Nov 5

Went to the DSA election watch party. Seemed like the place to be. In the morning an old friend who seemingly got her brain destroyed by Red Scare infohazard runoff send an envoy via instagram (from Israel) where she screencapped some Tablet article about how Mahmdani has no politics, or is politics are antisemitic, or he’s secretly a centrist, or something, and that its all the fault of 2008 hipsters. That was a bit in my head while I was there.
It made me sad to think about how this writer has to come up with baroque critiques of Mahmdani and isn’t just allowed to go HE’S A COMMIE! WE NEED TO SEND THE NATIONAL GUARD TO KILLL HIM NOW! or whatever the Post is gonna be doing for a bit, which seems much more fun. For the DSA kid’s part, they were very excited. I can’t speak for everyone there, but there seemed to be a sense that finally someone who calls themselves a socialist won an election with national consequence and visibility. Two separate people caged their excitement in the fact that he’s basically a centrist with some leftist stylings, but hey we’ll take it. It’s funny how meager the left’s demands have become – bring New York’s tax rate in line with New Jersey, and start some basic social service programs in the richest city in the world. I assume that we are in for a battle of spectacular images, and will be hearing little about the policy success or failure beyond how many millionaire’s leave the city for friendlier states wrt income tax.

The more exciting part of the night was that we wandered around the venue for a good couple hours. The door guy told someone that they weren’t allowed to leave and return, so they should “go find a place to smoke.” The venue was the Brooklyn Masonic Temple – which has 5 floors, 2 ballrooms per floor, and seemingly hasn’t been organized cleaned or in significant use since 2010. I used to have a fantasy of getting into Urbex – “urban exploration” – where people break into stuff and wander around. It’s really fun to do, as confirmed by last night’s escapades. I never had inroads into this scene, but moreover I don’t think I could really join anything called Urbex. I probably have similar reasons for not joining the DSA. I can come up with convincing arguments about their lackluster positions and they are probably legitimate, but I’m pretty terrified of being perceived as uncool, and this means , tragically, I likely won’t ever join a political organization. Oh well. The revolution will have to do without me.

I thought I would have more to say on this subject. I’m happy the mayor I supported won, though I don’t expect his tenure to be incredibly successful. It just seems like we all needed something to feel like society could reorganize some of its resources- which feels sometimes like an impossibility. I have a generally pessimistic view of the future, and I also have a growing suspicion that, contrary to my usual intuition that things are not always everywhere and forever basically the same, the phenomena of living in the 2020’s and beyond might feel very Weird. I dearly wish I could be more specific, but a gnawing realization is dawning that the future is strange, and things aren’t really ever the same at all, and also that history is continuing. Stay tuned for more updates.