Mamdani camp silent when confronted with calls to 'radicalize' high schoolers, 'dismantle' US

Fox News

08-07-2025

Socialist New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani's campaign did not respond when confronted with a handful of radical platforms and messages that were promoted during an annual gathering of socialist activists and leaders in Chicago over the Fourth of July weekend, Fox News Digital found.
"Socialism 2025" was held in Chicago Thursday through Sunday, where activists promoted "radicalizing" high school students, overthrowing the U.S. government and how to perform a "DIY" abortion and required all attendees to wear N95 or K95 while indoors, in addition to common rhetoric slamming capitalism.
Fox News Digital reached out to Mamdani's campaign Tuesday morning inquiring if the NYC Socialist Democrat agreed or disagreed with the platforms and ideas promoted at the conference, and if they were ones he would implement if elected the next mayor of the Big Apple, but did not immediately receive a response.
Mamdani did not attend the conference in Chicago, but describes himself as a Democratic socialist and has previously embraced radical left-wing policies, such as ending private homeownership in favor of communal living, Fox Digital has previously reported.
The socialism conference included panels dominated by college professors, as well as community organizers, activists and others.
"Socialism 2025 is a four-day conference bringing together thousands of socialists and radical activists from around the country to take part in discussions about social movements, abolition, Marxism, decolonization, working-class history, and the debates and strategies for organizing today," the conference touts on its website.
Fox News Digital provided Mamdani's office with a bullet-point list of six quotes and platforms promoted at the event, including one woman who identified herself as a Wisconsin high school teacher calling for youths to be "radicalized" before they enter college.
"All of you who got radicalized in college, imagine if you got radicalized four years earlier," the woman, who was a member of the audience, was heard saying during the conference.
Another Chicago-based activist who spoke during a panel called for the U.S. government to be overthrown.
"I think it's important to say the state isn't democratic. We don't live in a democracy. We should start saying that more so. I mean, there are so many different ways — I'm not going to go into it — but people are clapping, so there's general agreement. I'm glad we agree on that," the activist said during a panel Saturday called, "Their End is Our Beginning: Cops, Capitalism, and Abolition," which receive applause from the crowd.
"So, do we capture the state or do we try to replace it with something different?" he continued. "And I think it's the latter. We have to replace it with something different."
While during another panel on "Gender, Sexuality, Reproduction and the State: Fighting Back Against the So-Called Law," a woman from the audience announced that the conference would hold a do-it-yourself abortion panel to discuss how to use and where to buy legal abortion pills.
While a panel speaker for the same forum appeared to call for the abolition of the family.
"But… the bigger part of abolition as everybody's reminding us in that tradition is the building of infrastructures of real safety, real accountability, real justice," the activist said during the panel. "You know it's the same with the family. Capitalist care has to be abolished in the sense that we are all pretty clear that care is a real need. What does the family offer us? What is the promise? It's like a promise that you will be deeply, profoundly, unconditionally, selflessly and uncalculatedly known and held."
"Is the family really doing that?" she added, before adding that the idea of family has shortcomings and can be replaced with "mutual aid."
While yet another activist declared during a video clip circulating social media that she seeks to "dismantle the United States" and said "everyone" should join her in her activism — "no questions asked."
"I seek to dismantle the United States," the activist said, according to video footage circulating on X. "I hope you seek to dismantle the United States. And if that isn't your politics, OK. I speak as if everybody has this commitment. And the thing is, you should. You should listen to indigenous people when they are telling you this is the goal. Not only is this the goal, but this is the starting point."
"Decolonization is the only thing that is going to save us as a species. It's the only thing that's going to save us as a planet. And everyone should be on board with it, no questions asked."
Mamdani trounced top NYC mayoral competitor and former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo at the polls in June. Mamdani's victory is viewed as the Democrat Party moving farther to the left in New York City after national voters sounded off in the 2024 election that the party's embrace of some left-wing policies alienated Americans.
President Donald Trump has slammed Mamdani as a "Communist Lunatic" and vowed he would "save New York City."
"As President of the United States, I'm not going to let this Communist Lunatic destroy New York," Trump wrote on Truth Social earlier in July. "Rest assured, I hold all the levers, and have all the cards. I'll save New York City, and make it 'Hot' and 'Great' again, just like I did with the Good Ol' USA!"