Tracy Rosenthal, co-founder of the Los Angeles Tenants Union, has emerged as an influential far-left star in the Democratic Socialists of America’s tenant-organizing ‘squatting’ movement, promoting rent strikes and aggressive pressure campaigns to bankrupt landlords.
While the article focuses largely on New York City, Rosenthal’s influence extends far beyond it. She has built an entire career around this work, speaking at conferences and appearing as a media expert. The clips I used of her actually come from a talk she gave to Asheville DSA. pic.twitter.com/2LGiDzVYNG
— Stu Smith (@thestustustudio) August 3, 2026
In this clip posted on X by Stu Smith, investigative analyst at the Manhattan Institute, Rosenthal stated that tenants pay rent “at the barrel of a gun.” She explained how “Living on rent strike – right – getting to experience having your housing without having to pay for it is one of those liberatory visions of home.”
🚨 Meet the “Abolish Rent” Ideologue Teaching DSA Tenant Organizers How to Wage War on Landlords
Tracy Rosenthal co-founded the Los Angeles Tenants Union, helps politically educate DSA tenant organizers, and is currently on rent strike in New York City.
In this supercut,… pic.twitter.com/0fw5wi30rt
— Stu Smith (@thestustustudio) July 17, 2026
The problem with Rosenthal’s revolutionary crusade to collapse capitalism is that she treats rent strikes, and the broader effort to destroy the nation from within, almost as a game, even though the financial fallout affects actual working-class tenants, property owners, lenders, and working-poor communities.
Her view that this is all a game is even more striking given New York Post reporting that she was raised in a super-wealthy household in a multimillion-dollar Manhattan apartment and is the daughter of four-time Grammy-winning studio owner Steven Rosenthal.
Rosenthal showing off her White privilege at the Grammys with her rich father and stepmother.
In other words, the very privilege created by the capitalist system she seeks to destroy has insulated her from terrible life decisions. She appears to be little more than a lonely cat woman and an unhinged white liberal “Karen” who hates the West, probably because she went to some liberal arts school and was handed an unproductive, woke degree that many companies today see merely as a liability.
She is also likely representative of many DSA members who, as they watch capitalism progress this summer. Spacex’s IPO mints thousands of new millionaires, including working-class welders, and they see their jealousy boil over as they confront the reality that their decision to pursue far-left activism has led them down a sad and angry path, one full of hate and, as the far-left is known for, violence.
Rosenthal’s 2024 book “Abolish Rent” has been a top read on the DSA’s own website.
But hey, she is one of DSA’s recommended authors on “housing justice,” not a manipulative activist weaponizing laws and protections meant to help vulnerable tenants. pic.twitter.com/0uWgbxNYTR
— Stu Smith (@thestustustudio) July 17, 2026
Rosenthal, who posted “death to America” the night Mamdani clinched the Democratic primary last year and now serves as a visiting scholar at the woke CUNY, has already put some of these rent strikes into practice.
Meet another of Mamdani’s housing experts…
Mamdani housing event features a lady in a mask ranting about her landlord, declaring “eviction = violence” pic.twitter.com/el709Zzf88
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) July 16, 2026
It’s time to recognize that Rosenthal, like much of the DSA activist class, is arguably a byproduct of an education system hijacked by the radical left that has purposely oversupplied the country with worthless woke degrees.
The result is a growing revolutionary cohort increasingly detached from economic realities that have one mission, and it’s not affordability, climate, anti-data centers, Palestine, or any of the lefty causes; it’s to destroy the nation from within – we’re merely citing DSA leaders in their own words …
Hawley’s Solution
If policymakers actually want to dismantle the cancer killing the education system and producing this far-left activist class, perhaps forcing schools to have an economic interest in student outcomes will result in less wokes? Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) introduced a bill in 2022 – the Make the Universities Pay Act, that would allow federal student loans to be discharged in bankruptcy after a certain period, but pair that relief with a clawback requiring universities that pushed these worthless and toxic degrees to absorb at least half of every covered loan that is ultimately discharged.
Such a mechanism would fundamentally change the economics of higher education overnight. Schools – with their massively inflated tuition – who produce graduates that are unable to generate enough income to repay their debts, would suddenly bear a direct financial cost for those outcomes. This would impose accountability, forcing schools to prioritize productive and demanding degrees instead of worthless woke degrees.
In other words, it’s time to impose accountability on schools that push worthless degrees. Such a move could be the ultimate death blow to many universities with weak balance sheets, high debt loads, and small endowments.
Lawmakers should read more about how to break the cycle of bad ideas via U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.): New Legislation to Hold Universities Accountable for Rising Tuition Costs and Student Debt.
Tyler Durden
Sun, 08/09/2026 – 14:35
