MAJOR progressive wins and more news.
didja miss me? didja even notice i was gone?
Hello, friends and family! How ya doin’? It’s been a wild, what, three weeks since we last sent this out? I (as in David, hey, hi) am primarily responsible for this project, although I do have some folks helping me out here and there, but I ended up making an executive decision to put this on pause. I’m sending this out this morning because there has been some massive leftist electoral news this week but also to provide some context and a bit of a personal retrospective on what’s happened as of late.
Tuesday saw major progressive wins in some key areas: from Jaamal Bowman and Mondaire Jones in New York to Qasim Rashid in Virginia, the results of Tuesday could end up being one component of an overall shift in the priorities of the Democratic party.
A lot has happened in the past three weeks since we last published: and the fight sure as fuck ain’t over. I also want to explain why I stepped back and give a rundown of some of my major thoughts on all that has happened.
Also, I’m back at work full time. That’s not really news but considering this is something that takes quite a lot of time to work on, that may impact how I publish this. I might cut it down to three times a week, I may try to do more substantive work on stories I think aren’t getting enough attention, I’m not sure yet! But uh, thanks for caring enough to be reading this?
As always, we appreciate ya. Hope these wacky times are treating you all alright.
ELECTIONS 2020
Progressives Won in Huge Ways on Tuesday
Goddamn, winning feels good! Particularly when you’re a leftist and it feels like you get so few. This is what I imagine being a fan of a real shitty sports fan feels like: sure, you’re a loser most years, but when you win? Oh it’s good. And guess what folks, we just won big.
The Candidates
For New York’s 16th district, Jamaal Bowman. He’s an AOC-backed Democratic socialist who, like AOC, took everyone by surprise by knocking down a pretty established and powerful Democrat.
In this case, it was Eliot Engel, the Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Engel was backed by heavy hitters like Hillary, Pelosi, Schumer, Cuomo, and more. Nonetheless, he’s a bumbling idiot who got caught saying “if I didn’t have a primary, I wouldn’t care” on a hot mic.
Bowman crushed Engel with a pretty wide margin. He also ran on a platform of Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, and what he described as a platform that is “anti-poverty and anti-racist.” He was also wearing a Wu-Tang Clan mask on election day. Hell yeah.
Bowman’s background is as an educator whose work on inequality, standardized testing, and restorative justice has helped define progressive teaching platforms.
In New York’s 17th district, we’ve got Mondaire Jones. After Rep. Nita Lowey announced she was stepping down, a whole slew of candidates wanted to get in on the free-for-all.
If you’d asked us six months ago if we thought Jones had a serious chance at becoming one of the two first gay black Congressmen (along with Ritchie Torres who ran on an affordable housing platform), we’d have scoffed. Now, despite the crowded yield, AOC-backed Jones ended up with over 40% of the vote.
His platform also includes a focus on Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, social justice, police reform, and much more. Take a look at his platform and you’ll see just how big of a win this is.
Jones grew up in Section 8 housing and went on to be a Harvard grad and went on to be a successful nonprofit leader, activist, and lawyer. Now, he’s going to be one of the first black LGBT men in Congress.
In Kentucky’s primary for Senator, we’re keeping an eye on Charles Booker. Amy McGrath, a veteran who is very much so cut from establishment cloth, is still holding a narrow lead—but don’t count Booker out quite yet.
Remember, this is the race for who goes up against Mitch McConnell. It’s not so much that McConnell will lose—god, we sure do fuckin’ hope he does—but the winner of this primary speaks volumes about the future of the Democratic party. Still, Kentucky’s politics seem to be shifting and Booker beating McConnell is a very real possibility.
In Kentucky of all places, can someone like Booker win? Booker backs Medicare for All and a Green New Deal, ideas that we’re told only play well with Democrats in progressive strongholds like New York. If Booker does beat McGrath, it may put the line of thinking that put her in this position to bed: that being a moderate and cozying up to conservatism (and opposing Trump’s impeachment, yikes) isn’t the best way to win over Democrats.
It looks like we won’t have official numbers until June 30th, but considering Louisville and Lexington’s votes aren’t fully accounted for and those are areas that Booker has been heavily involved in so it’s likely they’ll go for him. Booker has been hitting the pavement in Louisville in the wake of Breonna Taylor’s murder and that kind of earnest involvement in a movement like this goes a long way.
In Virginia’s first district, Qasim Rashid will be the Democrat in the general election: which is a district that may stun everyone by flipping blue.
Virginia’s first congressional district very often ends up with a Republican representative. In 2016, Rob Wittman, the incumbent, won the general with nearly 60% of the vote. In 2018, that was down to 55% of the vote. There’s a chance Rashid could push that further. Oh and fun fact: Krystal Ball, probably one of the most prominent leftist voices out there right now, tried to challenge Wittman in 2010. She lost pretty badly, but hey, things are changing!
Rashid is an author whose work explores racism, religion, and is certainly tied into his work as a Muslim activist. The Pakistani-born candidate’s platform prioritizes human rights and Medicare for All among other policies.
Bottom line: our takeaway? It’s always hard to tell when you’re catching lightning in a bottle or not, but considering what we’ve seen in the past four years, it’s getting increasingly difficult to deny that the Democratic party is changing pretty darn quickly. Don’t let your lib friends deflate you; we’re building a coalition across the nation that is fighting for more just and equitable politics, from electoral wins like this to organizing on the streets of our communities.
BLACK LIVES MATTER
This Fight Isn’t Over.
The Black Lives Matter movement is far from halting. Protests are still happening daily. We’re still demanding to hold our leaders accountable. Part of why I stepped away was because I felt like there were enough black voices out there, from prominent journalists to friends and neighbors, that were there to amplify the things that matter: black lives matter, black women’s lives matter, black trans lives matter.
I want to quickly brush up on some of my thoughts but keep listening to those voices. Keep sharing resources, keep helping folks understand radical politics, and keep hitting the pavement.
On reform vs. abolition: there has been a lot of discussion over what “defund the police” really means, from some co-opting the term to somehow mean “just change some policing policies,” to others having a softer approach of “reallocate some police funds towards other services,” to “seriously, let’s just fuckin’ abolish the police.”
I’m of the opinion that any policing policy reforms simply don’t go far enough. You can tell cops to stop beating, choking, and shooting people all you want, but if there is enough systemic backing that makes them think they can get away with it, they’re going to. It’s also such a deeply rooted cultural issue that I’m pretty cynical about fixing policing as we know it.
Policing is also tied to other unsettling institutions, like state prosecutors and prisons. Maybe—and I’m just speaking out of my ass here—if we reimagine the first block in the chain of our rotten criminal justice system, it’ll give us enough space to start addressing those areas, too.
Generally, I’d say whatever comes next needs to have a few major elements. The first is that “law enforcement” needs to have a far narrower scope. Others have talked about this to great length so you already know, but cops shouldn’t be responding to mental health calls or be involved in domestic abuse. We need programs that are dedicated strictly to those areas and responders who can handle those calls without someone getting shot.
Whatever “law enforcement” ends up looking like needs to be more community-driven. Whether that means a more Democratic process regarding leadership of law enforcement entities or if it just means oversight committees made up of community leaders, I’m not sure.
Most, if not all, of the people currently involved in policing need to get the boot. Sorry, that’s just how it is. You want a fresh system, you need fresh faces with no preconceived notions about how things “used to be.” Maybe this isn’t necessary everywhere, I understand that urban policing looks very different from rural policing, but at the very least it seems to be the case that anyone with a history of any unjustified violence whatsoever has no place in the next phase of law enforcement.
On the corporate co-opting of this movement (or any): be wary of this but also don’t fall for the stupid fashy bullshit I see going around. You know what I mean—people like Tucker Carlson saying we should be suspect of Black Lives Matter because even major corporations are cashing in on it! Yes, it’s totally fucked when corporate vultures jump on an opportunity to boost their sales by lazily feigning interest in a social movement. That’s why this movement needs to be radical, anti-capitalist, and a rejection of shallow neoliberal identity politics. That said, major corporations reaping benefits from this does not somehow dilute the message that police are brutality magnets and that we need major overhauls in this country.
On copaganda: don’t fuckin’ spread it. If you’re reading this already, you’ve likely already heard this but...no one should care about police taking a knee or marching “in solidarity.” If they wanted to act in solidarity, if they truly believe in the message as much as protestors do, they’d quit their jobs on the spot. You don’t have to dedicate time to putting a spotlight on the “good apples.” It’s a distraction meant to make you stay at home instead of being outraged. Stay angry.
Bottom line: whoa, that was nice to get off of my chest. You’ve probably heard these points from people smarter than I, but these are some of things I’ve learned or felt or had a thought on these past couple of weeks, so maybe you’ll find some of it interesting. And if not, fuck it! Go read Angela Davis, learn about prison abolition, and spend your time more wisely!
END OF THE LINE...
That’s it for today.
That’s what we’ve got. Remember, we’re only able to do this every day because of readers like you. Drop your friends, family, or anyone else whose email you happen to have a referral link and help us grow. We’d truly appreciate it.
Have a good one,
The Bread Line
we’re listening to: