“They’re not Democrats.”
For Jodi Harris, a longtime Brooklyn resident, mother of two sons, and lifelong progressive voter, political homelessness did not come from abandoning her beliefs. It came from watching the party she trusted become unrecognizable.
She still believes in reproductive rights, healthcare, inclusion, and social justice. What she no longer believes is that today’s Democratic Party fully stands for many of those things—or that it has remained truly Democratic at all. As the Democratic Socialists of America gain influence in New York politics and progressive spaces nationwide, Harris sees something closer to a hostile takeover. “Why don’t they form their own party?” she asks. “They’re not Democrats.”
Raised in a deeply Democratic Jewish household, Harris says politics once felt morally clear. “Democrat was everything good… Republican was everything bad.” In her world, being Jewish and being liberal naturally fit together. She built her adult life around that identity—moving to Windsor Terrace more than two decades ago, raising her children in progressive schools, and immersing herself in Park Slope’s liberal culture.
Jodi Harris, sitting on a bench in Grand Army Plaza, reflects on how the Democratic Party no longer feels like home. Photographed by Tali Goldsheft
She often thinks of how it felt after the 2016 election when Trump won and neighbors were hugging in the street. “We were all in it together.”
And then she reflects on Biden's 2020 victory news breaking in literal waves across Prospect Park for an entire weekend. "Four years later, our neighbors were hugging again-at last, happy hugs."
Now, she says, everything feels different.
“Everything for me is pre and post,” she says of October 7.
The months that followed October 7 forced a painful reckoning. Harris found herself trying to reconcile values that had always coexisted. “How can you be pro reproductive rights, pro inclusion, pro healthcare for everyone… and not defend the only democracy in the Middle East?”
What disturbed her most was not disagreement, but the feeling that Jewish concerns no longer mattered inside spaces that once preached solidarity. She describes constantly needing to preface conversations: “Of course I believe in freedom. Of course I believe in inclusivity…” before mentioning antisemitism or Israel.
Often, silence feels easier.
She now avoids certain conversations, weighs friendships differently, and says even close relationships contain “lines that I don’t cross.”
The shift became concrete in local politics. The rise of Zohran Mamdani and the growing influence of the DSA in New York felt, to Harris, like proof that a movement hostile to Jewish concerns had taken hold inside the Democratic tent. His victory triggered what she describes simply as “tears… a visceral reaction.”
It was not just one candidate. It was the realization that the city and party she once trusted no longer felt like home.
At the same time, her Jewish identity has only deepened. She reflects more often on her grandparents’ escape from Vienna. She sees the same awakening in her own family, including a son who embraced religious observance in college and began wearing a kippah openly.
In the absence of broader belonging, Harris has turned to smaller Jewish communities—private WhatsApp groups formed after October 7 where people can speak freely without disclaimers or defensiveness.
Jodi Harris still believes in justice, equality, and inclusion.
What she no longer believes is that the people now running her party do.