The Kindness of Strangers

Shall we rely on it? What about the kindness of Mayor Mamdani?

Mayor Zohran Mamdani is full of surprises. While my enthusiasm has cooled somewhat since the election, I’d certainly have selected him over Andrew Cuomo or Curtis Sliwa. However, that’s not saying much.

Mamdani flip flopped on opposing mayoral control, a prime reason I’d supported him. Mayoral control enabled billionaire/ lowlife Mike Bloomberg to shut down high school after high school, dumping charter schools and dubious little academies in their places. I sat through hearing after hearing watching parents, students, teachers, clergy and entire communities go ignored.

If you read Diane Ravitch’s The Death and Life of the Great American School System, you’ll understand that mayoral control is a favored tactic of reformy types to sidestep democracy and community input. As I wrote in the NY Daily News years ago, NYC’s version amounted to mayoral dictatorship.

Unity’s Randi Weingarten supported Bloomberg’s mayoral control. Unity has paid lip service to reforming it here and there, but never took as bold a position as candidate Mamdani, who promised to abandon it. I was thrilled. Unfortunately, that didn’t last long. He flipped before even being sworn in.

Mamdani also reversed a campaign promise to extend rental assistance. A huge thing that got Mamdani elected, despite virulent opposition from heavily moneyed interests, was his appeal on cost of living. We bought our home in Long Island over thirty years ago. We were already priced out of the city, where I’d rented an apartment up until then. Things are far worse now.

I understand that Mamdani faces a budget he has to balance. The problem is this—I’m no longer persuaded he won’t balance it on our backs if he has to.

For example, Mamdani supports giving our personal info to parasitical health care companies. While that may save the city money in the short run, it’s impossible for me to accept that health care companies do this out of the goodness of their hearts (or whatever they have that passes for hearts). It’s certainly about their bottom line—not our health.

In case that’s not enough, Mamdani also pulled support for the UFT-sponsored para respect bill. I was at the UFT event when he, Cuomo, and the other would-be Democratic candidates fell over one another swearing to support it. It was important, evidently, before any of them attained the office. I was pretty shocked that Michael Mulgrew didn’t mention it in his outlandishly choreographed Delegate Assembly last week.

Unity’s position is we need not worry about health care with Mamdani as mayor. After all, he’s said he doesn’t support Medicare Advantage (MA). Our friends in Retiree Advocate (RA) seem to believe that too. In one of his Unity-approved NY Teacher columns, RA’s Bennett Fischer wrote:

And let’s not forget that Mamdani was the first Democratic primary candidate to go on the record against moving city retirees into a Medicare Advantage plan. “I am firmly opposed to privatization and Mayor Adams’ reckless attempts to strip municipal retirees from the traditional Medicare they were promised and earned,” he told Work-Bites magazine in 2024.

Let’s not forget it. Let’s also not forget that our RTC chapter has voted to support 1096 by a huge margin. RA seems to have forgotten. I just read their newsletter, and there is not one word about it. They further neglect to mention that we’re lobbying for a state bill that would achieve the same goal on March 24th. Join us if you are able.

Let’s not forget that, if Hochul doesn’t approve his tax cuts, the mayor wants to not only raise property taxes, but also borrow 229 million from the Retiree Health Benefit Trust. It appears that, if taxing those who can actually afford to pay is ruled out, he has no compunctions about using us as a veritable piggy bank. Where will it stop?

Let’s further not forget that Mamdani has thus far refused to meet with Marianne Pizzitola or NYC Retirees, the group that actually prevented Medicare Advantage from becoming status quo for city retirees. Let’s not forget that Mamdani has never supported 1096 or, as an assemblyperson, its state equivalent.

The big question is whether or not we should be reassured by Mamdani’s words. Given his shifting positions, that’s a big ask. Michael Mulgrew, of course, also says we have nothing to worry about. Shall we believe him too? Perhaps the underlying assumption is that once anyone says something, we should believe it, and that should be that.

I’m a high school teacher. I may have been lied to once or twice. In fact, in my capacity as chapter leader, I’ve been lied to once or twice as well—by people in authority. Can you imagine? (Sure you can.)

Of course, as circumstances change, so do firmly stated positions. This is not necessarily a flaw. It’s smart to change your mind when faced with new circumstances. However, Mulgrew has never admitted the flaws in his MA plan. He’s simply said things like it made retirees nervous, and was therefore inappropriate.

All I gleaned from Mulgrew’s turnaround is that he’d examined the RTC election results and determined that existing message was not working for him. Just like with the paras, whom Unity didn’t appear to worry about for decades, their positions only evolved when they were voted against 3-1.

Before losing the RTC, we all heard Unity voices proclaim that Medicare Advantage was as good or better than real Medicare. They mustered the chutzpah to tell us that despite begging the City Council for the right to pay up for real Medicare. (While MA was good enough for plebeians like us, it was in no way good enough for Unity Big Shots with double pensions.)

I went to the UFT Executive Board one night, hoping to speak in favor of my friend Amy, and instead found myself listening to Mulgrew indulging a clueless paranoid rant about those who oppose him. We were conspiracy theorists, enemies of the union, spouting fairy tales and worse.

How can we trust such obviously self-centered, vindictive and deluded leaders?

I recall Blanche Du Bois, toward the end of A Streetcar Named Desire, saying, “I’ve always relied on the kindness of strangers.” By that point, Blanche seemed to have no choice in the matter. I’m somewhat wary of the kindness of strangers. I’d never, ever rely on the kindness of politicians.

Make no mistake, my friends—that’s precisely what both Unity and Retiree Advocate are asking us to do.