Oh great. Just when you thought New York City politics couldn’t get any more absurd than Bill de Blasio roller-skating through his term while crime spiked and trash piled up, along comes Zohran Mamdani — our very own aspiring mayoral Che Guevara, minus the charisma, the military jacket, and, well, any actual revolution credentials.
Now, I’m not saying Mamdani is running on a bad platform. I’m just saying if you took every single economic policy that’s destroyed countries from Havana to Caracas and did a lazy Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V into a Word doc titled “Mamdani 2025,” you’d basically have his campaign plan. Even Cuban-born Miami resident Karen Rodriguez picked up on it, telling Fox News Digital: “When I hear some of the plans that [Mamdani] has for New York City, again, it’s that ‘copy, paste.’”
Karen’s point hits harder than a TSA confiscating your cafecito on the way to LaGuardia. She’s seen what socialism does — not on a podcast, not in a college classroom with a $4,000 MacBook in front of her, but for real. She remembers relatives stepping off the plane from Cuba, walking into an American grocery store, and crying.
Let’s pause on that for a second. Crying. In a grocery store. Over choices. Over aisles filled with cereal, produce, bread, and milk that you don’t have to bribe a government official to get. I can’t recall the last time I cried in a grocery store, unless you count the day Trader Joe’s discontinued my favorite pumpkin biscotti. But for people escaping actual socialist systems, that moment is overwhelming. Because in Cuba, your “supermarket” is basically a half-empty room with a flickering light bulb and a guy named Raul who tells you you can buy rice or eggs, but not both, and oh by the way, he’s out of eggs.
And yet, here comes Mamdani, telling us how he wants to “seize the means of production” and that he doesn’t “like private property.”[1] Fantastic. That’ll really help with our housing shortage — because if history tells us anything, government-run housing always works out so well. Just ask anyone who lived in Soviet-era Lithuania.
Speaking of Lithuania, first-generation Lithuanian-American Gabriella Hoffman has something to say about this, too: “My ears perk up any time I hear people embracing socialism, especially very privileged people like this aspiring mayoral candidate from New York City, talk about how he wants to seize the means of production… he doesn’t like private property.” Hoffman’s family didn’t flee an oppressive regime so they could watch Manhattan turn into a Stalinist co-op board meeting.
This is where Mamdani’s pitch really falls apart. He’s not some working-class hero emerging from the grit and grime of the five boroughs. He’s a privileged, self-styled revolutionary who treats socialism like it’s the latest streetwear drop from Supreme — trendy, overpriced, and ultimately useless after two washes.
But New York has seen this movie before. We’ve had our share of smooth-talking progressives who promise utopia and deliver potholes, tent cities, and higher taxes. What Mamdani is selling is the same ideology that’s already driven hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers to Florida, Texas, and the Carolinas — basically anywhere with lower taxes, functioning police, and groceries that don’t require an armed guard.
Rodriguez and Hoffman aren’t just offering political commentary; they’re giving warning labels. They’ve watched loved ones endure what happens when government takes over every corner of life. Shortages, corruption, and fear become normal, while basic freedoms vanish. The problem is, Mamdani’s supporters will dismiss these warnings as “right-wing talking points” instead of listening to people who actually lived through the policies they’re trying to repackage as “progress.”
And here’s the kicker — Mamdani’s base? They’ve never needed to cry in a grocery store. They’ve never waited in line for six hours to buy bread. They’ve never had a family member arrested for hoarding meat. Their closest brush with scarcity is when Starbucks runs out of oat milk.
It’s almost funny — almost — that the people most eager to dismantle capitalism are the ones who benefit from it the most. Mamdani’s campaign runs on Instagram ads and TikTok clips filmed on iPhones, blasted out on servers run by massive tech corporations, all paid for by donors whose wealth comes from — you guessed it — capitalism.
If Mamdani wins, New Yorkers might finally understand what Rodriguez and Hoffman are talking about. Give it a few years of rent control on steroids, “public ownership” of businesses, and redistributive policies, and maybe then the average Manhattanite will cry in a grocery store. Not because they’re grateful for abundance — but because the only thing left on the shelf is a dented can of beans and a lecture from the cashier about how “this is for the common good.”
So sure, maybe Mamdani does deserve to lead New York City — if only as a living lesson in what happens when a metropolis trades in its bagels and bodegas for breadlines and bureaucrats. But for those of us who still enjoy a functioning food supply, the ability to own property, and a mayor who isn’t auditioning for a Marxist reboot of Queer Eye, maybe it’s time we take Rodriguez and Hoffman’s advice seriously.
Because once the crying in grocery stores starts here, it doesn’t stop. And by then, no amount of pumpkin biscotti will make it better.
Endnotes
[1] Zohran Mamdani has previously spoken about his desire to “seize the means of production” and has expressed opposition to private property, positions consistent with Marxist economic theory but rarely successful in practice.
[2] Rodriguez’s comments reference her own family’s experiences fleeing Cuba’s socialist regime and the emotional impact of encountering abundance in the United States.
[3] Hoffman’s perspective draws from her Lithuanian family’s lived experience under Soviet rule, where private property was abolished and the state controlled economic output.
[4] Historical examples of socialist economic collapse include Cuba, Venezuela, and the Soviet Union, all of which experienced chronic shortages, reduced freedoms, and widespread poverty.
Jacob Silver is a contributor for Direct Line News, he can be reached at Jacob.Silver@mcgopclub.com
Direct Line News is a Maryland-based free-access publication committed to the Republican reform tradition.
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