纽约市民主党市长候选人佐赫兰·马姆达尼（Zohran Mamdani）与纽约州民主党众议员亚历山德里娅·奥卡西奥-科尔特斯（Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez）——美国最著名的两位社会主义政客——犯下了身份盗窃罪。不过，他们并未窃取社会保障号码或盗用他人信用卡信息，而是采取了更为隐蔽的手段：为谋取个人及政治利益，盗用被压迫者的形象。

这是一种老把戏。正如马萨诸塞州民主党参议员伊丽莎白·沃伦在学术生涯攀升过程中宣称拥有美洲原住民血统一样，曼达尼和奥卡西奥-科尔特斯在政治生涯崛起时也采用了贫苦大众的身份标签。两人的政治人设都建立在微小的事实内核上：曼达尼在大学申请中声称自己是黑人，只因他出生于乌干达，尽管其父母是两位著名、富裕且受过高等教育的印度人；奥卡西奥-科尔特斯自称"布朗克斯女孩"，实则仅在该区生活至五岁便搬往纽约州威彻斯特郡的富人区。他们都围绕压迫者与被压迫者的宏大叙事构建身份认同，企图将其转化为权力与声望。

事实上，曼达尼（Mamdani）和奥卡西奥-科尔特兹（Ocasio-Cortez）分别属于印度裔和拉丁裔群体，这些群体并未完全融入美国最深刻的历史二元对立——即白人与黑人、殖民者与奴隶之间的对立。尽管两人无疑都能指出其族群曾遭受的个人轻视或历史不公，但无论是曼达尼还是奥卡西奥-科尔特兹，都无法真正声称经历过历史性压迫。印度裔美国人是美国受教育程度最高、最富裕的群体之一，而绝大多数拉丁裔是在废除种族隔离和《民权法案》通过后才来到美国的。数百万人背井离乡从印度和拉丁美洲来到这个国家碰运气，这一事实本身就表明，他们认为美国是一片充满机遇而非不公的土地。

然而，对曼达尼（Mamdani）和奥卡西奥-科尔特兹（Ocasio-Cortez）而言，必须不惜一切代价维系《民权法案》通过后歧视现象依然存在的迷思。两人均利用自身特权——曼达尼是鲍登学院毕业生、教授之子；奥卡西奥-科尔特兹是波士顿大学毕业生、建筑师之女——来推动其关于压迫的叙事。

他们这样做是因为行之有效。曼达尼（Mamdani）和奥卡西奥-科尔特兹（Ocasio-Cortez）分别将不满情绪转化为政治策略，成功赢得了皇后区和布朗克斯区的竞选。他们激励了那些焦虑的、受过大学教育的左翼活动人士，这些人负责竞选活动的基层工作，并赢得了外围行政区工人阶级和少数族裔选民的支持。

历来如此。马克思和恩格斯出身富裕家庭；列宁曾是律师；毛泽东则在北京大学担任图书管理员。左翼激进分子提出工人阶级自发革命理论后不久，便将其抛弃。自俄国革命以来，“无产阶级先锋队”一直是他们的核心概念。而身份盗用——即宣称代表穷人、受压迫者和被剥削者——则是他们的主要策略。

反对者应如何应对？揭露欺诈行为或许有效。毕竟，沃伦因被曝光为追逐权力而虚报族裔身份后，始终未能完全恢复声誉。但对于马姆达尼、奥卡西奥-科尔特兹等新一代身份窃取者，这种做法将更为困难——他们精通政治煽动宣传，并能凭借少数族裔身份让部分批评者有所顾忌。

更明智的做法是将论点围绕两个核心概念展开：美国与制度运作。首先，批评者应当指出，全球数百万人渴望赴美追求机遇、法律平等和真正包容的文化；曼达尼（Mamdani）和奥卡西奥-科尔特斯（Ocasio-Cortez）家族的成功恰恰得益于这个国家的制度体系——这样的制度值得颂扬而非诟病。

其次，批评者应当揭露这类政客虚伪自私的本质——他们为追逐个人地位而伪造背景，通过操纵选民来推行破坏性意识形态。曼达尼（Mamdani）和奥卡西奥-科尔特斯（Ocasio-Cortez）的政策将与其承诺背道而驰，正如历史上社会主义政策的失败教训所示。

遗憾的是，身份盗用策略在可预见的未来仍将与我们共存。我在乔治城大学读本科时注意到，许多家境优渥、人脉广泛的学生早已准备好一套关于受压迫的叙事或悲情故事——这并非出于谦逊，而是野心使然。他们敏锐地意识到，种族、心理或家庭创伤的叙述能为其赢得社会地位和竞争优势。我曾目睹中东酋长之子与美国商业巨擘之女反复演练那些所谓受压迫的台词，这些说辞如今已成为全国性讨论中的常见话题。

问题在于，虚假身份可能引发真实的后果。佐兰·马姆达尼（Zohran Mamdani）和亚历山德里娅·奥卡西奥-科尔特兹（Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez）这类精英伪装成受压迫者。若他们得逞，将建立一套奖励同类而惩罚底层民众的制度。

New York City Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani and New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Corteztwo of Americas most prominent socialist politicianshave committed identity theft. No, they did not pilfer a Social Security number or swipe the digits of someone elses credit card. They have done something more subtle: stealing the image of the oppressed for personal and political gain.

Its an old trick. Just as Sen. Elizabeth Warren , D-Mass., claimed Native American heritage as she ascended the ranks of academia, Mamdani and Ocasio-Cortez adopted the identities of the poor and downtrodden as they ascended the ranks of politics. Both built their political personas on a small kernel of truth: Mamdani claimed on his college application to be black because he was born in Uganda, despite being the son of two famous, affluent, and educated Indians; Ocasio-Cortez claimed to be a " Bronx girl " because she lived in the borough until age five, when she moved to a tony corner of Westchester County, New York . Both have structured their identities around grand narratives of oppressor and oppressed, which they hope to convert into power and prestige.

The truth is that both Mamdani and Ocasio-Cortez belong to groupsIndians and Latinos, respectivelythat do not fit neatly into Americas deepest historical binary, that between White and Black, colonist and slave. Though both could doubtlessly point toward some personal slight or past injustice against their ethnic group, neither Mamdani nor Ocasio-Cortez can lay a real claim to historical oppression. Indian Americans are among the most educated and affluent groups in America, and the vast majority of Latinos arrived in the United States after desegregation and the Civil Rights Act. The very fact that millions of people uprooted themselves from India and Latin America to try their luck in this country indicates that they considered America a land of opportunity, rather than injustice.

For Mamdani and Ocasio-Cortez, however, the myth of post-Civil Rights Act discrimination must be maintained at all costs. Both use their privilegeMamdani, graduate of Bowdoin and son of a professor; Ocasio-Cortez, graduate of Boston University and daughter of an architectto advance their narrative of oppression.

They do it because it works. Mamdani and Ocasio-Cortez have translated the politics of resentment to win political campaigns in Queens and the Bronx, respectively. They motivate anxious, college-educated left-wing activists, who run the ground game for their campaigns and harvest the support of working-class and minority voters in the outer boroughs.

It has always been thus. Marx and Engels were sons of affluence; Lenin was a lawyer; Mao was a librarian at Peking University. Left-wing radicals abandoned the theory of spontaneous working-class revolution not long after they hatched it. The "vanguard of the proletariat" has been their dominant concept since the Russian Revolution . And identity theftclaiming to represent the poor, the downtrodden, the oppressedhas been their dominant tactic.

How should opponents respond? Pointing out the fraud might be effective. After all, Warren never fully recovered from the revelation that she misrepresented her ancestry in pursuit of power. But it will be harder with the new generation of identity thieves, such as Mamdani and Ocasio-Cortez, who are skilled at political agitprop and can rely on their racial minority status to make some critics reluctant to go after them.

The better approach is to frame the argument around two concepts: America and manipulation. First, critics should point out that millions of people around the world want to come to America for its opportunities, equality under law, and genuinely tolerant culture; the Mamdani and Ocasio-Cortez families have become successful precisely because of this countrys system, which should be celebrated rather than condemned.

Second, critics should portray such politicians as dishonest and self-serving, public figures who misrepresent their backgrounds in pursuit of personal status and manipulate voters to advance destructive ideologies. Mamdani and Ocasio-Cortezs policies will yield the opposite of what they promise, as socialist policies have done in the past.

Regrettably, the identity-theft strategy will remain with us for the foreseeable future. When I was an undergraduate at Georgetown University, I noticed that many of the most affluent and connected students had prepared an oppression narrative or sob storynot out of modesty but ambition. They sensed, correctly, that a story of racial, psychological, or familial trauma would grant them status and a competitive edge. I saw the sons of Middle Eastern sheiks and the daughters of American moguls rehearsing lines about supposed oppression that are now familiar in the national discourse.

The trouble is that fake identities can yield real consequences. Zohran Mamdani and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are elites masquerading as the oppressed. If they are successful, they will create a system that rewards people like them and punishes those below.