Mediaboss Marketing

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

JUAN GONZLEZ: Representative, I wanted to ask you about in the infrastructure and the developing agreement between Democrats and Republicans on infrastructure, the concerns of you and other members of the Progressive Caucus about what is going to happen to efforts to combat climate change in these battles over infrastructure?

REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ: Well, I believe that the Progressive Caucus is rather united in the fact that we will not support bipartisan legislation without a reconciliation bill, and one that takes bold and large action on climate, drawing down carbon emissions, but also job creation and increasing equity and resilience for impacted communities, particularly frontline communities. And so, weve made that very clear and that a bipartisan agreement will not pass unless we have a reconciliation bill that also passes. And so, that is where weve drawn a strong line. And I believe that Speaker Pelosi, the White House and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer have taken that threat quite seriously. They know that we fully intend on acting out on that if a reconciliation bill does not come to the floor of the House.

And, you know, we have many theres many, many different actions that we need in a climate bill for reconciliation, whether its a Civilian Climate Corps, whether it is increased infrastructure and investment in rail, in mass transit, and whether its also centering frontline, Indigenous, Black and Brown and low-income communities that are polluted on and often experience the greatest brunt, and will be experiencing the greatest brunt, of climate change-related infrastructure failures.

AMY GOODMAN: So, this issue of trying to get a massive Green New Deal proposed I mean, Bernie Sanders, of course, head of the Budget Committee, said $3 trillion is simply not enough to deal with what must be dealt with in this country also involves this filibuster. And there are many right now, in the voting rights community, for example and this all overlaps who are saying just President Biden is simply not expending his political capital to get this dealt with, because he has a very limited amount of time, possibly, when the Democrats are in power in the Senate and hes the president and Democrats control the House, to get some of this groundbreaking legislation through. Tomorrow hell be giving a voting rights speech in Philadelphia. What does he have to do? What are you saying behind the scenes? What is Schumer saying? What is your relationship like with Schumer? What are you demanding they do that theyre failing to do right now?

REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ: Well, I do believe that there is a sense, particularly among members of Congress, that believe that the White House is leaving some of its leverage on the table in terms of really pushing on voting rights and the passage of H.R. 1, and particularly in its conversations with those in the Senate, whether it is Senator Manchin, Sinema or, frankly, there are others. Its not just Manchin and Sinema that have been hesitant on the filibuster, but I believe that there are other members of the Senate that are essentially hiding behind them in their hesitations, as well. And, you know, the White House has been stepping up slightly in that campaign, and I think thats evidenced by their decision to make a speech tomorrow.

But I do believe that all of these conversations are quite interlinked, and I believe that it should be coming up in every conversation and every negotiation, whether it is infrastructure, whether it is voting rights and so on, that, you know, the White House needs to be making explicit, frankly, to members of Congress the way that it is what they are doing, particularly within our own party, to make sure that this gets done, because the last thing that we want to see is a lot of wonderful speeches and public-facing statements but no actual passage of critical voting rights legislation.

And I think that this is it cannot be stated enough that the United States is in a very fragile and delicate precipice of democracy in our own right. And if we do not get H.R. 1 passed, if we do not pass it in this term, I think I and many other individuals, frankly, are quite fearful for the state and future of our democracy. It is that simple. We have state Republican parties that are setting up the infrastructure and, frankly, the practice to overturn the results of an election. And that includes the presidential election.

JUAN GONZLEZ: And speaking of presidential elections, former President Trump delivered the keynote address at the Conservative Political Action Conference, known as CPAC, in Dallas, Texas, over the weekend. He captured over 70% of the 2024 GOP presidential nomination poll at CPAC. Should Democrats be concerned about his continued popularity?

REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ: I mean, I think the whole country should be concerned. You know, I think that there are two minds of this. One is that I do believe that whether he intends to run or not, former President Trump will be indicating and will continue to essentially tease the possibility. So, what that is to say is to not discount the ability and the popularity that he may have and the possibility of him running again. But it is also to say that he may not, but wants to continue his essentially, his vise grip over the Republican Party. And so there are two distinct possibilities here. But I do believe that the Democratic Party should be worried.

And that cuts straight to the voting rights provisions. And I do want to state that even Senator Manchin and some others have indicated that H.R. 4, the John Lewis Voting Rights, is what they would support instead. And I think while H.R. 4 is critical for passage, it does not solve this problem. And it is not a substitute for passing the For the People Act. One main and enormous provision is that H.R. 1, it is essentially retroactive, in that it will overturn and it will supersede many of these anti-democracy laws that are being passed in states across the country. And the Voting Rights Act doesnt I mean, the John Lewis the John Lewis Voting Rights Act does not do that. It restores key provisions of the Civil Rights Act, but H.R. 1 is what will actually institute and reverse some of these very corrosive and very frightening, frankly, anti-democracy laws that are being passed in state governments across the country.

Read the rest here:
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez: Progressives May Sink Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill Without Reconciliation Deal - Democracy Now!

A Brief Apology for a Catholic Momentby jean-luc marionuniversity of chicago press, 120 pages, $27.99

The manifest nihilism of our present moment and our headlong plunge toward a posthuman, post-political future is proving to be quite a stimulus to Catholic thought. The apparent rapprochement between post-conciliar Catholicism and liberal modernity seems to be falsified by events. The disintegration of the prevailing world order demands new reflection on Christian existence among the ruins.

Jean-Luc Marions slender new volume, A Brief Apology for a Catholic Moment, is a welcome entry into the fray. Author of profound studies in philosophy and philosophical theology, Marion is not known as an apologist or a political commentator. But more surprising than the fact of his intervention is the audacity of his central provocation: that despite appearances, this moment of disintegration and collapse may yet prove to be the dawning of a Catholic moment. Making deft use of Justin Martyr's defense of Christian faith in ancient Rome, Marion reprises the great apologist's claim that Christians are to the secular city the most useful of men. The Church nurtures a communion transcending politics, and only this release from the increasingly impotent mania of the political makes possible the restoration of the universal within a crumbling human society.

Marion seeks simultaneously to justify the Churchs continued existence in French society and indicate a way forward. He charts a course between the French heresies of progressivism and integralism, which he regards as a fantasy. For him, the so-called crisis of the churchmeasured by sociological criteriais really a reflection of the hopeless decadence of broader society. He focuses particularly on France, but his central pointthe contrast between crisis and decadencecould be extended more broadly. A society becomes decadent when the political power appears as an impotent fraud and it cant help but tell people that this is so by making them pay the ever greater price of its failure. The defining marks of decadence arepowerlessness and paralysis, the incapacity to make a decision that would inaugurate true reform. As citizens, Christians are by no means immune (or exonerated) from todays decadence, and yet the Church is founded by Christ and ever reforming itself in response to his call.

Against the backdrop of modern decadence, the Church appears, counterintuitively, as the only society that is not in crisis because it can practice freely its true crisis by deciding over and over again for Christ. Echoing Augustine, Marion argues that the Church makes possible a communion that is truly universal and therefore more than political. This prevents the sacralization of politics on either secular or integralist terms. It also allows Christians to remain loyal to the always imperfect city of man, for in contrast to progressive reformers who rage against the limits of what can be done, believers are not susceptible to this crisis mentality. For these reasons, Christians furnish society with its best citizens from the point of view even of the interests of the city of men.

Thus Marion argues against Frances paradoxically religious ideology of lacit, which has effectively become a blank check for the expulsion of Catholicism from public space, while praising the 1905 law mandating separation of church and state as an expression of the perennial teaching of the Churchand as a perennial contrast with Islam. The proper separation of political power and spiritual authority is a uniquely Christian achievement that alone can prevent us from making the state absolute; actuate the more-than-political communion necessary for real political community; and manifest the universality necessary for the realization of libert, galit, and fraternit. In order to become brothers, it is necessary to come from a father, from a common father who universally precedes each son. The attempt to manufacture this brotherhood on our own concludes in terror.

True, but one wonders if this is adequate to the demands of the moment. Marions argument has some limitations, the most important of which flow from the primacy of the phenomenological method in his philosophy. It is notoriously difficult, if not impossible, to formulate an adequate social and political theory from a phenomenological analysis of experience. Arriving at a fully social and political vision will either require the addition of political, metaphysical, and theological elements extrinsic to the phenomenological method, or the final theory will omit indispensable considerationslike the natures of things.

In Marions book, theology seems at times like an extraneous, even pious add-on to his philosophical method, while his political and ecclesial analysis turns disappointingly sociological at crucial junctures. His concluding treatment of power and authority, which he calls un-powerand which moderns universally conflate, is important. It can help us rescue these concepts from their political captivity. Yet it remains partial. He does not consider how a proper understanding of authority, rooted in a Trinitarian metaphysic, might transform the meaning of power itself. He appears to take for granted the modern equation of power and force, and that modern political theory is the science of powerwhich implies a juridical or administrative state indifferent to nature, truth, and ultimate goods. Despite Marions political pessimism and unique style, it is questionable whether his conception of political order differs essentially from Murrays or Maritains.

The central problem is that Marion sidesteps the question of what politics owes to reality. He does not grapple with the question of whether political order should somehow bear the order of creation or partake in some way of the kingship of Christ. In championing separation, which he likens to the American First Amendment, Marion does not entertain the historical possibility that it was the desacralization of political order that led to making politics absolute. Nature abhors a vacuum, and in late modernity politics is sacralized as the science of power becomes the first philosophy. Conversely, Marion doesnt consider that a properly sacralized politics rooted in metaphysical reflection neednt necessarily conflate political power and spiritual authority, and that it could avoid idolatry and absolutism by relativizing politics within a supra-political order.

Marion is rightly suspicious of the political temptations that can easily accrue to such a theological vision, especially under conditions of social disintegration and hopelessness. Yet what Marion dismisses as nostalgia and integralist fantasy may have a necessary and renewing function as a kind of Augustinian memoria of the true city. Its practical impossibility is beside the point, or rather precisely the point. For in memoria and longing, the true city is manifest in its absence. Our longing might, indeed, be the very form that life in the Spirit takes in us, enabling the Christians partial contribution to the justice of the earthly city.

Marion is wrong to disavow metaphysics, without which it is difficult to give much cognitive content to the notion of universality. His definition is vague: Everything that transcends the specific conflicts among groups, the contradictory interests, the ideologies, and identities, everything that puts the unity of the nation in danger. This studied metaphysical restraint contrasts with how the Church stands virtually alone in defending universal human nature, indeed the principle of reality itself, from fierce biotechnical and ideological assault. Marions vision of universality seems long on caritas and short on veritate, when in the present moment it is precisely the Churchs defense of human nature and reality that needs to be infused with metaphysical depthand confidence.

Marion offers a genuinely speculative attempt, as Hegel says, to comprehend ones own time in thoughtin contrast both to the progressives, who exchange thinking for pastoralism and sociologism, and the integralists, who conflate thinking with archaeology. This is a welcome philosophical antidote to the relentlessly political character of contemporary Catholic thought on both the left and the right. His maxim, Politics, yes, but never first, is surely correct; for the nihilism of our political order is not at root a political problem. And it cannot ultimately be overcome by political means, by embracing the Polish or Hungarian models, however preferable these regimes may be to the rapidly decaying West. The Church can change the face of the world only by remaining itself. But it can remain itself only by changing itself (allowing itself to be changed) from generation to generation in accord with the call that it constantly receives. This is an important and indispensable insight. Yet defending the truth of creation and human nature is included in this call, and to answer it we will have to go beyond Marion.

Michael Hanby is associate professor of religion and philosophy of science at the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family at The Catholic University of America.

First Thingsdepends on its subscribers and supporters. Join the conversation and make a contribution today.

Clickhereto make a donation.

Clickhereto subscribe toFirst Things.

Image by ucdivinityschool via Flickr. Image cropped.

Excerpt from:
Beyond Integralism and Progressivism | Michael Hanby - First Things

On March 6, 2021, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who entered public office in 1975, turned to his colleague Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) on the Senate floor and said, This is the best day of my career.

Congress had passed an expanded version of the child tax credit as part of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, President Joe Bidens signature COVID-19 relief bill. The new policy is only a fragment of the sweeping bill, but it could be life-changing to families. And to a group of lawmakers in Congress, it was the culmination of decades of work.

Beginning July 15, most parents will receive monthly checks of up to $300 per child through the end of the year thanks to Democrats bill. The benefit amounts to a total of up to $3,600 per child under the age of 6 by the end of tax season; Americas poorest families, even those who dont file taxes, stand to benefit. If implemented to its full potential, this expanded child tax credit could cut child poverty in the United States by half.

For Brown, who decided not to run for president in 2020 even though many thought he had a kind of blue collar credibility that would have made him a formidable candidate, the new policy could become a defining achievement of his political career.

I have never done anything that has this kind ... of impact, Brown told HuffPost in an interview, pausing mid-sentence to note the Affordable Care Act as an exception. Ninety-two percent of kids in my state benefit from this.

For nearly two decades, Brown, who co-wrote the Senates bill with Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), and other Democrats, brought together by Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), have proposed expanding the child tax credit and the earned income tax credit to give low- and no-income working parents a benefit. Its a low-key way of expanding the federal safety net after Republicans succeeded in making direct cash assistance utterly taboo in American politics.

The credits gradually got bigger, but this year Democrats had a major breakthrough, and Brown isnt alone in feeling the gravity of the moment.

You work 18 years on a project and it gets done, it was the high point of my career in the House of Representatives to get the child tax credit across the finish line, DeLauro said. Now we have to try and get this child tax credit made permanent.

Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via Getty ImagesRep. Rosa DeLauro speaks during a news conference on child care relief bills in the Capitol Visitor Center in July 2020.

A Long Push

Some version of a child tax credit has been on the books in the United States since the late 1990s. But it has been small, and didnt significantly increase familys tax refunds or put extra cash in their pockets beyond tax season. Meanwhile, children have long suffered the highest poverty rate of any age group.

Democrats got a little bolder starting in 2016. Not only did DeLauro propose making the tax credit bigger, but she also said it should be fully available as cash, and that the IRS should pay it monthly, essentially creating a child allowance like the ones other countries have had for years. DeLauro is known in the administration for being a persistent advocate for the policy.

Brown set to work in 2019 to sell the tax credit to the public. After he announced he would not be running for president, he embarked on a Dignity of Work tour around the country, meant to bring working-class Americans back to the Democratic Party. The thrust of his platform was a suite of tax credits largely aimed at working-class people, including this expansion of the child tax credit.

At the time, he couldnt have anticipated the weird mix of circumstances that made it possible to pass his bill, but its exactly the kind of big policy achievement hes dreamed of.

In 2019, Brown published a book called Desk 88about past progressive senators, such as Alabamas Hugo Black, who previously occupied Browns desk in the U.S. Senate. Before becoming a Supreme Court justice, Black championed labor laws that became a cornerstone of the New Deal in the 1930s, the policy agenda that slashed poverty and entrenched Democrats in power for decades.

For the first time in a long time, people are beginning to see that government can be on your side and government can do things that have an impact on peoples lives, Brown said. And that has a huge impact on other things we do as a country. ... This is a case that just happens to be that every Republican voted no and every Democrat voted yes.

Republicans did not sign on to this version of the expanded credit. But Josh McCabe, who wrote a book comparing the American child tax credit to more robust programs in Canada and the U.K., said he thinks Republicans may have inadvertently helped Democrats pass the bill.

In 2017, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) pushed Republicans to double the child tax credit from $1,000 to $2,000 a policy McCabe helped Rubios office craft. It still could only be received at tax time, and it also wasnt fully refundable, meaning many families were left out. But Republicans did some work to get the word out.

Now Democrats are building on that same underlying policy, and Republicans arent interested.

Ethan Miller via Getty ImagesSen. Sherrod Brown speaks to voters in early-voting primary states about policies like the child tax credit.

There are conservatives that see this as tax relief for families and if youre not doing that then its just welfare by another name, and they are still very resistant to it, said McCabe, an assistant professor of sociology at Endicott College. There are few of us that are a bit more open to this as helping with the cost of raising families, as being worthwhile even if its not technically tax relief.

Democrats still describe the policy as a tax cut instead of a child benefit, although White House officials have thrown around the term child allowance a more straightforward benefit thats offered in many countries around the world as well.

People are not consumed with the nomenclature. Theyre struggling. Theyre just trying to survive economically, DeLauro said. Thats what the consequence of the legislation is about.

Calling it a tax credit probably helped Democrats avoid trouble with moderates who would object to creating a new big government program. It also helped that Republicans had supported not just a bigger child tax credit but also two rounds of unconditional cash relief in response to the pandemic. When it came time to pass the American Rescue Plan this year, all Democrats were doing was continuing the new and incredibly popular tradition of sending people direct payments in trying times.

An Uncertain Future

As of now, the program is set to expire in 2021. And Biden has been reluctant to advocate for it to be put in place permanently, likely because of its cost. Instead, the White House is proposing extending this expanded child tax credit through 2025, when the Republican tax changes are set to expire as well.

All of these factors might make or break the programs legacy.

If this is made permanent then this is a pretty big policy win, said Molly Michelmore, a history professor with a focus on fiscal policy and the welfare state at Washington and Lee University. Generally speaking, giving kids stuff is pretty good politics.

But, she said, its less clear whether Democrats will be able to claim political credit, specifically because this was done through the tax code instead of directly creating a new benefit.

Social Security became a Democratic policy after 1935. Medicaid, Medicare were Democratic policies after 1965, Michelmore said, adding that shes not sure the earned income tax credit or child tax credit are seen as a partisan policy one way or the other.

Democrats are certainly trying, though. Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) tweeted a mock-up of a child tax credit check that said Courtesy of President Biden & Congressional Democrats. (Every republican voted against this).

Even without Republican support, getting Democrats to prioritize a bigger child tax credit has been a challenge. The policy was going nowhere, but then the pandemic happened. Republicans embraced no-strings-attached payments to all but the richest American households, a major break from the tradition of excluding people with very little or no earned income. When they won the White House and the Senate, Democrats seized the momentum.

Key to the longevity of this program is the way Democrats set it up. Not only is this child tax credit fully refundable so that poor families could benefit from it and child poverty could be cut, they also increased the benefit overall. Politically, its going to be really difficult for lawmakers to let the credit expire and increase taxes on that many people.

This was really ingenious, McCabe said. Anytime it reverts back to the old way, its going to affect poor families, working-class families and middle-class families. Creating that strong cross-class coalition is really good for keeping a policy in place.

And for Brown, hes hoping the child tax credit will validate Americans engagement in politics and their votes for Democrats.

I think its pretty clear that come next summer, people are gonna think, you know, I voted for Biden or even if I voted for Trump, I voted, but Ive seen my life get better in the last year and a half, Brown said. Theyre gonna see it in a big reminders-every-month way with the child tax credit.

Calling all HuffPost superfans!

Sign up for membership to become a founding member and help shape HuffPost's next chapter

Read more:
How Progressives Fought To Put Money In Parents Pockets And Won - HuffPost

OPINION: The damning leaked audio conversation between Nichols and Mendelsohn that shook up ESPN was proof that you can be an ally in public and privately engage in your own white supremacy.

They smilin in your face

All the time, they want to take your place

The back stabbers (back stabbers)

The OJays had called it nearly 50 years ago with their 1972 hit Back Stabbers. When hearing about the latest ESPN racism scandal, its hard to act surprised that some of the most woke performing white people had so much B.S. to say when they thought the cameras werent rolling. Perhaps this should be a textbook example of why we should always keep a side-eye for white folks who talk the most while still doing the least.

In this case, a white woman was mad that a Black woman replaced her for a role that the company clearly didnt need her to fill.

If you need to give her more things to do because you are feeling pressure about your crappy longtime record on diversity which, by the way, I know personally from the female side of it like, go for it, Rachel Nichols, an NBA reporter for ESPN, said about her fellow colleague Maria Taylor during a leaked 2020 audio that was recently published by the New York Times. Just find it somewhere else. You are not going to find it from me or taking my thing away, Nichols added.

Girl, bye.

Im not sure if its the entitlement for me or the horrible attempt to suggest reverse racism. Nichols clearly lost any sense of respect or dignity in her unhinged rant against a Black woman who wasnt even checking for her. It would take an internal company shaming and other Black employees at ESPN to complain before Nichols would later try to apologize and backpedal but the damage had already been done.

ESPNs Rachel Nichols (left) apologized to colleague Maria Taylor (right) on-air after assertions she made last year were made public in which she suggested Taylor was given a position commentating during the 2020 NBA Finals because shes Black. (Photos by David Becker/Getty Images and Steve Jennings/Getty Images for ESPN)

What makes this a hotter mess is that she wasnt alone in her hateration: Nichols trashed Taylor in a conversation with Adam Mendelsohn, an advisor to Lakers superstar LeBron James. And just when you thought he would be the one to tell her to pipe down, Mendelsohn only added fuel to the flame, telling her: I dont know. Im exhausted. Between Me Too and Black Lives Matter, I got nothing left.

Story continues

Oh, word? Tell us how you really feel.

Perhaps what makes all of this disappointing is that these two white people thought it was OK to pop off at the mouth during the summer of 2020 in the middle of a racial uprising that should have taught them better. Considering the fact that Nichols is doing reporting in a field that is predominantly filled with Black athletes, and Mendelson advises one of the most outspoken Black public figures of his generation this just goes to show that such outward white admiration for Blackness is a facade.

The rise of white progressives revealing their hypocrisy is nothing new. For years, Black people have been reminded that the same people who love to remind us that they voted for Barack Obama are the same people who will turn into Karens in a heartbeat (start with Amy Cooper and work your way down). White celebrities like Justin Bieber, Kim Kardashian, and Katy Perry will always find themselves touting their support for the cause, but will turn around and culturally appropriate our cornrows and locs when its marketable.

Kim Kardashian and Justin Bieber (Photo: Getty Images/Instagram)

This is whats really exhausting and annoying AF. Now more than ever, will white people just figure out where they are on the margins of white supremacy, pick a side, and just stay there? Its already hard enough having to confront the outwardly confrontational white supremacists now we must continue to deal with the backstabbers who smile in our face, while all the time they still want to take our place?

These backstabbers, backstabbers.

Perhaps the biggest takeaway from controversies such as this is to just go duly noted and act accordingly. Farewell to the performative gestures and hashtags that self-proclaimed white progressives love to project in public. Now its time to be more skeptical, critical, and self-aware. While Nichols continues to get removed yet again from another NBA Finals (its what she deserves), let us collectively consider how much the Black employees at ESPN didnt deserve to be disrespected like this.

Forget calling on allies for backup, lets just be there for our own because apparently, were all we got.

Ernest Owens is the Editor at Large of Philadelphia magazine and CEO of Ernest Media Empire, LLC. The award-winning journalist has written for The New York Times, NBC News, USA Today and several other major publications. Follow him on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram and ernestowens.com.

Have you subscribed to theGrios Dear Culture podcast? Download our newest episodes now!

TheGrio is now on Apple TV, Amazon Fire and Roku. Download theGrio.com today!

The post Rachel Nichols and Adam Mendelsohn prove that White Progressives are scammers appeared first on TheGrio.

View post:
Rachel Nichols and Adam Mendelsohn prove that White Progressives are scammers - Yahoo News

By Andrew Cuff| Erie Times-News

Drive 30 minutes east from Pittsburgh, and youll enter Westmoreland County one of Pennsylvanias most conservative areas. Over the course of two decades, Westmoreland has become ground zero for the Rust Belts GOP shift. For perspective, in 1998 the countys 136,700 registered Democratic voters dwarfed the 70,600 registered Republicans, propelling their candidates to wins in nearly every local, state, and national election. But in 2020, Donald Trump took 64% of the vote.

In Mays state primary, the Republican trend continued when Westmorelandvoted by similar marginsin support of a constitutional amendment curtailing Democratic Gov. Tom Wolfs emergency powers a clear rebuke of his excessive pandemic restrictions. Then, in a special election, county voters favoredLeslie Rossi, aGOP state House candidatewho had painted her home like an American flag and erected a 14-foot Trump cutout.

Since the Obama era, Westmorelands former Democrats have switched parties over issues related to economic populism and social conservatism. But last years social unrest and urban violence, including in Pittsburgh, led even more county Democrats to change their affiliation. In a paraphrase of Ronald Reagans classic remark, Westmoreland Sheriff James Albertput itthis way when joining the GOP: As a lifelong public servant and member of law enforcement, I have not left the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party has left me.

Though Trumps presidency fueled intraparty tensions, including in Pennsylvania, Westmorelanders feel their own political compass has remained fixed amid the GOPs evolving platforms. As one resident in Greensburg, the county seat, told me, Time has pretty much stood still around here for the last 30 years. And thats how we like it.

But while Westmorelands silent majority stands still, its progressive activists have increasingly mobilized. Last year, for example, along that half-hour drive from Pittsburgh, incendiary anti-Trump billboards displayedmisrepresentedquotesfrom the former president. Today, billboards feature left-leaning messages such as Ban Assault Weapons and Teach your children about systemic racism. Meanwhile, art displays that promote the central tenets of critical race theory find their way to local museums and outdoor areas.

Who is behind this progressive resistance in Pennsylvanias heartland? According to theNew York Times, Westmorelands radical campaigners operate like a secret society, complete with hand signals, invite-only gatherings, and leftist Facebook groups. Overall, theyre united in purpose and strategic in approach but this hardly suggests a grassroots effort.

As is so often the case, Westmorelands left is less a coalition of local dissenters than a team of professional activists funded by out-of-town millions and occasionally, even public tax dollars. Anti-gun billboards, for example, are paid for by aPACinvolving prominent liberals, such as former Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill. Meanwhile, critical race theorydisplaysandmessagingare funded by groups such as PA Start and the Westmoreland Diversity Coalition.

The progressive campaign, though, isnt limited to leftist messaging on major thoroughfares. In fact, Westmorelands liberal wing has clear-eyed electoral ambitions. In 2019, for example, the county commissioner elections turned into a bitter struggle between Democratic incumbents and their Republican challengers.

The local fight concerned the lobbying power of public-sector unions, whom Democrats had empowered to influence county spending. The unions left-leaning positions on social issues, such as acounty diversity plan, became part of Democratic candidates platforms, too. This, in turn, unified Republican opposition. Since then, the most prominent Westmoreland Squad member has signaled her support for replacing Westmorelands Flag Day observance with Juneteenth but only after discussing it withthe unions.

Westmorelands progressives are also keen on dominating local school boards. The county chapter ofPA United, a subsidiary of the George Soros-fundedDemocracy Alliance, has put forward several candidates seeking to make local school districts curriculum and practices more progressive.Westmorelanders, though, likely wish to avoid theparent-led battlesoverideological school boards and identity-driven curriculumcurrently afflicting Loudoun County, Va., and suburban Philadelphia. This November, such issues are at stake in Westmorelands elections.

On guns, law and order, family values, and education, the county isnt a great fit for progressive activists or the elite millionaires who fund them. But post-Trump, such a conservative area remains a target for culture war assaults waged by resistance activists with deep pockets. For some reason, western Pennsylvanias towns, with their thriving small business economies, neighborhood safety, solidarity, and educational opportunity, have become a bugbear for the left.

But most Westmorelanders still consider these community features to be proud of and defend.

Andrew Cuff writes on conservative issues and policy reform from Latrobe in Westmoreland County. This piece first appeared on RealClearPolitics.com.

Continued here:
Op-Ed: Delusions of progressive 'resistance' in PA's heartland - GoErie.com