Nithya Raman, a socialist, wants a bigger house – Latest News
Nithya Raman wants Los Angeles voters to make her mayor.
She additionally wants to bulldoze her 1,879-square-foot Silver Lake home and exchange it with a three-story, 3,528-square-foot house with a spa and two-car storage.
That is an 88% increase in residing space for a politician who has made housing affordability central to her political id — and who’s now the formally endorsed mayoral candidate of the Democratic Socialists of America’s Los Angeles chapter.
DSA-LA endorsed Raman on Sept. 2. She has been a member of the group since earlier than her first City Council marketing campaign in 2020.
This stops being merely a story about a politician building herself a bigger house.
It turns into a story about hypocrisy.
An aerial view of Nithya Raman’s house is seen in Silver Lake in Los Angeles, California, on Wednesday, September 9, 2026. Pedro Colo for CA Post
There is nothing fallacious with Raman wanting a bigger home. If she owns the property, can afford the project and follows the law, she ought to be free to improve it.
That is the purpose.
Private property means you get to make selections about one thing you own. You invest in it, improve it and form it across the life you need to dwell.
Raman understands that completely nicely when the property belongs to Nithya Raman.
Her socialist allies see issues otherwise when the property belongs to someone else.
DSA-LA’s Democratic Socialist Program for Los Angeles promotes “decommodified housing” exterior the personal market and expressly requires the federal government to “expropriate privately owned housing.”
That will not be obscure language.
And Raman can not dismiss it as someone else’s socialism.
She is a DSA-LA member. She sought the group’s endorsement for mayor and accepted it. Its activists and political machinery at the moment are working to put her in City Hall.
LA Mayoral candidate Nithya Raman speaks at a press convention in Los Angeles, California, Friday, July 24, 2026. for CA Post
The contradiction is inconceivable to overlook.
When the house belongs to Raman, personal possession means the liberty to tear it down, almost double its measurement, add a spa and construct the home she wants.
Turn to everybody else’s property, and she or he aligns herself with an group whose program seeks to maneuver housing exterior personal possession.
One normal for Raman.
Another for everyone else.
That is hypocrisy.
Raman calls Los Angeles’ lack of ability to affordably house its residents “the compounding moral crisis of our time.”
Meanwhile, her own 1,879 sq. toes apparently won’t do.
And she will not be changing some collapsing shack.
According to the Post’s reporting, her present three-bedroom, 2.5-bath hillside home has hardwood flooring, wood-beamed ceilings, a gourmand kitchen, walk-in closets, a sprawling deck and panoramic views.
It can be listed as a contributing property within the Silver Lake Residential Historic District.
Still, Raman wants one thing bigger.
Fine.
People like space. They like consolation. They like lovely properties and the liberty to improve what they own.
That is one cause personal possession issues.
There is one thing wealthy about a politician endorsed by an group that wants to “decommodify” housing deciding that her own invaluable housing commodity may use an 88% improve.
Raman’s defenders might say socialists are allowed to own properties.
Of course they’re.
That misses the purpose.
Nobody ought to begrudge Raman a good house or a bigger one. The hypocrisy is embracing personal possession and control over property when she workouts these rights herself, whereas looking for and accepting the backing of a political group whose housing agenda takes direct intention at personal possession.
That is more than a coverage inconsistency.
It is a values drawback.
And this isn’t some minor facet problem in Raman’s marketing campaign. Housing is central to the case she is making for changing into mayor.
An aerial view of Nithya Raman’s house in Silver Lake on Wednesday, September 9, 2026, in Los Angeles, California. Pedro Colo for CA Post
She wants voters to imagine she understands what’s fallacious with Los Angeles housing and has the solutions to repair it. That makes the rules she follows in her own yard honest recreation.
If the principles change when the property is hers, voters are entitled to note.
There is one different irony right here. Los Angeles already gives its mayor with an official residence: Getty House, in tony Windsor Square, subsequent door to Hancock Park.
So maybe Raman is hedging. If she loses, she will get a a lot bigger Silver Lake home. If she wins, she may transfer into the mayor’s mansion and sometime sell the upgraded house for a revenue.
Which raises one final query: How a lot revenue is an excessive amount of revenue for a socialist?
Los Angeles voters might wind up dealing with an inconceivable alternative for mayor, with actual causes for severe reservations in regards to the candidates earlier than them.
No need to litigate that total alternative right here.
But when Angelenos begin making their lists of causes for and towards Nithya Raman, put this one on the ledger.
She wants voters to trust her with City Hall whereas working with socialists who need to “expropriate privately owned housing.”
Meanwhile, back in Silver Lake, Raman wants 88% more house.
Some rules, apparently, are simpler to dwell with once they apply to someone else.
Jon Fleischman, a longtime strategist in California politics, writes at SoDoesItMatter.com
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