Zohran Mamdani vs. John Catsimatidis, groceries edition

John Catsimatidis has forgotten more about grocery stores than Zohran Mamdani will ever know. Period. Full Stop. That's because Mr. Catsimatidis is "the owner of Gristedes and D’Agostino’s, this city’s oldest and largest independent supermarket chains." Yesterday, Mr. Catsimatidis wrote this op-ed for the Wall Street Journal. Mr. Catsimatidis opened his op-ed by saying "As owner of Gristedes and D’Agostino’s, this city’s oldest and largest independent supermarket chains, I’ve spent my life keeping shelves stocked, workers employed and families fed. That’s what capitalism does. It works. It builds. It feeds. And it empowers."

Mr. Catsimatidis is right. It does all those things. If I were to offer a minor quibble to Mr. Catsimatidis' op-ed, I'd add that it builds generational wealth while improving families' standard of living. It didn't take Mr. Catsimatidis long to criticize Mr. Mamdani. In the second paragraph of his op-ed, Mr. Catsimatidis wrote "Now comes Zohran Mamdani with a delusional notion in the name of radical socialism that would destroy everything we’ve built. His 'public grocery' proposal, a government-run alternative to private supermarkets, would collapse our food supply, kill private industry, and drag us down a path toward the bread lines of the old Soviet Union."

Mr. Catsimatidis gives Mamdani a history lesson

Everything Mr. Mamdani is suggesting was already done by Hugo Chávez in Venezuela and Fidel Castro in Cuba. Both nationalized their food-distribution systems in the name of "equity" and "access." What followed was poverty, rationing and hunger. Grocery-store shelves were stripped bare. Citizens stood in lines for hours to get a loaf of bread or a bag of rice—if there was any food left at all.

Mr. Mamdani isn't bashful about saying that he doesn't like billionaires. He's also criticized capitalism itself:

Next, watch Phil Donahue's interview of Milton Friedman:

The Simple Truth

The simple truth is that socialism fails each time it's tried. There aren't any exceptions to this. China's economic model is socialism. Their economy used to be thriving. Now it's struggling.

Compare that with the U.S. economy. China's GDP is $18,000,000,000,000+. It's the second biggest economy in the world. The ?U.S. economy is the biggest in the world. The U.S. GDP will top $30,000,000,000,000 if it hasn't already.

There's little doubt that Mamdani is running a topnotch campaign. There's no doubt whether Mamdani's policies are chronic failures. It's time to exile Mamdani before he ruins the most vibrant city on the planet.

Let's finish with this:

I came to this country as a 6-month-old Greek immigrant and built a business that feeds a city. That’s the American Dream. Mr. Mamdani’s dream would turn into the nightmare of a ration line.

I said it before but it's worth repeating. Capitalism builds generational wealth while providing the vehicle to access the American Dream. The question is whether you'll trust capitalism. The other option is to trust a trust fund baby whose parents helped him staryt his life on third base. I'll trust the guy who started with nothing and built an empire.