'Organizing Works. Resistance Works.'

The Face of Brooklyn's Anti-Trump Resistance

In the Forward this month, I profiled the man wrangling the affluent liberal Brooklynites looking to protest Donald Trump. Brad Lander, a powerful member of the City Council, is emerging as a sort of air traffic controller for this largely Jewish, largely white wing of the anti-Trump "resistance." It's a strange position for a guy who also represents ultra-Orthodox Boro Park, where Trump ran the table.

Here's a bit from the top:

Since November, [Lander's] office has functioned as the de facto command center for anti-Trump organizing in this wealthy corner of Brooklyn. Lander has held monthly organizing meetings at Beth Elohim, and while members of the New York City Council normally can’t fill a classroom, these are not normal times, and the place has been bursting with liberals desperate to resist a president who seems ready to burn their most deeply held beliefs in a big bonfire on the White House lawn.

For leadership they’re turning to Lander, who has emerged as a sort of air traffic controller for this generally affluent, generally liberal, generally Jewish set as they seek outlets for their activist energies.

Lander, a 47-year-old former community organizer, has been at this work a long time. Now, after a career of tugging at the social consciences of Brooklyn’s elite, he’s getting a bigger response than he ever could have counted on. It comes after years of building power in the city council, in part by appealing to conservative constituencies outside his Park Slope base. But as he turns back to his organizing roots, he’s wrestling with the complex baggage of a municipal power broker thrown into the politics of local activism.

“The organizing that’s taken place in the wake of the election is extraordinary,” Lander said. “It’s among the most remarkable organizing that I’ve seen or been a part of.”

Read the rest here.