Freakout over the election of Zohran Mamdani

President Donald Trump threatened New York state lawmaker Zohran Mamdani with arrest if the presumptive Democratic nominee for New York City mayor defies Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations.

The president also continued to allege the 33-year-old Democratic socialist is a "communist".

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"Look, we don't need a communist in this country, but if we have one, I'm going to be watching over him very carefully on behalf of the nation," Trump continued.

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"A lot of people are saying he's here illegally," Trump said. "We're going to look at everything. Ideally, he's going to turn out to be much less than a communist. But right now he's a communist. That's not a socialist."

  ABC

He's a Democratic Socialist.

Born in Uganda, Mamdani has lived in the United States since he was 7 years old and became a naturalized citizen in 2018.

Perhaps why the sudden threats to "denaturalize" people.

"I think I'm gonna have a lot of fun with him, watching him, because he has to come right through this building to get his money," Trump said after threatening to withhold funding from New York if Mamdani doesn't "do the right thing."

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"His statements don't just represent an attack on our democracy but an attempt to send a message to every New Yorker who refuses to hide in the shadows: if you speak up, they will come for you. We will not accept this intimidation," Mamdani said.

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"I have already had to start to get used to the fact that the president will talk about how I look, how I sound, where I'm from, who I am. Ultimately because he wants to distract from what I'm fighting for," Mamdani said. "And I'm fighting for the very working people that he ran a campaign to empower that he has since then betrayed."

If Mamdani were running for a nationwide position, I'd say he would have a slim chance, but since he's running for mayor of New York City, I'm pretty sure the voters there aren't affected by Trump and MAGA smears and bullshit. And there's bound to be a shitload of that between now and November.

Mamdani has proposed five municipally owned stores, one in each New York City borough, to offer groceries at lower prices to customers with limited access to supermarkets. In some New York City neighborhoods, more than 30% of people are food insecure.

The proposal has been blasted as a “‘Soviet’ style disaster-in-waiting,” “farcical” and “economically delusional.” John Catsimatidis, the owner of New York City-based supermarket chain Gristedes, threatened to close stores if Mamdani is elected. (Catsimatidis is a two-time Republican candidate for mayor.)

But Mamdani is drawing on government-owned and subsidized models that already exist in the United States, such as the Defense Department’s commissaries for military personnel, public retail markets that lease space to farmers and chefs, and city-owned stores in rural areas such as St. Paul, Kansas. Atlanta is opening two municipal grocery stores later this year after struggling to draw a private grocery chain. Madison, Wisconsin, and rural Venice, Illinois, also plan to open municipally owned stores.

  CNN

Also, in several states, you can't buy liquor anywhere but a government owned package store.

Yet municipal-owned stores have recently closed in several towns, such as in Baldwin, Florida. Chicago also shifted its effort from building city-owned stores to a city-run public food market, despite a study showing stores were “necessary, feasible and implementable.” These cities’ struggles underscore the challenges of government stepping into the grocery business amid fierce resistance from the private sector.

And Republicans.

And Mamdani has said this would be a trial.

“This is a proposal of reasonable policy experimentation,” Mamdani said. “If it is not effective at a pilot level, it does not deserve to be scaled up. But I believe it can be effective. I think that there’s far more efficiency to be had in our public sector.”

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Privately owned grocery stores already run on slim 1% to 3% margins, according to industry estimates. Government stores would be able to offer low-cost groceries because they would not have to pay rent or property taxes, according to Mamdani.

“They will buy and sell at wholesale prices, centralize warehousing and distribution, and partner with local neighborhoods on products and sourcing,” the campaign said on its website. Many companies already buy from wholesalers, have centralized warehouses and partner with local communities.

His proposal would cost $60 million, Mamdani said in an interview on the podcast “Plain English” released last week. Mamdani argued his proposal would be cheaper than an existing city program that provides tax breaks and subsidies for supermarkets to open in underserved areas, but does not include any requirements for food to be below certain prices.

In many cities, grocers and other retailers governments recruited have closed in low-income areas after their tax incentives expired or they struggled to make a profit.