How do we make the anti-Petty case to the well-meaning liberals in his corner?
The disconnect between the national and the local on display at recent demonstrations
Today’s piece comes from first-time Worcester Sucks guest star Brett Iarrobino. It’s a thoughtful examination of the city’s weird disconnect between national and local politics: how people can support local DINOs like Petty, Toomey, Bergman etc. and show up at anti-ICE protests holding signs about the evils of the Trump administration. It’s one of the most pressing questions in front of us ahead of the November election. Brett did a great job presenting it!
Please consider chipping in to help us put out more insightful guest work like this!
Also don’t forget: tomorrow is Election Squad #2 at Steel and Wire, 7 p.m. Come hang!
—Bill
How do we make the anti-Petty case to well-meaning liberals?
By Brett Iarrobino
A funny little thing happened to me at a Worcester Common protest. This past May, I attended “Hands Off Worcester Mothers,” a demonstration quickly organized by Mass 50501 in response to the illegal ICE abduction on Eureka Street, the agents protected and assisted by the Worcester Police Department. It was a well-attended event, considering the kidnapping had unfolded just three days prior. Several other demonstrations cropped up throughout those three days, all of them urging our community to show up against the nationwide fascism that had finally trickled into our backyard. I went in with a similar mindset, knowing that every neighbor counts in moments like these, that the more people who stood out on a hot Mother’s Day afternoon against the unjust disappearance of vulnerable people, the better.
But it’s election season in Worcester, and my mind was also thinking about who we’d soon vote into City Hall, the building that looms behind the speakers at every Worcester Common protest. It’s August now, and we are less than 100 days from November 4th. Worcester Sucks regulars know how these dots connect: the tragedy on Eureka Street, one that ripped apart a Worcester family and saw our city’s cops throw a teen girl to the pavement, is at best ignored and at worst exacerbated by the majority of our city council and the City Manager they confirmed to the position. How do multiple protests get off the ground in such short spans of time, rallying dozens or hundreds of Worcester citizens to a righteous cause, but we are still saddled with a majority of elected officials who are too afraid to do anything about it?
As I thought about Eric Batista’s press release commending WPD’s presence and his outright lie that there was no collusion between the department and ICE, I began a chant at the Common. It was as much a warning to the chair of the council that handpicked Batista’s ascension to the City Manager role as it was an invitation for every Worcester resident repulsed by Eureka Street to turn their outrage into action. To my pleasant surprise, it picked up quite a bit of steam: “VOTE PETTY OUT! VOTE PETTY OUT! VOTE PETTY OUT!” It rippled through the crowd, briefly getting in the way of a speaker (sorry, 50501), and causing a white woman in her 60s or 70s standing right in front of me to shoot back some serious daggers.
I had a feeling my chant would ruffle feathers—anyone who’s served fourteen consecutive terms of governance in a small pond like ours would surely have a wide sphere of influence. And something told me that there was a Venn diagram between that circle and the crowds that frequently show up to rage against an abuse of power at the national level, one they believe is perpetrated exclusively by the far right. Sure enough, after the chant ran its course, this attendee staring at me set down her anti-ICE sign to inform me that she happens to know and like Mayor Petty. She said she finds him to be a great guy; she knows for a fact that he is “in fumes” over what the Trump Administration is up to, and he actually adopted children from China. (It’s not immediately clear what this had to do with the conversation, but she felt compelled to throw it in there, so why do her the disservice of a misquote?)
I could dedicate the rest of this column to debunking the blatant silliness of this protester’s claim—that our mayor’s displeasure with ICE and raising of non-white children somehow absolves him of his complicity in the police department’s misconduct—but that’s not the point of my writing this. I’m more compelled to note that this lady represents a significant contingent of community members who—silly adoption anecdotes aside—are entirely worth engaging as we work to reimagine our municipal government into one that truly cares for its populace. I have no doubt that she and I both want very similar things for our community and country. She also, after all, dragged herself out into 80-degree weather on Mother’s Day to decry our neighbors being dragged off the street. Like me, she is probably also disturbed by the Trump administration’s re-institutions of Muslim bans, their obsession with trans people’s passports, and all the other weird fixations that come with 21st-century fascism.
The second-largest city in New England is full of these well-intentioned voters. They simultaneously send one of the most reliably progressive representatives to Congress every fall and are represented by the likes of Petty and Mo Bergman, two city councilors who are ostensibly Democrats on paper but entirely indifferent to state-sanctioned kidnapping. Effective reporting documents our city’s turnout issue each election cycle, but equal attention is owed to the fact that every year, hundreds of liberal and left-leaning voters not only vote, but are also duped by recognizable career politicians, unaware that they are more sympathetic to the will of the national environment, wealthy developers, and the overzealous crank neighbors who all thrive off their indifference. It’s a shame Petty is not as great a leader as he is a politician. By schmoozing through Pride events and saying the right things to disenfranchised groups, our mayor sustains a tenure not unlike many of the national Democrats who have been rightfully lit up these past six months for their relentlessly feeble response to democratic backsliding and human rights violations. If the same collection of protesters gathered at City Hall to denounce Trump’s actions were made aware of how often our city government does nothing or denies its collusion with the very same practices that assembled their dissent to begin with, what could our next local election look like?
About four hours from Worcester, in New York City, a political newcomer just bucked the system by reaching out and engaging a new coalition of voters who felt disaffected by the status quo and sought out meaningful change in their everyday governance. Zohran Mamdani continues to play it smart, linking the worn and well-known faces of his competition with Trump and his billionaire friends, reminding voters that the national atrocities they see on the news every day stem from the same political influences who would much rather see him fail.
It’s one of many lessons Worcester could stand to learn from this success story: all those people who show up to tell off ICE should be informed how, exactly, our City Manager and his elected supporters condone ICE’s presence. Every time the subject of the election arises, you’ll read here that just 1,000 new voters are needed to reposition our municipality into one that represents care and progress. The good news is that those 1,000 voters are already here; they could live across the street from you, above or below your floor, and they’re all plenty fired up by the outcome of last November. They congregate at the Common every time something has obviously gone wrong. The time has come to assemble some talking points and encourage them to conceptualize the throughline between our federal government’s cruelty and our municipal government’s disinterest in any meaningful challenge to it.
I tried this approach already with my newfound protest friend; after letting the woman who approached me finish her rant, I reassured her that while I was certain Petty was indeed a very nice guy, my conviction that he and most of his colleagues were unfit to meet this moment remained. I told her about Batista’s absurd Eureka Street statement, riddled with falsehoods. I told her that Petty was among the majority of councilors who thrust Batista into the City Manager position despite their insistence they would do a robust, competitive search to fill the role (they didn’t). And while I don’t think my status as a protest rando was strong enough alone to reshape the version of Petty she’s friends with, this person listened to everything I had to say.
While the ease of feeling smug and satisfied in the face of this neighbor was tempting, it would be a disservice to the movement we’re trying to build to not loop her in on what I know and what informs my vote in our city. The mayor’s thousands of biennial votes don’t come out of thin air, and I am sure many of the voters who provide them will continue to show up at the Common, ready to bemoan the actions of the executive branch and be braver than the leaders they’re giving them to. If you ride for Worcester Sucks like I do, surely you are also stocked with well-reported voting records and City Hall press releases that are the perfect receipts to bring up in a conversation similar to the one I had at this rally. How nice of a silver lining would it be to see our city change for the better in the face of all else that is changing for the worse? We should all do our part to get out there, find a neighbor who is both compassionate and ready to listen, and invite them into this vision we’re trying to build. With only 77 days until November 4th, and just 14 days until the Sept. 2 preliminary, I hope another anti-Petty chant picks up steam near me. I also hope another well-meaning Petty supporter incredulously asks me why I’m chanting it.
Brett Iarrobino is a teacher in Worcester Public Schools and a co-founder of the Worcester Writers’ Collective. Send a line to worcesterwriterscollective@gmail.com to learn more.