I’m not going to mince words—the meteoric rise of Zohran Mamdani’s campaign is an indictment of the public school system.

As a child, I grew up learning about the horrors of socialism in school. Its historical failings, followed by loss of freedom, economic collapse, and even mass murder at the hands of the government, were all well understood. But things have changed over the last several decades as Marxist sympathizers have infiltrated all levels of government—from the politicians who enact America’s legislation all the way down to the bureaucrats who execute it.

Along the way, the documented history of atrocities committed under the guise of socialism has been conveniently swept under the rug by politicians, the media, and, worst of all, the public education system.

In a truly educated society, a candidate like Mamdani would never have had a chance of even being nominated, let alone winning a primary election. 

This lack of education combined with social media brain rot has created a proverbial “perfect storm” where nearly one million New York residents gleefully voted for a candidate they knew nothing about, to support an economic model they also knew nothing about, simply because he was somewhat charismatic and posted some TikTok videos promising to give them free stuff. 

Here’s how bad the situation is—according to Google Trends, searches for the term “what is socialism” skyrocketed immediately after the election. 

These people voted for a politician, and not only didn’t understand his policies, but didn’t even know what they were!

The reality is that educated people already understand socialism has failed literally everywhere it’s been tried, and the consequences have been disastrous every single time. From Venezuela to Nazi Germany, the former Soviet Union to North Korea, and countless other dictatorial regimes across the world, the story is always the same. 

A strong society is built on hard work, grit, and sacrifice, and over time, things start to get a lot easier and a lot better for everyone. Somehow, my generation became accustomed to all of the benefits that come from this society without bearing the responsibilities that were needed to create it. They begin to feel entitled, and that, coupled with a lack of purpose, leads them to believe they deserve the same rewards as the most productive members of society—all without doing the work to earn those rewards. They simply see what they deem as “inequality” and fail to acknowledge the rest of the equation.

While most nations today are dabbling with varying levels of socialism, most have also started drastically cutting the benefits they provide to their citizens because of the economic reality. As Margaret Thatcher famously said, “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.” When the reward for producing is taken away, unsurprisingly, people stop producing. After all, why work harder when you won’t be compensated for doing so? It’s not a difficult concept to grasp. 

More recently, Argentina’s president, Javier Milei, bucked the trend towards socialism, running on completely eliminating socialist policies and returning his country to a merit-based system. As a result, he turned Argentina around, from the brink of collapse and facing high double-digit inflation, to becoming the beacon of economic success that it is today. In fact, Argentina’s economy expanded 7.6 percent year over year in the first quarter of 2025—the fastest it’s grown since 2022. 

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But today, we have Mamdani running for Mayor of New York at a full sprint toward socialism, with one of the key points in his campaign being that he wants to create government-run grocery stores. 

His claim is that it’s an effort to reduce food costs, but anyone with a basic understanding of business can see that it’s something else entirely. That’s because the typical profit margin in this industry is about 1.6 percent, which means that after paying all of the costs associated with running a grocery store, including cost of goods, electricity, payroll, and taxes, a grocery store will only make about $1.60 in profit on a $100 purchase. It’s not exactly Scrooge McDuck stuff here.

So, on razor-thin margins, how exactly does Mamdani expect to lower grocery costs for New Yorkers? Well, it’s the typical government smoke and mirrors game. 

What he’ll do is sell the products at a loss, creating the illusion of cost savings, but this loss will be made up for in the form of higher taxes for residents, because money has to come from somewhere. In the meantime, people will flock to the artificially lower prices at these government grocery stores. 

Along the way, legitimate grocers who have to run their businesses in the real world will be forced to compete with these subsidized prices, but it won’t be possible because of the profit margins. This is by design because the real goal is to run them out of business, making New York residents 100 percent dependent on these government-run stores. 

That’s always the goal with socialism—eliminate any and all options that aren’t provided by the government.