I love the honesty and self-interrogation of this piece, Danny. You are such a wonderful writer and thinker. It's true that many New Yorkers are now mobilizing, doing trainings, getting ready for what's sure to come - and this may be encouraged by Zohran's victory and benefit from the canvassing teams already formed. But it's somewhat independent too, folks trying to learn from LA, Charlotte, Chicago. All the ambivalent, frightened, determined and stalwart feelings you evoke in your piece on the encampment are very present. Thanks so much.
Thanks Ros! I agree that the current mobilizations are partly inspired by Zohran, but are more directly inspired by the model of resistance we're seeing around the country. It's moving and inspiring (although that's relatively easy for me to say as a white person with citizenship)
Thanks, comrade. I don't know if the Mamdani Army is still on standby. If some of your colleagues have learned as much as you've described, I hope they can take leading roles to get that army organized and ready to fight Trump whether their mayor calls them up or not.
From what I can tell, Trump's threats are stirring people into action regardless of what Zohran says or doesn't say. Where the rubber meets the road will be the pressures on Zohran to appease NYPD collaboration, and how the movements respond
I worry about this, esp in NYC, in light of Zohran's meeting with Trump and, most importantly, the positive reaction to it. If too many people are even just partially persuaded that "Zohran being charming/good at meetings is enough to get Trump off our backs, even for just a little while," I think it takes some of the urgency out of organizing tasks, especially for people not yet active in organizing but who might be feeling on the precipice of getting involved.
I'm one of the people who had a positive reaction to the Trump-Zohran meeting. Mainly I thought it was funny and weird. I don't think Mamdani is sowing illusions that he can charm his way out of an ICE invasion. I think he's demonstrating to New Yorkers that he's trying to take every possible measure to prevent that invasion, which can bring more of the city onto his side when it happens
It was definitely weird, and funny in the way Trump often is lol. I don't think his ~goal~ is to sow illusions, I think his goal was to try and prevent or postpone ICE/national guard/defunding, and I'm not surprised it seems to have worked (for now), and I don't think Zohran himself would say (or think) it's all safe and good now because he's Just That Good.
But I do worry it's still going to have that effect, especially if it's successful at stopping or postponing it here despite ICE operations being ongoing elsewhere (and also here, just not as escalated). The jokes about Zohran being magic or Trump just needing a handsome socialist to smile at him _are_ jokes, and I am finding many of them funny, but humor does still spread ideas and I think the idea embedded in it is that it's ok to relax a little and that a sufficiently skilled politician can take care of things/keep us safe, which are demobilizing ideas to be spreading around even if the anticipated future escalation _is_ de-escalated for now. Highly politically active people maybe can breathe a little and certainly it makes sense for people at risk for detainment to feel relief, but the people who are just starting to get involved or aren't involved yet but thinking about it get the message (more from the reactions to the meeting than from the meeting itself) that this is taken care of now
But if it postpones ICE operations in NYC (which I actually don't think it will do) isn't that a good thing? Anytime we win a minor victory, we can worry that it will demobilize people, but in this case I link lefties are looking for reasons why Mamdani is going to sell out. If we're going to do that, I'd much rather focus on him begging DSA not to primary Hakeem Jeffries
Love your work Danny, especially Socialism, Seriously, but I hope not too many of us are getting caught into thinking that Mamdani is the Socialist straw that broke the capitalist camel's back.
I want to be very wrong that it's not Bernie 3.0, but with his appointment of Dean Fuleihan as his first Deputy Mayor, he's not off to a very promising start.
Keep up the great work it's very much appreciated!
Another excellent and thoughtful piece, and I just enough of a fraction of your honesty to admit that I maybe sometimes sorta feel the same way in the face of significant struggles. You've published this in reference to whatever hell Trump will visit on NYC, which everyone from Mamdani on down will have to react to. But I'm curious how you would apply this dynamic to the discussion I've followed of how the left — ranging from organizations and networks of all kinds to the individuals activated by the campaign — will organize itself to press for the agenda Mamdani articulated. See, eg, this article by our friend Hadas: https://hammerandhope.org/article/mamdani-left-socialism I wonder if being able to engage in an offensive struggle/initiative/effort around widely popular issues will lead to a different kind of reaction. Not that the left should limit itself to blah blah; I'm just thinking about the implications of what you wrote in a different context.
It's a good question. I also think there's a different dynamic between the Gaza encampments, which as an international solidarity action could feel more abstract or purely moral to many people, and ICE raids in your neighborhood, in which the solidarity with your neighbors is more immediate and tangle. Also, in this situation it is clearly ICE and the Feds that are deliberately imposing the chaos more than the community defenders. How that plays out when it comes to campaigns to tax the rich to fund Zohran's program is unpredictable because I don't know what those protests are going to look like, whether they will take on the feel of an explosive social movement or be more like a bunch of people taking buses to Albany (ugh)
I love the honesty and self-interrogation of this piece, Danny. You are such a wonderful writer and thinker. It's true that many New Yorkers are now mobilizing, doing trainings, getting ready for what's sure to come - and this may be encouraged by Zohran's victory and benefit from the canvassing teams already formed. But it's somewhat independent too, folks trying to learn from LA, Charlotte, Chicago. All the ambivalent, frightened, determined and stalwart feelings you evoke in your piece on the encampment are very present. Thanks so much.
Thanks Ros! I agree that the current mobilizations are partly inspired by Zohran, but are more directly inspired by the model of resistance we're seeing around the country. It's moving and inspiring (although that's relatively easy for me to say as a white person with citizenship)
Thanks, comrade. I don't know if the Mamdani Army is still on standby. If some of your colleagues have learned as much as you've described, I hope they can take leading roles to get that army organized and ready to fight Trump whether their mayor calls them up or not.
From what I can tell, Trump's threats are stirring people into action regardless of what Zohran says or doesn't say. Where the rubber meets the road will be the pressures on Zohran to appease NYPD collaboration, and how the movements respond
I worry about this, esp in NYC, in light of Zohran's meeting with Trump and, most importantly, the positive reaction to it. If too many people are even just partially persuaded that "Zohran being charming/good at meetings is enough to get Trump off our backs, even for just a little while," I think it takes some of the urgency out of organizing tasks, especially for people not yet active in organizing but who might be feeling on the precipice of getting involved.
I'm one of the people who had a positive reaction to the Trump-Zohran meeting. Mainly I thought it was funny and weird. I don't think Mamdani is sowing illusions that he can charm his way out of an ICE invasion. I think he's demonstrating to New Yorkers that he's trying to take every possible measure to prevent that invasion, which can bring more of the city onto his side when it happens
It was definitely weird, and funny in the way Trump often is lol. I don't think his ~goal~ is to sow illusions, I think his goal was to try and prevent or postpone ICE/national guard/defunding, and I'm not surprised it seems to have worked (for now), and I don't think Zohran himself would say (or think) it's all safe and good now because he's Just That Good.
But I do worry it's still going to have that effect, especially if it's successful at stopping or postponing it here despite ICE operations being ongoing elsewhere (and also here, just not as escalated). The jokes about Zohran being magic or Trump just needing a handsome socialist to smile at him _are_ jokes, and I am finding many of them funny, but humor does still spread ideas and I think the idea embedded in it is that it's ok to relax a little and that a sufficiently skilled politician can take care of things/keep us safe, which are demobilizing ideas to be spreading around even if the anticipated future escalation _is_ de-escalated for now. Highly politically active people maybe can breathe a little and certainly it makes sense for people at risk for detainment to feel relief, but the people who are just starting to get involved or aren't involved yet but thinking about it get the message (more from the reactions to the meeting than from the meeting itself) that this is taken care of now
But if it postpones ICE operations in NYC (which I actually don't think it will do) isn't that a good thing? Anytime we win a minor victory, we can worry that it will demobilize people, but in this case I link lefties are looking for reasons why Mamdani is going to sell out. If we're going to do that, I'd much rather focus on him begging DSA not to primary Hakeem Jeffries
Love your work Danny, especially Socialism, Seriously, but I hope not too many of us are getting caught into thinking that Mamdani is the Socialist straw that broke the capitalist camel's back.
I want to be very wrong that it's not Bernie 3.0, but with his appointment of Dean Fuleihan as his first Deputy Mayor, he's not off to a very promising start.
Keep up the great work it's very much appreciated!
Another excellent and thoughtful piece, and I just enough of a fraction of your honesty to admit that I maybe sometimes sorta feel the same way in the face of significant struggles. You've published this in reference to whatever hell Trump will visit on NYC, which everyone from Mamdani on down will have to react to. But I'm curious how you would apply this dynamic to the discussion I've followed of how the left — ranging from organizations and networks of all kinds to the individuals activated by the campaign — will organize itself to press for the agenda Mamdani articulated. See, eg, this article by our friend Hadas: https://hammerandhope.org/article/mamdani-left-socialism I wonder if being able to engage in an offensive struggle/initiative/effort around widely popular issues will lead to a different kind of reaction. Not that the left should limit itself to blah blah; I'm just thinking about the implications of what you wrote in a different context.
It's a good question. I also think there's a different dynamic between the Gaza encampments, which as an international solidarity action could feel more abstract or purely moral to many people, and ICE raids in your neighborhood, in which the solidarity with your neighbors is more immediate and tangle. Also, in this situation it is clearly ICE and the Feds that are deliberately imposing the chaos more than the community defenders. How that plays out when it comes to campaigns to tax the rich to fund Zohran's program is unpredictable because I don't know what those protests are going to look like, whether they will take on the feel of an explosive social movement or be more like a bunch of people taking buses to Albany (ugh)