At this point, we must conclude that the principal function of ICE isn’t the enforcement of immigration laws, but the occupation and policing of cities. “[We] must expand efforts to detain and deport Illegal Aliens in America’s largest Cities, such as Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, where Millions upon Millions of Illegal Aliens reside,” Trump posted on TruthSocial, not long after the rain fell, in every way, on his June 14 military parade, and, more significantly, while millions of Americans protested his brazen “will to [authoritarian] power.” Trump then described “Radical Left Democrats” as “sick in the mind,” unpatriotic, and so on and so forth.
And then Zohran Mamdani won the Democratic primary in New York City on Tuesday, June 24. He is an immigrant, a socialist, and a Muslim. He is the embodiment of all that is considered wicked in our hyper-MAGA times. The message issued from this stunning victory against America’s increasingly and frustratingly milquetoast center-left—a center-left whose leading strategy for Trump’s authoritarianism is to do nothing and let it somehow burn out on its own—is that something must be done. Our values, which are under attack, must be asserted, even if that means imprisonment. It is illegal to kidnap brown (or any kind of) people from the streets or our cities. The US is, and has always been, a multicultural society. This assertion is at the heart of the protests on the streets of LA and the ballots in NYC. But first, we must understand the core of the developments that led us to where we are now.
The line in Trump’s June 14 post that requires our attention is found here: “[City people] believe in Open Borders, Transgender for Everybody, and Men playing in Women’s sports.” When you identify cosmopolitan values with lawbreaking, then those values are, in this interpretation, criminal. And so you have crime in the streets, and crime in Pride parades, and crime even in City Hall. On Tuesday, June 17, Brad Lander—New York City’s comptroller, a progressive, and a candidate in the recent NYC primary that saw Andrew Cuomo and the Dems’ conservatives go down in flames—was manhandled and arrested by ICE thugs for doing his job in a court of law. Before that, the thugs did pretty much the same thing to a California senator for legally participating in a Homeland Security press conference. And before that, it was the mayor of Newark, who, again, was doing nothing more than following the law. The appearance of ICE in blue states—blue because they are dominated by their urban centers—doesn’t explain, of course, the essence of this appearance, which has its source in the GOP’s long and steady project of repressing the Black vote.
With ICE, voter repression leaves the judiciary apparatus and enters the US’s repressive apparatus, which includes the conventional police (by means of compliance), immigration enforcement, and the army, as demonstrated by the National Guard’s current and ever-expanding occupation of Los Angeles. This occupation, which will eventually expand to all major metropolitan areas, has as its mission the enervation of the blue voters. Why?
The GOP, which first lost command of the white vote in cities and, gradually, the suburbs, is in actuality the minority party. Without certain institutional (and therefore structural) advantages, the country should have long accepted the obvious fact of its multiculturalness and been organized by a politics that spanned from the likes of Joe Biden (conservative) to the likes of Mamdani (progressive). Trump would be unelectable if our national democracy were as robustly representative as in states such as California, New York, and, of course, Washington. The urban values supported by the Democratic Party should be regarded as conventional, as the usual, as the everyday. What must be registered as bizarre is not Mamdani, but Stephen Miller. The former actually represents, like the current composition of the Supreme Court, a small segment of America, but is, instead, the expression of a larger political structure that artificially amplifies his voice and views. If the left does not grasp the fact that what is at stake is our lopsided democracy, then we will continue fighting against apparitions (“more should be done to attract MAGA voters,” “Mamdani is a radical,” and so on), but not the real stuff of American life.
During his first term in office, Trump continued the GOP’s repression of the Black vote but left urban white voters, who over the past 30 years moved from the graveyard of the right to the spectrum on the left, unbothered. Not so with his second term. He is going after them with the hope of grinding what’s left of American democracy into the dust. This is where ICE comes into the picture. It’s not really about brown people (who, nevertheless, pay the traumatic price of ICE’s brazen lawbreaking); it’s about the white voters who, through urban processes, became liberated not so much from racism (we still have lots of that, even in progressive Seattle) but from the hot, anti-immigrant stuff of Trump’s rallies.
Stephen Miller Invokes Racist Conspiracy Theory To Dismiss Mamdani newrepublic.com/post/197219/…
— Ray Beckerman (@raybeckerman.bsky.social) June 25, 2025 at 1:21 PM
And so, this is where things presently stand, Seattle. Los Angeles is coming our way, and it will definitely be a time of trouble, a time when our values are bombarded daily, when America’s white nationalist minority oppresses its multicultural majority. So, how are we going to come? Let’s turn to New York City for an answer.
It will be interesting to see if Mamdani can carry the general (I presume that will be easier with the two disgraced politicians running as independents) and then deliver on his campaign promises. Not sure what that has to do with ICE (we’re already seeing the Feds wanting to diminish troop numbers in LA due to lack of need / crap being on fire).
Aside, what will safeguard the costal cities is our economic power – we can afford to withstand a diminished federal spigot. If anything, if the federal government continues to be held by horrible people due to the realities of voter suppression / gerrymandering / etc., the blue states will need to embrace a weaker federal government (like our red welfare states are always pushing), embrace states rights.
Mamdani will 100% win the general. The Republican is a loon, one potential independent is a corrupt Trump associate, and the other is a disgraced sex pest.
@2 you’re prob right but that doesn’t mean Mamdani isn’t extreme. His platform and initiatives are well outside the core Dems which is the very definition of extreme.
Remember when Charles said that Kshama Sawant “totally represented the interests of destitute and the working poor” and then she supported Donald Trump’s election and now somewhere between 15 and 25 million of the destitute and working poor are going to lose their health insurance? A good idea would be don’t listen to Charles about stuff because he has no idea what he’s talking about.
The sheer fact that Charles says Madani not extreme means that Charles acknowledges that a lot of people find Madani extreme.
Stephen Miller should be scalped a la Inglorious Basterds.
@3, core Dems have drifted up and down the ideological spectrum, though. Example: social security as a concept – monthly payments for retired or infirm people – was once “extreme,” now mainstream. Why is creating and using a social safety net THAT WE PAY FOR WITH OUR OWN TAXES so wild?
Buses are already heavily subsidized, getting to free as Mandami promises isn’t that much a jump. The question remains whether this is a good idea — the free bus days in Seattle were dark, antisocial times that Metro is still recovering from. [shudder]
‘@2 you’re prob right but that doesn’t mean Mamdani isn’t extreme. His platform and initiatives are well outside the core Dems which is the very definition of extreme.’
To you, Bernie Sanders must be a reincarnation of Stalin.
Core Dems are a gerontocracy (Schumer, Pelosi) . Who would’ve thunk Dems want someone younger and more progressive? Not a ‘core’ Dem, but the voters certainly.
And why not promise a few things and try to achieve them. Maybe not Greenland, but a bus pass for residents…
If ‘core’ Dems actually decided to work with young folks and progressives, a truly nice coalition might happen (think Social Security and affordable tuition).
Or we can let the Republicans divide and conquer because socialism or something.
How is free public transit radical, when fares only cover 40% of transit expenses (if fares are collected at all) and cars in Manhattan get a $9 surcharge, because the streets are already at a standstill?
typo once
typo twice
proof your post
pretend you’re nice
Mamdani
@4 your opinion on how elections are won or lost is equivalent to a sports fan who thinks their team wins or loses based on whether they’re watching or go to the bathroom. Sawant didn’t wear her lucky jersey so Kamala lost! Damn it Sawant!!
@12: Sawant explicitly stated she intended to “defeat” Harris — and to “punish” her, because that’s the totally healthy and wonderfully wholesome approach to politics the Stranger endorsed for ten solid years, and still refuses to criticize. Defeating Harris meant supporting Trump’s election, which means everything @4 wrote is completely correct — about Sawant and Mudede, both.
@4: It’s fun (if a bit cruel) to compare Charles’ pointless, buzzword-laden meanderings with actual analysis. From the Wall Street Journal:
“Most electoral districts where at least a quarter of residents had bachelors degrees broke mostly for Mamdani over former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Wall Street Journal analysis of preliminary election results and census data found.
“Mamdani also performed better in areas where non-Hispanic whites made up an above-average share of the population…”
(https://www.wsj.com/us-news/zohran-mamdani-nyc-election-voters-economy-ead5d808?mod=Searchresults_pos3&page=1)
@8: Mamdani won the Democratic primary in NYC for the same reason Trump won Republicans nationwide. If you are a political leader in the United States, then you cannot just tell chronically-privileged white people they can’t always have everything they want. They will turn on you with a vengeance for such blasphemy. Trump and Mamdani understand this; mainline Democrats, with their ethic of shared sacrifice for the greater common good, do not.
@13 The Stranger didn’t clap hard enough so Tinkerb–I mean the Harris campaign died
@13, @15: We all know you’re obsessed with avoiding any and all blame for the current situation, just as you are equally obsessed with blaming the Democrats for all of it. But @4 didn’t say anything about whether Sawant’s support of Trump had any actual effect on the election, just that Charles had been completely and easily swindled by Sawant’s past lies, the same as had anyone else in Seattle who had supported her. Charles doesn’t have any claim to special insight on this topic.
@16 Sawant didn’t support Trump she criticized Kamala. You and Bax are making the leap to insufficient support for the shitty Dem nominee = support for Trump. Mudede isn’t wrong you two just have Kshama Derangement Syndrome.
@17: Again, Sawant said explicitly her purpose was “to defeat” Harris, not merely to criticize her. Sawant had also explicitly recognized Jill Stein could not win. Therefore, by this process called ‘logic,’ we know Sawant worked to elect Trump. Anyone who works to elect Trump does not care in the slightest for poor or working class persons. Therefore @4 is completely correct about both Sawant and Mudede.
Considering that like 2 weeks ago Thirteen12 posted about how Trump was better than Biden/Harris on middle eastern foreign policy like a day or two before Trump bombed Iran along with now defending Trump supporting Sawant literally the day the GOP is voting to take away insurance from millions of people, s/he is either the stupidest person on the planet or one of these sock puppet Trump supporters that Cressona talks about being around here. At this point the only logical explanation is the latter, because I don’t think anyone could actually be so stupid as it would take to be the former.
@19 you know you lost when you have to resort to misquoting people. Go throw a coin in a wishing well for 2028 dweeb
@20: That’s rich, coming from someone who just seriously mischaracterized Sawant’s very clear statements.
But you’re right, you didn’t say Trump was better than Biden/Harris on Middle Eastern “fopo” (oooh, so trendy the lingo!), just that Trump wasn’t worse. Then Trump bombed Iran, and you continued to insist Trump wasn’t worse — and, anyway, it was (as always with you) the fault of the Democrats for not stopping Trump.
Nothing Sawant did or said helped to put Trump in office.
A has been former member of the Seattle City Council doesn’t have the influence or power folks here seem to think she has. Washington’s electoral votes went to Harris and were always going to go to Harris.
I think the bigger issue is that she dared go off script and take a stand against The Party. Given that Washington democrats are as tolerant of different beliefs as the medieval church, her heresy has to be dug up from time to time just to give you all a chance to gnash your teeth and clutch your pearls.
6/18/25: “There are a multitude of ways Trump is worse than Biden/Harris but Middle East fopo ain’t one.” — Thirteen12
https://www.thestranger.com/slog-am/2025/06/18/80106269/slog-am-supreme-court-upholds-tennessees-ban-on-trans-care-trump-is-goading-iran-on-social-media-but-astronomers-took-a-really-pretty-pict
6/21/25: Trump bombs Iran
7/1/25: YoU kNoW yOu LoSt WhEn YoU hAvE tO rEsOrT tO mIsQuOtInG pEoPlE — Thirteen12
@22 — “Nothing Sawant did or said helped to put Trump in office.”
What the fuck are you talking about?!?! She actively campaigned for Trump and explicitly argued in favor of him winning in an important swing state!!!! My opinion is that anyone who claims to support important liberal priorities like universal health care or a myriad of other things who then turns around and supports Donald Trump is a giant lying piece of shit and deserves nothing but scorn.
Sawant and her ilk who supported Trump can fuck off forever, especially when RIGHT NOW the people she did everything in her power to elect are taking away health care from millions of people. It’s all some chess game to people like her while in reality real people are going to die.
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
@22: “Nothing Sawant did or said helped to put Trump in office.”
Irrelevant, even if true. The point @4 made was that Sawant NEVER cared about the things she was always claiming to care about. All of her loud, angry rhetoric about justice for workers, uplifting the poor, and condemning the rich — it was all a big fat pack of lies, which the Stranger, Mudede, and folks like thirteen12 swallowed whole as Gospel Truth. Even now, they cannot come to terms with how easily and baldly Sawant had swindled them, and keep bitterly pretending she never did.
“Washington’s electoral votes went to Harris and were always going to go to Harris.”
Which is why Sawant spent much of her time campaigning in Michigan, a swing state with more electoral votes than Washington– every one of which went to Trump. (Please do try to keep up; she did the same thing in 2016.)
@19: “…either the stupidest person on the planet or one of these sock puppet Trump supporters that Cressona talks about being around here.”
I honestly do not believe it is either. Socialist Alternative, the Trotskyite cult which Sawant joined, and has since abandoned, follows in the long tradition of pampered radical Western intellectuals detesting the liberals who actually accomplish progress. All the way back in that year of failed European revolutions, Marx and Engels promised a Glorious Revolution, which would at a stroke bring paradise to everyone. Generations of young student radical intellectuals have been taken by this fantasy vision, undaunted by it never even having come close to happening, confidently disdaining the hard work done by liberals to effect incremental improvements. Eventually, the radicals blamed the liberals, for improving everyone’s lives to the point where a Glorious Revolution would never happen. Sawant’s main and defining characteristic is her limitless hatred of the Democrats, for being corporate shills and sellouts — her version of blaming the Democrats for preventing radicals like her from taking power. thirteen12 simply gives us the warmed-over, fanboy version of this.
@22 it’s even worse than that: Sawant is NOT a Democrat. These goofs are mad a member of a third party campaigned for a third party candidate. They are gold medal caliber mental gymnasts.
@23 thanks for providing the quote that definitively proves your claim that I “posted about how Trump was better than Biden/Harris on middle eastern foreign policy” was false.
@23 relevant:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-israeli-militaries-jointly-drilled-iran-strike-during-biden-administration-report/
Mamdani is promising a lot of goodies. Much like Sawant promised a lot of goodies. And, frankly Sawant delivered on a lot of them. But, it’s the results of those promises that matter.
So, what did Seattle experience from Sawant’s policies:
1. Homelessness Tripled
2. Seattle became #1 in property crime
3. Seattle grew to #2 in car thefts
4. Rents increased by about 80% and marginal renters struggled to find housing
5. Overdoses in Seattle grew faster than anywhere in the nation
6. Amazon and others started moving jobs to Bellevue–stunting Covid recovery
7. Seattle recorded its highest level of homeless deaths in history
8. The city got a fresh coat of graffiti everywhere.
And, the #1 result: Sawant became famous.
@29 this is an interesting theory, but try this one on for size: Seattle really going to shit coincides almost exactly with the formation of We Heart Seattle in 2020. Is Andrea Suarez the root cause of Seattle’s precipitous decline? Evidence suggests yes!
@30 / thirteen12:
Sorry, crap argument. Sawant was a City Councilperson. Suarez is a volunteer.
Sawant’s made policies that became laws. These laws were then implemented by the over 13,000 city of Seattle employees.
Andrea Suarez is a volunteer who stepped in to help the homeless find housing and clean up drug encampments. I can’t speak for Suarez, but my impression is that she thinks it is cruel and inhumane to have people living outside in filth, cold, and vermin infested encampments.
Clearly, Sawant and apparently you, support letting people suffering outside in the gutter. Not sure why you think this is good, but you’re entitled to your own opinion–however flawed it may be.
We Heart Seattle volunteers collected approximately 1,017,100 pounds of garbage. We should thank them, not criticize them.
@31 what are you talking about? Sawant making the minimum wage $15 led directly to Seattle being #2 in car thefts, as you astutely pointed out, and likewise Suarez picking up trash led directly to a dramatic increase in the number of people living unsheltered and dying in the streets. Correlation = causation thought you knew that.
@27: “These goofs are mad a member of a third party campaigned for a third party candidate.”
Again, Sawant knew full well Stein could not win, and was campaigning for Stein so as to defeat Harris:
‘Sawant, a leftist force on the City Council for a decade, admitted the obvious — that Stein has no chance to win.
‘Harris, Sawant said, was slipping in the polls, but “This race is still too close to call. We should not get complacent.”
‘At a rally in Michigan last week, Sawant called the state “ground zero to punish Kamala Harris and defeat her.”’
(https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/at-seattle-rally-sawant-says-harris-deserves-to-lose-1000-times/)
You can ignore and/or deny it all you want, but Sawant’s own words told you her goal in campaigning for Stein was “to punish Kamala Harris and defeat her.” If Stein could not win, and Harris was defeated, then Trump would — and did — win. That was Sawant’s intent in campaigning for Stein; whether you ever understand and/or admit that is your problem, not anyone else’s. We just want you to stop making your uninformed statements about it, and stop calling other people names based entirely upon your lack of understanding.
Following up on my comment @14, the Journal article recounts other complaints Mamdami supporters had about modern New York City:
‘Lauren Goetz, a 25-year-old graduate student at New York University who voted for Mamdani, said she and her friends can afford to go out after rent, but they take steps to limit the bill. Goetz says she typically doesn’t get more than one drink for example, and she will sometimes split an entree with a friend. “It feels so insane to spend $20 on a drink,” she said.’
Obviously, NYC needs REVOLUTION NOW. You have nothing to lose but your $20 cocktails!
Even the cost of a subway ride seems too large for her budget:
‘She also tries to save on transportation, especially after subway fares jumped from $2.75 to $2.90 a ride two years ago. “I will walk sometimes instead of the subway,” she said. “It’s something I didn’t do before, but $3 adds up.”’
Growing up in New York City, I recall when the cost of a subway token went from 90 cents to a dollar. Adjusting for the national CPI inflation over that time, that same subway ride today should cost — wait for it! — $2.93. Her $2.90 ride actually costs slightly less, in real terms, than what I paid growing up.
Maybe I could mix up a new $20 cocktail, the Subway Crybaby. For another $2.93, I’ll call it the Mamdani Voter.
@33 guess you never heard the saying “better to stay silent and be thought a fool than speak up and remove all doubt”
@35: How come Sawant’s critics can quote her at length on this topic, whilst her defenders must grossly mischaracterize her very clear statements?
@36 how come the article you linked includes, at the very top, a photo of Sawant at her rally fronted by multiple signs that read “No Harris, No Trump” and implore the reader not to vote for either? One of us is grossly mischaracterizing her position but it ain’t me.
@37: How come you’re again not quoting her words? What do you have against her words? Why do you presume to speak for the immigrant brown lady? Why not just quote what she said?
@38 https://x.com/cmkshama/status/1844428356600856649
@39: Thanks (?) to you and her for supporting Elon Musk. (Even Trump has given up on him, but you still haven’t. Always trying to go beyond mere Horseshoe Theory, aren’t you both?)
First words from that post: “Funding genocide is a red line and should cost the Democratic Party this election.”
Well, she succeeded. The Democrats lost the White House, and do not have any power in Congress. Congratulations. This fits perfectly with her clearly-stated desire to “punish” and “defeat” Harris.
She knew Stein could not win, so we need not take seriously her statement she was campaigning for a Stein victory. It was Harris or Trump, and Sawant repeatedly said Harris should lose. That leaves Trump.
As for her token statement about Trump at the end, who cares? She actively worked to defeat Harris, knowing this could only mean Trump’s victory. Actions mean more than words, and you have to be humiliated into even considering her words.
@40 “Why do you presume to speak for the immigrant brown lady?”
@41: I’m the only one here who has actually quoted her words. You have yet to do so. For example, from Elon’s Xitter, which you guys just love yourselves so much: “Trump has vowed to double down on support for Israel.”
“There are a multitude of ways Trump is worse than Biden/Harris but Middle East fopo ain’t one.”
I’ll just let the two of you fight that out amongst yourselves.
@42 I honestly can’t even tell what point you think you’re making anymore. I suspect you can’t either, but you also just can’t quit posting
@43: The general point you’re ducking here is Sawant stumped for Trump, and no amount of your dodging — no matter how unintentionally hilarious — can make that fact as doubleplus untrue as you desperately need it to be.
The specific point you’re refusing to address right now is the difference between her statement,”Trump has vowed to double down on support for Israel,” and your opinion, “There are a multitude of ways Trump is worse than Biden/Harris but Middle East fopo ain’t one.” That last has, most impressively, survived Trump’s bombing of Iran, so I guess it will also survive Sawant’s statement to the contrary.
@44 unbelievably you appear to be serious, so I’ll leave you with this direct quote from her tweet: “We cannot support EITHER of these two genocidal anti-worker candidates or parties.”
@45: Ok, once again, which of those candidates did she explicitly say she wanted not merely to “defeat,” but to “punish”? (Hint: it wasn’t the born-wealthy white guy who wants to deport brown people by the trainload.)