You Can't Make This Up: Mamdani's Socialist Grocery Stores to Require IDs

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is moving way past irony and taking things to an entirely new level: Lie-rony.

Mamdani recently blew away political observers with his proposal to have government-backed grocery stores.

New Yorkers will soon enjoy a 30 percent discount on their meat, seafood, milk, and bread — so long as they shop at a city-owned store.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani touted such bargains this week at a press conference detailing his plans to launch five public grocery stores, in a bid to lower New Yorkers’ food costs. Under the proposal, the city would own each supermarket and dictate its pricing and labor practices, while private grocery companies would handle the day-to-day operations.

Mayor Mamdani just announced that he will be opening 5 city-run, tax-funded grocery stores:

"Prices set at 30% below retail prices" pic.twitter.com/lBk5MQhZRL
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) July 27, 2026

Now, if you're like Marty McFly and you're saying "I've seen this one, this is classic!" that's because government-run stores used to be a thing.

Way back in the Soviet Union. If you missed that one because you went to a government-run school, you're in luck.

Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev provided an iconic moment in Cold War history when his first encounter with an American grocery store was a jolting experience.

Nikita Khrushchev regards a cantaloupe in a San Francisco supermarket in 1959 pic.twitter.com/BXLx1sH4IJ
— Sophie Haigney (@SophieHaigney) July 7, 2026

That's because communist-run grocery stores were nearly barren of basic foodstuffs due to the inability of the state planners to manage supply and demand.

A few years later, this scene was recreated when Soviet cosmonaut Gherman Titov toured a San Francisco Safeway.

While Mamdani's grocery gimmick might seem good on paper (if you are historically illiterate), it will drive out small grocery stores and bodegas, thereby crowding out businesses.

It will also lead to food shortages and bread lines. This is what happened in Hugo Chavez's Venezuela.

When Venezuela's socialist president, Hugo Chávez, created a nationwide network of government-run grocery stores called "Mercal" in 2003, he faced the same conundrum of how to control excess demand when prices are set artificially low.

At first, Mercal seemed to work. It quickly became one of Chávez's most popular social programs. [...]
The gap between Mercal's subsidized prices and prices at other grocery stores created an obvious resale opportunity. There were complaints of diverted goods, fictitious purchases, store clerks allowing their friends and relatives to jump the line, and corruption in procurement and distribution. Hauling food across the border to resell at market prices in Colombia became a booming industry. Black-market reselling even spawned a new profession: bachaqueo.
The government responded to the shortages with tighter controls. It capped purchases, assigned shoppers a weekday based on the final digit of their national ID number, and registered sales by ID and fingerprint. Some stores required shoppers to bring a baby or present a birth certificate before they could buy diapers.
Mercal alone did not cause Venezuela's food shortages. It operated inside a larger system of national price and exchange controls, subsidized imports, expropriations, precarious property rights, monetary financing of government deficits, and declining oil production.
Thankfully, Mamdani's program is limited to New York City.
New York's experiment is local, far more limited, and therefore, lower-stakes. Private contractors will operate the stores, while auditors, courts, reporters, and the public can scrutinize the results. Chávez, by contrast, clamped down on the free press and suppressed reporting on his failed policies.
New Yorkers will also have plenty of alternatives. The city's five municipal stores will become part of a food retail market that includes more than 1,100 grocery stores and 10,000 bodegas.
But the comparison is still useful because, like Chávez, Mamdani will find that he can't escape the laws of supply and demand.

Now, we come to the hitch in Mamdani's program: You've got to present a government ID proving residency in order for the government to recognize your "human right" to grocery prices that are 30 percent below retail.

When asked how he was going to keep people from taking advantage of the deal and putting a limit on how many groceries people could get, Mamdani said, “We are looking to make sure that we target New Yorkers … sort of a library card-esque thing.”

“We are looking to make sure that we target New Yorkers … sort of a library card-esque thing” pic.twitter.com/97MRRXcXEU
— Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) August 2, 2026

Elon Musk immediately replied with: "Oh, the irony is too much."

Oh, the irony is too much … pic.twitter.com/k0NgRxMoLT
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 3, 2026

Why is that? Because get a load of everything the Democratic Party ignores when it comes to Americans producing IDs, yet they rabidly oppose them to vote.

People don’t carry crockpots either but somehow dinner still gets made. Planning ahead is not oppression.

You need photo ID for:
1. Buying alcohol
2. Buying cigarettes or vapes
3. Purchasing Sudafed or restricted OTC meds
4. Renting a car
5. Driving a car
6. Boarding a…
— Stephanie Michele (@lilboosny) February 12, 2026

The shortlist from above:

You need photo ID for:

1. Buying alcohol
2. Buying cigarettes or vapes
3. Purchasing Sudafed or restricted OTC meds
4. Renting a car
5. Driving a car
6. Boarding a plane
7. Getting on Amtrak (for passengers 18+)
8. Opening a bank account
9. Cashing a check
10. Applying for a credit card
11. Renting a hotel room
12. Applying for most jobs
13. Applying for government assistance (SNAP, Medicaid, Section 8)
14. Visiting someone in jail/prison
15. Picking up a prescription
16. Entering certain office buildings, courthouses, or secure federal facilities
17. Buying a gun
18. Getting married (in most counties/states for the license)
19. Buying a house or signing a lease (for background/credit/ID checks)
20. Getting utilities turned on (in many providers)
21. Filing for unemployment or disability
22. Donating blood (age/verification)
23. Attending 18+/21+ events or some concerts
24. Replacing a Social Security card
25. Getting a fishing or hunting license

Blue State Democrats don't oppose voter IDs but require them on everything from getting into the DNC to collecting food stamps because they lack intellectual consistency.

They oppose voter IDs because they are exploiting America's broken election system. There, I said it.

"Why, that's far too harsh there, right-winger! That's because voting is a right and those other things are, uh, not rights!"

What about the "human rights" to food and housing and healthcare and all of those other socialist demands (that can't actually be rights if it mandates that other human beings expend their labor to provide them)?

Isn't the entire socialist program about "human rights" (entitlements, actually) being given to people by the state (i.e., by forcing people to provide them)?

That is why socialism isn't about "liberation." It's a scheme to enslave people by promising them "free stuff" that isn't actually free.

Mamdani's subsidized grocery stores are yet the latest version of that socialist scheme. And it will fail for exactly the same reasons the others did.

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