I have lived in the District since 2008 and volunteered for Robert Jackson many times. I have been politically homeless and heartbroken since October 7, 2023. I have NEVER voted for Espaillat (I even write in other people for the general) but I will be early voting for him. I am a west of Broadway Inwood voter who is broken hearted by the current state of progressive anti-Semitism and antiZionism.
Why can't you accept that Israel is an apartheid, ethno-supremacist state that should've never received support from the US or the wider Jewish Community ?
I seriously don't understand it. We have been seeing a live genocide and you are "heart-broken" by antizionism ? How do you want us to stay calm.
This was the firewall, and everyone in Manhattan politics knows it. The Espaillat-Chevalier race is not just another sleepy congressional primary where a younger activist takes a vanity shot at an aging incumbent. This is a control point in the broader annexation of New York City by the DSA, the Red-Green Alliance, and the permanent activist class that now treats the Democratic Party like captured territory. Brooklyn already cracked. Queens already cracked. City Hall is compromised. Northern Manhattan was supposed to be the line where the old ethnic machines, the churches, the clubs, the seniors, the bodegas, the labor people, and the Regular Democrats finally said: no farther.
Instead, the Regular Democrats are fractured, petty, and strategically asleep. Keith Wright and the Manhattan Democratic machine have every reason to stop this insurgency right now, because once DSA plants the flag in NY-13, they will not leave. They will build lists, recruit challengers, take district leader seats, pressure judges, terrorize clubs, and primary every remaining Democrat who still believes politics is about roads, schools, public safety, constituent service, and neighborhood power instead of ideological purification. But the Wright-Espaillat feud may matter more to them than survival. That is how parties die: not from one dramatic explosion, but from old bosses nursing old grudges while disciplined radicals walk through the front door.
If Espaillat loses because Wright’s people sat on their hands, the history is going to be ugly and simple. The old Harlem-Dominican rivalry did not just wound Espaillat. It opened the gate for the Commie Corridor to consume Northern Manhattan. The Red-Green Alliance does not need every Regular Democrat to endorse it. It only needs them divided, bitter, passive, and too arrogant to recognize that the next target is them. Today it is Espaillat. Tomorrow it is Jordan Wright. After that, it is every club, judge, assembly seat, council seat, and county committee position that still belongs to the old order.
And once that happens, stop pretending the future battles will be between moderates and progressives. That language is obsolete. There will be no meaningful center-left Regular Democratic presence in Manhattan. The fights will look like Bolsheviks versus Mensheviks: rival factions of the same radical project arguing over tactics, branding, and how quickly to impose the program. The neighborhoods that once produced retail politicians will instead produce movement cadres. The old machine will discover that it trained voters to hate power, then handed power to people who hate the machine even more.
This is why the Wright-Espaillat personal squabble matters beyond ego. It may become the hinge point at which the Regular Democrats lost their last realistic chance to contain the socialist corridor before it annexed Northern Manhattan. If they let that happen, they do not get to complain later. They were warned. The line was visible. The enemy was organized. The math was there. The firewall was there. And when the moment came, they chose resentment over survival.
yeah, this POV is ridiculous. Our Reps have done nothing. He bent over for real estate developers and ignored Harlem. Espaillat ran a nasty racist campaign.
Your essay is a fantastic treasure trove of esoteric factoids about this crazy town. Were you joking or did you really mean it when you said, "Bronx Borough President James J. Lyons planted a Bronx flag here in 1939, calling the area “The Bronx Sudetenland.” It is probably true as in 1939 people laughed about the Nazis. For example, when Norma Scherer, in "The Women," divorces her husband (a HIT MOVie in 1939), her Mother consoles her by saying that when she goes to bed she "can spread-out like a Swastika."
I am generally very left wing but I will definitely not support the challenger in the race you show case. The abuse of so called Palestinians is lamentable but to participate in an antiIsraeli rally one day after 3000 Israelis were killed by Hamas operatives is DISGUSTING, VILE AND VILLIANOUS. Hamas terrorists, among other things, cut breasts off of woman and then threw the breasts around as if they were beach balls. Hamas terrorists hammared nails into women's vaginas.
By the way, I can't stand the retiring Congressman in NY's 12th, Jerry Nadler. I am furious because he is opposing Alex Bores who I hope will become he district's new rep. By the way, feel free to read this zinging, comedic attack on Nadler and on rich limousine liberals in general.
She has been working in that community for over 24 years. Espalliate moved from Dominican Republic. I’ll take darializa over a corrupt long term politician who has sold out to lobbies
I hope you're joking. What has Espaillat done to keep housing costs low? Nothing. He's in the pocket of real estate developers and has gentrified his own district. He championed this monstrosity near W207th St and the bridge, raising rents around there immediately. He helped corporate landlords, like Blackstone, buy up housing stock so our kids will be perpetual renters. He did nothing to help tenant's rights. the only reason people vote for him is that he's Dominican. We need a change and candidates that fight MAGA as much as they fight DSA.
Has any college hired you to teach the Demography of Politics?
GOTV drives elections in low turnout years and name recognition matters, and a foul-mouthed candidate turns off older voters…
I agree, this could be Espaillat’s last primary, unless he has numerous opponents…
BTW, you’re an excellent writer, I could smell your description of the neighboods
"The Bronx Sudetenland” made me literally LOL
Excellent article. It's clear you love the city and you work that into your smart analyses to make them readable. Keep up the great work!
This is a very well written and interesting article about the district I live in. thank you very much, much appreciated.
WEB DuBois also lived for a while on Villa Ave in Bedford Park. Just another indicator of how interesting this district is.
I have lived in the District since 2008 and volunteered for Robert Jackson many times. I have been politically homeless and heartbroken since October 7, 2023. I have NEVER voted for Espaillat (I even write in other people for the general) but I will be early voting for him. I am a west of Broadway Inwood voter who is broken hearted by the current state of progressive anti-Semitism and antiZionism.
Why can't you accept that Israel is an apartheid, ethno-supremacist state that should've never received support from the US or the wider Jewish Community ?
I seriously don't understand it. We have been seeing a live genocide and you are "heart-broken" by antizionism ? How do you want us to stay calm.
Have you stopped voting for Robert Jackson since 2023?
I won’t vote for him after this endorsement of Darializa. It truly pains me
This was the firewall, and everyone in Manhattan politics knows it. The Espaillat-Chevalier race is not just another sleepy congressional primary where a younger activist takes a vanity shot at an aging incumbent. This is a control point in the broader annexation of New York City by the DSA, the Red-Green Alliance, and the permanent activist class that now treats the Democratic Party like captured territory. Brooklyn already cracked. Queens already cracked. City Hall is compromised. Northern Manhattan was supposed to be the line where the old ethnic machines, the churches, the clubs, the seniors, the bodegas, the labor people, and the Regular Democrats finally said: no farther.
Instead, the Regular Democrats are fractured, petty, and strategically asleep. Keith Wright and the Manhattan Democratic machine have every reason to stop this insurgency right now, because once DSA plants the flag in NY-13, they will not leave. They will build lists, recruit challengers, take district leader seats, pressure judges, terrorize clubs, and primary every remaining Democrat who still believes politics is about roads, schools, public safety, constituent service, and neighborhood power instead of ideological purification. But the Wright-Espaillat feud may matter more to them than survival. That is how parties die: not from one dramatic explosion, but from old bosses nursing old grudges while disciplined radicals walk through the front door.
If Espaillat loses because Wright’s people sat on their hands, the history is going to be ugly and simple. The old Harlem-Dominican rivalry did not just wound Espaillat. It opened the gate for the Commie Corridor to consume Northern Manhattan. The Red-Green Alliance does not need every Regular Democrat to endorse it. It only needs them divided, bitter, passive, and too arrogant to recognize that the next target is them. Today it is Espaillat. Tomorrow it is Jordan Wright. After that, it is every club, judge, assembly seat, council seat, and county committee position that still belongs to the old order.
And once that happens, stop pretending the future battles will be between moderates and progressives. That language is obsolete. There will be no meaningful center-left Regular Democratic presence in Manhattan. The fights will look like Bolsheviks versus Mensheviks: rival factions of the same radical project arguing over tactics, branding, and how quickly to impose the program. The neighborhoods that once produced retail politicians will instead produce movement cadres. The old machine will discover that it trained voters to hate power, then handed power to people who hate the machine even more.
This is why the Wright-Espaillat personal squabble matters beyond ego. It may become the hinge point at which the Regular Democrats lost their last realistic chance to contain the socialist corridor before it annexed Northern Manhattan. If they let that happen, they do not get to complain later. They were warned. The line was visible. The enemy was organized. The math was there. The firewall was there. And when the moment came, they chose resentment over survival.
yeah, this POV is ridiculous. Our Reps have done nothing. He bent over for real estate developers and ignored Harlem. Espaillat ran a nasty racist campaign.
Your essay is a fantastic treasure trove of esoteric factoids about this crazy town. Were you joking or did you really mean it when you said, "Bronx Borough President James J. Lyons planted a Bronx flag here in 1939, calling the area “The Bronx Sudetenland.” It is probably true as in 1939 people laughed about the Nazis. For example, when Norma Scherer, in "The Women," divorces her husband (a HIT MOVie in 1939), her Mother consoles her by saying that when she goes to bed she "can spread-out like a Swastika."
I am generally very left wing but I will definitely not support the challenger in the race you show case. The abuse of so called Palestinians is lamentable but to participate in an antiIsraeli rally one day after 3000 Israelis were killed by Hamas operatives is DISGUSTING, VILE AND VILLIANOUS. Hamas terrorists, among other things, cut breasts off of woman and then threw the breasts around as if they were beach balls. Hamas terrorists hammared nails into women's vaginas.
By the way, I can't stand the retiring Congressman in NY's 12th, Jerry Nadler. I am furious because he is opposing Alex Bores who I hope will become he district's new rep. By the way, feel free to read this zinging, comedic attack on Nadler and on rich limousine liberals in general.
https://davidgottfried.substack.com/p/gerald-nadler-the-nettlesome-nattering
She has been working in that community for over 24 years. Espalliate moved from Dominican Republic. I’ll take darializa over a corrupt long term politician who has sold out to lobbies
I hope you're joking. What has Espaillat done to keep housing costs low? Nothing. He's in the pocket of real estate developers and has gentrified his own district. He championed this monstrosity near W207th St and the bridge, raising rents around there immediately. He helped corporate landlords, like Blackstone, buy up housing stock so our kids will be perpetual renters. He did nothing to help tenant's rights. the only reason people vote for him is that he's Dominican. We need a change and candidates that fight MAGA as much as they fight DSA.