In the last article in this series I
talked about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, how she is the biggest success story of
what is essentially a failed movement and how despite that many Democrats
consider her the future of the Party. I've had some more thoughts about that
since then and to best express them I think it would be fitting to compare with
another member of the New York Congressional delegation Laura Gillen.
Ocasio-Cortez and Gillen are both
women who are part of the New York Congressional delegation and they are both
Democrats. But the similarities end there.
AOC is known by people who don't live in New York and may not know any
other elected representatives. Gillen is not known outside of New York and
probably not even that well within the boundaries of her district. It is unlikely that Ryan will ever be
considered for a Senate seat or the Presidency the way AOC already is.
Yet there is a much better argument
that in a post-Trump America the Democratic Party if not the party system in
general would do better to follow the path that Ryan has chosen more than the
one of Ocasio-Cortez. And to understand why we have to review that while they
both live in New York state they might as well live in two different universes.
After much reflection I'm inclined to
think the Justice Democrat movement is an attempt of the left to try and cut
the Gordian Knot that keeps their normal success of activism from succeeding in
politics. To that end they are trying to run for elected office while nevertheless
keeping the same moral purity the activist does, particularly when it comes to
their campaign pledges when it comes to campaign contributions.
Even though I feel these two worlds are
incompatible I won't deny there's something admirable about the left at least
trying to bridge the worlds for some kind of success. The problem is not only
has it failed spectacularly but it demonstrates that this generation of
progressives essentially demonstrates by far the worst aspect of both
activism and politics and none of the benefits of either.
I've discussed the issue of moral
purity before when it comes to campaign finance in previous article and I'll
just summarize it here:
"I need to make it clear so I’m
not misconstrued: I agree firmly that there is too much money in our political
system since Citizen United and that the current group of elected officials,
mostly Republicans but some Democrats, have no motivation to repeal it in the
near future. If progressives were serious about getting it done, they would be
running for elected office in every state of the union and making it part and
parcel of their platform…
…But in the paradoxical thinking of
the left, when they run for office they seem determined to ignore the rules and
win by the sheer force of their argument."
There is only so far to the left you
can go and be tolerated unless you have money and since the Justice Democrats
clearly are unwilling to take much of that, they have little but the purity of
their cause to carry them through the day. That has limits on it that I doubt
campaign finance reform could help."
So we see that the moral purity of the
activists works against the reality of the politician. And just as clearly we
see how the one aspect of politics the Justice Democrats works against their
activism.
If the left has an electoral philosophy,
it is based in the feeling that the millions of people who don't vote every
year would if a candidate with a platform such as the Justice Democrats
were to run for the Presidency. Much of the 'war' in the Democratic Party is
based between those who want to try and reach the voters in the center against
the progressives who believe the answer, as always, is to the left. When they
are shown the results of elections (including the 2024 presidential election)
which show where the weaknesses of the Democrats are the left is essentially
saying that the Democrats should more or less write them off as 'deplorable' This is code for the fact of something the
left knows but will never publicly acknowledge: the Green New Deal won't work
in Kentucky or West Virginia, gun control is not something people in Idaho or
North Dakota agree with, and stopping
climate change is not something that is the priority for out of work people in
Mississippi and Louisiana. And the reason I know they know this is because even
during their biggest attempt to win office in 2018 with the sole exception of
Paula Jean Swearengin's attempt to win the Senate in West Virginia, the Justice
Democrats stayed the hell away from those states.
In this this demonstrates that, for
all of the speeches that the Squad will make, they're not the second coming of
Harriet Tubman, Susan B. Anthony or Rosa Parks. What they are, frankly, are
very much what they claim Trump is: they are not bravely striding to represent
the causes they fight for in unfriendly territory but rather only safe
environments in battles they are relatively certain they can win. They're not
risking their political careers in places they know are unfriendly to them but
only safe spaces against enemies that they think that beat in a fight. And as I
need to keep repeating, even there they lost most of those fights. For the
purposes of this article I'll focus on New York which in theory should have
been completely supportive of everything they stand and where they have the closest
thing the Justice Democrats have to a base of support. Even that term is
laughable.
When AOC managed to win her primary
and then her House Seat she was one of only six Democrats running for a primary
at all in New York that managed to win. The other four representatives lost,
not even able to get more than 20 percent in a House Primary and Cynthia Nixon was humiliated in her attempt
to be Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary.
In 2020 Jamaal Bowman was one of only
three newcomers to the Justice Democrats to manage to win office. We'll get
back to him.
In 2022 Rana Abdelhamid was going to
run in the New York 12th Congressional district. She had announced
in April of 2021 and was planning to run against incumbent Carolyn Maloney.
Abdelhamid criticize Maloney for wearing a burqa to illustrate the oppression
of women in Afghanistan. According to Abdelhamind, oppression of Afghan woman
was an 'Islamophobic narrative meant to justify American wars and that these
women didn't require support or saving.
After new boundaries maps were
released that were unfriendly to her Abdelhamid withdrew arguing that he
community had been left out and that it was 'reminiscent of an ongoing legacy
of non-inclusive gerrymandering." Considering that this gerrymandering led
to the heavily Democratic districts where so many of her colleagues were able
to find success in the first place this was the definition of throwing stones
at the very glass house she wanted to enter.
In 2024 Jamaal Bowman lost his Democratic
primary to challenger George Latimer. While much of the circumstances of
Bowman's defeat was due to the positions he took against the War in Gaza, it is
worth remember his district had a substantial Jewish population and he made no
real effort to win back the very people who might well now have doubts for
voting for him that November. As I wrote
before AOC's attempts to stump for him did nothing to stop him from losing his
primary in double digits. The fact that the Justice Democrats just two seats
while the Democrats gained two seats in the House – despite all the other
losses they suffered – should have been the biggest sign that the position AOC
and the Squad were taking had its limits. Obviously this lesson has been
ignored.
Which brings me to Laura Gillen. Laura
Gillen is 56 years old and she is a freshman representative. Her district
includes central and Southern Nassau county on Long Island. Now Long Island
like much of New York is a swing district.
According to 270towin four of the Congressional districts that are
considered swing districts are in New York. Three of them were carried by Democrats
Josh Riley, Gillen and Tom Suozzi.
It's worth noting for those who think of
New York only as the giant blue state that goes Democrat every election night
that it's far more conservative then it looks and that's definitely true on
Long Island. Control of the House of Representatives both in 2022, last year
and certain this year is almost certainly going to focus on these New York
districts. Gillen ran for office the
first time against incumbent Anthony D'Esposito and only won with 51. 8 percent
of the vote. Gillen won last year with a margin of 2.3 percent of the vote over
D'Esposito. She only outran Trump in that district by one percent.
AOC can afford to do the kinds of
activism that she does on a regular basis – wearing a gown that says "Eat
the Rich" at the Met Gala is just the most famous example – because her
district is so heavily gerrymandered that the only danger she faces is if
someone runs to the left of her. (How much further to the left you can get is
an open question but I'm learning never to admits their further to go on either
side at this point.) Gillen can't afford to take these kinds of steps: if she
were to even wear a button that said something like that the RNC would make her
a target and she'd very likely lose. To be clear they're already plan to do
that anyway.
It's why when AOC was one of the few representatives
to endorse Zohran Mamdani for Mayor Gillen was the first to come out against
his campaign. There were already ads being used to tie vulnerable Democrats
to do this being used in the New Jersey's governor's race (it didn't work) and
Gillen knew how unpopular Mamdani was in her part of Long Island. Whether this
will remain the case is hard to know but I suspect she's going to keep him at
arms reach for the next year.
It's also why when the House voted to
reopen the government two weeks ago Gillen was one of eight Democrats to join
Republicans to do so. Two of them Jarden Golden and Marie Perez are members of
the Blue Dog Democrats and five of the others only won by a narrow margin
including Suozzi, Adam Gray of California and Don Davis of North Carolina.
The outrage at the House Democrats was
not as loud as those Senators who broke party lines mainly because next year
the Democrats have a better chance of taking back the House then the Senate and
they'll need every Democrat they can get. (Golden won't be one of them; he announced
he was stepping down after becoming exhausted by these kinds of battles.) But
Ryan knew that if she was tied to the shutdown it would come back to haunt her
in a way it just won't for AOC's activism.
It's why I really do think so much of
Ocasio-Cortez actions are not only performative but as hypocritical as those of
the Freedom Caucus she and her colleagues regularly lambast. Gerrymandering
cuts both ways and no matter what the public in general thinks about her or
even other New Yorkers, she will never pay the consequences. I find myself
comparing her to of all people Ted Cruz, a man who even his fellow Republicans
hated when he began his career. Like Cruz AOC can do the most horrible things in
the chamber of the House that do nothing but build her brand and because of the
'rigged system' she will never feel the wrath of the voters. She represents the worst part of activism and
politics in my opinion and I feel free to treat her with the same disdain and
contempt I do so many of her Republican contemporaries such as Nancy Mace and
Lauren Boebert.
By contrast in less than a year in
Congress Gillen has done more to make me proud to be a Democrat than AOC has in
her entire Congressional tenure. Part of it is what she hasn't done – there has
been no posturing, no performative gestures, just acting like a grownup. In the
era where viral moments count for more than quiet behavior and have
increasingly substituted for governing that counts for much in my eyes.
But just as important is that Gillen
has decided to do not the easy things but the difficult ones, the right things
not the popular ones, the kind of things that are, for all the posturing of progressives,
difficult to do and especially tough for elected officials. It would have easy
to endorse or even choose to stay quiet
during the New York City Mayoral race; instead she chose to come out against
the eventual winner. It would have made
her popular with the progressives to keep the government shutdown despite the
real-life consequences but she crossed party lines to reopen it and no doubt will
face a certain backlash from the left who thought they were going to 'win'. Gillen
must have spent a fair about of time agonizing and weighing the consequences of
her choices and still did the difficult thing. That's rare in an era of increasingly
polarized government that favors playing to ones base rather than actually
being a grownup.
As I said the road ahead of Gillen
isn't going to be an easy one: the Republicans know this is a district they can
win and they will go after her. But she is the kind of representative Congress
will need – not just in a post-Trump America but really the kind we used to
have and celebrate on a regular basis.
To call what Gillen does a Profile in Courage just for doing her job
might seem a bit extreme but considering the America we live in and especially
compared to the more high-profile performative gestures of Ocasio-Cortez I'd
vote for her any day of the week and especially on Election Day.
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