A Growing Socialist Party Influence on Our Property Rights

Long before I was dubbed the “Landlord Crusader” by my local, hometown newspaper, I was for most of my career the Chief Financial Officer of Premiere Radio Networks, which at the time, was the largest U.S. radio network and now a subsidiary of I-Heart Media. While there, we syndicated many of the well-known, national radio shows, and part of my job, in addition to a financial role, involved negotiating talent agreements and program acquisitions, and also dealing with the “ups and downs” inherent in the careers and personal lives of high caliber, demanding radio talent.

One of the nationally syndicated radio programs we acquired along the way was called “Coast-to-Coast AM” with radio show host, Art Bell. The show is still syndicated by Premiere Radio Networks (now simply “Premiere Networks” due to its growing audio distribution via online, including podcasts) to this day, but with host George Noory.

Coast-to-Coast AM is a show filled with intrigue and often “spins” a great number of conspiracy theories about unidentified flying objects (UFOs) having landed here on Earth and great experiments being conducted on aliens by the U.S. Government, or even humans who claim to have been abducted by aliens. One of the most outlandish conspiracies involved a guest who had claimed he had participated in the great “Philadelphia Experiment” where the U.S. Government allegedly made a large battleship disappear during World War II and as a result, the ship’s occupants (guest included) were sent traveling to another time dimension, all of which was an experiment conducted by the great engineer and scientist, Nikola Tesla (Yes, the namesake of Elon Musk’s electronic vehicle company!). Then, of course, there was always the standard “conspiracy theory fare” like President Kennedy’s assassination, haunted mansions, men in black, and much more.

Now, while I was a regular listener and found Art’s radio show to have incredible entertainment value, particularly as it ran during the overnight hours starting on the West Coast at 10:00 p.m., and covered topics ranging from “spooky” to the “unbelievable” to the “deranged,” I, myself never was nor ever had I been a believer in or one who fell for conspiracy theories. Why should I or anyone believe in or trust conspiracy theories? Certainly, if someone is or multiple individuals are “in on the plot” as they say, and generally it takes more than one individual being on the inside, then in my view, someone is going to eventually “spill the beans.” Take, for example, alleged election fraud claims on such a massive scale during the 2020 Presidential Election (Sorry, Mr. Trump…). To execute the massive ballot harvesting, voter fraud or “whatever” to alter the results of a national election, it would take hundreds if not thousands of individuals being involved and surely, someone on the inside would eventually come to the table and “spill the beans.” Sorry, but Mr. Trump just lost that election fair and square, although it pains this lifelong moderate Republican to admit that.

So, given all my misgivings about conspiracy theories being said, more recently, I have come around to “sort of” believing in one. For several years now, given everything that has been done to us rental housing providers such as prohibited evictions and no rent increases under COVID-era regulations, government funding of attorneys for renters facing eviction, the continual reduction of rent increase “caps,” restrictions on evictions, limits on security deposits, green building initiatives, and government mandates such as seismic retrofitting and balcony inspections just to mention a few, it has now become clear to me. It is obvious. Government wants “us,” we the rental housing providers, out of the business.

For the last few years, I (and others) have speculated that all the constant “ratcheting down” of regulations and increasing government mandates is meant to “kill” the rental housing businesses that we operate. It appears, in this conspiracy, the government, under the disguise of protecting financially struggling and perceived downtrodden renters, by handcuffing housing providers and the manner in which we manage our properties will destroy our property values allowing government to literally “swoop-in” and buy our private properties at a significant discount in order to provide some sort of socialized housing. Renter groups contend that “housing is a human right,” and this conspiracy theory says that government is out to take our properties from us in some sort of Soviet-era type expropriation of private property. For years I have not believed, and have said to myself, “Nahhhh…this cannot be true.” But, more and more lately, I have come to believe this conspiracy is a real possibility and has a great deal of truth.

The Democratic Socialist Political Platform – A Socialist Manifesto

One day, not long ago, my conspiracy theory about government takeover of our private property hit me right in the face. One of our members mailed me a couple of pages of a document titled the “DSA Political Platform” from the Democratic Socialists of America. In this apparent manifesto, there is a section titled “Housing for All,” which makes the claim that “The housing market…is one of the key places where the working class experiences direct exploitation by the capital class.” That’s some pretty scary “us versus them” kind of statement in my view. Those of us who have sacrificed to save and worked very hard all our lives, and have acquired investment property are, in some ways, the “bad guys” according to the Socialist Party.

The DSA Political Platform goes on to point out that skyrocketing property values and declining wages have put homeownership and resulting wealth building out of reach for most Americans. It also states that COVID made matters worse, and as a result, there are “mass evictions and homelessness” and they call for “state intervention.” If the Socialists do not “have,” then apparently, no one should “have” private property!

According to the manifesto, the Democratic Socialists stated solution is to “counter the dangers we are facing by building an insurgent tenant movement…” They have a goal of “decommodifying housing” which they intend to accomplish by “cancelling rent, closing eviction courts” and “as landlords are forced out of the rental housing business, they want “state action to acquire private property and transform [the private property] into public democratically controlled housing.” In other words, the Democratic Socialist platform calls for stealing private property and turning it into socialized housing. This proves my one conspiracy theory, doesn’t it? That is pretty scary stuff.

Unfortunately, we have Democratic Socialists in elected office today, and the trend seems to be growing. Just consider the fact that in the City of Los Angeles alone, out of 15 City Council members, there are 4 declared democratic socialists, and we have Mayor Bass who seemingly goes along with this elected socialist block. You must remember these names on the Los Angeles City Council: Eunisses Hernandez, Nithya Raman, Hugo Soto-Martinez, and Ysabel Jurado. Each of these sitting council members are declared socialists and their campaigns were supported by the Democratic Socialist Party. And, it does not stop there as we see many more running for local offices within other jurisdictions in Southern California.

What Can Be Done?

Don’t abandon ship just yet! There is hope. While “hope” is not a strategy, we can work together to simply un-elect these Socialist officials on the Los Angeles City Council and other government bodies who are not aligned with our interests of providing safe and affordable housing in a manner that gives us a chance at earning a reasonable return on the investments we have made and hard work we have undertaken.

To combat the growing Socialist Party influence and to better secure our property rights, today I call on each and every one of our members to help us by giving generously to our political action committee so that we can elect only individuals who are aligned with our views and sympathetic to our needs as housing providers. I have seen too many close political races lost because we did not have the necessary funds to push good candidates “over the top” into elected office. Just like our defeat of 2024’s Proposition 33, and Propositions 10 and 21 before it, contributions received from our members can and will help us to succeed.

Please…make a pledge to give us the resources we need to overcome our detractors and make a difference for you! Please contribute today by mailing your contribution and check payable to: “AAGLA PAC,” c/o Reed & Davidson, LLP, 515 South Figueroa Street, Suite 1110, Los Angeles, California 90071-3301; Attn. Cary Davidson, Treasurer, or contribute online at: https://aagla.org/candidatespac/. For more information call us at (213) 384-4131. Unfortunately, this is the only path forward.

Written by Daniel Yukelson

Daniel Yukelson is currently the Executive Director of The Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles (AAGLA). As a Certified Public Accountant, Yukelson began his career at Ernst & Young, the global accounting firm, and has since served in senior financial roles principally as Chief Financial Officer for various public, private and start-up companies. Prior to joining AAGLA, Yukelson served for 15 years as Chief Financial Officer for Premiere Radio Networks, now a subsidiary of I-Heart Media, and for more than 3 years as Chief Financial Officer of Oasis West Realty, the owner of the Beverly Hilton and Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills where he was involved with the development and construction of the Waldorf. Yukelson was formerly Chairperson of the City of Beverly Hills Planning Commission and served on both Beverly Hills’ Planning Commission for 6 years and Public Works Commission for 3 years.