jodie c

I didn’t vote for Zohran Mamdani, and I’m done pretending that needs an apology. I made a decision a long time ago to never vote for a Democrat again. The Democratic Party has been complicit in the genocide of Palestinians long before October 7. This isn’t new. Refaat Alareer, may Allah SWT grant him paradise, spelled this out clearly. What keeps shocking me is how often people in the movement still fall for it. I keep hearing that Democrats are different at the local level. That’s the lie that keeps the whole imperial machine alive. The Democratic Party isn’t reformed from the bottom. It feeds off it. Local races are how the party launders legitimacy. They dress it up with young faces, Muslim names, and progressive language, then send those politicians to discipline the movement once they’re in power. Someone like Mamdani shows up with a few good lines and suddenly everything shifts. Grassroots organizing turns into campaigning. External pressure turns into compliance. Resistance turns into door knocking. If you refuse, you’re called divisive or unrealistic. The movement gets rerouted into elections and personal comfort, right when liberation requires confrontation, not accommodation. Then comes the absorption. People from the movement run for office, join transition teams, advisory boards, and closed rooms. They call it strategy. It’s not strategy. It’s containment. Accountability disappears because no one wants to risk access they think they have. Condemnation statements go unsigned. Criticism gets muted, or attacked. The concept of liberation is disappeared so careers can be protected. We’ve seen this before. This is exactly what they did to the Black liberation movement. Exactly what they did to Indigenous resistance. Transformative and principled demands get softened into slogans. Politicians talk like organizers until they get elected, then govern like Democrats. Every time. The deal is always the same. You get symbolic wins and a little comfort here, while violence continues elsewhere. Palestinians pay. Native Americans pay. The global South pays. That is the cost of Democratic “progress.” I’m not interested in that deal. Liberation does not come from inside the party that manages empire. It never has and never will.