Democratic socialist mayor wants to end the police state
Konstantine Anthony, the mayor of Burbank, California, speaks with Fox News Digital on the reasons police and prisons need to be abolished.
The mayor of Burbank, California, who recently made headlines for being spanked by a drag queen at a Democratic fundraiser, spoke to Fox News Digital about his "abolitionist" and "Marxist" ideology in an interview with FOX News Digital.
Mayor Konstantine Anthony is currently running for Los Angeles County Supervisor where a big issue on the ballot is policing reform. Anthony not only supports defunding the police and restricting officers' use of force in hostile scenarios along with other stringent measures, but also wants to work to create a future without police and prisons.
When asked, "Do you support abolishing the police?" He replied, "Yes, I'm a full abolitionist," meaning he supports a "policeless state."
"I don't believe police have any effect on crime… The instigators of crime are poverty, mental health, economic issues, drug addiction, the family or locale that you live in," he said.
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A Democratic mayor in California believes in a revolution against capitalism and the police state. (Adobe Stock )
"The fundamental understanding of how we convict, catch, chase crime and criminology, and treat people in jails and prisons and all of that is flawed," he continued. "We are still living in sort of quasi-20th-century ideology of you do something bad, you got to get punished. That works when you're 5. But when we're talking about human beings on a massive scale, we have to get people back into society."
The mayor said that he believes most people in the U.S. are Marxists, they just don't know it.
"I asked people this all the time, I say, ‘Hey, do you work for somebody or are you your own boss?’ And most people say, ‘Well, yes, I work for somebody, but someday I want to be my own boss.’ And I'm like, ‘Cool. You know who wanted everyone to be their own boss? Karl Marx,’" Anthony said.
"Most people don't understand that the American dream that they're chasing is something that Democratic Socialists have been fighting for 100 years. We want you to be your own boss. Now you can be collectively your own boss," he continued. "So when we think about Marxism as an ideology and we remove it from its German roots and we talk about American socialism. It has a very different tone [in its perception]."
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The mayor was asked, "Do you think a democratic Marxist revolution could address these problems?"
"I actually do. That's funny. I actually do," he responded.
When asked about the future he envisions – one with no police or prisons – Anthony said, "I like to call myself a futurist. There is a path that we're headed towards. And I think all of us collectively kind of know where that's going."
Burbank, California, Mayor Konstantine Anthony speaks with Fox News Digital. (Fox News Digital )
The mayor views slavery and the criminal justice system as on the same plane of oppression.
"The point of abolition is to remember its roots. We need to end the carceral state. We need to end the police state. Because they have become the arm of slavery," he said.
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Anthony believes that people are generally compelled to commit crimes by growing up and facing certain circumstances. Criminal behavior should therefore be addressed at the root cause and not in a carceral system, he suggested.
"For whatever reason, we leave people behind very often. And for that reason, it's easier for us to simply write them off. ‘Well, that person did something wrong.’ At some point they ran a stop sign and didn't pay their ticket, so forget them. Or they came to this country without the right paperwork, so forget them… So we use crime and the carceral state as sort of a Band-Aid for what we in our society deem to be ‘not worthy people.’ And you will find that in most prisons across the country, the vast majority of folks with disabilities have mental health issues."
When asked if Marxism has a place in the United States, he responded that it is already in the "fabric" of the country.
Burbank mayor says most Americans are Marxists but they don't know it. (Adobe Stock)
Beyond those immediate issues on his campaign, Anthony told Fox News Digital he wants an urgent revolution against capitalism.
"It's the owner of the production that has all the power. I think the next step, I think the natural next step for almost anybody who's looking at the way society is run is socialism, because that puts the power in the hand of the worker. So we're making this big transition, and we're moving further and further down the line," he said.
Anthony said the movement for a utopian society with redistribution of wealth, the end of capitalism and the police state could only come about through this "revolution."
"We need to fundamentally change our understanding of not just government, but of society. We live now in a world where the greatest thing you could possibly do is be rich or famous," he said.
When pressed on how revolutions in China, Cuba and Russia ended in totalitarianism, the mayor maintained that that was only because it was done without a Constitution.
Democratic socialist wants a revolution against capitalism in the U.S. (Adobe Stock)
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The mayor made headlines after he attended a Saturday drag queen bingo event that was hosted by the Santa Clarita Valley Democrats. Shortly after the video went viral of the Democrat getting spanked by the drag queen, he changed his X name to "Mayor Spanky."
"Regardless of advertising, there were no children at the event," he said in a statement.
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