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Meet the New Leader of Massachusetts’s Top Teachers’ Union, a DSA Member Who Says the US Is ‘Fascist,’ Borders Are for ‘Colonizers,’ and Israel Is ‘Genocidal’
Washington Free Beacon ^ | May 26, 2026 | Alana Goodman

Posted on 06/01/2026 5:52:16 AM PDT by Twotone

The newly elected vice president of Massachusetts's top teachers' union is a longtime left-wing activist who has denounced the United States as a "fascist oligarchy," objected to national borders as a "construct of colonizers," and pushed resolutions condemning Israel as "genocidal."

The Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA)—an affiliate of the National Education Association (NEA), the largest labor union in the United States—earlier this month elected Deb Gesualdo as its vice president. The new leadership team will take over from outgoing MTA president Max Page in July.

Gesualdo, along with the MTA’s newly elected president, Matt Bach, is a member of Educators for a Democratic Union, the MTA's progressive caucus, which works to "build a … social justice movement in our union and communities" and "dismantle structures of oppression within our union as well as other institutions." It has received funding from the Social Justice & Solidarity Fund, a group affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America, of which Gesualdo is a member. She has been open about her anti-American and anti-Israel views both on social media and within the MTA.

In a post on the left-wing social media site Bluesky, Gesualdo called for anti-government uprisings against the "fascist" United States, writing that it was "beyond me that there’s still people who think we can legislate our way out of the fascist oligarchy that is the United States." The "antidote," she added, was "working people rising up."

Gesualdo uses children’s cartoons to promote far-left and socialist ideology on social media. On TikTok, she posted a picture of Snoopy with a caption and voice-over denouncing national borders as a "construct of colonizers" that are "meant to control and exploit workers." In another comment on Bluesky, she published an image of Hello Kitty alongside the message "No war but class war." Video Player 00:00 00:37

Gesualdo has also pushed anti-Israel policies within the MTA. She helped advance a 2023 resolution for a ceasefire petition that accused Israel of carrying out a "genocidal assault" in Gaza and signed a letter calling on the NEA to stop using Holocaust education materials from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), accusing the Jewish civil rights group of "Zionist supremacy."

Gesualdo's rise in the MTA is a reflection of the far-left activism and antisemitism that has plagued the union in the wake of Hamas's Oct. 7 terror attack.

The union's outgoing president, Page, is also a member of the MTA's progressive caucus, which endorses candidates for MTA president and vice president when they're elected every two years. Since 2014, every MTA president has come from the caucus's ranks.

Under Page, the MTA faced intense criticism, including from lawmakers in the solidly Democratic state legislature, for educational materials the union offered its teachers following the attack. They included an image of a dollar bill folded into a Star of David, something state representative Simon Cataldo, a Democrat, called "antisemitic imagery" during a 2025 hearing on antisemitism in Massachusetts's public schools, the Free Press reported. Page, who testified at the hearing, said he wouldn't "evaluate" whether the image was antisemitic, telling Cataldo, "You're trying to get away from the central point, which is that we provide imagery, we provide resources for our members to consider, in their own intelligent, professional way."

Such "imagery" includes a poster of a keffiyeh-clad terrorist holding a rifle alongside the words, "What was taken by force can only be returned by force"; a poster of the founder of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorist group; and a poster calling for a "day of rage" to "decolonize this place."

Cataldo served as co-chair of the Massachusetts Special Commission on Combatting Antisemitism, created months after the Oct. 7 attack to confront the rise of antisemitism in the state. With the election of Bach and Gesualdo, the MTA appears to be reinforcing its support for anti-Israel terrorism rather than rebuking it.

Bach, who served as president of the Andover Education Association (AEA) before he was elected to lead the MTA, has a history of left-wing activism as well. Under his leadership, the AEA signed a petition calling for a ceasefire in Israel’s retaliatory war against Hamas just weeks after Oct. 7.

"The cycle of violence must stop so that negotiations for an enduring peace proceed," the letter stated. "The road to justice cannot be paved by bombs and war."

The MTA did not respond to a request for comment.

The MTA's parent organization, the NEA, led by self-described "fierce social justice warrior" Becky Pringle, has also faced complaints over antisemitism. The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law filed a civil rights complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission last month alleging that the union subjected Jewish members to an antisemitic environment. It pointed to the NEA's 2025 Representative Assembly—the group's annual gathering—where anti-Israel delegates were accused of physically intimidating Jewish members in an attempt to prevent them from voting on a resolution banning materials from the ADL from appearing in classrooms.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; US: Massachusetts
KEYWORDS: dsa; education; massachusetts

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1 posted on 06/01/2026 5:52:16 AM PDT by Twotone
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To: Twotone

Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.


2 posted on 06/01/2026 5:53:46 AM PDT by Texas Eagle (If it wasn't for double-standards, Liberals would have no standards at all. )
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To: Twotone

Borders are for “colonizers”?

Wouldn’t a strong border prevent colonization?

I’m sure she insists land belongs to “indigenous people”, except, of course for Europeans in Europe and Jews in Israel.


3 posted on 06/01/2026 5:55:29 AM PDT by TheThirdRuffian (Orange is the new brown)
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To: Twotone

I think we’ve reached the point where public education should be just shut down. That would have the happy consequence of killing the teacher’s unions.


4 posted on 06/01/2026 6:00:18 AM PDT by Rummyfan (Ok In anyq war between the civilized man and the savage, support lthe civilized man.👨 so t tv)
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To: TheThirdRuffian

https://i.imgur.com/x58aLTN.png

It takes time to get rid of the scum but it can be done: see above link....


5 posted on 06/01/2026 6:01:12 AM PDT by GOPJ (Democrats support illegals, commies, looters, criminals, and liars in 'the press.' VOTE AGAINST THEM)
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To: Twotone

I think that it is a great tragedy that wages have been largely flat since about 1970. Once upon a time, wages moved up pretty much in sync with corporate profits. Companies did well — workers did well. But that stopped being true decades ago. Corporate profits, and the stock market are doing extremely well. But wages for workers do not reflect that.

To some extent, you could make the case for unions based on this information. Workers need advocates. Pressure could be applied to businesses so that some of the profits could be used to benefit the workers. I don’t consider this to be crazy talk, or unAmerican, or anti-capitalist. It seems like good sense to me.

HOWEVER, when we do look at unions, we see things like the Teachers Unions. Trash. Political. Very much anti-American. These unions are not focused on the workers (teachers) or the customers (students). These unions are focused on the radical wing of the DNC and the fight to destroy a normal society.

On the one hand, I think we need unions. On the other hand, I think you would have to be crazy to support unions. Because this is what they end up doing.


6 posted on 06/01/2026 6:01:25 AM PDT by ClearCase_guy
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To: Twotone

Mentally ill in Massachussetts involved in teach...er indoctrinating young innocent children is a threat to their ability to think.


7 posted on 06/01/2026 6:03:24 AM PDT by PGalt (Past Peak Civilization? )
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To: GOPJ

GOOD link. BUMP!


8 posted on 06/01/2026 6:05:29 AM PDT by PGalt (Past Peak Civilization? )
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To: Twotone

“Gesualdo called for anti-government uprisings against the “fascist” United States”

By which of course she will not participate in any violent uprisings she is calling for. She means to recruit OUR children to be her commie thugs.

Abolish public schools. Abolish teachers’ unions.


9 posted on 06/01/2026 6:05:47 AM PDT by Organic Panic
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To: Twotone

Break the Union!


10 posted on 06/01/2026 6:06:54 AM PDT by bk1000 (Banned from Breitbart)
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To: Twotone

Close the public schools.


11 posted on 06/01/2026 6:07:54 AM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is opinion or satire. Or both.)
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To: Twotone

Mental Illness


12 posted on 06/01/2026 6:08:23 AM PDT by butlerweave (Fateh)
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To: Twotone

Publik Skoolz are proof that degrees in ‘Eddikashun’ are even lower class than those in Underwater Lesbian Dance.

Sending one’s child to most ‘publik skoolz’ should be considered child abuse.


13 posted on 06/01/2026 6:08:31 AM PDT by Da Coyote
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To: Twotone
Deb Gesualdo, Communist


14 posted on 06/01/2026 6:10:42 AM PDT by DeplorablePaul
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To: bk1000

Purge Massachusetts from the Union


15 posted on 06/01/2026 6:11:52 AM PDT by bert ( (KE. NP. +12) Quid Quid Nominatur Fabricatur)
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To: Twotone

They leftists can do this now because they know no harm will come to them and their cause. This one-sided CW has gotten really old, with no end in sight.


16 posted on 06/01/2026 6:13:19 AM PDT by CatOwner ( )
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To: Twotone

17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the
curriculum. Get control of teachers’ associations. Put the party line in textbooks.

36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.


17 posted on 06/01/2026 6:13:59 AM PDT by Red Badger (Iryna Zarutska, May 22, 2002 Kyiv, Ukraine – August 22, 2025 Charlotte, North Carolina Say her name)
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To: Twotone

Why couldn’t the mob have gotten control of this union?


18 posted on 06/01/2026 6:17:12 AM PDT by dfwgator ("I am Charlie Kirk!")
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To: Twotone
I'd bet the clothes on my back that this dame is a neighbor of mine. My suburban town went something like 70%-25% for Kommie Harris and it has proclaimed itself to be a “sanctuary city”.
19 posted on 06/01/2026 6:17:43 AM PDT by Gay State Conservative (Import The Third World,Become The Third World)
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To: TheThirdRuffian

“”I’m sure she insists land belongs to “indigenous people”, except, of course for Europeans in Europe and Jews in Israel.””

***

Yeah, odd... how there is always “an exception” to their idealogy... depending on who they favor (who they can use and pander to) at any given moment in time. The only thing that remains consistent is their verbage (using the word “fascist”) and their favorite hatred targets (Jews and anyone that is not in their commie party).


20 posted on 06/01/2026 6:18:29 AM PDT by Danie_2023 (I'm America First, but I stand by Israel and against 'anyone' that acts against America or Israel.)
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