More on that Zohran button

How it started. Filling in. Catching up.

First, apologies for the writing. I’m writing this pretty much as fast as I can type because this moment and this experience so fascinates me. I want to get as much down as I can. I go to sleep thinking of details I’d like to add and I wake up in the middle of the night, thinking of incidents I have left out.

Wearing the Zohran button started when I joined N’s neighborhood chapter of Jews For Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ) to canvass for Zohran and Lander among Jews in the Riverdale section of th e Bronx. Like many in my demographic (elderly, white, female), I have done a lot of canvassing and other political work since 2017. I know how to use “minivan” the app that tracks your progress and shares it with the campaign. I like telling my door-knocking stories.

But on that Sunday morning, I was feeling especially shy and reluctant about intruding on people and asking them about their political views. But I was feeling enthusiastic about the buttons. Often there is a button shortage on campaigns. Not on this one. I like to save the buttons from all of the campaigns that have had me walking from door to door, knocking on doors. So I grabbed a Zohran button and a Lander button.

I’ve been a fan of Lander since I heard him speak in 2022 on MLK day at a huge political gathering at Al Sharpton’s headquarters in Harlem. It looked like every single Democratic elected in the state of New York was there. I was impressed by mayor-elect, Eric Adams’, ability to work the majority black crowd (all except the woman next to me who kept yelling, “Fools! He’s going to be bad for our community!” until the ushers silenced her.) Chuck Schumer surprised me with his stories of how he and “Al” had done political work together as young adults. But I was most impressed by Brad Lander. I can only remember that he seemed the most idealistic of all the speakers and the most concrete.

In 2024, I saw Lander at the first post-Trump march in midtown. We were marching with and in support of hispanic New Yorkers. I was a parade marshall. Back then, 10 days or so aftter the election, Trump supporters were loud, aggressive and out in force. We needed the barriers and the police to restrain him. I saw Lander and went up to him to tell him how excited I was that he was running for mayor. I asked for a selfie which one of his aides took for me. I loaded it onto the digital frame my children had given me for my 70th birthday.

I wore both buttons, but I was inclined to rank Zohran Mamdani first because my daughter and her husband were so excited about them. They are the future. They are politically committed. They live their values. It is their future. I also regretted not listening to them when Bernie was running for president.

Door-knocking is the gold standard of political work, but it doesn’t feel that way when you’re doing it. If one in five people open their doors, that is a great response rate. If only a fraction of those people are slightly receptive to what you have to say, you should consider a few hours of arduous walking and knocking in the bright sun of summer afternoon a great success.

I learned immediately that my Zohran button was like a red flag to even the most sympathetic. And not all were sympathetic! One unhinged woman could not stop shrieking at us that “I promise you your parents did not raise you for this! You must look into your heart and ask yourself why you hate your own people so much!” We could still hear her screaming at us as we descended all the way down the long stair case from her front door back to the sidewalk. We could still hear her yelling at us about the holocaust as we were walking down the sidewalk. Another person, friendly and smiling, took one hard look at my Zohran button and told us that he is a one-issue voter, Israel. “It is up to my children to worry about the economy.”

One of the two people who was willing to talk to us had just returned from a trip to Israel to see two of her grandson’s get married. One of her grandson’s friends who had gotten leave to attend his wedding, had already been killed in Gaza. I didn’t think she would listen to us, but it might have made a difference to her when I told her about my own deep connections to Israel. I was cautious I talked up Lander. She was so receptive that she was willing to listen to my canvassing buddy talk about Mamdani. She ended up being eager to hear about JFREJ. I told another voter that I wouldn’t try to talk him out of his outrage about Mamdani. (How can he say that EVERYONE in Gaza is innocent? Some were definitely NOT!) The key message was ABC. Anyone but Cuomo, the disgraced, indicted and corrupt former governor.

I regretted not having been willing to say more about Mamdani (I was grateful to my canvassing buddy for doing that), but my inclination to sympathize more than persuade has always been one of my several weaknesses as a door-knocker.

My husband described how our daughter had spoken to a Zohran skeptic who also claimed that he was “anti-Israel.” She said, “He is in favor of equality for all the citizens of Israel.” That’s my line so far when someone raises the question of Mamdani’s views on Israel. I’ve added a few points over the past week: American Jews allow themselves to be less free in criticizing Israel than Israelis are. Why is anyone asking Mamdani’s these questions.

At the No Kings Day March, my Mamdani and Lander buttons got lots of positive attention. One black woman asked me who I was going to rank first. I had told her I was marching with my daughter from Riverdale. When I hesitated, she said, “Wait, don’t tell me. Lander. You’re from Riverdale.” How I love New York.

I wasn’t going to continue with these reports when I heard the the horrible budget passed the senate. This seems so trivial. But then I reminded myself that the one thing that always strengthens my resolve is thinking of all the millions of people who are in this fight with me. So this is me trying to be in the fight with you, dear Substacker.