Last week’s reminder from New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani seemed wholly unremarkable. As the city confronted an usually rough heat wave, the mayor published a July 1 post encouraging New Yorkers to set the air conditioners to 78 degrees, turn off electronics they’re not using and unplug as much as possible, all in the hopes of helping the power grid.

Plenty of officials in many states have said the same thing for the same reason in recent years. Nevertheless, to put it mildly, Republicans did not take Mamdani’s message well.

Failed presidential candidate Nikki Haley responded with a “welcome to socialism” message, despite the fact that she made similar recommendations as South Carolina’s governor. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas added, “In a first-world country, you could turn on the A/C,” apparently oblivious to his own home state having issued similar directives many times without incident. Fox News’ Jesse Watters told viewers, in reference to Mandani’s recommendations, “It’s a slippery slope; they’re going to say one-child policy next. This is how communism starts; they start rationing things.”