feature image photo by Carlin Stiehl / Contributor via Getty Images
The battle cry of the Democrats during both Trump administrations has been to vote locally.
Come on, gang!
If we can vote progressive candidates into the school board, the trial courts, or the city council, we can protect ourselves from the federal government. We can build a coalition. We can care for our neighbors and community.
I bought that. I was desperate to believe our democratic process could save us. I campaigned for progressives for city council in Los Angeles in 2020 and 2022, even ones outside my district. I canvassed in the hot sun and pre-vaccine. I had three candidates — Nithya Raman, Hugo Soto-Martinez, and Eunisses Hernandez — as guests on my long-running podcast. I privately co-hosted a fundraiser for Soto-Martinez and Hernandez, inviting and encouraging my friends and family to donate to their campaigns. All three candidates won! We’d done it! City council was going to be our progressive ally. All would be well in Los Angeles!
We were wrong. I regret to inform left-wing voters that it is time to check on your own local governments to see if progressive candidates are actually voting to protect and support our communities.
It was not enough to vote them in and assume they have our backs. We must then hold them accountable to the platforms and promises they campaigned on. We need to look at how they are voting.
It’s obviously not news that politicians lie. But what is new is how we’ve replaced civic engagement, showing up in person, or deeper curiosity with following policymakers on social media, taking Instagram posts and public stunts at face value instead of remaining deeply critical and vigilant. A politician can say one thing on their Instagram, where they’re not factchecked by journalists, and easily do another. On Reels, they won’t be called out live the way they ideally would on TV or radio news. They won’t be forced to comment on something they don’t want to comment on by a print or digital reporter in person. Politicians create their own news delivery channel on their pages, and if they keep saying the right buzzwords, they know we’re not going to go looking beyond them.
Boston mayor Michelle Wu is getting a lot of well-deserved praise for stating that the city won’t bend to the federal government. Years ago, she expressed support for dismantling the Boston Police Department’s gang database due to fears it was being used for the school-to-prison pipeline. She then flipped her vote. She was honest about it in the media, saying that she did it because BPD hired new leadership and was making an effort to clear out irrelevant names from the database. California governor Gavin Newsom is one of the best and most transparent leaders standing up against Trump and his cronies. I’m watching his latest Zoom call right now where he is very clear and specific about what we need to do. He is strong. He has a plan. But the man who once performed gay marriages in defiance of federal law is not so good on trans rights. In the first episode of his new podcast, he weirdly calls trans athletes competing with cis ones “unfair” in order to appease his first guest, right-wing monster Charlie Kirk. It’s cowardly, but as I said to some friends, I would let him slap me and call me the t-slur if he actually takes down Donald Trump.
That’s a joke. I do not mean we should throw some marginalized groups, like trans people, under the bus for baby steps forward. I also do not mean this article to convey approval for leftist purity politics where we spite our face to cut off our nose for fascism.
I wouldn’t opt out of voting because “every party is the same” or “it doesn’t matter.” That is patently absurd. Kamala Harris would not have done this, and we know it. What I am saying is that local politics doesn’t end with voting someone in. What’s on the docket? What have they said ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to? They are banking on the constituents not looking into their records. Why would someone go through all that if they’re not a journalist? Even then, only an especially dedicated reporter pokes around unprompted these days.
In June, Donald Trump sent the National Guard to occupy Los Angeles. On Instagram, members of LA’s city council — including President Marqueece Harris-Dawson and District 4’s Nithya Raman — have posted imploring residents to stay safe and do what they can to oppose ICE. Call the Rapid Response Network. Make your voices heard! It’s not surprising that most of the members would do this. Ninety-three percent of the council is Democrat. Only John Lee is an independent.
By July 4, I’d joined the 24/7 anti-ICE protests downtown at the Metropolitan Detention Center. I was scared. I needed to be around people who understood that this was an emergency. I knew where this takeover was going. One of my professors in college, J. Gregory Payne, was the leading expert on the 1970 Kent State massacre where the Ohio National Guard shot and killed four students on campus during a protest against the expansion of the Vietnam War into Cambodia. I expected Homeland Security, ICE, and the Guard to use violence to deny us our First Amendment rights. I knew on Independence Day that it was only going to spiral lower and faster into authoritarianism. I believe that’s where we are now, but myself and my fellow organizers in LA have found it extremely hard to convince local politicians of this. Even the ones on our side.
What I found when I got to the action at 535 Alameda Street downtown wasn’t just a protest. The point was to hold DHS, ICE, the National Guard and other law enforcement accountable for kidnapping, unlawfully detaining, disappearing or deporting our friends and neighbors. We capture the faces of these officers when they show them. Our goal is to record as much evidence as we can for a hopeful future where all the illegal activity these militias are doing will be punished Nuremberg-style. It was activists at the detention center that took the viral video that exposed women and children in chains being brought in overnight. (After this, the area was covered with a tarp.) We try to figure out where the vans and SUVs might go next so we can warn our people about raids. Ambulances come and go indicating that prisoners are getting injured or sick, so protestors keep track of the number of those, too. Currently, as I write this on August 21 at 5:20 p.m. PST, an 8-foot tall fence is being constructed around the entrance and exit of the garage at the detention center. That’s how scared they are of us seeing what they are doing in there.
In my naivete, I thought maybe local law enforcement like the LAPD or the LA sheriff’s department would enforce the law against outside forces attacking residents of the city. Those they swore to serve and protect are being kidnapped in unmarked cars by people in masks who refuse to identify themselves or give a badge number. Why would any California police collaborate with these federal monsters and/or rogue bounty hunters?
ICE vehicles leave the MDC garage with no license plates. I’ve taken to feigning ignorance and calling the police to report illegal unmarked vehicles driving around. The West Hollywood sheriff’s department confirmed to me on the phone that it is illegal to drive without a license plate. Oh! I said daintily. Well, I’ll give you the address and you guys should go question them. I know full well that it is an ICE vehicle, and I know they know it is an ICE vehicle, but I report a law being broken all the same. I watch local police let these untraceable cars full of federal agents loose on our streets, but if I had a car with no license plate? I’d at least get a ticket.
Instead, the LA sheriff’s department tramples protesters with horses, and LAPD bumrushes us. I have witnessed LAPD staging 30 cop cars behind the protests and admitting they are there to back up DHS and ICE against us. They kettle us in and declare curfews and unlawful assembly when we can’t leave. LAPD just yesterday admitted on camera that they are working security while DHS builds the fence around MDC. One of my fellow organizers, a Black woman named Taylor, was arrested by LAPD while at city council when she was trying to speak to the members about our protests. It was chilling to watch the council members I helped elect just ignore what was happening.
President of the council Harris-Dawson posted a video of a Latino bakery owner sharing his fears at city council. Harris-Dawson captioned the video: “We need to hear and document the stories of folks in our neighborhood who continue to be impacted by the raids.” Meanwhile, he had the LAPD, who has a presence among the pews, arrest and detain one of our own for doing the same.
I have been to the city council. Harris-Dawson, who has a mug that says Woke on his desk, talks through public comment, rolls his eyes openly, and dismisses us. (You can see him and the rest of the city council in this video ignoring activist Catie Laffoon begging for their help fighting ICE.) The council took a 29-day summer break in July while ICE, DHS and the National Guard took over our city. They can’t be bothered to hear us for 60 seconds.
Raman has put up several videos of herself talking about the occupation of Los Angeles. She speaks against Trump, but says nothing about local police. What good is it to hold a virtual training on knowing your rights when they are ignored by city and state police and sheriffs? Who is actually keeping students safe from ICE raids if not our own law enforcement? Is it supposed to be the teachers or administrators? The grand-standing is so vague. These videos, photos, and graphics from local progressives are what moved me to go to city council and see what they do in person.
Lo and behold, on June 24, well into the occupation of Los Angeles, the city council voted 11-3 to provide overtime pay to the LAPD officers who participated in “protest response.” Fox11 reported that they approved 17.3 million dollars to go to officers for their work during “anti-immigration enforcement protests downtown.” The kicker? Harris-Dawson and Raman were among those who voted to do it.
We can’t fight against authoritarianism without the help of the people sworn to protect us like local police or local politicians
It is not about perfection or about focusing on the cops over the larger fascist issues. If your local city council and law enforcement don’t have your back in a tangible way that doesn’t play out on social media for likes, then how can we the people build enough of a coalition to do so?
We have to make sure the people we have voted in are still on our side once they’re in. We have to check on them and let them know how we feel. In 2025, less than 7500 people voted for city council in total. Our mayor Karen Bass has both strongly condemned the ICE raids in LA, and called the protests “a state of emergency” and instated a curfew because of “looting” and “vandalism” that allowed cops to arrest those speaking up against the raids. There were maybe 25 people at city council the day I went. This is in a city of 3.8 million. (Granted the meetings are mid-day and midweek which makes them impossible for most people to attend.)
Don’t just look at your local politicians’ Reels. Look up their public voting records. Check what’s on the agenda for the week. Go see what they do in person. We elected them. We should actually be paying attention to what they do and do not do to protect us.
A version of this article also appears in Gabe’s newsletter, A Thousand Natural Shocks.
