Dear YIMBYs, Be Ready If Trump Wins

Revisiting the tension in our movement

Trump Tower in Manhattan

This series shares major takeaways and specific lessons from YIMBYtown 2024, a pro-housing advocacy conference held February 26-28 in Austin, Texas. Roughly 600 advocates and policy experts gathered from across the U.S. and Canada, and as far away as Australia.

JD Vance challenged my sense of Christian charity a few weeks ago by attending the same mass that I did. The secret service agent who wanded two of my small kids at the door was almost apologetic, thanking us for our patience after I thanked him for “doing what you do,” which is essentially protecting democracy. This was after the second attempt to assassinate Donald Trump. As the vice presidential nominee sat a few pews behind me, I could not help noticing how similar we looked: patchy beard, fatherhood-fatigued eyes, Costco-esque wardrobe. Nor could I help thinking about his willingness to stoke unproven claims that Haitian immigrants—legal residents—in Ohio are eating cats and dogs and wild geese. After redirecting myself a few times I was able to stop, to focus on my own prayers and intentions.

Vance has toxic housing takes too, criticizing Haitian immigrants for violating single-family zoning by crowding into houses and all immigrants for adding to housing demand. Which is it: are they cramming into too little space, or taking up too much?

This is a taste of the political waters YIMBYs will have to navigate if Trump and Vance win the imminent election, which they absolutely might. The race is a toss-up. Nate Silver’s gut gives Trump better odds, but he says elections are rare, so ignore your gut. Kamala Harris is only 1.6% up on Trump in Silver’s national polling average.

As I write, Pennsylvania polling is a dead heat and the average margins for Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada are 2% or less. Election Betting Odds gives Trump 57.9% odds of another term. Betting odds for Democrats flipping the House of Representatives have collapsed, a new GOP Senate majority remains close to a sure thing, and Polymarket gives Republicans 46% odds of a trifecta.

My mild concern is that many YIMBYs are not psychologically and thus strategically prepared for a second Trump term, or for a strengthened MAGA movement. I do believe that YIMBYs can make the best of it, if we just acknowledge the possibility.

YIMBYs still seem to be doing a good job maintaining a big tent that cuts across and, at its best, transcends ideologies. Of course, most YIMBYs are progressives or left of center. Trump has been a competitive candidate this cycle since late 2021. Yet this spring, a vocal minority of YIMBYs were pushing to publicly embrace Biden’s shaky reelection bid. Then the June debate confirmed what my wife and I heard from clips of Biden on NPR, that he was a frail man in a demanding role that accelerates aging.¹

YIMBYs for Harris sprang up shortly after she replaced Biden as Democrats’ presumptive nominee. As someone who thinks YIMBYs should play both sides and avoid getting sucked into the culture war and national political polarization, I initially worried about YIMBYs for Harris, then changed my mind. Seeing elected Democrats jump in front of our parade was invigorating. And I have not detected a right-wing backlash. Biden and Harris have been releasing mostly symbolic proposals to address the housing shortage for some years now, but it was still awesome to hear Obama kick off his convention speech by condemning exclusionary zoning in all but name. Now YIMBYs are still vibing with Kamala. I know y’all did not fall out of a coconut tree, but I still have to ask, what if Trump kills the vibe? Do we have our eyes on the ball?

A victorious Trump and his cronies would ostensibly take full ownership of the so-called party of Lincoln. And despite its comprehensive dysfunction and institutional rot, the GOP shows no signs of ceding its place in the U.S. political duopoly. Are we as YIMBYs ready to hold our noses and work with MAGA politicians even more?

Trump might actually try to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, many of whom work in construction. Should YIMBYs take a stand on mass deportations? I am honestly unsure of how housing advocates should navigate that thankless question.

Trump’s new tariffs would make virtually every good, including building materials, more expensive. Should YIMBYs push for free trade? Probably not, but as pandemic supply chain problems showed, tariffs could be a huge setback for housing production.

A fellow YIMBY notes that the federal government would still be a secondary player in housing policy, despite the marginal good or ill that HUD rules can do. State-level reform remains the prize, wherein MAGA Republicans are often less of an obstacle than suburban Democrats defending local control and self-destructive left-NIMBYs. And of course, Texas is the closest thing our country has to a housing success story.

Another friend wonders: “I’m not really sure most movements are prepared (whatever that really means).” As I told her, I mostly just want YIMBYs to steel themselves.

I was sure that January 6th would make Trump unelectable, yet here we are, in a political reality left-leaning YIMBYs are not naturally suited to face head-on. One could argue that Trump’s political stock has never been higher. He is polling better in this campaign than in his previous two. Pollsters’ attempts to compensate for past misses might account for some of the improvement in Trump’s numbers, but surely not all of it. Trump was about 3 points behind on election day 2016, 8.4 points behind in 2020, and, to reiterate, now only 1.6 points behind Harris. And Republicans have not been trying to win the popular vote since, ironically, Trump’s populist takeover.

If Trump loses this year, he will claim election fraud. Republicans have yet to demonstrate that they could prevent him from pulling them into a fourth presidential run. Ron Desantis’s vaunted campaign petered out like a low-grade tropical cyclone.

I previously wrote about tension in the YIMBY movement stirred up by the 2024 YIMBYtown conference in Austin, the bright blueberry in Texas’s tomato soup:

How comfortable are you with the YIMBY movement’s embrace of conservatives and Trump supporters? Does it make you feel disrespected or unsafe? Can we really say that housing is non-ideological when its regulation is inherently political and driven by racial and class prejudice?

I do not regret the sensitivity with which I approached that issue. However, even at the time, national journalists who made the tension the big story coming out of YIMBYtown were clearly examining a non-existential, largely philosophical concern of an ascendent, pragmatic housing advocacy movement that was steadily building the power needed to wage and win years of future policy campaigns and legal battles.

Now, granting that my advocacy and exposure to the activism/nonprofit world fell off after YIMBYtown, I must confess that the tension prompting so much soul searching has seemingly faded. I assume some folks still are having serious, heartfelt conversations about making our movement even more inclusive, which is good, or venting about playing nice with nasty politicians, which is part of the game.

But it always behooves us as advocates to ask, how much of this tension is a real problem that requires specific action? And how much of it is—forgive me—activism brain, a self-licking ice cream cone that does not actually serve the mission of ending the housing shortage and affordability crisis, build strong organizations and effective teams, or help us persuade politicians and appeal to the unengaged supermajority? We can build good alliances without going out of our way to antagonize anyone. Some people will always be angry with YIMBYs. Leave it to them.

Whatever happens, the keys to YIMBY victory seem to me rather simple:

• Treat everyone with respect.

• Focus on the shared interest in our core issue of abundant, attainable housing.

• Drive toward productive action.

• Embrace pluralism and avoid partisanship.

Those four core values continue to serve YIMBYs of Northern Virginia. I think they remain a fair summary of the YIMBY movement’s ethos. Whether YIMBYs for Harris pop champagne or Trump sets up JD Vance for decades of political relevance, we can handle it. We might get punched in the face. Do not let it be a sucker punch.

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When I had significantly fewer subscribers, I wrote a whole series about building YIMBYs of NoVA. Please check it out and share with the YIMBYs in your life:

• Chapter 1: Beware of Burnout

• Chapter 2: What YIMBYs Actually Do

• Chapter 3: Center Yourselves Only When Necessary

• Chapter 4: Build A Team By Empowering People

• Chapter 5: Lead With Humility

• Chapter 6: Define and Tenaciously Commit To Your Values

• Chapter 7: Recruit Like Crazy (Plus Thoughts on Social Media)

• Chapter 8: Think And Talk About Opponents As Little As Possible

• Chapter 9: Build A Coalition By Being Authentic

Thanks to my 627 subscribers, especially my 10 paid subscribers. If you enjoy this blog or want to work together please contact lucagattonicelli@substack.com. Check out YIMBYs of Northern Virginia, the grassroots pro-housing organization I founded.

1. My wife: “Could you call it, ‘The June Debate Debacle?’ … You don’t have to include that!”