On Tuesday night, Brooklyn Assemblymember Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn presided over an internal vote to hang onto her role as Brooklyn Democratic Party chair that fellow Dems at the City, state, and federal levels decried as undemocratic and even Trumpian.
In a closed-door, press-free meeting in Mill Basin, where newly elected district leaders were barred from voting, Bichotte Hermelyn successfully got district leaders to expand Brooklyn Democratic Party leadership rolls—and thereby increase the number of people voting to, say, keep Bichotte Hermelyn as the head of the party. According to the New Kings Democrats, Bichotte Hermelyn's progressive opponents, the vote on rules was both illegal and undemocratic, a cheap trick in the face of a successful progressive effort to wrest the party away from Bichotte Hermelyn that was years in the making.
Then, on Wednesday, the Brooklyn Democrats dropped a video seemingly designed to combat any negative press that might arise from a successful 11th-hour power grab in the wake of a decisive electoral defeat.