NEW HAVEN >> Connecticut progressive organizers say theyre done licking their wounds after the electoral college victory of President Donald Trump, and theyre being joined in the streets in record numbers.
New Haven-based organizer Kica Matos said she believes that on Nov. 8 people around the country awoke from their democratic slumber.
Worries about the Trump administrations policies have created this growing momentum around people feeling this urgency (about) protecting our democracy. A lot of people feel our democracy is under threat, said Matos, director of immigrant rights and racial justice for the Center for Community Change.
People (at rallies) have said to me, Ive never done this before. There is a growing urgency from many people from many walks of life who are speaking out from fear they will lose fundamental freedoms under this administration, said Matos, a longtime activist who has recently rallied in New Haven over Trumps immigration orders as well as the Yale issue over the name of Calhoun College.
Advertisement
Dhrupad Nag, political director for the Connecticut Working Families Party, said he similarly believes people are jarred out of complacency.
Although every progressive activist interviewed for this story agreed that progressive and leftist causes are seeing a burst of interest and energy from middle-class voters who may have previously seen themselves as uninterested in politics, Nag said he believes parallels to the Tea Party Movement, which formed in 2009 as a response to the election of Barack Obama as president, are somewhat superficial.
Im not sure if its exactly the same, Nag said. Were not trying to trade on fear. Were getting people together who are frustrated with the current situation to show them the power is with you.
The Tea Party-driven Taxpayer March on Washington in September 2009 drew approximately 75,000 protesters according to estimates from the Washington, D.C., Fire and Emergency Medical Services, although no official count existed because of a lack of aerial photos. Tea Party activists organized at a local, grassroots level during the eight years of Obamas presidency and are largely credited with defeating then-Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in a primary election in 2014.
In 2017, Republicans hold control of the executive branch and both houses of the legislative branch. If Trumps nominee of Neil Gorsuch, 49, to the Supreme Court of the United States is approved to serve, the judicial branch could be under Republican control for at least a generation as well.
Further, the Associated Press reports that while protests against Trumps presidency have swelled the ranks of Democratic activists, their new enthusiasm faces a hard reality: Republicans remain well-positioned to retain their grip on power in the 2018 elections.
In Connecticut, the GOP has achieved an 18-18 tie for seats in the state Senate after the 2016 election and gained seats to narrow the gap in the state House. The GOP is not letting up on its agenda, including on state spending.
For instance, following Gov. Dannel P. Malloys recent release of his biennial budget package, Senate Republican President Pro Tempore Len Fasano, R-North Haven, said in a release: Governor Malloys budget lacks a clear sense of direction or vision for the state of Connecticut. Once again we see a plan that will balance the budget on the backs of working and middle-class families while shifting problems onto others.
Lets be clear about what this budget includes each year: over $200 million in annual tax increases on low and middle-income families, over $400 million in new property tax burdens, potentially 4,200 state employee layoffs and $570 million in expenses pushed onto our childrens credit card thanks to the governors pension deal. I dont see this budget creating stability. I see it creating chaos.
Yet, the Womens March in Washington, an anti-Trump feminist demonstration, reportedly had an estimated 470,000 people demonstrating on the National Mall, according to the New York Times. Globally, the march is believed to have attracted somewhere between 4 and 5 million marchers.
What were seeing right now is young people are getting involved, and five to 10 years down the line, well have a whole generation of folks running for office who are very progressive and very principled, and I think its a little different than the Tea Party because the xenophobia and racism they traded on is not something we have an interest in, Nag said. Were trying to build a broad, diverse coalition across race, gender, sexuality and gender identity.
Puya Gerami, a graduate student at Yale and a labor organizer in New Haven and one of several activists on an organizing committee in Connecticut for the Democratic Socialists of America, said the Connecticut DSA organizing committee held its first meeting in February and is in the process of forming a local chapter.
Gerami said in an email. A number of vital grassroots campaigns are currently ongoing here in Connecticut from union struggles to LGBTQ advocacy, the defense of immigrant rights to the movement against mass incarceration. All these fights are urgently necessary. Although Connecticut ranks among the wealthiest states in the country, it remains one of the most unequal.
Gerami said, At bottom, we at the DSA are interested in any candidates who are brave enough to promote an end to austerity, not its continuation; to defend marginalized communities, not demonize them; and advance democratic values in all spheres of life, at a time when our country faces such an uncertain future.
Movements and organizations such as the DSA and the Working Families Party, Gerami said, must work from the bottom up.
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who self-identifies as a democratic socialist, won 43.1 percent of the vote in the 2016 Democratic presidential primary against Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, who later lost the White House to Trump. Thousands turned out when Sanders held a rally on the New Haven Green. The New Haven Independent reported the crowd estimate ran as high as 14,000.
Nag said the Connecticut WFP was among the first major organizations to endorse Sanders in his primary efforts.
Carlos Moreno, director of communications for the Connecticut WFP, said the party is boosting an initiative to recruit political candidates to run and support a progressive agenda. He said WFP hosts training sessions for people who would like to run for public office but are unsure how to do so.
One of their success stories is Joshua Elliott, who won the 88th District House seat, replacing former House Speaker Brendan Sharkey following his retirement from that office. Elliott, Moreno said, is a businessman who already understood the ramifications of trickle-down policies on small businesses and supports the WFPs belief that the most beneficial thing for an economy is supporting the pocketbooks of the middle class and giving them money to spend and support locally.
We de-jargonize the process for folks, Moreno said. As part of our training process, we do mock debates; we put folks through a really tough process, a Q&A, getting them answering tough questions and getting them to think about these tough issues in ways that will translate to voters.
Moreno said as long as candidates support policy positions congruous with the WFP, theyll do the training. The amount of time they take is conditional upon the candidate, he said.
Many have been activists for so long that they can jump right in; others might not be as familiar with the inner workings and inner machinery of the political system, he said.
Nag said the WFP is unique because it serves as a political party it will cross-endorse candidates, provided theyve committed to a questionnaire promising to uphold certain progressive values and an advocacy group.
The issues WFP does support, Nag said, are those such as raising the minimum wage, helping undocumented students and procuring fair housing for families.
A lot of these things, whats really nice is they cut across a lot of different groups. It goes back to building a broad coalition of people, Nag said. We dont just want people showing up to minimum wage hearings; we want them showing up to support institutional aid. Were connecting these struggles together, because even if it doesnt directly affect you right now, these are your brothers and sisters, and if youre in trouble theyll be behind you.
Matos said intersectionality in organizing is especially important in this time.
Groups are coalescing, because they understand were all under attack, she said. We are seeing this growing umbrella of a progressive movement that understands our issues are all interconnected.
Although many local activists recognize the need for elected representatives who reflect the needs of the middle class and the most vulnerable populations, some are focused predominantly on combatting community problems.
John Humphries, an organizer for the Connecticut Roundtable on Climate and Jobs, said the roundtable does not focus much on achieving electoral victories, but finding an intersection between labor rights and environmental advocacy is at the core of his work.
The thing I would say is more noticeable and has a greater impact on our work is a greater awareness of the need for solidarity across issues, Humphries said. The Trump administration, in their wide-ranging attacks on lots of progressive issues all at once, has really driven this sense of were in this together, which has always been there, but in some ways its more visible and more urgent.
By uniting labor unions and environmentalists, Humphries said, a proposed Bloomfield water bottling construction project has been kept at bay for claims of being ruinous to the environment and for exploiting labor by potentially outsourcing jobs.
It still remains to be seen how well we can harness the energy that was produced by the Womens March, Humphries said, although he would like to apply it to procuring upgrades to state buildings to make them more energy efficient, saving on energy bills, minimizing harm to the environment and creating jobs.
John Lugo, an immigration and labor rights organizer with Unidad Latina en Accin, said his advocacy does not ordinarily focus around supporting individual electoral victories, but Connecticuts population of undocumented immigrants can use their voices to lean on politicians.
We saw under the Obama administration (that) he deported more than 2 million people, and what Trump is doing right now, hes inheriting this deportation machine. Trump is just taking over the machine and making it more sophisticated, Lugo said.
Where the citys undocumented population does have a bargaining chip, Lugo believes, is those who have grown up in the country and reached adulthood.
We can use that as a narrative to negotiate with the political machine, Lugo said. Well see in elections in the future that well need to be really critical to see who is really on the side of the people, and not on the side of corporations.
Michael Mandell, executive director of the Connecticut Democratic Party, said the top priority for the party is making sure Republicans are held accountable.
For a long time, Connecticut was a haven for moderate politics, and were seeing here in Hartford that the Connecticut Republican Party leadership are bringing the Trump agenda from D.C. to Connecticut, he said. How many comments have we seen from the leaders in the legislature on the Muslim ban? We are not hearing them offer any resistance.
He said the amount of engagement from Connecticut residents at airports in the wake of Trumps executive order on immigration and the number of calls being registered at elected officials offices should reflect that residents are holding their representatives accountable.
Presidential elections have to do with turnout. Thats what people come out for, so well make sure were working hard in 2018 and 2020 to bring people out, Mandell said.
As to whether there are any flaws in the Democratic agenda, Mandell said the party has been on the right side of the issues, from gun control, paid sick days, affordable health care and the environment.
We always have to do a better job of communicating. Each election, you learn something new about how you communicate, and you learn new ways of communicating and new ways of getting the message out, he said. We need to make sure we show how it impacts peoples lives, and show what Democrats are working for and how it impacts peoples lives. Were not skipping a beat and were not going to wallow or wait for the next election.
Whether progressive and leftist organizers move forward with the Democratic institution, however, remains to be seen.
The Democratic Party is not a monolithic or unchanging institution; currently, its caught in a moment of internal flux, and that process is evident in Connecticut, too, Gerami said.
Although Middletown Mayor Dan Drew, a protege of Malloy, has announced he is exploring a run for governor in 2018 and would like to see us being more economically progressive than the state is under Malloy, no gubernatorial candidates are on the nascent Connecticut DSA Organizing Committees radar.
We are not aware of any gubernatorial candidates who plan to run on a left agenda in next years Democratic primary, Gerami said.
View post:
Connecticut progressives using post-election energy to mobilize - New Haven Register