The most important outcome of the Mamdani win, and why he represents a threat to the right and the corporate Dems, is the potential for building a movement of people ready to act using the 100k volunteers for his campaign.
Full disclosure: I was one and am ready to take more action if called upon. People are reminded of Obama in 2008 and the movement he built - and then let dissipate after he won and thus had no way to call out troops to battle the rise of the tea party in 2010. The Majority Report with Sam Seder, my fave, talked about this yesterday, speculating it was the influence of authoritarian Rahm Emanuel, the anti-left, corp Dem supreme who will run for president, who made sure the voice of the people wouldn't interfere with the usual suspects who want to run the world.
The theme of this post touches on a theory of organizing related to elements of the Mamdani campaign and how I relate it to the ABC campaign on the fly last year where I find certain similarities based on not prioritizing personal and organizational ideologies over checking the pulse of those whose votes you are trying to get. I compare that approach to that of the legacy caucuses, and I include Unity, where the ideology of the leadership - and make no mistake, they all are leadership run, some for decades by the same people.
Mamdani is a socialist but he didn't run on his socialism, though his socialism certainly has influenced his thinking. But no matter the attacks, you won't see him trying to take over the means of production, though I wouldn't mind it if the entire healthcare industry was taken over - wait, wait - like the NY Health Act.
My contention here is that ABC was member-driven in the recent UFT election and expects to continue on that track.
Thursday, November 6, 2025
Hey - big news -- the UFT leadership finally got one right - though it would have been nice to see an endorsement before the primary. But the way the endorsement went down has led many UFT members to object and there was a lot of push back from non-Mamdani supporters ---- and this dovetails with the theme of this election analysis: Listen to people first - check the pulse and be guided by what you hear.
Mamdani is being credited, even by some on the right, with doing exactly that and shaping his campaign around listening. There is some irony in the out and out support for Mamdani Check out some of my commentary over the endorsement in July:
YES, the UFT won one and let's give some credit for jumping on a DSA train despite the previous attacks (Will UFT Endorse Mamdani after their attacks on DSA).
But first, a plug.
The 1968 strike gets all the attention, but the 1975 strike was in many ways more consequential.
Now on to some election thoughts related to our union work.Here is a link to Sunday's interview with Daniel for "Talk Out of School" on WBAI.https://wbai.org/archive/program/episode/?id=61621. I finally listened to it this morning and I didn't make a total fool out of myself, so I'm sharing. It was my third strike with the UFT but my first as an activist. Sunday Daniel and I covered a lot of ground, including the opposition to Unity leading up to the strike, its impact - short and long term, my guess that the lessons were never to strike again, how the UFT descended from the most militant union in the early 60s, the 1995 and 2005 contracts, the divided opposition post-strike that continues today. Daniel's questions were excellent guides into a deep dive in my memory.
I still want to write in more detail using some of the resources from the 70s buried in my basement.
Mamdani Listened - Similar to ABC's Member-driven agenda --
Over a year ago, before anyone heard of Mamdani, A Better Contract/UFT decided to listen to the members and came under criticism from some members of the ARISE coalition. Ken Klippenstein touches on the Mamdani touch.
Ken Klippenstein - Mamdani's Magic
People’s comments were insightful for anyone who cared to listen. They were the message.
Zohran Mamdani won by literally meeting people where they’re at — in bodegas, subway stations, busy sidewalks, even at the New York Marathon. He met people on the streets, not to pitch them, but to listen and learn. These conversations informed his successful campaign more than his charm, social media prowess or any of the other superficial explanations major media are offering. ...The video stood out from usual campaign content in how little of it focused on the candidate. He didn’t “approve this message.” There were no gotchas, no fact checking his opponents, no issue-oriented rejoinders. Virtually every shot focused on the interviewee rather than Mamdani, whose face you could not even see at times. He just stood there, quietly listening to what people had to say.
As Mamdani sees it, facing the public, even if it might heckle you, is part of the job of being an elected official. Obvious as this may seem, it is a more genuine and humble attitude ofthe Washington national figures who believe that their role as philosopher kings is to reign over and above the public.
Mamdani’s view of a politician’s job contrasts sharply with the political establishment’s zero tolerance attitude toward risk. Mamdani’s magic is his understanding that the masses are the message.
Yes. Fundamentally, Mamdani didn't emphasize his own ideology, though that played a part in his activism, but listened to people - yes, even those who voted for Trump.
Horrors.
How often was ABC attacked by ARISE for "listening to people who voted for Trump" -- we were accused of trolling. And yes, there are some people (a few it seems) who may be Trump backers, and at times there may be some tension, but so far they don't feel shunned. ABC people seem to believe that the way to build a winning coalition if you aim to win an election in the UFT, is to be broad-based and non-judgemental.
Yet Mamdani, the darling of the leftists in ARISE, did the very same thing and built his campaign around the issues people were telling him concerned them. Trust me, they will not learn a lesson. The ideology of most people on the left is baked into their DNA.
In the recent UFT election and beyond, an ARISE steering committee member and a caucus co-chair has persistently criticized ABC for not taking political positions on certain issues ABC deemed divisive and outside the bounds of a UFT election sphere - it was termed being "apolitical" rather than what it was -- member driven.
In other words, we would focus our campaign on what we detected in the pulse of rank and file in our schools and out surveys - our colleagues - and beyond. Rather than apolitical, we would try not to let our personal ideological views take precedence. The election results showed that was a potential winning strategy when we got 32% in a 3-way race, especially notable for a group of individuals that had existed for only a few months.
My criticism of the ARISE coalition and how they operated was that they took an opposite tack -- the ideologies of the leadership of the 3 groups in the coalition -- MORE, New Action and Retiree Advocate - would drive their campaign. If you weren't somewhere on the left, you wouldn't be very comfortable - and they did pretty much attract the left to run with them and in the election, leftists in the UFT were more likely to vote for ARISE. And 14% of the voters did vote for them. Does 14% give us an accurate picture of the left in the UFT? Since only 28% voted think of what that 14% represent.
Part 2
Well, I'm glad my usual pessimism didn't work out as I guessed
43% Mamdani
39% Cuomo
18% Sliwa
The
Sliwa collapse was significant and those votes had to go to Cuomo, so
think of this -- Cuomo was probably in the low thirties and there may
have been a late Trump bump.
Yes Mamdani went over 50%, but barely and the combined vote against him would have made this a nail biter in a two person race.
NYT Election Map - Look up your neighborhood - https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/11/04/us/elections/results-new-york-city-mayor.html
I pushed back against the NYC Retiree attacks and pro-Cuomo position. He had stated he was opposed to Medicare Adv --and I trust a socialist on that issue more than his opponents. But now is a time to try to get our issue in front of him as 1096 will expire on Jan. 1 and a new bill will be needed. Some of his allies on the City Council do back the bill. However, DC37 and the UFT are opposed and he does owe them -- I have a lot more to say on the election but I have to catch the ferry for my painting class at the UFT - I'm shlepping a bunch of acrylic paints and art supplies - this artistic stuff can tire one out.
