s face on them and try to burn everything down. There are better ways to do this, and I will tell you how if you ask nicely.
Q: Why on earth have we turned into socialists?
Yes, it’s important understand why we are becoming socialists. Contrary to popular opinion, we’re not embracing socialism to free Palestine or to help gays buy wedding cakes in stores that don’t want to sell to them or allow biological men to run the 100 meters dash against teenage high school girls. While these are no doubt important matters, but they have nothing to do with socialism.
Let’s remember we were capitalists just last week. Not all of capitalism is bad. Not all capitalists are bad. But most of them are assholes like Sam Altman, and they’re trying to replace us with random, non-human things, put us out of jobs and keep all the money for themselves. They know that they’re doing bad things to us. Why else would Sam Altman build underground bunkers in California and New Zealand? He wants a place or two to go to when we the people eventually figure out what he’s been up to.
We’re switching teams because we no longer want to be on the side of bad capitalists.
Q: What do we want?
Who are we? Good socialists. What do we want? Good, well-paying jobs that will allow us to pay for Starbucks and Apple products and a decent home in a decent neighborhood. We also demand that the Starbucks baristas and the Chinese tweens who build our iPhones are paid a living wage. Sam Altman et al are working on software and robots that can serve coffee and build iPhones. No one asked them to do this. Yet they are doing it. We demand that Sam et al stop doing dastardly Bond villain level deeds. If they don’t stop, we demand that they share with us the profits they made by putting us all out of work.
Q: Why would Sam share the profits? Did he not build the software so he could make even more money and keep it all for himself?
Yes, Sam won’t share the money voluntarily. We will vote for those socialists who will force Sam to share the spoils. All the while we must take great care to not “accidentally” burn any datacenters down. That’s a nice building you have in Lubbock, Texas, Sam. It’d be a shame if anything happened to it.
Q: What else do we want?
We demand free healthcare for all. This is non-negotiable. Sam is trying to put us out of jobs, without which we will lose employer paid insurance coverage. Adding insult to injury, the Republicans have removed all subsidies for Obamacare, the only way to buy insurance if we lose our jobs. Imagine more people losing jobs because of Sam, who then must pay higher and higher Obamacare insurance premiums, all without a salary! This will not stand, man. We demand free healthcare for all. If Canada can do it, why not us?
Q: What do you mean by “all” when you say free healthcare for all?
To be clear, by all, I mean all US citizens, not illegal immigrants. We are socialists but we will not be irresponsible like Gavin Newsom.
Q: Do we not care about the illegal immigrants in America? Come on, man, don’t be a dick.
No, we’re not heartless like Trump either. To those who want to deport all illegals, I say: If you believe that a person with no money or education can walk across the border and take your job, it’s you that has a problem, buddy, not me or them. Yes, we care about the illegals in America. If someone is Palestinian, gay and illegal all at the same time, we will fight to the death for them.
But, we’re gonna have to deport the criminal illegals, and keep the border closed while we figure out the situation for the 12 or 18 million peaceful illegals already here. I don’t know what the answer is, yet. But, for now, let’s stay focused on citizens first. After that, we’ll get to the Mexicans and Palestinians. To be a US citizen must count for something, right?
Note: I am not taking any objections to this approach currently.
What else do we want?
We want the following to be lower – inflation, mortgage rates, gas prices, home prices, rents, home insurance, grocery bills, college fees, weight, blood pressure, cholesterol, A1C, and insulin prices.
We want the following to be exactly zero – number of Trumps and Kennedys in public office, crypto tokens issued by the Trump family, American funded Chinese virus labs in Wuhan, Op-Eds criticizing Gen-Z, and the number of children killed in wars anywhere in the world.
Q: Are socialists allowed to eat in fine restaurants, smoke cigars, and wear stylish clothes?
Yes, we’re socialists, not the Amish people.
Q: Wasn’t Venezuela fabulously rich before it became socialist and then it became poor?
Venezuela was corrupt and screwed up back then. It’s corrupt and screwed up now. Don’t blame their woes on socialism. Hey, take off that Che Guevara shirt. Those guys are bad socialists. They are not one of us.
Q: Are we communists?
Bro, NO, we’re NOT commies. Communism is a form of government. Socialism is an economic model. We’re democratic socialists as opposed to being authoritarian communists or undemocratic capitalists.
Q: How do we feel about free speech?
Yes, you may speak freely.
Q: How do we feel about gays buying cakes in stores that don’t want to sell to them?
Listen, while this has nothing to do with socialism, it may be one of the most important issues of our times. Here is my advice to the gays: I love you guys. I love your fashion sense but for god’s sake, also have some common sense. Don’t buy anything from a guy who doesn’t want to sell to you. He’ll likely spit in the cake before giving it to you, if you force him.
Q: Capitalism fosters innovation. If we become socialist, won’t that mean the end of innovation?
Aha, what an intelligent question. It is true that capitalism fosters innovation. Socialism is not anti-innovation per se, but it’s not exactly great for innovation either. It would be terrible to lose innovation ONLY if that innovation was useful. If you look at the innovations over the last 2-3 decades, it has been about creating social media platforms on which you can spread lies at the speed of light, building virus labs that can shut down the world, and now AI that will put us out of jobs. The smartest people on the planet have spent a good part of their lives over the last 20-30 years on figuring out ways to get some noob to click on a link and buy something he does not need. Their innovation has resulted in “an attention economy” in which people doomscroll through Insta reels. If this is the sort of “innovation” that capitalism brings, I’d rather shut this whole thing down and go full on socialist until someone promises to cure cancer or even better, figure out ways to bring down the prices of Taylor Swift concerts.
Q: How do we feel about billionaires?
I recommend that we maintain an uneasy but peaceful approach to billionaires. Everyone thinks we don’t need billionaires and worse, that they don’t need us. That is so wrong. We need the billionaires so we can tax their wealth. The billionaires need us so they can test experimental drugs on us before using for themselves. Also, Elon need a human audience for his tweets. I’m confident that they will keep most of us alive until they escape to Mars with a handful of white people. We should do our best in the meanwhile to keep 2-3% of their money.
Don’t hate the billionaires. They are people too. We are gonna need about 200-300 billionaires to fund our retirement.
Q: I already miss capitalism, man. I didn’t want any of this. What happened? When did things go so wrong?
Calm down, don’t be a drama queen. Things are still okay. The average American lives better than how millionaires and kings did in the 19th century - with running water, electricity, antibiotics, spas, iPhones and HBO Max. We’re living through a golden age for the average human. I just don’t want this to turn into a golden age of oligarchs in the next 50 years. That is all. All of this can be avoided if Sam puts the gun down and walks out with his hands in the air. None of us had a problem with inequality. No one said anything when Ambani spent billions on a month long wedding for his son. But I draw a line when they come for our livelihoods. All we want is to be miserable in our jobs during the week and party on weekends. Is that too much to ask?
Despair not. I’m confident we will screw things up enough that capitalism will be back, better than ever, in about 25-50 years, if you manage to live for that long.
Stay cool and look for new socialism merch from What Ho! coming soon to the government run grocery store near you. If you make me a billionaire, I promise to be one of the good ones.
Have a good weekend, folks.
Brilliant!!