“Reaganomics” is no match for New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
During an event to launch the city’s new government-owned grocery stores, Mamdani mocked former President Ronald Reagan and right-wing economics.
The Mamdani administration plans to open five stores as part of his plan to make groceries more affordable, a key issue on which he campaigned last year.
“I cannot help but think of the words of our 40th President Ronald Reagan. He famously said, ‘The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government, and I’m here to help,’” Mamdani said.
He continued, “It’s a good quote. But I disagree. I think nine more terrifying words are actually ‘I worked all day and can’t feed my family.’ We are going to use the power of government to lower prices and make it easier for New Yorkers to put food on the table.”
Mamdani’s statement was a direct rebuke of the right’s consistent attacks on government help that became mainstream orthodoxy following Reagan’s presidency.
Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who represents the section of the Bronx that is home to one of Mamdani’s new stores, praised his administration.
Attribution: APDemocratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York speaks during Zohran Mamdani’s public swearing-in ceremony as mayor of New York City on Jan. 1.
“I am grateful to Mayor Mamdani and the New York City Economic Development Corporation for their work to open a public grocery store at the Peninsula in Hunts Point and strengthen food access across the South Bronx,” she said in a statement.
Fox News, which has vehemently opposed Mamdani as a candidate and as mayor, has repeatedly attacked the grocery store idea. In a broadcast last summer, host Sean Hannity said it was meant to create “socialism at a level we’ve never seen.”
Similarly, Charlie Kirk, the conservative podcaster who was killed last year, argued on his show last year that the stores were part of a plot to enable the Islamic faith to take over the city, and that “Islam is a means to the end of destruction of the West.”
Mamdani, who officially became mayor on New Year’s Day, has also started a free child care program, pushed the state government to levy a tax on the ultra-wealthy, and solved the city’s budget crisis.
Fox once lamented that his win was the “end of the world,” but so far New Yorkers seem to be doing just fine.
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