The obsession with ‘Mamdani marts’ isn’t about groceries | CNN Business

Whenever Mayor Zohran Mamdani offers new details about his plan to open five government-owned supermarkets in New York City, photos of Boris Yeltsin start circulating on social media. Taken during Yeltsin’s trip to America months before the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989, the photos show the former Russian president astonished by the variety of frozen foods at Randall’s supermarket in Houston. Yeltsin tasted free cheese samples and surveyed the fish. He left the store with a goodie bag. On the flight after the impromptu stop, Yeltsin sat motionless with his head in his hands, considering the bare shelves of Soviet food markets. “What have they done to our poor people?” he said, according to his biography. Then, as now, America’s supermarkets are a marvel of the free market. The idea that government, which has been defined as incompetent and inefficient for decades, could provide grocery abundance and variety better than Walmart and Costco has triggered a visceral reaction among critics. They imagine “Mamdani marts” ending up like dreary state-run Soviet stores with one type of soup. The response to Mamdani’s plan reflects something much deeper than the brand of ke