Exclusive | DSA rich girl Lulu Lenin defends wealth: have yall never heard of noblesse oblige?
A NYC socialist and self-described “Lulu Lenin” said rich people like her have an obligation to help the less fortunate.Grace Ryan, a 25-year-old chocolate heiress from Ohio who graduated from NYU this spring and worked as an organizer on Brad Lander’s congressional campaign, has emerged as one of the most shameless members of the Democratic Socialists of America.“Everyone’s trying to dunk on me for being a progressive from a privileged background but like have y’all never heard of noblesse oblige?” Ryan wrote in an out-of-touch post on X Tuesday.“I have a moral obligation to use my advantages to help those who are struggling.”The remark — a reference to the phrase Honoré de Balzac used in 1835 to encapsulate the aristocratic notion that privilege comes with a duty to help the less fortunate, in direct contradiction to the DSA’s beliefs — came after a slew of DSA leaders were exposed in recent weeks as nepo babies posing as champions of the proletariat.Ryan, who attended the $35,000-a-year Columbus Academy, regularly takes to social media to defend both her socialist views and her family fortune.Her father, Michael Ryan, a registered Republican, made his fortune buying Columbus’ Maramor Chocolates and turning it into a $10 million national brand found in almost all candy isles.She recently flaunted her summer at a family lake house posting photos on X of herself puffing a cigar on a boat in a $400 Ralph Lauren stars-and-stripes sweater — and posing beside a $115,000 Hummer parked in the driveway.“I’ve been very outspoken about coming from a privileged background and being disturbed by income inequality from a young age,” she defended to criticism of the snaps.The recent graduate from $70,000-a-year New York University with a Bachelor of Arts also posted about being at a beach club in Montauk last month and attending $50-a-class reformer Pilates in the Big Apple.But critics of Ryan and her comrades say the problem isn’t being pr...