Commentary: Big Tent Ideas

Democrats Want ID For Hot Pockets But Not For Voting?

Lenin and McCarthy, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

While the left has been lecturing us for decades that requiring ID to vote is somehow an overt example of systemic racism, they’re now planning to require ID for the privilege of shopping in government run grocery stores. 

Democratic New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced in a recent press conference that he intends to spend over $70 million in taxpayer dollars to launch five government run grocery stores across New York, promising a 30% discount on all groceries. 

And when questioned on how he intends to ensure people won’t just travel to New York and buy up the inventory for resale elsewhere in a predictable arbitrage play, his answer was both astounding and hypocritical. This is par for the course with his failed promises.

He said that they would implement a “library-esque” ID card that only New York citizens could obtain.

Yep, you heard that right — according to Democrats, it’s racist to ensure that only United States citizens are voting in our elections, but it’s totally fine to require ID to buy a box of Hot Pockets. 

Someone else will have to make it make sense, because I sure as hell can’t. 

For now, let’s set aside the absurdity of government run grocery stores. Let’s also set aside the fact that Democrats are claiming they have the magical ability to provide a 30% discount in an industry that operates on a 1-3% profit margin. And last but not least, let’s set aside the fact that every single industry the government gets involved in instantly experiences massive cost increases that destroy the budgets of hard working Americans. 

Instead, let’s unpack their initial claim that requiring ID to vote is somehow racist. 

What explanation have they used to justify that claim? 

Across the board, nearly every Democrat politician, lobbyist, activist, and political pundit has consistently stated that black Americans either don’t know how or can’t afford to get a government issued ID.

Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro has consistently been one of the most vocal critics of voter ID, and recently made the ridiculous statement that, “We are not going to turn our elections over to Donald Trump.”

Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom recently signed a law to completely ban local voter ID requirements.

And Matt Dietrich, spokesman for the Illinois State Board of Elections, said that Illinois does not require voters to show any type of photo ID at the polls, and went on to say voters only need to sign a sworn statement on their voter registration application that they are a U.S. citizen.

These are just a handful out of hundreds of examples.

Personally, I think the claim that black Americans either don’t know how or can’t afford to get a government issued ID, in and of itself, is pretty racist. 

Virtually every single human of every race in America knows that getting an ID is a simple matter of going to your local Department of Motor Vehicles. And even if someone doesn’t know where one is, it’s hours of operation, or even what documents they’ll need, finding those answers is as simple as a quick Google search. (Although Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul did claim in May 2024 that black children don’t know what computers are, so I can see why Democrats might be confused here.) 

So the claim that voters of any race don’t know how to get an ID is absurd.

The claim that black Americans can’t afford a government ID is equally absurd because the cost of a driver’s license ranges from $10 to $90, depending on your state.

But beyond that, an ID is already required for typical life in America anyway. 

You need to show ID to drive a vehicle, visit a doctor, pick up prescriptions, travel on an airplane, buy a firearm, get a job, open a bank account, join the military, rent an apartment, enter a casino, purchase alcohol, tobacco, cannabis, and some video games, register for government benefits, get married, get divorced, cash a check, rent a car or hotel room, register for health insurance, get a piercing or tattoo, donate blood, go hunting or fishing, sign any legal document, and countless other activities that most Americans do every single day.

And now, apparently, we can add shopping at Democrat run grocery stores. 

According to Democrats, requiring an ID for all of these activities is perfectly fine, but when it comes to voting in our elections, it’s somehow an egregious burden that disenfranchises black voters.

What’s clear to me is that Democrats don’t want secure elections because they know they can’t win without cheating the system. 

We’ve seen case after case of voter fraud. Recent examples include illegal aliens who were registered to vote, dead citizens still on the voter rolls, and harvesting ballots from the homeless population. 

And in nearly every single case, this fraudulent voting favors Democrat candidates. 

You don’t have to be a statistician to realize that it’s mathematically impossible for that to just be a coincidental fluke. It’s a clear case of systemic voting fraud perpetuated by the Democratic political machine.

The bottom line is that if Democrats think ID should be required to buy groceries, then the least we can do is require the same for our elections. 

If it’s good enough for Hot Pockets, it’s good enough for the voting booth.

Cliff Maloney is the CEO of Citizens Alliance and the author of Run Right: A Complete Election Playbook to Win. You can follow him @maloney on X.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.