How Movement Organizers In Office Are Responding to the Rise of Authoritarianism

Tiffany Cabán: To both of your points, having this influx of elected officials that come from organizing spaces really readies us for this moment, for beyond the frontlines, because we are doing that government-side work and at the same time are conscious enough about the other things that are happening in the movement apparatus to know how to create on ramps, to expand capacity of outside groups, to share information, to keep people safe. I also get chills in this moment about opportunity. It’s really, really fucked up and, at the same time, we are advancing some of the things that we’ve been trying to do for years at an accelerated level. 

[In New York], we were able to pass the strongest trans and gender non-conforming protection legislation in the country because of how precarious our community is right now. These are things that we have been working on for a long time. We’re facing these cuts and they’re a real challenge, but we’re using it to build out systems and sustainable infrastructure that’s going to serve us in this moment and tomorrow and the day after. I think those things are important to focus on, too. 

Jack Porter: I’m inspired hearing about [how you’re] thinking of this moment as an opportunity, because I think that is the way we have to think about it — thinking about building that sustainable infrastructure beyond this moment, because we know that the worst is yet to come and the damage will have long-lasting consequences. Coming from Florida, where there’s an especially chilling effect, our governor is threatening removal [and] has removed local electeds from office. Knowing how to be strategic so that everything we do reduces harm and is creating opportunity and making people safer requires a lot of forethought and a lot of working together with people who you may not have always worked together with. 

Whitesides: I’m going to go to Tiffany now with a pointed question. New York is set for a big change at the executive level. In your mind, what could be possible the next year, next two years, with a mayor that’s interested in collaboration, especially pushing back against those attacks on the federal level, rather than fighting your legislative body? 

Cabán: We can spend hours talking about this, but I will try to be as succinct as possible. It’s a moment of really deep hope and opportunity and, at the same time, the challenges are real. With that opportunity comes a lot of backlash, and we’re seeing it already from President Trump down to even our [Democratic Party] members. We are going to have to deal with challenges that come down from the federal government, challenges that come from other different political spaces. We have spent the past several years under a mayoralty [under Eric Adams] that has been hell bent on austerity, that has been death by a thousand cuts. 

Our agencies are gutted. We have some of the best public servants in the entire world and they don’t have the resources or the manpower to do what we need to do. A part of it too is, how do we stabilize our government to then be able to pursue some of these really big, bold, beautiful things that are going to transform the lives of everyday working people? There are governance challenges. 

I think there’s no backing away from the fact that you’re talking about a faction of folks with a political ideology that is really growing, catching fire and building power that we’ve never had. To govern is going to be a real challenge, but it’s a hell of a lot better place to be. I’d rather have that challenge with those opportunities than the challenge of having to play defense against folks that are looking to harm our people, our people being Black and Brown working class folks, queer and trans folks, the people with disabilities, people with substance use disorder, or people who are living in poverty. Challenges, but the best kinds of challenges to have.

[Note: Since this roundtable, New York State Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani decisively won the New York City mayoral election over former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa.]

Whitesides: Jack and Johana, these electoral victories or these policy wins — we were just talking to Council Member Kendra Brooks earlier about passing the Power Act in Philadelphia — does that give you all hope in your areas? Or does that feel too localized?

Porter: Coming off of last year’s election in Florida and seeing how our state government spent hundreds of millions of dollars campaigning against legalizing abortion [and] recreational marijuana, we are having conversations locally about how we can invest millions and millions of movement dollars in efforts like that when our government is hell bent on undermining those efforts and undermining democracy. So, that’s evolving and we’re going to be really creative about how we strategize moving forward. 

Whitesides: I think for a long time, when you heard the word immigration raid, it felt like a political soundbite, or it was localized to border communities. Now, every community across the country is feeling it. I want to start with Jack, because in the state of Florida you have of governor who is forcing localities to toe the line, especially with these 287-G agreements. I want to hear from you as a local elected official, what’s it been like having this authority breathing down your neck and having to not getting removed from office, which has happened to many officials, but also not selling out your constituents?

Porter: The 287-G agreements, which had basically been paused for a long time because they were so racist and local governments were getting sued up the ass, recently have made a comeback. Essentially what they do is they deputize local law enforcement to act as ICE agents and carry out the federal government’s agenda, and often in cities where there are no additional resources to do this, even if there is the will. 

This is something that our city manager entered into secretly. I had no idea. I had to find out from an activist friend who was following this. I think that goes to show the degree of fear and anticipatory compliance. It’s not something that cities, in fact, actually have to enter into, but our governor is making it very clear and our attorney general that if you don’t, that you will be removed from office. 

Thinking about what my role is in this moment — fighting for transparency, fighting for harm reduction — and thinking through under what conditions should we all be willing to risk removal from office to keep people safe, how do we support each other across states and municipalities to do that, has actually has given me a lot of hope because the support is there and we’re building that.

I was at an ICE raid just a month and a half ago. The degree of horror. It’s just cruel, it’s wrong, and unfortunately my colleagues have not been willing to stand up even to demand the most basic transparency and protect our own home rule. This is going to be a long fight, and I’m hoping that I can be a leader for my colleagues in Florida on how we can work together, how we embolden each other and show that courage. 

Bencomo: I’m in a border community. In the last few months, people are like, ​“How is it on the border?” It’s interesting, because we’ve been used to militarization for decades. You can’t leave Las Cruces, east, north, or west — obviously south is the international borderline — without encountering an internal border patrol checkpoint. Are you a U.S. citizen? Often I get asked, ​“Is this your car? Can you roll back your windows?” When my white husband’s driving, we don’t get asked those questions. I live a mile from a border patrol substation. We are deeply familiarized with what militarization looks like. 

As a young, progressive person, I have so much rage around how to move party politics on immigration, because for decades immigration policy has only gotten stricter while border militarization has gotten more funded. As we look at the Big Betrayal Bill [Trump’s ​“One Big Beautiful Bill” which massively increased funding for ICE and border patrol], it is fucking absurd. I’m also not shocked because I think Democrats in Congress have continuously given up so much power around this, ​“Okay, we’ll give you money for border militarization.” I think the politics in Congress, regardless of what side, have led to this moment. We have to do some serious reckoning around what our stance is as progressives. We need to reclaim the story of immigration and how we talk about immigration and legislate around immigration in this country. 

Ellison: I shouldn’t be shocked by your description of internal checkpoints, but I am shocked. I was sitting here listening, like, ​“What are you talking about?” If law enforcement in Minneapolis were stopping people [and] asking people that, they would get so thoroughly cussed out. People would riot. 

Bencomo: Can I tell you who was shocked by this one time? We took a bunch of border dreamers to Congress. Nancy Pelosi said, ​“What do you mean, internal border patrol checkpoints?”

Ellison: That’s how I felt. It also occurred to me that I think that’s what they want everywhere. They want to normalize that. If they’ve normalized it for you, they want to normalize it in Minneapolis. They want to normalize it in Milwaukee. They want it normalized in places where it’s never been normal, and then we all just accept it and then recalibrate. 

I’ll admit, I know we’re talking a lot about hope and our resolve, and we should lean into that. I’ll admit that my hope is a little stunted right now, and I think that a big part of the reason is because you see — and I hate to use this word because it has a positive connotation — but you see this visionary leadership from the opposing side, ​“There’s no one we can’t oppress. There’s no one we cannot stomp on. There’s no one we can’t destroy and crush. There’s no one we can’t tell what to do. How to identify. There’s no limitation to our imagination.” We feel limited on the progressive side, on the Left. We are constantly priding ourselves on our pragmatism. 

As somebody who’s looking at history and has always been interested in history as a topic, I can’t help but see the ​“how we got here.” I feel like, as a movement, we don’t typically understand how we got here. I don’t think we do a good enough job of asserting a vision that is just completely absent of reality. What do we want it to look like? What do we want immigration to look like? What do we want housing to look like? What do we want roads and infrastructure to look like? Let’s just assert that without being like, ​“Well, first we got to think about the thing, and the thing, and the thing, and the things,” and so on. 

Whitesides: Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill is cutting food assistance, Medicare, increasing funding for ICE. You all were really articulate in talking about how the Right has this vision and imagination, but we don’t. Do you all see the reconciliation package as a victory for Trump and his allies or a failure on the progressive movement front to communicate the stakes of the bill? Or both?

Cabán: I think it’s both, absolutely. This didn’t happen overnight; they have been disciplined over decades. They have been talking for decades [about] which Supreme Court cases need to be overturned. While we were historically playing national politics, they were taking over state houses so that when they had this federal majority, the second they repealed this stuff there were state laws that were ready, in place, and able to be active. I think we have lacked some of that long game foresight. The articulation of that Big, Beautiful vision — we share when we’re having conversations, but we’re not putting it out in a coordinated, disciplined and compelling fashion. 

Whitesides: What is one thing that is giving you hope in this moment right now? It can be personal or political. 

Porter: One thing that’s giving me hope right now is if people in Gaza, in Sudan, in Congo are not giving up hope on their freedom and their liberation, then I don’t have any excuse either. That’s sustaining me right now. 

Bencomo: For me, it’s just the immigrant community all over this country. I’ve obviously been watching in horror at what’s happening in Los Angeles, but also at the same time watching people like our colleague, Eunisses Hernandez — counselor from LA — Tiffany, Kendra Brooks. These women of color [are] just so unapologetic and on the front lines. 

Ellison: On the note of solidarity, there has been a revival of a solidarity politic, a really strong one. People showing up and putting their bodies on the line, artists being more bold about the stories that they tell. This might be controversial, [I’m] very inspired by whatever [hip hop artists] Kneecap and Bob Vylan are doing. Even when we want to quibble over language that gets used and all that stuff, I feel like we owe it to ourselves to not allow anyone to silence artists. Critique them, sure. We can have debates about, engage with it, but allowing folks to shut artists down, especially when those artists are advocating for life-affirming policy and life-affirming ways of being that we support? I feel like we’ve got to be the ones that say, ​“You can critique that, but you’re not going to deny somebody a visa, shut somebody down, and not give them a voice.”

Cabán: This past cycle, I was lucky enough not to have an opponent in my race. So, I used my race to fund and run a paid organizing fellowship. We put out one thing about it on social media. I thought I’d maybe get a handful of applicants, and we got over 350 in 48 hours. Dozens of languages represented, people from all backgrounds, every borough, and these were all just everyday people at the intersection of all of these different identities and life experiences. 

In a moment where leadership was like, ​“We lost, we got to wait it out until it’s our turn again,” they were like, ​“Fuck that. We’re ready to fight. We’re ready to talk to our people. Just help us skill up.” That experience of running that fellowship, that gives me hope. We know the people in our neighborhoods and on our blocks are ready to fight, so we got to bring just as much, if not more.