For generations the hard left has framed every debate as between frigid rapacious capitalism and nurturing, warm government help.

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The day before the Trump administration captured and extradited Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro, many on the right (including yours truly) had a field day mocking something the newly minted mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani, said during his inaugural address.

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The proud member of the Democratic Socialists of America proclaimed: “We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.”

The phrase “warmth of collectivism” offended many of us because “collectivism” is widely understood as a generic label for extreme left-wing political systems.

Understandably, the following night’s big news — the socialist dictator of Venezuela, itself a shining example of “warm collectivism,” being removed at the point of a gun(boat) — quieted the ideological brouhaha.

But I think it’s worth returning to something else Mamdani said in his inaugural address, and in that same sentence: “rugged individualism.”

The term “rugged individualism” was coined by President Herbert Hoover in........

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