If you want a glimpse of where the radical Left wants to take this country, look no further than New York City, where a self-described democratic socialist is proposing that the government run your grocery store. Yes, you read that right.
Zohran Mamdani, a 33-year-old New York State Assemblyman and candidate for mayor, wants to launch a pilot program of five taxpayer-funded, government-owned grocery stores—one in each of the five boroughs. His pitch? Reduce food insecurity and help lower grocery costs. But the real outcome, as any sane American can see, is nothing short of a slow-motion economic disaster.
House Republican Michael Rulli of Ohio, who actually knows a thing or two about how grocery stores work—his family has run a small chain for generations—hit the nail on the head when he told Fox News Digital: “This will be a bullet into the heart of the U.S. grocery industry if this caught on.”
Rulli isn’t speaking in hypotheticals. His family’s grocery business operates on razor-thin profit margins—between 1.25% and 1.7% net over the past six years. That’s typical for the industry. These are businesses that survive by keeping prices competitive, shelves stocked, and customers happy—all without a dime of government subsidy. And now Mamdani wants to take taxpayer money and set up the government as a direct competitor?
Let’s be clear about what’s really happening here. This isn’t about food insecurity. It’s about ideology. Mamdani isn’t trying to fix the free market—he’s trying to replace it. And we’ve seen this movie before. Every time socialism has been tried, it’s led to shortages, stagnation, and suffering. The grocery store is just the latest battleground in the Left’s long war on private enterprise.
Rulli painted a stark picture of what happens if this idea spreads. “Say you’re going to Cleveland, Ohio,” he said. “And the mayor opens up ten government-run stores, half the cost of all the other different stores… all of them would go out of business, and you’d only have the government-run business.”
And he’s absolutely right. Once the government drives out competition, you’re left with a lifeless monopoly. No incentive to improve. No reason to lower prices or expand choices. Just rows of bland, government-approved products, served up by bureaucrats with no skin in the game.
Remember the photo of Boris Yeltsin in a Texas grocery store in the 1980s? The man had run a Soviet republic, but he was stunned by the sheer variety and abundance available to ordinary Americans. That’s what capitalism delivers—a quality of life defined by choice, competition, and innovation.
Mamdani wants to erase all that. As Rulli put it, “You want to limit the amount of things that they could buy at the grocery store? One of the few things that the blue-collar American, the populist American, can actually take comfort in is the variety of items at the grocery store.”
It’s not just about produce aisles and checkout lines. This is about whether we believe in the American way—free markets, personal responsibility, and opportunity—or whether we’re going to hand over even more control to a bloated, inefficient government.
Mamdani’s idea is dangerous, but politically, it may backfire. Republicans in New York are already pointing out that his extremism could help their cause in November. And they’re right to sound the alarm. If Mamdani wins, it sends a message that socialism is on the rise in America’s largest city. But if voters reject this nonsense, it could energize a nationwide conservative pushback.
The stakes are high, and the choice is simple. Do we want a country where the government owns your grocery store, your energy, your healthcare, and your speech? Or do we want a nation where the American Dream still means something?
The Left wants control. Conservatives want freedom. That’s the fight. And we’d better show up.
