What Would Mamdani Have Done?

Let me say something I don’t get to say often in this column: I like Zohran Mamdani.

Not the politics. God, no. The mayor of New York is a democratic socialist, and I am a Mitch Daniels conservative, and there is roughly a canyon of policy between us on taxes, spending, policing, and most of what a city actually does. I don’t agree with the man on much of anything. But I’ll be honest with you — I can’t hate the guy. He’s likeable. He’s quick, he’s disarming, and he understands something a lot of people in his movement don’t: that you win people over by talking to them, not by hiding from them.

Exhibit A: Mamdani has spent a chunk of his young tenure doing the one thing his movement swore it never would — sitting down with Donald Trump. Twice. In the Oval Office. Mamdani has called Trump a fascist; Trump has called Mamdani a communist (and, during the State of the Union, “a nice guy,” which is how my grandmother described people she couldn’t stand). And still they met, and Mamdani walked out with a $21 billion federal housing pitch and a phone call that sprung a Columbia student out of ICE custody before dinner. You don’t get to pick only the rooms with good lighting and friendly faces.

The local socialists should take a page out of his book. Instead, on Sunday, they voted IndyPolitics out of the room. Full disclosure, up front and not buried in fine print at the bottom: the outlet they removed was this one, and the reporter on the receiving end was me. So consider this both a column and a first-hand account.

What happened

The occasion was the monthly meeting of the Central Indiana Democratic Socialists of America. Noon. Over Zoom. Posted on the chapter’s own public calendar, for anyone with eyes. On the agenda, between the coffee and the democratic decision-making, sat a resolution to censure and de-endorse Indianapolis City-County Councilman Jesse Brown — the same Jesse Brown the chapter endorsed in 2023.

I logged on to cover it. I did not log on for long.

Before the chapter could lay a glove on Brown, it had to neutralize the real threat to the revolution: a reporter on the call. The chair moved to remove the press. His stated reason, per a recording of the proceedings, was that I wasn’t there “in good faith” and that whatever happened would “likely be distorted” — a bold ruling about coverage that hadn’t been written, of a meeting I hadn’t been allowed to watch. Pre-crime. “Minority Report,” but for press releases.

To their credit, several members weren’t buying it. One noted, correctly, that bouncing a reporter already in the room is the fastest way to look like you’ve got something to hide. Another flagged the obvious: this was getting out anyway. (Reader: it got out anyway.) And here’s the part that makes the whole “privacy” panic collapse — it was already out, and it was Jesse Brown who put it there. The councilman himself published the resolution, his written response, and his account of the dispute on his own public Facebook page, for anyone to read, before the meeting ever gaveled in. The subject of the censure broadcast it to the world. We didn’t pry anything loose; we read his timeline. For one shining moment, the membership argued my case better than I could. Then the chair prevailed, and out I went — before the meeting ever reached the resolution it had gathered to pass.

And here’s the kicker: it ran roughly two and a half to three hours — points of order, appeals from the chair, stacked speakers, and a vote so snarled in Robert’s Rules that the chair had to explain, twice, which way “aye” actually cut. After all of it, the chapter resolved nothing. Brown’s censure was continued. Punted. A chapter that couldn’t kick out its own councilman in an entire afternoon did, at least, manage to kick out a reporter in about twenty minutes.

They had every right

Let me give the DSA the one thing they’ve earned: they were entirely within their rights. They’re a private membership organization, not a unit of government. Indiana’s Open Door Law — the statute that pries open city councils, school boards, and the BMV — does not reach the internal business of a political club. A private association can admit and remove whomever it likes, and the First Amendment doesn’t get a vote. I’d defend that right for them as readily as I’d defend it for the Federalist Society or my Thursday-night cigar get-togethers.

The law isn’t the problem. The branding is. This is an outfit that sells itself on three words — democracy, transparency, accountability — and a principled suspicion of powerful people cutting deals in the dark. Brown himself once bragged that DSA “holds leaders accountable” and is “highly suspicious of elected leaders.” A noble creed. A tough one to live out loud when your accountability meeting opens by voting the press into the parking lot.

There was one more argument for removing me, and this one I’ll handle with care, because the member who made it isn’t an officer, isn’t a public figure, and doesn’t deserve to be a punchline. The concern, fairly stated, was that some members are working professionals or come from marginalized communities, and that exposure could jeopardize their livelihoods. I take that seriously — seriously enough that I’m naming no one, quoting no rank-and-file member, and airing none of the recording that would cause the harm they feared. I’ll note only that I am myself a working professional from a marginalized community, and that this concern for safety didn’t seem to extend to the Black reporter they were voting off the island. Accountability has a guest list. I wasn’t on it.

The backstory, and the complaints

I won’t rehash the whole dispute here — we laid it out in detail the day before the meeting, the chapter’s case against Brown and his rebuttal both. The short version: a man who took exactly one organizational endorsement in 2023 — the chapter’s — won a major upset, got expelled from the City-County Council’s Democratic caucus in 2025 for being too far left, and is now staring down censure from the actual socialists.

Here’s the thing worth sitting with. Brown went public first; we then reported all of it, both sides, before a single gavel fell. And when the chapter convened to debate the thing its own target had already aired, it voted the reporter who’d covered both sides out of the room. You don’t remove the press because you’re afraid of being lied about. You remove the press because you’d rather not be watched.

So: what would Mamdani have done? He’d have let the reporter stay, made his case, and gotten back to work. That’s the difference between a movement that wants to govern and a club that just wants to be left alone with its donuts. I’ll be covering the next meeting too.  Sorry guys!

Note: This account is based in part on a recording of the proceedings obtained and reviewed after our removal from the meeting.

Abdul-Hakim Shabazz is the editor of Indy Politics.  He is also an attorney licensed in Indiana and Illinois.