One of the dozen or so socialist policy proposals from NYC Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani is the creation of government-funded grocery stores.
While the Democratic Party increasingly embraces socialist and Marxist-leaning policies, such as the seizure of private property, this idea of government-funded grocery stores appears disconnected from both fundamental economic realities and historical precedent.
Nowhere is this more evident than in East Kansas City, where a nonprofit operates a grocery store on government land that has become a symbol of failure, plagued by the smell of rot and empty shelves.
Local media outlet KSHB 41 Kansas City toured Sun Fresh Market at 3110 Wabash Ave (31st & Prospect) on the city's Eastside. The store opened in 2018 as part of a multi-million dollar public-private revitalization of the Linwood Shopping Center. Operated by Community Builders of Kansas City, a nonprofit focused on urban development, the store has since become a massive reminder that while socialism may sound great on paper, in practice, it can be an absolute disaster.
KSHB 41's Alyssa Jackson reported that her news team received a tip from a viewer about empty shelves throughout the dairy section, meat department, bakery aisle, and deli counter.
"There was a time this store was on life support," said Pat Clarke, a community advocate, adding, "I could tell you today right now it's damn near dead."
Jackson said that when she first walked into the grocery store, she was immediately hit by a rotten smell.
In a separate investigative report, FOX Business Network's Kelly Saberi spoke with one patron who said, "There's no meat. There's no vegetables. There's no nothing. Are you going to take care of the community that's surrounded around you? If not, sell the store to someone that can be more responsible."
Mamdani and his obsession with socialism and Marxism come as he has barely held a real job, couldn't make it as a rapper, and has been deeply involved with the Democratic Party's dark money-funded NGOs.
History has shown that these government-run grocery stores always fail.
Jason Curtis Anderson from One City Rising comments on this:
This idea from Zohran Mamdani isn't just unserious—it's a case study in how today's activist-socialists live in a completely inverted reality.
Government-run grocery stores have been tried before, from Birmingham, Alabama, to Baltimore, and they've all failed spectacularly. They became political patronage machines, hemorrhaged taxpayer dollars, and in the end, they left neighborhoods with less access to food, not more. What's worse, the Mamdani proposal doesn't even pretend to address the actual reasons private grocers avoid certain areas: crime, regulatory red tape, and the high cost of doing business in New York. Instead, it assumes that if we just let the state take over, all of those problems magically disappear.
But this is the pattern we keep seeing with young, edgy socialists who think they know better.
They reject everything in the past that has actually worked for humanity—capitalism, enforcing laws, protecting property rights—and declare that these pillars of modern civilization have never worked at all. In their worldview, markets don't feed people, laws don't keep neighborhoods safe, and private property is a historical mistake. So they pivot to 'fresh ideas' like defunding the police, abolishing private ownership, and now, city-run supermarkets.
Democrats should be reminded which way the Berlin Wall fell...