Greetings, friends,
I promised you, dear readers, that I wouldn’t intervene in politics which I no longer have anything to do with. That’s why I’ve stayed out of a lot of Freeport shenanigans lately. But I still live in Nassau County and on Tuesday, November 4th, 2025 we’re all voting together for Nassau County Executive (among others). You’ve already read the headline, so allow me to lay out where things stand.
I am pretty confident that I’m much further to the left than Koslow is - in fact, I’m not presently a Democrat; I’m in the Working Families Party.
Koslow is, by all accounts, quite the centrist candidate in a, “This is just what will work for Nassau County” way. To be clear, I don’t believe in that approach, preferring to stand or fall based on the strength of one’s beliefs and ideas, but I’ve seen enough from Koslow that I feel like it’s better for him to have power than it is to sit back, do nothing, and allow current executive Bruce Blakeman to retain power.
In other words, Koslow had to sell himself to me in a very different way than he is trying to sell himself to most of Nassau, but that doesn’t mean that I’m unwilling to accept boiler-plate mediocrity accompanied by uninspired bland governance when the alternative is a Fascist.
(For two definitions of Fascism as applied to Donald Trump, specifically, and thus transitively towards his followers and lackeys like Blakeman, check this video of mine where I cover both Roger Griffin's "Palingenetic Ultranationalist" framework and Umberto Eco's "Fourteen Points" framework of the term "Fascism.")
Let’s Start With An Anti-Authoritarian Praxis.
For starters, Koslow has said (if I’m recalling Newsday’s endorsement of him correctly) that he would stop cooperation with Trump’s Getstapo, ICE, and stop allowing ICE to stash its kidnapping victims in Nassau county jails. We know of one victim who has already died in Blakeman’s cooperation with Trump’s Gestapo, but there may be others who were kidnapped by ICE, transferred, and “disappeared” who may never be heard from again.
That alone is enough to warrant a vote for change.
Ending ICE cooperation would be a boiler-plate start; ordering Nassau County PD to arrest Trump’s masked kidnappers and terrorists when they break county law and harass or assault residents is far more to my liking, but I somehow doubt Koslow will go that far. It'd be awesome if he did, though!
Now also seems to be a good time to mention that Blakeman himself has raised a private militia accountable only to the County Executive. I reported on it for my now-retired (because fuck Substack and it’s cozying up to Nazi writers) publication, The Progressive Cafe, and I’m sort of surprised I never published anything about it here. But, yes, Blakeman has a personal micro-army that he can deploy in case of whatever emergency he deems fit. That seems unnecessary and bad, and certainly not ‘small government,’ now, doesn’t it?
It’s my understanding Koslow will disband this organization, which would be a tremendous benefit to Nassau County. It would eliminate both the risk that they go rogue and harm civilians, as well as the risk to the county of the lawsuits that would amount if they did, indeed, go insane.
But there’s more to this endorsement than just an authoritarian vs anti-authoritarian dissection, here.
Koslow Seems To Be A Rational Human Being. Blakeman isn’t.
I was unable to attend the Nassau Pride Coalition’s ‘Meet The Candidates’ event, but it’s my understanding Seth Koslow was there and - surprise! - Bruce Blakeman wasn’t. Gee, I wonder why a transphobe like Blakeman would shun a Pride-oriented political event?
That means that Koslow is, at the very least, the closest thing to an Ally that we in the Queer community have. That’s a huge step. I don’t know what he said or if he’s really good enough to earn my support based on that alone, but I also didn’t hear any bullshit like, “He came but he said insulting stuff.” So based on the fact that I didn’t hear that he did a bad job, I have to assume he was at least passable to people who are more on-the-ground than me.
I also seem to remember him having staff at Pride On The Mile this year, telling me that at the very least he’s been consistently reaching out to us.
But besides his pro-LGBTQIA+ stance on stuff?
Well, I did hear a clip of a debate where he talked about a plan for increasing affordable housing in Nassau County. He wants to assess the County’s various buildings that it owns but isn’t using, see what it really needs, and then sell some of those assets off to be developed into housing. Is this plan revolutionary? No, not really. Will it be a tremendous help? Not unless Nassau is holding a LOT of unnecessary land. But will it be better than Blakeman’s answer, which was that he doesn’t want to add affordable housing at all and wants housing costs to go up, actually?
Yes.
Koslow is also at least tangentially involved in an ongoing chaotic situation with the Freeport School Board. He and ex-member (now County Legislator) Debra Mule gave Shuron Jackson and Maria Jordan-Awalom citations regarding their dedication to the school board. Considering that the school board situation is absolute madness, too, it's worth noting that him giving them these citations could be interpreted as a support of a political faction that's opposed to the absolutely batshit things I've heard coming out of the schools, lately.
Speaking of: Of that situation, the only thing I feel like I have room to say anything about is that I know Patricia Langan has been leading the Freeport Teachers’ Association. I'm an ex-TA in Freeport who worked with her and I'm pretty sure I knew her even as far back as being a student. I’ve always known Langan to be a respectable and truthful person. If she says there’s a problem, I’d suggest you believe her.
Remember the NUMC scandal? Where Bruce Blakeman’s hand-picked lackey fucked up our county’s healthcare safety net? I can’t be sure, but I somehow doubt that Seth Koslow would allow something so stupid to happen. I somehow suspect he would be base-line competent enough to manage NUMC, to find some way to improve it even.
Or, at the very least, he would find someone to run it who could.
I’m Unhappy, But Overall, Koslow’s Better Than Sitting Out
There are some elections where there’s just no upside. I call these “Republican Versus Republican-Lite” votes. I live in District 3 where our “Democrat” is a lying Republican-lite coward named Tom Suozzi who was forced back on us after he left us in the dust for a vanity governorship run without so much as a primary to decide if we should take him back. Thanks for nothing, Jay Jacobs! I would never vote for him again. I hope he is primaried. I’d rather just have a Republican who I know will sell me out instead of a “Democrat” who lies to me and sells me out - as he did when he pledged to sponsor Medicare For All and never followed through on his promise. Sellout Suozzi.
Laura Gillen in District 4 (that’s Freeport, IIRC) is shaping up to be the same kind of failure, and I sincerely hope someone primaries her, as well. Maybe one of you reading this will take up that challenge!
I don’t know enough about Koslow to know if he’s going to be a Republican-Lite. I don’t know if he’s going to pretend we live in the 1990’s and that the parties aren’t so far apart. It’s 2025. One has fully conceded to and embraced Fascism while the other is oh-so-scared to do much about it - or, at least, its leadership is.
When I don’t know something about a politician, my first tip is what they have on their websites.
A lot of the talk on his website is just laughable to me. He’s going to lower taxes? At a time when the Federal government is going into austerity and the economy is on the verge of collapse? Okay, so then what money is he going to use to take care of the indigent given that SNAP is about to be left unfunded? In fact, I literally just got today's mail confirming that my tax credit for my health insurance is being taken away (Thanks, "Big Beautiful Bill!"). Lowering taxes means less resources for NUMC and other hospitals in the area.
Koslow wants to erase wasteful spending? That’s a Republican talking point, bud, and I know what they mean when they say “wasteful spending.” They mean starving “wasteful” people to death and denying them healthcare - literally "Big Beautiful Bill Language." Why are you trying to reclaim that, man?
On his priorities page, he dedicates three - count ‘em, three! - whole sentences to disabled Nassau County residents and a whopping two sentences to protecting people against discrimination. That’s genuinely pathetic. It’s actually kind of insulting to read that and go, “He couldn’t even mention things like making sure police aren’t abusing Black-And-Brown people” or “Not a word about the LGBTQIA+ community.” Two. Sentences.
Again: It’s pathetic, really.
It’s entirely possible that Koslow wins, does absolutely nothing for minority groups, and goes out next election exactly the same way Laura Curran went out for not standing up for what she might have (?) believed in and spending more time on Fox News than actually pushing anything she’s supposed to stand for as a Democrat. It’s entirely possible he’s Republican-Lite.
But, then again, I left the Democratic party because New York State’s party as an organization doesn’t stand for much of anything, exceptions like AOC aside. That’s why so many of them lose easily-winnable races. And this might be one of them where strong ideals get people motivated to go out and vote where boiler-plate centrist language fails to.
Under ordinary times, in my perfect world, I might not be endorsing Koslow, who I really hope reads this and proves me wrong. PLEASE prove me wrong. If you're reading this? Prove. Me. Wrong. I want to be apologizing to you for ever doubting you. Maybe he'll be the scary hyper-leftist that's in keeping with Zohran Mamdani as so many of the bullshit attack ad flyers we get daily paint him as.
Probably not.
The fact remains, however, that all of this contrasts with our present state of insanity. All of this is against a backdrop against Trump and Blakeman’s authoritarian madness. Koslow isn’t one vote out of many that can be made up for elsewhere. Koslow is running for an executive position where he’d be overseeing some of the most important things in this difficult time.
A friend of mine once appealed to Koslow for help and described him - this is my interpretation of my friend's story - to be the kind of Legislator who says “There should be a law about that!” but forgets that he could write one - or thinks it’d be too hard. I don’t know, I’m not that friend. Maybe he'll have something to say about it in the comments.
As Executive, Koslow will need to do better than he did for my friend. He will need to do better than his website promises, because his website reads like an empty suit. He will need to do better than Jay Jacobs and the Nassau & New York Democrats ever promise, because those two are terrified of anything that might upset their wealthy donors.
Can he do it? I don’t honestly know. I hope he can! But I harbor doubts.
Nonetheless, voting for Koslow is better than sitting out and letting Blakeman continue to run the county into the ground. It’s better than sitting out and letting Blakeman continue to be a bigot towards Trans people. It’s better than letting Blakeman have a private militia. It’s better than letting Blakeman work with ICE.
I endorse Seth Koslow for Nassau County Executive.
(Yes, you may consider this a proxy-endorsement for the entire Democratic ticket) (ALSO: Don't forget to turn your ballot over to vote on any propositions that might exist!)
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| Image courtesy of Seth Koslow's website. |
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