Greetings Resisters! This week we bring a post-election dispatch from Kate and Julie. But first, we want to share that the round-up now also lives on Substack, as Likewemeanit.substack.com. Pass it on!
Another world is happening.
from Kate
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Each week, we sign off on this email with a commitment to another world and a reminder that it is not only possible, but here and happening. This willful optimism is not always easy, especially after months of what have felt like one authoritarian win after another, but Tuesday night made that hope seem a little more well-founded.
Image Credit: Kate Dalton
A lot of us resisters were rooting for Zohran at number 1, and a whole lot of us put in the work to ensure a progressive win. Many canvassed for Lander, and others strategically ranked Zohran to prevent another mini-Trump. In conventional wisdom, words like “strategic” and “progressive” aren’t necessarily linked together, making it just one of the ways this win challenged expectations.
In his election night speech, Zohran sought to build on the empathy and solidarity that fueled his campaign. He referenced FDR’s words about how people sometimes give up democracy, when they sacrifice liberty, intentionally or not, in the hope of getting something to eat. Mamdani said, “New York, what we have made clear over these past few months is that we need not choose between the two. We can be free and we can be fed.”
This election defied a lot of binaries we were supposed to accept, exposing false choice after false choice. Not only do we not need to choose between being free and being fed, we don’t have to choose between economic populism and the rights of marginalized individuals, including those in the trans community. We can prioritize the climateand working class issues. And like we’ve said before, we also don’t have to try to contort ourselves in a thousand different positions trying to appease some magical swing voter in the middle. Mamdani himself said it at the rally for Newark mayor, Ras Baraka: “You can’t fight extremism with moderation. You have to fight it with courage. You have to fight it with clarity. You have to fight it with conviction.”
Mamdani also challenged the idea that you can’t be an electable politician and speak out for Palestinian rights. I will say that for those of us who have been committed to a ceasefire in Gaza, at a time when speaking out has a cost and has even led to imprisonment for some, Mamdani’s win provides a welcome bit of hope. It was all the more inspiring because it was supported by deeply relational work, seen in various groups rallying behind his campaign but perhaps most visibly exemplified in the cross endorsement with Brooklyn’s own Brad Lander, a self-professed liberal Zionist and ceasefire advocate in his own right. In a conversation with Anand Ghirardas, Lander spoke to the promise of their partnership, his belief in Mamdani’s leadership for all New Yorkers, and the positive response to their cross endorsement. Lander described people’s reactions as “a feeling of like, thank you for modeling something better than these bitter lines that we've had over the last year and a half of this excruciating conflict, and even that made me hopeful that ... maybe it's possible for Jews and Muslims to engage in a better dialogue than the one we've been having.”
The cross-endorsement with Lander illustrates another way in which this win is a testament to us building the world we want—one of cooperation and interdependence. The ranked-choice system encourages this new style of campaigning and points to how we can rethink how we relate to and even compete with one another. We believe in the value of this kind of worldbuilding work in this Resister group, whether it’s through seeding social proof or emphasizing the value in our actions, however small. And Tuesday, we got to see that value of our collective action at an even greater scale.
And, finally, it is thanks to the savvy and tireless efforts of the Working Families Party and the DREAM campaign that we were prepared to leverage collaboration for a progressive win. Leaders like Letitia James ranked Mamdani fourth on their ballot and still compellingly made the case for him on the stump. Election night, I saw a selfie of Jumaane Williams, Letitia James, Brad Lander, and Nydia Velazquez, smiling as Zohran was giving his speech on stage, and it looked like a tired team, but one who had worked hard together. It looked like hope.
I live in Midwood. After Trump’s win this November, I was looking at a map of voting patterns, and saw that the coop where I live, comprising three pre-war buildings, appears as a blue square (meaning that more of us voted for Harris than for Trump). We’re cut off from the blue swath to the north of us, due to the freight train that bisects the borough. To the south, it’s a sea of pink and red.
[Map from The City, depicting voting patterns across the city in November, 2024. This is my voting district.]
Midwood is heavily Orthodox. Most of the shops down the street from me on Avenue J cater to that clientele—modest clothing stores, a kosher meat shop, a kosher fish market, lots of bakeries. Sometimes I go to Mechy’s, which specializes in prepared foods. Usually I get just one thing: an excellent, crispy chicken schnitzel. It’s a big hit in our house.
When the owner, an older gentleman, is in, I always get a warm reception. He kind of treats me like Sal from Do the RIght Thing treats Jade, Mookie’s little sister. His face lights up. He tells the guys behind the counter to help the nice lady. It’s a little awkward, but not enough to keep me from going back. Like I said, it’s good schnitzel.
Thursday, I dropped in again. I got the usual warm greeting, and as he was ringing me up, he made small talk. He speaks fast, with a slight accent, I’m not sure from where exactly. “Who’s gonna be our next mayor?”
“I don’t know,” I said gamely, not sure where we were heading.
“Not the Muslim guy, I hope.” he said.
“I’d be okay with that,” I replied.
“Really?” He seemed genuinely surprised. “You don’t think he’s gonna set all the Muslims against the Jews?”
I shook my head no.
“And let all the students protest, making the kids feel scared at their schools?”
“Nope,” I said, still shaking my head confidently. “I think he loves this city, and I think he knows it’s made up of Jews, Muslims, Christians…”
“So you think we’ll be safe?” This “we,” it seemed, included me.
“Yup,” I said.
“Well, from your lips,” he said, leaving the “to God’s ears” implied. “That’s why I asked you! Since you’re from the other side.” He said this without animus, almost playfully.
“The other side?” I objected, but also playfully, since of course I knew what he meant, and he wasn’t wrong.
This whole exchange lasted just a minute or two. Walking back home, I found myself
thinking about that promise I had essentially made to him, that Jews will be “safe” if Mamdani becomes mayor. That he will be safe. In that moment, I’d felt entirely certain of that.
But I had rushed right past what he was telling me—that he, and presumably many of the other people he talks to all day, visibly religious Orthodox Jews, don’t feel safe right now, and see the prospect of a New York City mayor who affirms the rights of Palestinians and who is Muslim himself as a danger and a threat. I don’t share that viewpoint. I feel disgusted by the political operatives who in my mind spun that anti-Mamdani narrative in recent weeks—a narrative that to me seems blatantly Islamophobic (and also erases the perspective of the many Jewish people who worked on Mamdani’s behalf). But of course the fear they are tapping into runs much deeper than this moment. It is borne of recent, tragic events in this country, and also centuries of persecution for looking and living, as a minority, in ways that mark us as Other.
I can’t undo the history that has given rise to this deeply entrenched and painfully inherited fear. (Indeed, some part of that fear lives in me, and fuels the work I do with all of you.) But I feel like that conversation I had was a missed opportunity—not for persuasion, not to make him believe, as I do, that Mamdani has fundamentally humanist values, and will do his best to make sure every New Yorker is safe. Rather, I wish I had slowed down, and actually sat with his fear, rather than being in such a hurry to tell him he’ll be fine.
That said, that conversation also made me feel a little bit hopeful. If we are, as he said, on different “sides,” nevertheless, he seemed genuinely interested in hearing what I had to say, and did not respond with anger or defensiveness. And I feel genuinely interested in hearing what he has to say.
Mamdani’s win presents an opportunity, albeit an incredibly fragile one, for New Yorkers to speak across divides that are tearing up the world in other places. In the conversation Kate referenced above, Brad Lander says he saw that possibility, campaigning together with Mamdani on the streets of Brooklyn and Queens, even as some of his supporters excoriated him for his cross-endorsement. It will take hard work, careful outreach, and deep listening—much deeper than what I offered the other day at Mechy’s. And powerful players will do everything they can to block that kind of communication and coalition building. But what a profound thing it would be, if we all recognized, and worked together on behalf of, our shared investment in, as Lander puts it, “the safety and thriving of all the people in New York City.”
Amplify This
NYC Drag March, Friday, 7:30pm [h/t Aileen & Eliana] A non-corporate, leaderless, and inclusive march that embraces the full spectrum of queer identities and is known for its DIY ethos, political edge, and unapologetic celebration of drag culture.
Trump wants his Big Bad Bill on his desk by July 4th. Check out this podcast from Black Votes Matter on the already devastating racial disparities built into our healthcare system, and then make all the calls to stop him from having his way
