…AND SO IT BEGINS

By Alec Pruchnicki

Those of us who supported Zohran Mamdani were very happy about his election and many of us listened to his victory speech carefully. One aspect that was somewhat surprising and encouraging was his challenge to President Trump to “turn up the volume” and “to get to any of us you have to go through all of us.” Trump, in an uncharacteristically short tweet responded “…AND SO IT BEGINS.” I was skeptical that he (or whatever staff member wrote the tweet) avoided his multi-paragraph tirades but the message is clear. We have a lot of potential problems on the horizon, so let’s get ready for them.

The most immediate problems are the ones Trump has already threatened. He said he would be withholding money to NYC if Mamdani were elected so now his threat might become a reality. But what can he really do? Much of federal funding to NYC is already in the law and how much he can subvert or ignore mandates that already exist is unclear. What is clear is that any attempt to cut funding will be met with court challenges by the city and maybe the state. This can go from immediate court decisions to months or years. If cases go all the way to the Supreme Court there is an additional problem. They will end up going to this Supreme Court and there is no telling if they will be in a Trump-friendly mood or a more objective one.

Trump might also be slowed by the potential for attacks on NYC resulting in a significant backlash that injures him. His announcement that the new Hudson Tunnel Project is to be terminated may have helped Mikie Sherrill get elected and that is exactly the blowback that he would want to avoid as we approach the 2026 midterms. Several New York Republican congress members are in swing districts and every nasty act by Trump will be hung around their necks.

One major threat is the increased placement of federal forces in New York City. Some, like aggressive immigration enforcement agents, have already sparked opposition throughout the country and NYC opposition is likely to be at least as intense. Are you listening Representatives Malliotakis and Stefanik?

The placement of federal forces here in New York and in other places around the country leads to a potential problem that could, without exaggeration, be an existential threat to democracy. Around the time of the 2020 election there were reports from various sources in the Trump administration that he was asking about having the federal government seize local ballot boxes. Several of his close advisors told him that this couldn’t be legally done and he backed off. What about now? Would the spineless invertebrates in Congress oppose him? Would the hand-picked minions in his administration oppose him?

Look at the people around him. Would Pete Hegseth (Defense/War Department), Kristi Noem (Homeland Security), Kash Patel (FBI), Tom Homan (Border Czar), Pam Bondi (Department of Justice), and the numerous Republican governors who volunteered their National Guards troops say no? All of these individuals have military, para-military, or law enforcement forces at their disposal and have shown no hesitation about using them to enforce their own Trump-friendly policies.

At first, I thought I was being paranoid for thinking about a ballot box seizure in November 2026. But recently Illinois Governor Pritzker stated that he thought that was exactly what Trump had in mind by getting such forces into Democratic states and cities over the objection of local officials and people. Since there is no limit to the evil imagination of Trump when it comes to making up false claims, this is entirely possible. Maybe even likely.

What can we do to fight these threats? For the cutting of funds, there are the courts and public opinion leading to anti-Republican blowback and election losses. For the intrusion of federal forces there are the courts and massive demonstrations, including satirical ones like the inflatable costumes in Portland.

For protection of the voting process in the mid-term elections, preparation should start immediately. The simplest, and most widely accepted tactic is to avoid going to the polls by extensive use of mail-in ballots and early voting. Of course, Trump knows this and he and the federal government will try to interfere so this will require planning, with publicity to the general public and voter turnout.

Leading up to the election there will have to be court fights and demonstrations to object to unnecessary forces being in cities, regardless of what made up excuse Trump uses. In the past, on Election Day, Democrats have had lawyers in place and courts identified to get immediate injunctions when abuses occurred. Now that ICE and other government agencies are using intimidation as much as justifiable reasons, reaction will have to be swift. If voters are seized on Election Day and held without cause, it won’t do any good to have them released the next morning. The Supreme Court has already given permission for the government to use racial profiling in seizing people during immigration raids and some of those people are citizens who have the right to vote. The Democrats will have problems reclaiming the Hispanic vote if every person with a brown skin and slight accent gets locked up for 24 hours. Maybe if abuses like this get up to the Supreme Court soon, the folly (or maybe intention) on its part can be reversed and racial profiling will no longer be so easy. The Court seems to believe that race should not be a factor when it comes to college admissions so maybe it will apply that logic to this issue. But Court hypocrisy is an issue for another day and a much longer essay.

And so, it begins. This round of the fight starts immediately and lasts until November of 2026. After that, who knows?