Equality, Coolidge, and Mamdani
I found this quote from Calvin Coolidge at Instapundit. It’s an excerpt from Coolidge’s speech on the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence:
About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.
So someone like Mamdani is a reactionary.
Furthermore, all men – meaning “mankind” or human beings – are created equal, which does not mean that their lives, achievements, income, or luck will be equal. Nor is it the task of the federal government – or local government – to make those things equal. That’s one of the main problems with leftists such as Mamdani, whose vision of equality of outcome (rather than equality of opportunity) quickly turns into a nightmare.
And in pursuit of that equality of outcome we get preferential treatment for historically downtrodden groups such as black Americans, which led Mamdani – who is not black and was not American at the time – to have claimed “black or African-American” status in an effort to get preferential treatment in a college application:
New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani is facing an uproar in the wake of the revelation that he claimed he was “black or African American” and “Asian” on an application to Columbia University, according to a NY Times report. He did not get in, but putting that in the application would likely have upped his chances of getting in. He told The NY Times on Thursday he did not consider himself “black or African American” but an “American born in Africa.” He claimed he didn’t do it to increase his chances but to reflect the fullness of his background. However, the question on the application is about race, not about his place of birth.
Mamdani, whose parents are Indian, was born in Uganda but came to New York City when he was a child. He is not black and was not a U.S. citizen at the time of the application.
Can you imagine if Elon Musk claimed to be “black or African-American”? Mamdani will get away with it with his supporters, but that’s not only because he’s a leftist but because he’s “brown” (of Indian ethnicity). I don’t know whether being Indian gets an applicant much these days; perhaps it’s lumped in with “Asian,” which is most definitely not an advantage.
When I first heard this story, I wondered at the fact that the Times mentioned it. But I quickly realized that even the Times is probably aware that Mamdani as mayor would be bad for the city. What is also of interest is how flat-footed and lethargic Cuomo’s campaign must have been, to not have unearthed some of these tidbits that could conceivably hurt Mamdani.
Next he’ll claim he’s Jewish …
Precisely and elegantly stated by CC.
==
Our friend Mr. Begley told of attending a Democratic Party event last year and from his conversations with people there offered the estimate that about half those attending were members of one of two organizations which account for about 2% of the adult population: the teachers’ unions. The social vision of bourgeois partisan Democrats is as if the world were a school. You have the teachers, the administrators, the students. Objections to the line pushed by the teachers and administrators are treated as classroom disruption. The parents, off earning a living and possessed of various skill sets the teachers and administrators do not have, are considered no account nuisances. It is not an egalitarian vision at all. The entire society is understood as being under the tutelage of the anointed.
==
(The most amazing example of this attitude occurred at the Dalton School in Manhattan at the end of 2020, when the headmaster and about 70% of the faculty proposed to erect a curriculum and disciplinary system which would amount to a continuous assault on the psyches of the school’s white students. They were proposing to do this to the children of paying customers who could buy and sell them).
Yes, “silent Cal” was a man of few words. When he spoke, it was always to the point.
Those words of his should be required reading for every student and every politician. It certainly exposes Progressivism as being anti the founding principles. But we knew that. Cal’s words just make the point with clarity and brevity.
neo writes that “even the Times is probably aware that Mamdani as mayor would be bad for the city.”
The Times is *much* more concerned with whether Mamdani is bad or good for the Democrat Party and for the future of woke leftism, than it is for “the city.” Count on it.
Is J.D.’s wife then Black too? Remember, Harris was going with the Black thing too.
Do read the book, “Coolidge”, by that marvel, Amity Schlaes.
Coolidge’s son came to the White House for Thanksgiving from his freshman year at Amherst College. He played one set of tennis on the new WH tennis court, got a heel blister, and died of a bacterial cellulitis a week later. Calvin’s life was suddenly and quite awfully, irremediably altered. Yes. he became somber. I think most of us would also.
Yes schlaes bio was eye opening as to his impact of course dorothy thompson who had lefty leanings did much to disparage him, in a different world where the son survived would we have been spared the Depression and everything that came after
Bill Ackman backs Adams, urges Cuomo to drop out.
https://www.newsmax.com/politics/bill-ackman-eric-adams-andrew-cuomo/2025/07/03/id/1217450/
The Mossad needs to send Mamdani a pager and new smart phone.
I’ll even donate the $’s for them.
JG II: Me too, and I’m not in NYC.
Ronald Reagan would like a moment of your time….
“Now back in 1927 an American socialist, Norman Thomas, six times candidate for president on the Socialist Party ticket, said the American people would never vote for socialism. But he said under the name of liberalism the American people will adopt every fragment of the socialist program.”
This from a radio speech given in 1961. And here we are.
He also stated elsewhere that America is the last bastion of freedom, and when it is lost here, there is no place to flee to. And that he knew of no society that had freedom, and lost it, that had ever regained it.
An allusion to an earlier comment of mine,”What do people expect the Democrats to do”.?
M J R:
“Bad for the city” in economic terms, such as their own real estate values.
Thanks for that Another Mike. That was excellent.
he aint brown. his Indo aryan skin is lighter than most people of the Mediterranean
President Coolidge’s speech is almost as timeless as the Declaration itself.
Thank you, Mr. President.
And Happy Birthday!
History of Asian Indians in Uganda is quite interesting. They were imported as being more reliable than native Ugandans, but still cheap labor. They stayed and became the small shopkeepers, small lenders, the Ugandan middle class. Idi Amin the terrible Ugandan totalitarian and mass murderer gave all-ALL- Indians a tight 2 or 3 month deadline to leave the country, which they, and the Mamdanis, did. Bad guys like Amin sometimes do a good thing! A lot of those Ugandan Indians ended up in England and took root.
Musk, of course, is genuinely “African-American”.
neo (7:27 pm), got it.
Funny how The Times can get their hands on college applications when they want to damage (or help) a candidate, but claim those records are sealed when it comes to anyone they want to protect (Obama most notably).
I always found a more effective argument than “Obama is hiding his poor grades and test scores” was “why didn’t The Times just dig up and publish the bona fides that proved Obama’s brilliance to shut up his naysayers early on if they existed?”
avi:
“Brown” is a convenient socio-economic-political identity group that’s only loosely tied to skin color.
Let’s add to Coolidge’s declaration one of Teddy Roosevelt’s famous statements.
I don’t agree with all of TR’s policies and actions (he was a Progressive aka socialist-lite & carried the Big Government stick), but he got this part right:
“There is room here for only 100 percent Americanism, only for those who are Americans and nothing else.”
https://www.azquotes.com/quote/538561
Davidson shares observations from other notables on the duty of citizens to be Americans in that sense, and agrees that Mamdani doesn’t fill the bill.
https://thefederalist.com/2025/07/02/not-everyone-with-u-s-citizenship-is-actually-an-american/
More alarm bells from The Federalist:
https://thefederalist.com/2025/07/03/mamdani-is-a-warning-on-where-the-next-generation-of-the-left-is-heading/
Additional research (I’m considering applying for a job as an AI-surrogate.)
https://www.truthorfiction.com/roosevelt-immigration/
https://www.pnwriders.com/threads/hyphenated-americanism-speech-theodore-roosevelt-october-12-1915.88078/
https://forgottenfiles.substack.com/p/the-hyphenated-americans-1899
https://www.heritage.org/political-process/report/the-transformation-american-democracy-teddy-roosevelt-the-1912-election
I wasn’t really aware that all four candidates were progressives, or Progressives, or Socialists – regardless of their nominal party affiliation.
No wonder we have finally gotten to this point.
Written in 2012:
@ FOAF > “Next he’ll claim he’s Jewish”
https://thefederalist.com/2025/07/03/mamdani-is-a-warning-on-where-the-next-generation-of-the-left-is-heading/
“Mamdani won the Democratic Party mayoral nomination in the city with the second-largest Jewish population in the world. His supporters included many Jews.”
The second Federalist link, on Mamdani, quoted Ronald Reagan, and cited part of his inaugural address as governor of California.
I was impressed by how many of his reforms were either not completed, or were destroyed by succeeding Democrat governors.
It seems to me that a lot of his proposals carried over to his presidential tenure, and many of them could be repeated now on the national level. Indeed, much of Reagan’s program is compatible with Trump’s goals, but we are fighting a lot of opposition that has been growing in the decades since he proposed them.
https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/speech/january-5-1967-inaugural-address-public-ceremony
“Freedom is a fragile thing and it’s never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by way of inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people. And those in world history who have known freedom and then lost it have never known it again.”
Happy Independence Month.
Why should we celebrate some ideologies for a month, and the most important political event in history with only one day?
Hot Air has a little more information in its post on the Mamdani college application, and links to a meme that is worth sharing.
Just for the lulz.
https://hotair.com/john-s-2/2025/07/03/zohran-mamdani-said-he-was-black-on-columbia-university-application-n3804458
https://x.com/AlecLace/status/1940905954494894489
Somewhat related to AesopFan @0130.
NYC Jewish population peaked at 2 million (25.3% of total pop) in 1950.
Latest estimate is 960,000, which is 11.6% of total population (2023 estimate). 19% of NYC Jews are Orthodox (meaning likely to vote right); 80% are therefore likely Mamdani voters.
The number of Muslims in NYC is only slighty lower than the number of Jews, and likely higher than the number of Jewish Democrats (due to Orthodox voting right).
A roughly equal number of Jews live in the NYC suburbs (source for all data Wiki).
Integrating all of that, I see no disadvantage for a Democrat politician being overtly hostile to Israel and Jews- the Muslims will all be in favor, and most Jews will be happy to have the scorpion continuing its ride on their backs.
Ironically, it may the the black population (23%) that dooms his candidacy, as word spreads about his failed attempt to put blackface on to gain entrance into Columbia U.
My gut instinct is that Mamdani is too radical in 2025 to win, even in NYC. However, the race is winner-take-all, no run-off.
Adams, Cuomo and Sliwa are going to have coordinate to stop Mamdani.
Or somehow the tide turns on Mamdani, he gets canceled, and Democrats shift to Cuomo or Adams.
“His supporters included many Jews”
How many? Is there any clear estimate of this? While there are undoubtedly a lot of Jewish leftists in NYC who would vote for him it’s quite a leap to WTIC’s conclusion that all non-Orthodox Jews there are “likely Mamdani voters”.
There is also the question of who is considered “Jewish”. I submit that after a couple of generations of extensive intermarriage it is a lot more ambiguous than when neo and I were growing up.
“Or somehow the tide turns on Mamdani, he gets canceled, and Democrats shift to Cuomo or Adams”
Oh no, they wouldn’t do a thing like that! Just ask Joe Biden.
West TX Intermediate Crude:
Your figures on Jews and Mamdani are extremely incorrect.
Yes, the Orthodox Jews are about 80% to 90% Trump voters – that is, Republicans – who don’t vote in Democratic primaries. But as far as the rest are concerned, there is zero evidence that other Jews voted for Mamdani in any but small percentages. The estimate I’ve seen is that he got 20% of the vote of Jewish Democrats (see this, for example, but I’ve seen the same figure in many places). So NY Jews rejected hm, even Democrats.
Neo-
I was not clear- apologies. I was referring more to the upcoming election.
I agree that few Jews voted for Mamdani in the primary, but what are they going to do in November?
They voted overwhelmingly for the overtly anti-Semitic Democratic Party last November, against an overtly philo-Semitic (but icky orange) Republican. They have convinced themselves that the Venn diagram of Zion-hate and Jew-hate is not a near perfect circle (Spoiler: it is a near perfect circle).
I fervently hope that you are correct, and the Jews of NYC all vote overwhelmingly for the same non-Mamdani candidate next November. Maybe Cuomo will withdraw, and all the sane NYers will hold their noses and vote for the incumbent Adams.
There will be a massive attempt by Mandami and the Democratic Party apparatus in NYC to soft-pedal Mandemi’s anti-Semitism over the next few months- he’ll be eating bagels and blintzes, attending Bar-Mitzvahs, and otherwise taqiyya-ing his ass off. He will fool everyone, and no one.
West TX Intermediate Crude;
I think in general it’s hard to get a bead on the Jewish vote, because not only are Jews quite varied (from ethnic secular Jews to highly religious Jews), but Jewish people are highly concentrated in liberal enclaves and vote more or less like other people in those enclaves, who outnumber them. Black people, for example, vote far more strongly for Democrats. Jews in Florida vote differently than Jews in NYC. And Jews in Israel and the UK vote much more conservatively than the Jews in New York and Los Angeles, who vote pretty much the way the general populations in their cities do.
But I think if you want to do a deeper dive into US Jewish voting patterns, please see this.
I also think Mamdani will alienate the majority of New York’s Jews. However, it would be best if Cuomo and Sliwa would drop out and leave the field to Adams. If the anti-Mamdani vote is split 3 ways, Mamdani will probably win no matter how the Jews vote.
Welp, I’d say his background has fullness.
And his foreground is full of it too.
Just another slick, charismatic liar.
All the rest is commentary….
This guy is as phony as a $3 bill.
one is striking how wrong this can be:
https://x.com/ProfDBernstein/status/1941851913428914602
mandani is the converse of d’souza and ramaswamy, a net deficit to our nation,
those who want to inflict him on our largest city, well they have something wrong with them
The sign-off for podcasts by The Federalist comes from a speech of Coolidge’s to, remarks he gave at the anniversary of Bunker Hill:
Be lovers of freedom, and anxious for the fray.