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Last week, the Cuyahoga County Progressive Caucus voted to endorse City Councilman Jeff Johnson in the Cleveland Mayoral race.

The endorsement is Johnson's second from a local progressive organization, his first being from the Service Employees International Union, and it has given Johnson additional ammo and cred as the "progressive" candidate in the race, one which is perceived as a battle between an entrenched incumbent (Frank Jackson) and the field.

CCPC was formed with about 300 members one year ago as an outgrowth of the local Bernie Sanders campaign effort. The organization is headquartered in Lakewood and has ballooned to nearly 3,000 members. CCPC's political director Steve Holecko attributes that rapid growth to the spirit of political activism in the wake of Donald Trump's election. Its members have organized and demonstrated around issues of wealth inequality, which locally include the fight for a higher minimum wage and opposition to the Q Deal.

Holecko estimated in a phone conversation with Scene that roughly 800 of the organization's members are Cleveland residents.

Only three mayoral candidates applied for the endorsement: Johnson, Brandon Chrostowski and Eric Brewer.

Johnson is himself a member of the Progressive Caucus, and Holecko said that the organization's steering committee was hopeful that Johnson would win the endorsement. Holecko said they made no efforts to tilt the results, but that roughly 70 percent of the Cleveland membership voted to endorse Johnson regardless.

"We're very closely aligned," Holecko said, of the group's platform and Johnson's.

The endorsement is good news for Johnson after a week of legal challenges. Last Monday, one of Johnson's competitors in the race, Eric Brewer, challenged his candidacy by suggesting he was actually a resident of Twinsburg. Brewer emailed Cuyahoga County elections Director Pat McDonald to make his case, but the complaint was filed too close to the election for the board to act. Cleveland.com's Robert Higgs reported that the elections board had already ruled on Johnson's residency. It dismissed an earlier complaint and ruled that Johnson's voting address was at his Glenville home.

Johnson has maintained that he lives in Cleveland he is a "third-generation resident," of Glenville he says but his wife and two stepdaughters do indeed live in Twinsburg, where the teenage girls attend Twinsburg City Schools.

On last week's Reporter's Roundtable on WCPN, the panel of journalists suggested that Brewer who made news last week for not having voted since 2009 was merely trying to stay relevant by challenging and/or distracting the race's top candidates.

Also last week, the Ohio Supreme Court dismissed a resident's legal challenge to Johson's candidacy after the challenger didn't bother to present any evidence. The challenge was an attempt to appeal the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections' unanimous ruling, in May, that Johnson was eligible to run.

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Jeff Johnson at the Poles: Progressives Love Him, Others Want Him Out - Cleveland Scene Weekly

It hurts to think back to election night. After a few hours of watching the votes come in with the people Id spent countless hours on the campaign trail with, the results were becoming clear.

The room felt suffocating, so I decided to take a walk alone. For a few minutes, I strolled along the Charles River, watching the soft glow from Weeks Bridge as an existential dread formed in my stomach. I walked in a heavy silence, thinking about the organizing and campaigning wed done, realizing that, although ultimately not enough, wed given it our all.

Katy Perry had a different election night, one that marked the end of her superficial campaign effortsan uninspiring performance at the Democratic National Convention, some selfies, and bizarre attempts to get her fans to vote. She held Lady Gagas hand in the Javits Center as the results came in, and said it was traumatizing when she heard that Senator Hillary R. Clinton would not be arriving to give an acceptance speech. She claims that the night was an awakening for her and that shes tried reflecting that in her new album, Witness.

A senior editor at Pitchfork wrote in a review of the album that [Katy Perrys] stated goal of making woke pop is, depending on how cynical you are, either admirable or shameless (or both), but either way, its not terribly effective. The album fails because Perry does not follow through on her commitment to social justice; she simply uses it as a selling point. On the album, shes featured homophobic artists, which seems to be in line with a career marked by anti-gay lyrics and blatant cultural appropriation. Katy Perry uses the so-called Resistance as a way of updating her brand, marketing her music, and making money.

When Katy Perrys performanceincluding painfully unoriginal statements on freedom on the Fourth of Julyisnt accepted as genuine, she gets frustrated and accuses critics of issuing vindictive clapbacks for the sake of conflict. Instead of focusing on what she can do for social justice, she worries about why people arent believing her act.

President Donald Trump is an easy punching bageven Perry has taken her shotswhich has made it easy to shirk personal responsibility to social justice while also claiming to care about progressive causes. Denouncing Trump is easy. Actively working against the sexism, xenophobia, and racism that fueled his political success is much harder and doesnt happen as often. The Womens Marches in January were powerful acts of protest, but they were still very white and cisgender. The impressive attendance at them was marred by the sense that some were only there for the the photo-op. Theres been a spike in these performative progressives, who strive to say the right thing without taking substantive action.

Katy Perry is one of the most high-profile examples of this phenomenon, but shes far from the only one. Kendall Jenner commodified the protests sweeping the country in an attempt to sell Pepsi. A recent SNL sketch depicted men at a bar who flirt with a woman by uttering popular feminist phrases before calling that woman a bitch when she rejects their advances. In New York Citys Washington Square Park last weekend, I saw a woman selling $3 Pins for the Resistance, and people lined up to buy them. The political movement for equality has slowly transformed itself into an aesthetic that allows people to be progressive on paper while upholding the status quo in person.

At Harvard, this attitude is clearest among discussions about final clubs. Although membership processes premised on gender exclusion and wealth generally select for a more conservative ideology, many final club members identify as progressive. They support progressive causes online and through membership in political groups on campus, but their performance ends as soon as they join a club. Their actions support institutions that foster class exclusion, gender discrimination, and unhealthy social dynamics on campus. Theyre progressive, but incredibly selective in their causes, which makes their work feel like a show.

The faculty recommendation to phase out social groups brought another set of performative progressives to the forefront. These individuals are progressive in most cases, writing passionately on Facebook about gender, sexuality, and racial equality, but turn a blind eye when discussing the exclusionary culture surrounding final clubs. Perhaps its because their social lives center around Mount Auburn St. Maybe they have friends in clubs who they see as good people, which blinds them to the structural issues that plague clubs. Maybe the idea of social exclusion doesnt seem antithetical to their progressive ideals, as if elitism werent founded on power imbalances. They say the right things, but then turn around and defend institutions that represent everything progressive movements aim to change.

The Resistance, the movement, the causeuse your term of choiceis not about individual gain or bolstering personal image. The ultimate goal should be the betterment of the oppressedcriminal justice reform, curtailment of sexism, equality in both principle and practice. Performative and selective progressives, with their hollow words and convenient blind spots, do nothing to bring us closer to these goals. Its time we stop performing our politics and instead head to the streets as organizers, protesters, and community builders dedicated to making real progress.

Ruben E. Reyes Jr. 19, a Crimson Editorial Chair, is a History and Literature concentrator in Leverett House. His column appears on Mondays.

PROF. HART A CANDIDATE

Professor Albert Bushnell Hart '80, of the department of Government, was nominated for the Massachusetts Senate on the Progressive ticket

Progressive Rally Tonight

A meeting of New England Progressives will be held in Tremont Temple this evening at 8 o'clock. Charles Sumner 'Bird

SUFFRAGE TALK IN EMERSON

Miss Helen Todd, of San Francisco, will lecture ion Emerson D this evening at 8 o'clock. She will speak under

On the Shelf

The current issue of the Harvard Progressive is by all odds the best of the three thus far published. Pessimists

Recap: You Get What You Need Devastating and Magnificent

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Performative Progressives | Opinion | The Harvard Crimson - Harvard Crimson

The pro-EU march from Hyde Park to Westminster in London on March 25, 2017, to mark 60 years since the EU's founding agreement, the Treaty of Rome. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.Voter revolt against the mainstream political agenda characterised both the referendum on UK membership of the European Union and the unexpected collapse of the Conservative governments majority in the UK's 8th June general election. These two directly linked electoral events have transformed British politics as well as unsettling conventional political wisdom on the continent.

The defeat of the Brexit referendum creates the possibility of achieving the dream of much of the UK corporate sector.

For the UK right, Brexit brought mixed consequences: positively, for them, the defeat of the referendum creates the possibility of achieving the dream of much of the UK corporate sector to escape the employment, environmental and civil protections institutionalised in the EU treaties. Exiting the European Union offers the only way for a Conservative government to negate these rights without violating EU treaties. On the negative side, the loss of a Conservative majority in the Commons leaves the Tory right without the power to realise its deregulatory dream.

In both major national parties, the centrists suffered unmitigated disaster as a result of the referendum outcome. These centrists strongly supported remaining in the European Union. With equal fervour, the Labour centrists the so-called Blairites opposed Jeremy Corbyn and the radical change he seeks for the Labour Party and the country.

On 23 June 2016, those Labour centrists complacently assumed victory for the Remain campaign and looked forward to undermining the party leader and provoking his resignation. One year later, Brexit seems irreversible and the social democrat they sought to undermine holds increasingly firm control of the party the party that the centrists thought was theirs by natural right.

With no political home and the tide running against them, some of their prominent spokespersons have descended into despair. For example, Nick Cohen advises his Guardian readers to leave politics, and Polly Toynbee laments the bribing of voters by Labour in the 8 June election. For the stalwarts of the status quo, the events following 23 June have brought a catastrophe of historic proportions. No obvious way presents itself to reconstruct the antediluvian neoliberal order that served them so well.

For the stalwarts of the status quo, the events following 23 June have brought a catastrophe of historic proportions.

In June 2016, progressives who were deeply discontent with the political status quo in Britain voted overwhelmingly to remain in the European Union. This disparate group of left-of-centre voters included Labour Party members, Scottish National Party supporters, Greens and people not in parties who endorsed the dream of a unified Europe. Most of these progressives, myself included, felt unease casting our votes alongside the status quo-ers.

Remain lost because the Leavers constructed a slightly larger (though temporary) coalition of nationalists: a few progressives repelled by EU policies such as those involving Greece, and a very large number of people without fixed affiliation disgusted with austerity and its effect on them.

Most on the left voted Remain, as I did, well aware of the failings of the European Union. These failings include undemocratic governance, neoliberal economic policies chiselled into the treaties and political dominance by the largest member (discussed in Remain for Change).

However, pro-EU progressives will find it hard to deny that the referendum result we fought to prevent has led to events beyond our most optimistic hopes, with the fall of the Cameron government and stunning success of the Labour Party in the 2017 general election. I deeply regret leaving the EuropeanUnion, but must accept that the probability is great that the June 2016 referendum will in due course result in a UK government committed to social democracy, not neoliberalism.

The painful truth is that the vast majority of British households will be better off out of the European Union with a Labour government led by Jeremy Corbyn than in the European Union under the yoke of a Conservative government led by anyone. Had the referendum I supported passed even by the narrowest majority, David Cameron would still reside in 10 Downing Street with no election until 2020. The right wing of the Labour party would still pose a constant threat to the progressive leader. At the very least we should temper our Brexit regret.

It has been very long time since the Law of Unintended Consequences rewarded us at all, much less so spectacularly.

Had the referendum I supported passed even by the narrowest majority, David Cameron would still reside in 10 Downing Street with no election until 2020.

Legally and politically, Brexit means ending UK membership in the European Union and clarifying non-member association, which many countries have in various forms. Assessment of the progressive path forwards first requires consideration of the positive and negative balance of membership from a social democratic perspective.

For those favouring a Britain based on the principles of universal provision of social services funded by progressive taxation, the effect of full EU membership was mixed, and on balance negative. This balance results from EU treaty changes since UK accession in 1973, with each more neoliberal than the previous. Two treaties consolidated these neoliberal changes, one on European Union and the other on the Functioning of the European Union. Both place constraints on national governments that severely limit the scope for social democratic policies.

The most obvious constraint is on fiscal policy. The Maastricht Treaty of 1992 established an excessive deficit procedure, supplemented in 2012 by a further treaty frequently called the fiscal pact. The later treaty arbitrarily and with no technical justification limits the permitted size of national fiscal deficits. More serious, the fiscal pact gives unelected officials in the European Commission the authority to overrule democratic decisions by national governments.

However, since Maastricht, UK governments, like Denmark, have had an exemption to the treaty requirement to adopt the Euro, and also from the enforcement powers of the excessive deficit procedure (now set out in Protocol 15 to the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU). In place of a comment to the deficit rules, a 2012 protocol vaguely pledges thatThe United Kingdom shall endeavour to avoid an excessive government deficit. In addition, the Cameron government refused to sign the fiscal pact.Other clauses on state aid prohibit public subsidies to private businesses (a key instrument of industrial policy), and require that public services be open to private bidding (one of the misnamed four freedoms). The treaties also make nationalisations difficult and perhaps prohibit them (depending on case-by-case interpretation of EU law).

The negative effects of EU economic policies had little impact on UK policy: George Osbornes austerity policy was completely home-grown.

Therefore, many of the budget and public debt rules of the EU treaties either do not apply to the British government or cannot be enforced. As a result, the negative effects of EU economic policies had little impact on UK macroeconomic policy: George Osbornes austerity policy was completely home-grown.

Other EU treaty constraints are potentially binding. Consider the possibility that a general election brings a Labour government, and that that government chooses to remain a member of the European Union (and the other 27 governments concur). In order to implement its manifesto for example public ownership of railroads and developmental support to specific companies the new British government would either have to negotiate additional opt-outs or ignore clauses in the EU treaties, treating them as if they did not apply to Britain.

Achieving additional opt-outs would be time-consuming, with success unlikely, though not impossible. Ignoring the treaty clauses would result in attempts by the European Commission to enforce compliance through the European Court of Justice. Either approach would reinforce yet again the British governments status as an EU Malcontent.

All this discussion leads to an obvious conclusion that might be extremely controversial and certainly unpalatable for most British progressives: for a Labour government, not being a full member of the European Union solves more problems than it creates.

As a fervent supporter of European cooperation and unity, I reach that conclusion with considerable reluctance. But progress does not always come wrapped as we might wish. And a social democratic UK government with or without EU membership is progress.

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No Bregrets: does Brexit hold hope for progressives after all ... - Open Democracy

Freshman Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) has recently become the subject of much speculation about a potential 2020 presidential run. Several major news outlets have run feature-length profiles of Harris, and top Democratic donors are starting to coalesce around her as their preferred candidate to take on President Donald Trump.

But not everyone on the progressive left is feeling Harris-fever, and if the senator wants to win the Democratic presidential primary in three years, shell have to start making inroads with a growing grassroots movement that remains highly skeptical of Harriss progressive bona fides.

Nomiki Konst, a Bernie Sanders supporter who serves on the Democratic National Committees Unity Commission had three words for Democrats interested in Harris as a candidate: Follow the money.

The Democrats will not win until they address income inequality, no matter how they dress up their next candidate, Konst said. If that candidate is in bed with Wall Street, you may as well lay a tombstone out for the Democratic Party now. Voters are smart; they can follow the money.

Konsts skepticism about Harriss alleged ties to Wall Street and insufficient commitment to populist economic issues reflect a broader trend among the residents of Bernieland. In a recent New York Times profile of Harris, another high profile Sanders supporter, executive director of National Nurses United RoseAnn DeMoro dismissed Harriss prospects as a progressive 2020 contender, saying, Shes not on our radar.

Shes one of the people the Democratic party is putting up, DeMoro told the Times. In terms of where the progressives live, I dont think theres any there there.

Sen. Bernie Sanders with RoseAnn DeMoro, executive director of National Nurses United.

Harriss defenders immediately took issue with DeMoros lack of enthusiasm.

When it comes to where progressives live, uh, which ones are she referring to? The white ones? Essence contributor Michael Arceneaux wrote, alluding to the long-standing criticism that the Bernie-wing of the party has failed to make inroads with minority voters. OK, but they dont make the party. See the results of the last primary.

Since coming to Washington, Harris has engendered some progressive support by being a leading voice in the fight against Trumps agenda, earning praise from the left for her aggressive grilling of Trumps cabinet nominees during the confirmation process.

There are reasons for the suspicions about Harriss fealty to big financial interests. Despite opposing the nomination of treasury secretary and former Wall Street titan Steve Mnuchin, in a previous life as California attorney general, Harris was criticized for essentially letting Mnuchins bank off the hook during the foreclosure crisis.

In 2013, prosecutors in her office drafted a memo that claimed they had uncovered evidence suggestive of widespread misconduct at Mnuchins OneWest Bank. According to the Intercepts David Dayen, who first reported the memo, those prosecutors recommended Harris file a civil enforcement action against the bank. Instead, Harris did nothing. Later, it was revealed that Harris was the only 2016 Democratic senate candidate to receive a donation from Mnuchin.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

But as Dayen himself noted in his book Chain of Title, Harris does have a record of standing up for homeowners during her time as California attorney general. Specifically, Harris used her attorney general tenure to push back against the Obama administration during negotiations on a major settlement for homeowners and held out for a better deal.

Still, some progressives fear that big money donors within the Democratic party will have considerable sway over Harris.

She is the preferred candidate of extremely wealthy and out-of-touch Democratic party donors, said Winnie Wong, co-founder of the group People for Bernie, which played a prominent role the grassroots movement behind Sanders in 2016. Her recent anointing is extremely telling. These donors will line her coffers ahead of 2020 and she will have the next two years to craft a message of broad appeal to a rapidly changing electorate.

Still, organizers like Wong have signaled that there is still time for Harris to win over their side of the party in order to present a unified Democratic message in 2020.

If she wants to advance her political career, she will have to come out authentically and honestly in support of universal healthcare, free college, a federal $15 hour minimum wage, criminal justice reform and the expansion of social security programs, Wong said. Anything less than this means the party will continue to bleed voters.

Harris has already come out supporting all four of those policies in one form or another. Whether or not that will be enough for her critics remains to be seen.

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Democratic rising star Kamala Harris has a Bernie Sanders problem - Mic

Doug Halls July 27 Commentary piece (News of R.I.'s demise exaggerated) criticized me and the Rhode Island Center for Freedom & Prosperity, challenging our contention that it is unacceptable that Rhode Island should rank a dismal 45th in the broadest national research ever conducted on family well-being. Mr. Hall incorrectly stated that this index did not include a family income metric. It does.

Progressives like Mr. Hall believe that compassion should be measured by how many people are enrolled in government assistance programs, surviving at some arbitrarily defined meager level of subsistence. Our center believes that a more appropriate measure is how many families remain together, thrive and are empowered to improve their own quality of life via more and better jobs created by more and better companies.

The sad truth is that progressive policies have driven away more than 80,000 Rhode Islanders in recent years, yet pro-poverty advocates want even more progressive policies that seize wealth from those who have earned it and hand it over it to those who they want to be dependent on government.

Progressives can keep living in their land of make-believe, denying the harm of their policies on Ocean State families. Our center is not so naive and will continue to advocate for policies that encourage work and marriage.

Mike Stenhouse

Cranston

The writer is CEO of the Rhode Island Center for Freedom & Prosperity.

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Letter: Mike Stenhouse: Progressives deny the reality of their bad policies - The Providence Journal