New York’s Governor Just Endorsed a Socialist Experiment for NYC
Here’s why it will fail
This essay was originally published at polispandit.com.
Imagine if a pilot admitted before takeoff that they didn’t fully trust their co-pilot, but decided to let them fly the plane anyway. That’s effectively what New York Governor Kathy Hochul just did by endorsing Zohran Mamdani for New York City mayor.
She admits to fundamental disagreements with him, but is still willing to invite him into the cockpit of America’s largest city.
The problem? Mamdani’s record and his “solutions” look less like a flight plan and more like a crash course in failed and impractical socialist experiments.
I’ve lived and worked in New York City for over a decade. Of all cities in America, this is not the place to conduct socialist experiments that could compromise America’s leading position in finance, technology, and innovation. Cities like Dallas and Miami are already vying to capture jobs that flee big blue cities like New York.
Electing someone like Mamdani will accelerate that effort. At just 33-years-old, with practically no work experience outside of politics, Mamdani is ill-equipped to run the NYC Parks Department let alone the entire city of 8+ million people with 300,000+ employees.
There’s a reason Governor Hochul — and many other prominent Democrats — have hesitated to endorse Mamdani. In the New York State Assembly, he accomplished nothing meaningful aside from performative antics. He easily won the NYC Democratic primary because he faced two weak, sleazy opponents. And while the 20-year-olds who just moved to the city yesterday may love his social media presence (which is admittedly fantastic), not many Democrats ranked him for his vision.
Mamdani was the best option in a field of corrupt and boring alternatives. His primary win and likely election win in November will not be due to his leadership and platform, but rather to his luck.
If New York City becomes his socialist testing grounds, it won’t just be Mamdani who fails. It will be New Yorkers, and Democrats nationally, who pay the price.
All one has to do is objectively critique his ideas.
Rent freezes won’t solve affordability
One of Mamdani’s signature policy proposals is freezing rent. It’s part of his larger efforts to address New York City’s affordability crisis, which every New Yorker should acknowledge is a real problem.
But while freezing rents sounds nice, it’s a temporary band-aid that distorts markets and discourages new housing. You can’t solve an affordability crisis by scaring away developers. If anything, it reduces the incentive to build the new housing the city desperately needs.
History shows us how strict rent controls play out:
New York City, 1970s–80s: One of the most dangerous eras in the city’s history. Strict rent controls led to widespread landlord abandonment. Buildings weren’t maintained as landlords neglected units that couldn’t attract market rates. Entire neighborhoods, especially in the Bronx, fell into disrepair or burned.
San Francisco, 1994-present: Decades of rent control protected some tenants, but studies (notably from Stanford economists) found it reduced the rental housing supply by about 15%. Many small landlords converted units into condos or sold them instead of renting, exacerbating the housing crunch.
Berlin, 2020–2021: Many like to compare social democracies in Europe to similar efforts in the U.S., so here’s an example where strict rent controls failed there. Within a year, Berlin’s rent freeze caused housing supply to plummet, new construction to stall, and landlords to pull units off the market. The German Constitutional Court struck it down as unconstitutional.
The historical pattern is consistent. Rent freezes sound great in campaign videos on TikTok or Instagram, but their economic history is replete with failure. As the great Charlie Munger once said, “Show me the incentive, and I’ll show you the outcome.”
If landlords are not incentivized to maintain apartments, they won’t. If developers aren’t incentivized to develop, they won’t.
New York City already has affordable housing, including rent controlled and rent stabilized apartments. Why not incentive developers to build more of them by loosening zoning requirements and offering tax credits?
Rent freezes alone don’t fix affordability. They guarantee decay. The very people they’re meant to help end up worse off.
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Government-run grocery stores: Mamdani’s version of ‘build the wall’
Perhaps the biggest social media soundbite for Mamdani is his idea for government-run grocery stores. I like to call it his version of Donald Trump’s Mexico border wall.
Why? Because it’s populist, silly, and impractical.
Look, we have food deserts in New York City. No question. But adding one government-run grocery store in each borough is not going to fix them.
The city can’t even fix the subway on time. Now they want to run grocery stores? When has government ever been good at managing complex supply chains, competing with the private sector, and providing retail customer service?
Have you been to the DMV lately?
We’ve also seen this movie in other American cities before:
Kansas City, 2018-2025: In an effort to solve food desert challenges, Kansas City poured nearly $18 million into reviving the Sun Fresh Market at Linwood Shopping Center. At first, it drew 14,000 shoppers a week, but within a few years, foot traffic collapsed to about 4,000. Empty shelves, theft, and crime around the store compounded losses, which reached nearly $900,000 in one period. By August 2025, despite years of subsidies, the city-run experiment failed and Sun Fresh shut its doors permanently.
Chicago, 2023: After Whole Foods and Aldi left underserved neighborhoods, the city explored running its own grocery store. Analysts immediately flagged that the city already struggles to run schools, public housing, and transit effectively — adding grocery logistics would be a nightmare. The plan is still in limbo.
Detroit, 1980s–90s: The city propped up “municipal market” style groceries. They quickly fell into disrepair, with high costs, poor management, and limited inventory. Within a few years, most were shut down or privatized.
The pattern should be clear: government-run grocery stores fail because city governments are not built for the complexities of inventory management, supply chains, and customer service. When they collapse, residents find themselves in more arid and barren food deserts than before.
Mamdani’s idea is less about fixing food deserts and more about selling a “big government” campaign gimmick. But this is not the New Deal. Retail business operations are very different from infrastructure-scale policy that isn’t competing in daily consumer markets where customer demand fluctuates by the week.
Mamdani’s plan is less a solution than a gimmick. Like Trump’s “wall,” it’s all slogan, no substance.
The real solutions are out there — from tax incentives and zoning reform to low-interest loans and public–private partnerships — tools that attract grocers without turning city hall into a failed supermarket manager.
Governor Hochul should know better. By endorsing this scheme, she’s hitching herself to a doomed socialist experiment.
And New Yorkers will be the ones left with the bill.
Safety and social concerns
Perhaps the most important issue with Mamdani is how he views public safety. In a massive city, order is paramount. And Mamdani wasn’t just a guy talking about police reform just a few years ago. He was advocating to literally defund the NYPD.
Mamdani even clarified that when he said “defund”, he actually meant defund completely. He was never clear about who or what would replace the police department.
Has he not been on the subway recently? Every commuter has had that one encounter with a mentally unstable person that made them fear for their life. And I say that as an able-bodied grown man.
Mamdani has backed off his defunding extremes as he’s campaigned for mayor, but it’s not like he had these views over a decade ago. I’m not confident we can trust him to prioritize safety and good policing while working to reform the NYPD and their out-of-control budget.
Violent crime in New York City is currently at one of its lowest levels in decades. Why would we want to disrupt that progress by electing someone whose history is filled with hostility toward law enforcement?
And unfortunately, Mamdani’s hostility is not limited to law enforcement. New York City also has the largest Jewish population in the country. Yet Mamdani has resisted denouncing phrases like “globalize the intifada” that any reasonable person knows antagonizes many people, Jewish or not. Regardless of its etymology.
I’ve written how Mamdani flirts with antisemitism and is often slow to denounce any violence against Jews. The active hostility towards a large demographic in the city is unbecoming for a mayoral candidate.
And again, Governor Hochul should know better. By endorsing Mamdani, she isn’t just signing onto bad economics. She’s attaching herself to a candidate whose worldview could erode both safety and social cohesion in America’s largest city.
Democrats should avoid Hochul’s political gamble
Governor Hochul thinks she can ride alongside Mamdani’s all-vibes campaign. I get it. He’s likely to win. But New Yorkers will pay the price when affordability gets worse, businesses flee, and the city becomes less safe.
In an increasingly polarized America, we should not be promoting more extremes. We already have fascist forces knocking at the door of American democracy. We don’t need to attempt socialist experiments in the world capital for capitalism. The risks far outweigh the unlikely and impractical rewards.
It may be tempting for Democrats to support Mamdani. He’s the flavor of the moment on social media. He’s charismatic and charming. I have genuinely enjoyed watching some of his videos.
But I can also distinguish social media from reality. We must look past glossy promises and examine political history, economic consequences, and societal impacts. We must scrutinize the resume and record of anyone attempting to represent us, the people.
Zohran Mamdani fails at all of the above except for his charismatic ability to campaign. He’s persuaded many, including now Governor Kathy Hochul herself.
But if we all hop on his plane, it will be anything but a smooth ride.
Paul Wellstone ran an improbable campaign for US Senate from Minnesota in 1990. He won with a green bus, opposed Operation Desert Storm, made some wild statements, and then grew into easily the best senator that Minnesota has had for many decades. People learn, build coalitions and govern through relationships over time. I think Democrats need that now with Mamdani, AOC, Bernie, Jasmine Crockett, Chris Murphy, et al. I think our country needs that. So I appreciated reading your NY perspective, but I respectfully do not agree.