August 31, 2024
[Sept 1, 2024: I’ve had to update this post because Armando Domalewski deleted the alt, @The2ARmand, with which he was communicating with me; screenshots from that conversation are at the bottom of this update]
This past week’s Yimbys for Harris fundraising telethon drew buzz from the Washington Post, Business Insider, Semafor and the San Francisco Standard, raising over $120,000 in donations, a third of which, $40,000, came out of the bottomless pocket of notorious “centimillionaire” Garry Tan.
The nascent yes-in-my-backyard political group (and likely future lobbying pac) was founded by prominent Northern California real estate developer advocates Zac Bowling and Armand Domalewski along with New York City transplant Nia Johnson; they are using Mr. Bowling’s already established Youtube channel for their video content and are seizing on the momentum of former president Barack Obama’s mention to deregulate housing development during his speech at last week’s Democratic National Convention.
Via its various social media platforms, the organization hyped the call and garnered some 1,700 participants signing up to watch the almost 60 pro-yimby speakers; giddily dubbed “Yimbycella” the event was hosted by Johnson and Domalewski.
But the call itself fell a little flat.
The invited guest speakers, a few of whom were oddly long winded, made for a call which lasted for three hours; too many of the speeches were achingly similar so the content was redundant and at many points simply boring. Instead of live participation, some speakers sent pre-taped videos, a curious choice which tripped up any live momentum and only added to the call’s length of time.
But that’s the yimby way: to overwhelm for hours with dozens of people saying the same thing over and over; “Yimbycella” was more yimbybellow as there was no music, there was only bluster and grandiosity.
As one of the most globally abhorred anti-yimbys, I didn’t even bother registering for the call despite my curiosity; I just assumed I wouldn’t have been allowed in. So when I saw the Yimbys for Harris Twitter livestream, I jumped on to check it out, to witness the show, yimbys at play. It’s rare to see so many of them at one time, in public and in one place, it was too irresistible, I had to watch.
I wasn’t the only one; some 30,000 folks tuned in through different media sources yet most did not donate to the cause. I wonder, if like me, they just wanted to observe the pageant.
Prominent yimby players like Matt Yglesias, Noah Smith and the Center for New Liberalism’s founder Jeremiah Johnson spoke to an audience which had never before even seen Smith’s or Johnson’s faces or had heard Yglesias’s voice; it was an unveiling of sorts and I was not the only one struck by the display.
https://twitter.com/fuelgrannie/status/1828992208604672200?s=46
(here’s a screenshot, as the link won’t load here for some reason, hm..:)
A person wearing a fuzzy bee’s head was featured as The Nimbee but did not speak on the call. Anti-yimbys are depicted by yimbys as Trump supporters but this silent buzzy participant wore a Harris/Walz shirt as they danced to the camera, adding to the confusing messaging.
Co-host Nia Johnson, her gaze ever aimed towards the ceiling, instructed attendees to “smash that donate buddon” as she jazzhanded and blinked vigorously.
But it was the other co-host, a bare chested Armand Domalewski who delivered an even more awkward performance, in his new favorite costume of overalls with no shirt.
Domalewski opted for this same attire which he had donned earlier this year to protest a San Francisco pro-Trump rally; he was proud of having grabbed the New York Times’s eye for his June protest appearance so he sported his overalls again in hopes of generating more campaign donation money.
And maybe more attention for himself.
He slurred and clunked throughout the call, fussing with his hair, playing with his dog and getting people’s names wrong, chocking all his gaffes up to him being “goofy.”
It was such off-putting behavior that Twitter soon began to simmer not only about his clothing, or lack thereof, but also about Domalewski’s past, including the convoluted tale of his being asked to leave the board of the East Bay Young Democrats and a trail of inappropriate behavior, resulting in litigation around charges of domestic violence.
Because Domalewski has never effectively explained this incident and its various court case aftermaths, his own history wears upon him like a pair of red, white and blue suspendered jeans.
And that proved to be problematic for this call and for Yimbys for Harris in general as he is a founder and a face for this org. He may not be the best envoy as the backlash against him festers and persists.
The following day Domalewski addressed the criticism, drawing even more eyes to him, his wardrobe and his questionable past.
But he didn’t stop there.
Using one of his many dormant alts, one he has since deleted, Domalewski reached out to me to ultimately beg me to stop talking about him. While Armand enjoys attention from the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and Business Insider, he’s not keen on it from me.
His trying to frame himself as the victim did not fool me. If anything I marveled at his arrogance of telling me what I should write about him when public legal records, his decade-long reputation in California politics and his very behavior during our discourse indisputably reveal his character.
His overly valuing of fame and his humblebrag name dropping repelled me.
I found Domalewski to be manipulative, dishonest and resistant to any personal responsibility, especially given his conspicuous place in the yimby landscape, a status he purposefully tried to downplay to me. On one hand, he pompously crows about press mentions but then he whines to me that he’s a nobody.
His insincerity and perniciousness made me feel compassionate towards any person who has had to endure his insidiousness, especially on a deeply personal level. I was able to gain insight privately the following day, yesterday, which confirmed my suspicions from my experience with him; unsurprisingly and sadly, I wasn’t wrong. I will continue to hold what I have learned in my heart, sending out a constant wish for healing and happiness even if justice is absent.
Update: that Google doc has been deleted.
Hm.
They may have raised six figures for the Kamala Harris/Tim Walz presidential ticket but Yimbys for Harris also inadvertently opened their own Pandora’s Box with Armand Domalewski’s gratuitously exposed upper body at the helm. By his own choices, he allows for this continued scrutiny which he sorely resents and tries to silence while he simultaneously basks in the moonlight of a notoriety he desperately courts and covets.
This dilemma will color Domalewski’s future emcee performances, unless he takes a more measured inspection of how he might appear to others.
He certainly needs a better explanation of public legal records concerning his own actions. He could stand to contemplate optics. He could fathom humility.
And, next time, he definitely needs to wear a shirt.
fuelgrannie 
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