OPINION:
America’s largest metropolis is about to elect a swaggering socialist as mayor. Thanks to an avalanche of outside cash, the foreign-born child of privilege named Zohran Mamdani leads the contest to run New York City.
Passing himself off as a man of the people, Mr. Mamdani built a 17-point advantage over his nearest rival in the RealClearPolling average. His success demonstrates the extent of the mainstream Democratic Party’s leftward lurch, considering the range of zany schemes Manhattanites appear willing to endorse.
Mr. Mamdani will freeze monthly payments for anyone in “rent-stabilized” apartments, a giveaway to his biggest fans: illegal aliens. The foreign-born occupy 44% of the space in rent-controlled tenements, and a third of those living in taxpayer-funded units were also born outside the United States, according to city data.
Rather than recognizing that the affordability crisis has something to do with flooding the market with tenants who sneaked over the border last week, Mr. Mamdani’s fix guarantees that broken landlords will never repair or improve buildings.
The Democratic standard-bearer will also hire the city to be the nanny for everyone from birth to age 5. “Free child care” is a great way to ensure youths have early exposure to the ideas Mr. Mamdani chooses to promote.
Grocery stores are the centerpiece of his government-first agenda, with his experts deciding what the proletariat is allowed to eat. The candidate says city-run shops would address soaring prices in the produce aisle, but putting local mandarins in charge of selling bread is an unlikely remedy.
“Without having to pay rent or property taxes, [city-run stores] will reduce overhead and pass on savings to shoppers. They will buy and sell at wholesale prices, centralize warehousing and distribution, and partner with local neighborhoods on products and sourcing,” Mr. Mamdani’s website explains.
The plan is so bonkers that it almost seems like a parody. It didn’t work out so well when the Soviet Union, Cuba and Venezuela tried the same experiment, but Mr. Mamdani finds inspiration in their values.
“Each according to their need, each according to their ability,” Mr. Mamdani wrote on X in 2020, parroting the famous Marxist slogan.
Seeing Mr. Mamdani’s red star rising, Boston has entered the race to seize the means of food distribution. Eight municipal politicians teamed up earlier this month to demand hearings on “the role of publicly owned grocery stores in addressing food insecurity.”
“We talk about housing as a human right, access to dignified, stable housing, and the city and the state gets involved in that,” said Councilor Gabriela Coletta Zapata, a sponsor of the project, as reported by The Boston Globe. “Food is also a basic human right, access to healthy, nutritious food, but we don’t talk about the city or the state coming to play in that.”
There’s a shortage of stores in certain Big Apple and Beantown neighborhoods for a reason. Leftists hike the minimum wage to absurd amounts — Mr. Mamdani offers $30 per hour — and then they wonder why owners can’t afford to hire high school students to keep the shelves stocked.
In addition, the constant pilfering of merchandise has forced shopkeepers to lock basic goods behind bulletproof barriers to minimize operating losses. Customers dwindle, turned away by volatile vagrants loitering near entrances.
Perhaps instead of commandeering supermarkets, officials should let cops arrest criminals, making trips to the store less expensive and less perilous. New Yorkers have a week to select their preferred fate.
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