Will UFT Endorse Mamdani after their attacks on DSA? Will that be his kiss of death? Would Cuomo/Adams Odds Rise?

Recent post from David Sirota

My two thoughts on this are: 1) If every Dem would talk like this, the party might be a real opposition 2) It's shameful that some Dems have been more focused on using their platforms to demonize/undermine this guy than on fighting Trump https://pic.x.com/QqhPxnaZuU

 

Recent post from Ryan Grim

Stepping back, it's really wild that Hakeem Jeffries, Chuck Schumer, Dan Goldman, Kirsten Gillibrand, etc., still won't endorse the landslide winner of the Democratic nomination for NYC mayor. It's not unbelievable, exactly, but it's legit crazy. And then they wonder why

'He's playing a bit of chess': Pablo Torre on Mamdani's response to 'globalize the intifada' question

UPDATE: Arthur covers the issue too: 

Unity Patronage Cult Plans Major Endorsement Without Consulting Membership: If you don't like it, you don't matter. Arthur Goldstein, Jul 05, 2025

Mulgrew has done here, which surprises me not at all, is he completely sidestepped elected Retired Teacher Chapter Leader Bennett Fischer. After all, Bennett isn’t Unity, so Mulgrew has no respect for him (let alone anyone who voted for him). Of course if he were Unity, that would mean he’d have taken and oath to support whatever, so he’d still merit no consideration. Then, on Tuesday, there’s a Delegate Assembly so Mulgrew can get his rubber stamp. ... 

This is gonna be a hard sell for Michael Mulgrew and Unity. They know it, too, which is why they’re doing the Town Hall. After all, they were at least tacitly approving all the crap about Amy being antisemitic. Some of them had no qualms about saying it out loud. or even writing about it. It was curious because those very same people never noticed it when Amy was part of the cult. Go figure.

Doubtless Mulgrew and his Very Smart People have worked out some elaborate explanation to show they are Not Guilty of antisemitism 2.0. The thing is, though, like True Believers in Unity, True Believers in antisemitism 2.0 have their minds made up and will not be persuaded otherwise.

Thursday, July 3, 2025 

After a June 14 Gothamist report:

NYC teachers deeply divided between Mamdani and Cuomo, union boss says a note from the NY Post: Zohran Mamdani set to pick up powerful NYC teachers union endorsement after primary win.

 

This news is more than shocking. After engaging in a massive attack on DSA, claiming they had a plan to infiltrate the union and tying in the heavily DSA MORE, to endorse a DSA member for mayor might make you blink in disbelief. 

 

There's more than a little irony if the UFT endorses Mamdani, who has faced some of the  same attacks over his position on Palestine and fake charges of antisemitism that ABC Pres Candidate Amy Arundell faced with many of these attacks coming from union officials and Unity Caucus hacks. Oooh the eggs on the faces of the main attackers. But don't expect them to be fired, as Amy was. 

 

Personally, I'm for Mamdani - no matter what his stand on the Medicare issue, his fundamental philosophy is pro-labor and anti-privatization - and he's one impressive political talent. I will go into some details of his campaign which is fundamentally non-ideological and more bread and butter, no matter how people try to distort - like free buses, where half the people don't pay anyway and better childcare is so radical. Even his response on intifada is interesting, as Ryan Grim explains when he compares the calls to denounce him as equivalent to cancel culture from the left:

"At the very end of this rant, Gillibrand argues that it doesn’t matter what the term intifada actually means, what matters is how people receive it, and she says that black, Hispanic, and LGBTQ people have similarly offensive words that must never be said and the same standard applies here. So if you’re on the right and spent a decade denouncing this sort of thing, how is it that you are now embracing it and on Team Gillibrand?" .... 

But my sense of democracy is challenged by a top-down endorsement process. If the DA was really open and not rushed we would get a snapshot of where membership stands - but I would go further.

 

I have reservations about a UFT endorsement without checking the pulse of the membership. Coming from the top as it usually does actually is harmful as proven in previous elections where the massive UFT membership does not seem to go along - witness the constant failures if mayoral endorsements. My sense is this is a move to jump on the bandwagon of the leading candidate, which actually may doom Mamdani, given the UFT track record. A UFT endorsement will automatically elevate the chances of Adams and or Cuomo.

 

 

There is a big push, naturally, coming from the left in the UFT, with a petition going around. So why am I bothered by that? It amounts to the same push from the top concept when the UFT leadership pushes its own interests over where the members might stand. I've been annoyed even when I agree with my left comrades on the way they push their agenda on members. Sure push your personal ideas - you have a right. But if you are trying to organize people, well how about seeing where they are at? That is precisely what Mamdani has done, as he went to Trump supporters. One surprising result in the election was how many Trump voters went for him -- the sort of Bernie/Trump concept we saw --- see NYT today:  

• How Zohran Mamdani Brought New Voters to the Polls,

• Halal Cart Holds Blueprint for Mamdani’s Upset

• How Social Media Videos Fueled Zohran Mamdani's ...

Shocking that he actually talked to Trump voters -- something the ARISE crowd attacked ABC for. In fact I see a lot of similarities between the two campaigns - except we didn't win, of course. He reached out to new voters and so did ABC - he was more successful. He had 40k volunteers and I saw ABC with more volunteers in this campaign than I'd seen in the past - and the vote totals indicated that. Both campaigns get credit for their social media. But more on this comparison in the future.

 

Member driven means member driven even if the members on the whole don't agree with you. So though I would hope a clear majority of UFT members would support Mamdani, especially given the Adams/Cuomo/Sliwa alternatives, I would like to see where the actual pulse of the membership lies at this point. 

 

The problem with pushing endorsements down the throat of members is that they alienate people unless there is a clear mandate. I think there is a strong case to be made for Mamdani but only if people get a chance to debate. Let's air the claims of anti-semitism and respond. Invite him to a meeting - invite them all.
 

If you really want to mobilize the membership in a campaign, win the bulk over and that takes work beyond calling an emergency summer meeting of the DA where a small minority of members will decide. 

But one interesting story will emerge. The so-called left of the UFT, the ARISE crowd, will be overwhelmingly in favor and with UFT leadership backing Mamdani, we could expect overwhelming support at the DA. As for the 200k UFT membership? I'm not so sure. It weakens the union of there is a wide gap.

 

Thus, while I'm not speaking for ABC, and I think many ABCers do support Mamdani, I think there might be a sentiment to go through a more serious process in the UFT as a way to build support. At least a serious poll or a referendum -- like how about using electronic voting to do one? Oh, the Unity gang is allergic. 

 

 UPDATE - 

Political Currents by Ross Barkan

They're Losing

Zohran and the decline of the pro-Israel voter

Ross Barkan

Jul 03, 2025

https://substack.com/inbox/post/167483841

Is Victor Orban the Worst Person in the World? Ethnic, Cultural, Nationalistic Cleansing - Plus Rewriting History

Hungarians Fume as Statue of Former Leader Is Downgraded  ---

The statue of Mr. Nagy, who was at once a reformist and a dedicated communist, is expected to be moved and replaced with a memorial to the victims of the Red Terror, a purge of anti-communist forces in 1919. The commission is led by the National Assembly’s speaker, Laszlo Kover, a member of Fidesz.

The Red Terror memorial was originally erected under the regency of Admiral Miklos Horthy, who was Hungary’s de facto leader from 1920 to 1944, a period during which severe legal restrictions were placed on Hungarian Jews.

--- NY Times, Dec. 28, 2018 - full article closes this blog post.

With Prof Kiraly, Oct. 2006

From today's Times about the removal of the statue of a major hero in Hungary, the Communist leader Imra Nagy, who defied the Soviets and led the Hungarian Revolution.

My late and great Brooklyn College history Professor Bela Kiraly, a hero of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, one week before the 50th anniversary celebration in Budapest in October 2006, told my wife and I when we visited him at his home in Budapest that Imre Nage was one of Hungary's greatest heroes, if not the greatest. A week later, after we had already left, Kiraly was one of the main speakers at the memorial of the revolution, not far from Nage's statue. What is funny is that many of the people I associated with on the left maintained that the revolution was CIA inspired, which I often scoffed at. But that night Kiraly did confirm that the CIA did play a role in his escape to the USA. He became a voice against the Soviets but also was passionate about democracy.

We had witnessed a right wing demo at Parliament earlier that day. He told us that we had witnessed the early stages in 2006 of the right wing anti-democratic movement -- he was concerned and he turned out to be right.