N.Y. Mayoral Candidate Wants ‘Public Option’ for Grocery Stores

Plus, Chinese spy at Vandenberg Space Base; Lee Edwards

A New York mayoral candidate used a TikTok video to introduce his plan for city-owned grocery stores.

A socialist New York State assemblyman who is running for mayor of New York City is pushing a plan to have the City of New York open “a network” of city-government operated grocery stores.

The candidate, Zohran Kwame Mamdani, previewed the plan in a vertical video.

“Grocery prices are out of control. The cost of eggs and milk has skyrocketed. Some stores are even using dynamic pricing, jacking up the cost over the course over the course of a day depending on what they can get away with. It doesn’t need to be this way,” he says.

“I’m Zohran Mamdani, and as mayor, I will create a network of city-owned grocery stores. It’s like a public option for produce. We will redirect city funds from corporate supermarkets to city-owned grocery stores whose mission is lower prices, not price gouging. These stores will operate without a profit motive or having to pay property taxes or rent and will pass on those savings to you. They’ll partner with small businesses and nearby farms and sell at wholesale prices,” he says.

“The job of city government isn’t to tinker around the edges while one in four children across our city go hungry,” he says.

Back in August, The Editors highlighted a similar plan under way in Chicago, under the headline, “Chicago Wants a ‘Public Option’ for Grocery Stores.”

Fresh fruit in abundance is on display in a free-market, non-government-owned market. Photo: The Editors.

​​I wrote then, “It seems unjust for people running profitable grocery stores to be taxed so that the government can open up businesses to compete with them. And the government in Chicago and in Illinois are failing so at doing the basic, fundamental tasks they are already supposed to be doing, it’s hard to see the logic of their taking on additional missions, like running grocery stores, that are typically handled by the private sector.”

As a reminder that the war against capitalism and the war against the Jews are closely intertwined, Mamdani’s campaign website trumpets his endorsement by both “JVP Action,” which is an anti-Israel group, and New York City Democratic Socialists of America, another anti-Israel group.

With any luck this guy will get nowhere near the New York City mayor’s office, but it’s somewhat refreshing to see leftwing politicians so transparent about their goals of a government takeover of the private economy.

Also astounding is the level of hubris, and the lack of historical knowledge. Do these people really not remember the empty supermarket shelves in the Soviet Union under communism? And do they really believe that the government can sell groceries with better operational efficiency than master retailers such as Trader Joe’s, Aldi, Costco, and Wegmans, all of which operate in New York City?

“Everywhere I go, I hear New Yorkers talking about the outrageous prices of groceries,” Mamdani told the New York Times, describing his idea as “a bold and workable plan.” The New York Times news article previewed his plan almost stenographically, posing no challenging or skeptical questions. The closest the Times gets to balance in its story is including a quote from an academic who seems to agree that corporate supermarkets are bad, but suggests a solution might involve more emphasis on cooperatives or nonprofits.

Lee Edwards: Lee Edwards, the founding chairman of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, died today at his home in Arlington, Virginia. The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation has more:

Lee Edwards was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1932, to Leila and Willard Edwards. His father, the national political reporter for the Chicago Tribune, moved the family to Silver Spring, Maryland, where Lee was raised. He attended Duke University and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English before serving two years in the U.S. Army.

As a graduate student at the Sorbonne University in Paris, Dr. Edwards witnessed Hungarian students in 1956 launch a revolution in the streets of Budapest that toppled the Communist regime. As Soviet tanks crushed the Freedom Fighters, he was appalled by the West’s lack of response and made a lifelong pledge to oppose communism.