Mediaboss Marketing

Biaggis reply was typical of an operating style in which every communication was expected to take immediate priority, according to Evans, who left the office in February 2021 after two years when, she said, her doctor told her the stress was damaging her physical health. She and a half dozen other former staffers who spoke to POLITICO described Biaggi as a boss with few boundaries and all-hours demands that resulted in rapid turnover through her office and campaign team.

That management style is drawing sharper scrutiny as Biaggi one of the highest profile progressives in New York politics runs in a competitive Hudson Valley House primary Aug. 23 against a leading establishment Democrat: Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

The race, one of the most closely watched primaries in the nation, has fueled attacks by Biaggi and leading progressives that Maloney funded conservative Republicans nationwide in primaries as a DCCC political strategy and criticism by Maloney that Biaggi is out of touch with the swing district that he represented a portion of for five terms.

Maloney, too, is fielding complaints about his treatment of staff. Last month, a former congressional aide who Maloneys campaign paid to move from Miami to New York in 2014 when he was hired as an executive assistant told the New York Post that his role became that of a body man for Maloney during the more than four years he worked for the congressman.

The race will test whether progressives like Biaggi, who has been endorsed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, can knock off an establishment Democratic incumbent in 2022 and perhaps join The Squad, the AOC-backed progressive delegation in Congress. Biaggi, the granddaughter of late Bronx Rep. Mario Biaggi, has done it before: In 2018, she beat state Senate Democratic powerhouse Jeff Klein with a fraction of his campaign cash in one the most expensive Democratic primary fights in New York history.

But she has a record now, and in Albany, questions over Biaggis workplace environment are striking in juxtaposition to her defining rhetoric: As chairperson of the Senate Ethics committee, Biaggi and her young, progressive colleagues are challenging and changing the old, toxic ways of operating at the state Capitol, which has been marred by decades of scandal and sexual harassment cases.

Democrat Alessandra Biaggi offers her email to a resident at an affordable housing complex in Peekskill where she canvassed July 16 for her congressional run against incumbent Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney.|Anna Gronewold/POLITICO

On the campaign trail, Biaggi is warm and effusive.

Its her favorite part, she said several times during a July morning door-knocking session at a public housing complex in Peekskill in Westchester County. Meeting voters, telling them how shes fought for their rights and how shes ready to do it again in Congress.

Its kind of an issue; I could talk to this plant, she jokes, gesturing to the landscaping. Im just so curious about people. And I actually would, like, harm my own self to fight against people who are cruel to others.

Part of that comes from spending her entire life around prolific New York politicians, including her grandfather, who was a Democratic kingpin in the Bronx and served in Congress for 20 years. She served as counsel in the administration of former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, but later left and became one of his chief critics.

At the Peekskill complex, Biaggi has a long list of registered Democrats to pitch, but she is waylaid at the first door she comes to. She is invited into the home of a woman who is plagued by fears of eviction, rent increases and a retaliatory building manager. Biaggi perches on the couch, shaking her head, pursing her lips, gasping in rage and offering her personal email and Fordham Law legal expertise to find solutions.

Its the kind of in-person empathy also projected by Ocasio-Cortez and the Working Families Party, which also has endorsed Biaggis congressional run.

In 2018, Biaggis victory over Klein helped Democrats regain control of the Senate for the first time in decades. Klein led a small group of Democrats, called the Independent Democratic Conference, who often voted with Republicans and effectively blocking a laundry list of Democratic legislation from becoming law.

Biaggi became a prominent force for change in Albany. The Democratic-led Legislature has since blown through a backlog of progressive bills, including new protections for tenants. She also helped lead the charge to fight sexual harassment in Albany, successfully pushing to hold the first hearings on the issue in 27 years and to pass an omnibus package with new protections for victims.

Soon, 30 minutes passed in the same womans living room, and as she makes an exit, Biaggi finds herself sitting on a patio with a man whos lived at the complex for decades. A group of curious neighbors begins to gather. Biaggi is suddenly up on her feet, talking with her whole body.

First her arms are fully outstretched, then shes slapping one hand with the back of another, in a retelling of the injustices she witnessed during a tour of Rikers Island last year. She parallels it to the way the residents tell her they have been treated by the housing directors their flowers and recreational spaces have been bulldozed, a planned power cut is scheduled to take place during the heatwave. She uses the words cruel and unacceptable a lot.

Oh, I like her, one of the residents whispers to Tina Volz-Bongar, a Democratic Party district leader who is backing Biaggi. She then turns to Biaggi. Youve got my vote, but what are you, like 10 years old? she asks.

Biaggi laughs. She is 36. Her Italian grandmother told her to smear Vaseline on her face at night, she said. It preserves her youth. The crowd laughs and heads nod. Biaggis campaign staffers finish canvassing the rest of the multi-building complex without her.

New York Sen. Alessandra Biaggi, D-Bronx, celebrates after her legislation to change state legal standards on sexual harassment to help victims prove harassment cases as members discuss the Bill in the Senate Chamber at the state Capitol Wednesday, June 19, 2019, in Albany, N.Y. (AP Photo/Hans Pennink)|AP Photo

Biaggi, who lives in North Castle in Westchester, a suburban county north of New York City, didnt mean to make ousting white, male, establishment incumbents her brand, she said later, but it somehow stuck. In the Senate, she quickly became a thorn in the side of Cuomo and his staff, and she was rumored to be considering challenging him in a primary long before his fall from grace. She was never actually going to do that, she says now.

I did not want to run for governor, Ill be very clear, she said. But I was happy that he thought I did because it kept him on his toes. And it allowed me to have a platform to speak to people about what he was up to and people listened and that was so important.

Her latest fight was also unplanned after New Yorks bungled redistricting process produced a new set of maps at the last minute, Biaggi dropped the Long Island-based congressional seat she initially planned to chase.

Instead, she announced she would challenge Maloney, partly as punishment for his strong-arming freshman colleague Rep. Mondaire Jones out of his Hudson Valley district, forcing him to run in the hotly contested 10th District in Brooklyn.

I think we all want to see people actually take risks on behalf of people, instead of themselves. That, to me, is how we actually get a different world, she said.

The dream of that world is why many of Biaggis former staffers initially signed up.

Evans, now 31, says when she joined the team shortly after Biaggi took office in 2019, the energy was palpable. Evans worked on legislation creating workforce protections and anti-harassment measures. The shine of those historic moments quickly wore off.

She was doing the same shit she criticized, behind her own closed doors, Evans said. And I honestly think thats the most disappointing thing and really very dangerous. Shes so good at outwardly projecting, but where were these protections for her own staff?

Evans and the other staffers said in interviews that they were expected to field calls and texts from Biaggi at all hours of the night, regardless of the level of urgency. There was a disconnect between the events and photo opportunities Biaggi sought out and her understanding of the work it took to accomplish things she was talking about, said three staffers who worked in her Bronx district. Two described becoming physically ill with anxiety about the constant alertness she demanded on nights, weekends and holidays.

Part of the stress was the confusion of a double standard: when Biaggi wanted space during a vacation in April 2019, she sent a Slack message to her team, which had been requesting her sign-off for legislative business.

@here GM - unless something is literally on fire and you need extra water, do not email/text/call me. It is v frustrating that my phone is going off every 5-10 minutes it is not okay for everyone to expect that I am readily available at the drop of a hat on my time off, when that is not reciprocated during regular business days, the message shown to POLITICO said.

Evans counted at least 16 departures from Biaggis government office which would typically employ about 10 individuals at a time during her time there between 2019 and 2021. That did not include any from the campaign team.

She and the other former staffers acknowledged turnover is not uncommon for a new office during a tumultuous time in the state and nation. But they each had worked in other offices throughout New York politics for demanding bosses, both male and female, and said Biaggi was different.

They each independently expressed that the hypocrisy was the hardest part her public comments about championing positive workplaces, boundaries, equal protections and mental health didnt apply to her own staff. Evans, for example, said that during the first few months of 2021 she was told to reschedule her own mid-morning, bi-weekly therapy sessions which she was allowed during the rest of the year so she could have a clear calendar for the all-consuming budget season.

Yeah, working there sucked all around, said one former senior staff member who, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity to candidly discuss their former employer.

Whatever youve heard, I promise its true, and you probably havent heard the worst of it, said another.

We were all terrified of her. I hate to give her that power, but you can work hard to get what you want, and still not talk down to people like that, Evans said.

By the time Biaggi was making the national media rounds in 2021, bashing Cuomo for the cruel and demeaning workplace hed cultivated, they couldnt help but notice some similarities when it came to downtrodden staff in their own office, they said.

Its ironic the way she talked about Cuomos toxic work environment, she could have been talking about her own office, they said. It was all about serving her, making her look good, not about serving the public.

When asked about the specific criticisms from the former staffers, Biaggi vowed to take feedback from her team about how she can be a better manager, and said she could never do my job without my team who work incredibly hard to live up to the needs of our constituents, she said in a statement.

The relentless demand of the work we do day in and day out has only been exacerbated by the pandemic but I wouldnt want to do any other work. I love the team we have built and will always value and take seriously all feedback from each member. It makes us stronger and better at what we do everyday, including myself.

Her reputation in the state Capitol is also mixed: Shes known to largely reject meetings with lobbyists and sometimes spurn opportunities for compromise required in a legislative body.

Her friends like Brooklyn Democrat Sen. Julia Salazar use words like passionate and fierce. Salazar said she wasnt aware of any widespread complaints about Biaggi as a boss or colleague.

I really admire her as someone whos able to, on the one hand, be forceful and try to shape the agenda of the conference, while also having respect for her colleagues, Salazar said. I think it can be a delicate balance, but shes done it really well.

Others even some of her allies said her interpersonal style is divisive but also had a positive impact on the state Senates Democratic Conference.

Alessandra came into the Senate as an outsider and has relished that reputation since her election, said one Democratic senator who did not want be named to avoid taking sides in the high-profile primary. A small handful of colleagues may characterize that sort of approach as not being able to play well in the sandbox most colleagues and I appreciate her conviction and tenacity.

Regardless, Biaggi will not be headed back to the state Senate next year. Shes endorsed Assemblymember Nathalia Fernandez to replace her. That was over another candidate, Christian Amato, a strategist and community organizer who was fired from Biaggis staff in 2019. Amato, when reached for comment, did not discuss the details of his departure, but said he was not surprised Biaggi backed Fernandez.

Our communities that make up the new 34th district are communities that have historically been overlooked overlooked by their representatives, you know, in a grander sense, by New York City, by the county, when we talk about resiliency or transportation issues, he said. So I think that two candidates who are so focused on keeping higher office and not focused on actually improving the material needs of their constituents in their community its really telling that they would come together.

Sean Patrick Maloney isnt too popular with some of his colleagues right now because of concerns about his DCCC leadership, and he also has recently fielded a complaint about his treatment of staff.|AP

Its unclear how Biaggis public or private personas might play with voters who may not even know theres a primary in late August as summer winds down.

She and her brand of progressive politics face a different landscape than the one that brought her into power in 2018 and also helped Ocasio-Cortez unseat Rep. Joe Crowley that same year. The progressives who made promises four years ago with the fuel of an anti-Trump fervor are now challenged to prove that they were more than social media lip service. But theyre also being watched to see if theyve been absorbed by the systems they vowed to upend.

In New York, voters have embraced more moderate Democrats in recent elections driven by fears for public safety and an uncertain economy. And far-left candidates were largely beaten back at the polls in New Yorks June primaries for governor and the state Assembly.

I think that people would agree Senators Biaggi, Salazar, (Jessica) Ramos and everyone who knocked out the IDC (the Independent Democratic Conference) were correct in step with where New Yorkers were, Jon Reinish, a Democratic strategist at Mercury Public Affairs, said.

But its not 2018, the state environment has changed, and people are feeling theres a backlash to who we are as New Yorkers and theres a doubt that sending another squad member to Congress would be helpful.

Biaggi has never represented any part of the newly drawn Hudson Valley district. Its geography leans a moderate blue, but could elect a Republican in the unpredictability of this years midterm. It also includes a large and politically active Jewish voting bloc.

Both candidates have announced publicly they support Israel, but the districts Jewish community which could drive significant turnout is cautious because they have viewed many of Biaggis allies, like AOC, as hostile.

The primary winner will face the victor of the Republican primary, where Assemblymember Mike Lawler is on track to prevail by way of strong fundraising and local endorsements. Some polling suggests slim margins in a hypothetical race between Maloney and Lawler.

Maloney isnt too popular with some of his colleagues right now because of concerns about his DCCC leadership, and he also has recently fielded a complaint about his treatment of staff.

Harold Leath regularly spent time with Maloney and his family outside of work, accompanied him everywhere he went in the district, and told the New York Post my main responsibility was to make sure the congressman and his family never needed anything.

A former chairwoman of the Dutchess County Democratic Party who is backing Biaggi has filed a complaint with the Office of Congressional Ethics and asked for an investigation. The Maloney campaign and office have denied any ethical or financial wrongdoing and said any investigation will prove that.

Still, internal polling from both his and Biaggis campaigns shows him with double digits leads. He has significantly more cash on hand and support from more than 75 current and former Democratic officials, labor unions, local committees and other interest groups. On Wednesday, former President Bill Clinton endorsed him. (The district includes the Clintons Westchester County home of Chappaqua.)

On Saturday, he received the endorsement of the New York Times.

A low-turnout primary could cut both ways: Maloney could be carried by name recognition and mobilization from top Democratic leaders; Biaggis could be buoyed by her grassroots efforts. Thats Biaggis goal: Getting communities out to vote by pointing to the things her opponent hasnt done in Washington amid the turbulent times.

Ive got to remind voters: Im frustrated too, she said. Im a young person watching all of these things happen. And Im like, what are you guys doing? Like, can you have some urgency with what were fighting for? The fact that they dont feel the urgency to me is a disqualification.

Maloneys campaign says that characterization is desperate attacks from a flailing campaign and pointed to Maloneys House leadership team role in passing the first major gun safety reform package in decades, as well as the massive climate, tax and healthcare package making its way through Congress this month.

Biaggi is losing by double digits in her own internal polls because she is running a campaign based on smearing Rep. Maloney instead of making any positive case for herself, spokesperson Mia Ehrenberg said,. Thats why she has yet to receive a single endorsement from a local elected official, union or Democratic committee.

The rest is here:
Biaggi wants to defeat the DCCC boss in New York. Her ex-staff has a story to tell. - POLITICO

This month, progressives eked out a narrow yet significant victory. In Pennsylvania's 12th congressional district, in the Pittsburgh area, state Rep. Summer Lee overcame almost $4 million in spending from conservative and moderate super PACs to defeat her opponent, Steve Irwin, by just a few hundred votes.

Lee and her allies were quick to credit grassroots organizing for her victory.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted: "People over money. You absolutely love to see it."

My former boss, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, chimed in: "When you fight from the heart and build a grassroots movement, you can win."

RELATED:Possible Sinema challenger surges, as she promises big donors she'll protect their tax breaks

It's an inspiring narrative, especially for progressive candidates across the country who are facinghistorically unprecedented levels of super PAC spending on behalf of their moderate or centrist opponents. But it's easy to overlook an important fact: Lee received almost $2 million of independent expenditure support herself.

To be clear, Lee was still outspent significantly by pro-Israel super PACs and Irwin's campaign. But between her own campaign operation and outside support from Justice Democrats, the Working Families Party and others, voters likely saw almost $3 million worth of ads and mailers supporting Lee's candidacy.

Lee's progressive platform is broadly popular, and she ran a robust field program. But in the end she won by an exceedingly narrow margin, so it seems clear that every penny of that nearly $3 million was necessary to deliver a victory.

The progressive movement needs more people like Summer Lee in Congress. And it's clearer than ever that if we want to achieve this goal, we must organize money as much as we prioritize organizing people.

Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.

I worked for Mondaire Jones in New York, who was outspent two to one by a Big Pharma billionaire and still won and I just managed the campaign of Nida Allam in North Carolina, who was outspent close to four to one by Super PACs, and lost. I believe in the power of organizing, and that's the most important long-term work we must do to grow our movement. But even the best organizing can overcome only so much spending.

I took a look at key House winners endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders and Justice Democrats over the past six years. With very few exceptions, notably Ocasio-Cortez's ground-shaking upset victory in 2018, progressives can overcome about a two-to-one ratio of opposition spending, but not much more. In many cases, progressives have actually outspent their opponents to win.

In 2018, Rashida Tlaib significantly outspent her opponent, Ilhan Omar raised about the same amount as her opponent and Ayanna Pressley, running against an entrenched Democratic incumbent, was outspent by just over two to one. In three victories by progressive challengers over Democratic incumbents in 2020, Marie Newman outspent Dan Lipinski in Illinois, Cori Bush outspent Lacy Clay in Missouri, and Jamaal Bowman was outspent less than two to one by a powerful New York incumbent after receiving almost $2 million of supportive outside spending. Mondaire Jones' campaign for an open House seat north of New York City, for which I led the organizing program, was outspent by slightly more than two to one, but still spent over $2 million overall, including outside support. This year in Texas, victorious progressive Greg Casar vastly outspent his opponent.

Then there is the other side of the ledger: When progressives lose. On Nida Allam's campaign in North Carolina this year, we vastly out-organized our opponents, knocking on more doors and making more calls than any other campaign, by far. We were also supported by a $200,000 canvassing independent expenditure, and were endorsed by Sanders, Warren, the Working Families Party and the Sunrise Movement. But we got outspent almost 10 to one on mail, TV and digital advertising by super PACs. It was a similar story for progressive Erica Smith in North Carolina's 1st district, who was outspent almost six to one and lost, as well as for many other defeated progressives this year and previously.

As the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC and other billionaire-backed super PACs gear up to spend millions in individual Democratic primaries, progressive organizations like Justice Democrats, which recently said it was being"outgunned" by big-money interests, and leaders like Sanders,who recently declared "war" on AIPAC, must confront an uncomfortable truth: We must organize money, not just people, in order to win.

Progressives can replicate Summer Lee's victory, in many more places across the country. In fact, we can expand our margins of victory. But we must approach campaign finance with the same determined and innovative approach we have toward grassroots field organizing.

Read more on the progressive movement and the Democrats:

The rest is here:
To keep winning, progressives must do more than grassroots organizing ...

Two antitrust bills that have attracted support from conservatives in Washington DC on the grounds of bipartisan efforts to curb the power of Big Tech are now being defended by progressives on the grounds that they will make the censorship of tech platforms easier.

Free speech activists on the Right are divided over the American Choice and Innovation Online Act and the Open App Marketplace Act.The ACIOA limits when Big Tech platforms can discriminate in favor of their own products against other business users, and the Open App Markets Act limits app hosting platforms (in practice, Google, Apple, and to a lesser extent Microsoft), from favoring their own apps or forcing other apps to use their app stores.

Sundar Pichai CEO of Google ( Carsten Koall /Getty)

(Photo by Hannibal Hanschke-Pool/Getty Images)

An analysis by the far left Center for American Progress, Evaluating 2 Tech Antitrust Bills To Restore Competition Online, endorsed both laws on the grounds that they will increase censorship. This heightens concerns that the two bills loopholes for safety and security will be used to enable censorship.

As Breitbart previously reported, the bills appear to make it harder for Google and Apple to discriminate against free speech apps such as Parler, Gab, Rumble, Truth Social, or potentially a Elon Musk-owned Twitter. When the Musk deal appeared to be on course, far-left Black Lives Matter activist Shaun King tweeted that Apple and Google would remove a free speech-friendly Twitter from their app stores.

I am told this morning that Apple and Google will remove Twitter from the App Store if it does not moderate and remove hate speech under @ElonMusk, said King. This isnt a new policy, but a commitment already made. Amazon Web Services has the same commitment. So theres that.

It can be difficult to know whos telling the truth since corporate lobbyists with a vested interest against Big Tech have a habit of playing both sides in D.C., telling Republicans that their preferred tech regulation bills will fix censorship, while simultaneously telling Democrats that the bills will curb misinformation.

Some conservatives have endorsed the laws, claiming that this will punish the companies for censorship because these monopolies dont just distort the market, they distort the free exchange of ideas. On the flip side, as Breitbart Newsreported,other populist conservatives expressed concerns that the exemptions for privacy and security would make the law impotent.

Attorney Noah Peters, who represented both Meghan Murphy against Twitter and whistleblower Kevin Cernekee against Google, noted: we can readily foresee how Big Tech companies will interpret this language. Virtually every Big Tech platform has a trust and safety or safety section in their Terms of Service, including rules against so-called hate speech, extremism, and misinformation.

The Center for American Progress report appears to elevate these concerns. It was authored by the Centers technology director Erin Simpson and Facebooks former top lobbyist Adam Conner, who both repeatedly criticize big tech for not censoring enough, even calling for the government to step in andcreate best practices for censorship.

The pair wholeheartedly endorse the bills on the grounds that it will encourage much-needed improvements in content moderation practices and technologies. It quotes the General Counsel for Yelp Aaron Schurr, who claimsACIOA will not prevent censorship because the bill was written so it would not hinder Big Techs censorship to prevent hate speech or stop vaccine disinformation as discriminatory behavior under the bill.

Conner and Simpson cite the safety and security exception to explain how it would give a big tech platform immunity to censor Alex Jones because of his alleged long history attacking victims of a school shooting and spreading false cures for COVID-19, among other outrages, these actions should fall squarely in the category of YouTubes ability to take action to protect the safety or security of its users.

They also argue that the exemption may cover brand safety, because big tech platforms are primarily funded by advertising and have heavily touted their efforts around brand safety to their advertisers, marketing it as a core feature of their advertising products.

Brand Safety is a code-word which left-wing radicals such as Sleeping Giants have used to justify boycotts of Breitbart News, Tucker Carlson, and other conservatives.

Considerable momentum has been built up on the right to tame Big Tech, in large part due to the reporting of Breitbart News, which has covered Big Tech censorship since its earliest beginnings in 2015. That has led to red states passing laws that would genuinely curb the power of platforms like Twitter and Facebook to censor, such as the one passed in Texas.

In Washington DC, however, there is a danger that the momentum against Big Tech on the right could be co-opted by corporate lobbyists like Yelps, who have little interest in addressing the censorship question, and will back bills with loopholes that specifically allow it, so long as it pleases Democrats who hold the majority.

Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News.He is the author of#DELETED: Big Techs Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election.Follow him onTwitter @LibertarianBlue.

Originally posted here:
Progressives Praise Big Tech Antitrust Bills for Their Potential to ...

Businessman David Blair at a news conference on Montgomery County ballot initiatives in 2020. Photo by Glynis Kazanjian.

Coming soon to the mailboxes of Democratic voters in Montgomery County if they havent landed already: slick mailers from a group calling itself Progressives for Progress, urging votes for a slate of candidates for county executive and county council.

But dont be fooled by that name: This is no band of wild-eyed radicals. Progressives for Progress is a new political action committee created and funded completely by real estate developers and other real estate interests that are agitating for significant change in the direction of the county.

We are losing ground in the region and we need to make progress, said Charles Nulsen III, president of Washington Realty Company, a Bethesda-based commercial and residential real estate firm. Nulsen is the chairman of the PAC.

Every election cycle, business leaders, developers and other real estate companies try to influence the outcome of Montgomery County elections usually with mixed success. This year, the PAC has raised over half a million dollars, which it is using for mailers and billboards, and it may branch out into other media before the July 19 primaries roll around.

We are continuing to do mailers and we will be looking for other ways to communicate with voters, Nulsen said.

The list of candidates the PAC has endorsed will not surprise anyone who follows Montgomery County politics closely. It aligns fairly neatly, though not precisely, with the candidates who are being supported by business groups and who were endorsed last weekend by The Washington Post. One mailer refers to its endorsed candidates as real Democrats.

Progressives for Progress has endorsed wealthy businessman David Blair for county executive, and incumbent Councilmembers Gabe Albornoz, Evan Glass and Tom Hucker for at-large seats, along with newcomer Scott Goldberg, who runs a real estate management business. For district races, the PAC has endorsed Councilmembers Andrew Friedson and Sidney Katz for reelection, along with Gaithersburg-Germantown Chamber of Commerce President Marilyn Balcombe, nonprofit leader Amy Ginsburg, Brian Anleu, chief of staff to the Montgomery County Planning Board, former Planning Board Vice Chair Natali Fani-Gonzalez, and Assistant State Attorney General Dawn Luedtke.

Blair four years ago wound up losing the Democratic primary for county executive to the current incumbent, Marc Elrich, by just 77 votes. Big business groups once again have a lot riding on the Blair campaign.

Nulsen said a core group of PAC members vetted and interviewed several candidates for each of the offices.

One of the incumbent council members who was not endorsed by the PAC, first termer Will Jawando (D), called the groups name disingenuous.

Its doing exactly what it was intended to do, which is to confuse voters, said Jawando, who won a grudging endorsement from the Post. Its an example of a moneyed interest wanting a particular outcome. At a bare minimum, people should know what money and interest is influencing this.

Nulsen, who has contributed to national Republicans as often as he has given to national and local Democrats, according to opensecrets.org, a website that tracks money in politics, defended the PACs name.

It is a statement that we feel the liberal, progressive wing of the [Democratic] party is not for anything, he said. Were the progressive part of the party thats interested in making progress.

Since it started this spring, Progressives for Progress has raised $527,500, according to campaign finance reports. The contributions came from 40 development companies and other real estate entities, or individuals associated with these firms, in donations that ranged from $500 to $50,000.

As of earlier this month, the PAC had spent $175,225 on mailers, $65,099 for billboards and yard signs, and $37,800 on polling. It still had $249,875 on hand earlier this month.

One thing thats notable about the list of the PACs favored contenders is that it does not feature a single Black candidate, in a county where about 20% of the population is Black. The current nine-seat council has two African American members; the council is adding two more seats in the upcoming election.

Nulsen said the leadership of the group is color blind and was simply looking for the candidates who can improve the countys business climate.

Any resemblance between this political action committee and a 501c4 education entity known as Empower Montgomery, which was set up by business leaders to influence the 2018 elections, is hardly coincidental. The leadership team is roughly the same. Steve Silverman, a former county councilmember who is now a lobbyist, is advising Progressives for Progress, just as he worked with Empower Montgomery.

Four years ago, a Democratic and union activist in Montgomery County, Brian Kildee, filed a complaint against Empower Montgomery with the Maryland State Board of Elections, accusing the entity of illegal coordination with the Blair campaign. Kildee noted that Blair had signed his name to a letter to voters identifying himself as a cofounder of Empower Montgomery, and suggested that Empower Montgomery had misstated its mission in its organization papers. The state board never ruled on the complaint, and Blair has insisted that he was not a founder of the group, though he acknowledged donating money in 2017.

Elrich has long been an anathema to the real estate development community, and the PACs endorsement of Blair, along with the Posts endorsement of the former health care executive, is hardly a surprise. But the Posts assessment of Elrich in its Blair endorsement was unusually harsh, which cheered Nulsen and his PAC supporters.

The Post said Elrich has has mismanaged [the countys] $6 billion budget and workforce, subverted its prospects of attracting jobs and prosperity, pandered to his narrow political base, and set the county up for failure.

Elrich supporters were stunned that the editorial did not at least mention the executives stewardship during the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, when public health restrictions were more stringent than just about anyplace else in Maryland.

Whether that editorial backfires and motivates Elrichs supporters is an open question. But FAIR, a progressive national media watchdog, recently published a piece about the Posts editorializing against Elrich with such vehemence, describing him as the countrys third-most powerful democratic socialist, behind only Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Despite the Posts efforts, Elrich narrowly won the county executive seat in 2018, FAIR wrote. And now hes standing for reelection, with a good shot at winning.

Thats an outcome the Post is determined to prevent, lest Elrich set a dangerous example: that a lefty can not only win, but govern so effectively that voters return him to office.

For the Post a paper owned by the third-richest human alive, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos scaremongering about lefties is job one. On a national level, thats led to the Posts hysterical coverage of Bernie Sanders. On a local level, its led to the papers attacks on Elrich.

But the Posts attacks on Elrich and his allies in Montgomery County politics pre-date Bezos ownership of the paper. So now he has a progressive national website defending him while a faux progressive local group seeks to defeat him.

Disclosure: The Blair Family Foundation was a financial supporter of Maryland Matters in 2020.

More here:
'Progressive' PAC in Montgomery County Is Really a Bunch of Developers - Josh Kurtz

Douglass remained optimistic about the future despite the reality that in 1852, the overwhelming majority of Black Americans were enslaved. President Barack Obama gave a speech on June 30, 2008, called The America We Love.It wasn't about the meaning of America for Black people as a community, but what our country meant to him as an individual. Colbert I. King of The Washington Post compared Obama's remarks with those of Douglass. King noted that Obama, even while running for president and having his patriotism questioned, did not whitewash America's history by ignoring its misdeeds. Although as a boy he had expressed a childlike love of our country, his patriotism remained strong even as he learned more about and gained a fuller understanding of our past:

King then neatly summarized the differences between Douglass'and Obama's speeches:

My guess, especially given his hopeful conclusion, is that if Douglass were alive today he would speak about America in a way that resembles Obama's depictionin the body of his public remarks over more than a quarter-centuryin the broadest sense.

Neither would ignore the horrific crimes of the past, nor the way the legacy of those crimes continues to resonate. Neither would shrink from highlighting the continuing, fresh injustices being visited on African Americans. These injustices range from the killings by police officers of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Rayshard Brooks, and, most recently,Patrick Lyoya, along with so many others, to continued discrimination in areas like home-buyingthe primary way households build wealthto those carried out by the Trump administration as well as by local authorities.

Neither Douglass nor Obama would ignore the systemic racism that permeates our institutions. Both would, however, present a nuanced narrativeone full of struggle and loss, yet also one highlighting hope and the gradual progress toward a goal for which we continue to strive. In The Audacity of Hope, Obama asserted that on civil rights "things have gotten better," yet he added that "better isnt good enough." Both of those points are key. (Note: Although this post focuses on the struggle against racism, the horrifically unjust Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade, certainly presents a new set of challenges that intersects with gender, race, and class. On the abortion rights front, things have gotten significantly worse than they were only a couple of weeks ago, although it appears, hopefully, that safe and legal abortions will remain available to a far greater percentage of American women than was the case on the eve of the Roe decision in 1973.)

We face serious, urgent problems today because of the white supremacy and anti-Blackness that still hold sway throughout our society. But to deny that things are better for African Americans in 2022 than they were a century agoduring the depths of Jim Crow, an era when hundreds could be massacred and great wealth destroyed by white rioters and murderers with impunity in Tulsa over a single 24-hour period, to name one out of countless brutally violent examples; or two centuries ago, when millions were in bondageis not only incorrect, it is an insult to the people who fought, bled, and died over the decades in order to make things better.

In June 2020, as Black Lives Matter protesters marched through the streets of our cities and even smaller towns for days on end, the 44th president offered this take as part of a larger post entitled How to Make this Moment the Turning Point for Real Change:

I recognize that these past few months have been hard and dispiriting that the fear, sorrow, uncertainty, and hardship of a pandemic have been compounded by tragic reminders that prejudice and inequality still shape so much of American life. But watching the heightened activism of young people in recent weeks, of every race and every station, makes me hopeful. If, going forward, we can channel our justifiable anger into peaceful, sustained, and effective action, then this moment can be a real turning point in our nations long journey to live up to our highest ideals.

President Joe Biden, Obamas one-time running mate and second-in-command, spoke in similarly balancedyet hopeful terms about our nations centuries-long struggle to overcome our own racism in light of the historic events taking placethat summer:

The history of this nation teaches us that its in some of our darkest moments of despair that weve made some of our greatest progress. The 13th and 14th and 15th Amendments followed the Civil War The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 came in the tracks of Bull Connors vicious dogs. To paraphrase Reverend Barber its in the mourning we find hope.

And heres Bidenin his inaugural address, where he rightly emphasized that we may never convince every American to come over to our side, but we can still prevail if enough of us do:

Our history has been a constant struggle between the American ideal that we are all created equal and the harsh, ugly reality that racism, nativism, fear, and demonization have long torn us apart.

The battle is perennial. Victory is never assured. Through the Civil War, the Great Depression, World War, 9/11, through struggle, sacrifice, and setbacks, our better angels have always prevailed. In each of these moments, enough of us came together to carry all of us forward.

Meteor Blades is right to identify Frederick Douglass as a hero. Along a similar vein, Michael Lind characterized him in The Next American Nation as "perhaps the greatest American of any race, of any century." It's highly appropriate in 2022 to remember Douglass' 1852 speech, especially on July 4.What I am also doing here is using Meteor Blades' post about Douglass as a jumping-off point for a relatedbut differentdiscussion.

From a strategic perspective, politicians and public figures on the left have to be wary of allowing their rhetoric over an extended period of time to focus solely or overwhelmingly on feelings of alienation from this country. Im not trying to tell anyone how they should feel. No one should do that. This is about what people publish and proclaim, and the strategic value thereof. What liberals cannot do, what Douglass himself did not do (as seen in aforementioned conclusion to his 1852 speech), is cede patriotism and an embrace of America toFuck a LOrange and his right-wing minions. This is a crucial point I've written about previously:

Lind wrote further about the importance of embracing an inclusive, singular national narrative of our country's history with which Americans of every background can identify:

Even in writing this, I want to be crystal clear about what I'm saying so that nothing is misconstrued. I'm emphatically not saying that Meteor Blades or anyone else should tone down their criticisms of this country's flaws or injustices, whether in the present or the past. To be more specific, I am not saying that Black or brown or LGBTQ+ Americans, or anyone who is marginalized, should keep their thoughts to themselves because they might scare the straight, white, Christian folks. Im talking primarily about what progressive politicians and campaigns should say, what message they should emphasize.

We must find a way to do what needs doing, to shine a light on the problems and injustices in our country, while still publicly embracing a commitment to the whole country, the whole community. We have to do both of those things at the same time, over and over again, in order to get our point across and persuade people to join our movement. If we don't do that, we can't solve those problems and fix those injustices because, over time, well lose elections and be shut out of power.

Democrats cannot win elections and make the changes that need making if the only people our broad vision of Americas story speaks to are liberals (let alone left-progressives). Although the percentage of Americans who identify as liberals rose steadily from the early 1990s through the mid-2010s according to Gallup, it has remained stuck at around a quarter since then. We must craft a story that resonates enoughnot necessarily 100%, but enoughto earn the support of most moderates along with liberals, two groups who together constitute a decisive 60% majority. Again, this isnt about policy, or even compromise at all. We have to talk about our country in a way that doesnt alienate people before they even hear the first word about our policies.

As politically engaged progressives, we know that this country can and must do better on a whole host of different fronts, that we need to enact systemic and fundamental change, and that in order to do so we need to understand our history in full. A history, however, that emphasizes only our crimes and ignores the progress is but the mirror image of one that does the oppositeone that, as Trump did at Mt. Rushmore on July 4, 2020, solely bathes our history in glory and righteousness. And if those are the only two options, many middle-of-the-road Americans, in particular whites but others as well, are likely to be more attracted to the Pollyanna-ish view simply because it sounds more familiar and makes them feel better.

As survey data from the Public Religion Research Institute makes clear, Donald Trump certainly appeals to those who are likely attracted to such a view, those who see America as having veered away from what once made it great. As Ronald Brownstein explained in 2016, Trumps emergence represents a triumph for the most ardent elements in the GOPs coalition of restoration, voters who are resistant to demographic change. This is certainly just as true now as it was six years ago. Why else would Trump have presented himself as the most powerful defender of Confederate monuments?

Progressive politicians and campaigns have to make sure to present a balanced and truthful picture. Thats the most effective way to get those people who sometimes forget about the crimes our country has committed to remember them and to work toward reversing their effects, rather than dismiss liberal criticisms as somehow "anti-American" because liberals supposedly talk only about the negatives. Progressives have to present our case as representing the true American values, and contrast them to the values of those whom we oppose, as Obama and Joe Biden did in their condemnations of Trumps family separation policy, for example. Inclusion, equal rights, and a strong sense of national community that nurtures bonds connecting Americans of every background is what makes America great, not fearmongering about immigrants.

The Man Who LostAn Election And Tried To Steal It had his ridiculous July 4 event at Mt. Rushmore in 2020, but we must not allow his twisted definition of American greatness to go unchallenged. (And please check out Meteor Blades post on that eventwhich he brilliantly characterized as our corrupt and conniving president, who has so many times proved he despises American Indians, showing up to fluff his patriotic feathers at a commercial enterprise built on land stolen from the Lakota nearly a century and a half ago using starvation tactics and gunpowder.)

Compare what the twice impeached former guy said on that July 4 to what the man who ultimately beat him by 7 million votes said on that same day, remarks that Daily Kos Jessica Sutherland aptly called the presidential' Fourth of July address America deserves.Bidenshowed how progressives can define celebrating the July 4 holiday in a way that, hopefully, works for all Americans, including members of marginalized groups.

The video is only about 90 seconds long, and I urge you to listen to the whole thing, both for the content and for the passion with which then-Vice President Biden delivered it. At the heart of the statement is how we talk about our history. Again, Biden didnt tiptoe around the uncomfortable truth. For example, he cited Jeffersons ownership of human beings, and our countrys discrimination against womenwhile also emphasizing that putting those all-important words all men are created equal down on paper provided support for those fighting to help America become the place we have long aspired to be.

Through it all, these words have gnawed at our conscience and pulled us toward justice. American history is no fairy tale. Its been a constant push-and-pull between two parts of our character: the idea that all men and womenall peopleare created equal, and the racism that has torn us apart.

As for how that history connects to our future, Biden added: We have a chance now, to give the marginalized, the demonized, the isolated, the oppressed, a full share of the American dream. We have a chance to rip the roots of systemic racism out of this country. We have a chance to live up to the words that founded this nation.

On our countrys birthday in 2020, only one of the two candidates for president gave us a story of our past that will enable us to craft a viable journey forward, because only one of their stories told the truth. Biden acknowledged our struggles to put into practice the worthy ideals our founders laid down in 1776, and demandeda future where we make them fully and finally real for every American. The results of the 2020 electionprovide evidence that Bidens position is one that far more Americans can identify with than Trumps.

Ultimately, as a people, we require for our survival a story of our country that reflects the full, balanced truth of our past, one that Americans of every background can feel includes them. President Barack Obama has offered that sort of historical narrative throughout his public life, and Biden has been doing the same thing, in particular since he began his 2020 campaign. Trump, on the other hand, offers nothing but hatebecause hes the one who seeks indoctrination. Historian Jill Lepore wrote about the danger of leaving the crafting of a unifying national narrative to those who would use history to divide us. Theyll call themselves nationalists, she wrote. Their history will be a fiction. They will say that they alone love this country. They will be wrong.

People need to feel a sense of belonging, a sense of identity, something that connects them to a purpose larger than themselves. A progressive concept of Americannessa progressive patriotismthat can connect Americans to one another across boundaries is crucial to countering Trumpism broadly, and white nationalism specifically. Ive written previously about women of color like Nikole Hannah-Jones, Rep. Ilhan Omar, and our countrys first youth poet laureate, Amanda Gorman, who have spoken about their concept of patriotismone that connects powerfully with progressive values on matters such as racial justice. Look at how Hannah-Jones talked about our history in her Pulitzer Prize-winning introductory essay to The 1619 Project, where she summed up so much in a short paragraph:

Black people suffered under slavery for 250 years; we have been legally free for just 50. Yet in that briefest of spans, despite continuing to face rampant discrimination, and despite there never having been a genuine effort to redress the wrongs of slavery and the century of racial apartheid that followed, black Americans have made astounding progress, not only for ourselves but also for all Americans.

Those who have fought for equality have long sought to connect that idea to America's fundamental principlesto our own history. Douglass did it, even in the speech discussed above, as did the Black abolitionist David Walker a generation earlier, who called on us to "[h]ear your languages, proclaimed to the world, July 4th, 1776." The Declaration of Sentimentsthe manifesto signed by those who gathered in Seneca Falls in 1848 to demand equal rights for womenbegan by taking the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, which eloquently declares the equality of all men, and modifying it by adding two key words: and women.

Martin Luther King Jr. also rooted the principles for which he fought squarely within, rather than in opposition to, basic American ideals. We see this in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail,where he predicted that the civil rights movement would succeed because "the goal of America is freedom," and in his I Have a Dreamspeech, in which he proclaimed that the dream he described that day was "deeply rooted in the American dream." So did Harvey Milk when he said: "All men are created equal. Now matter how hard they try, they can never erase those words. That is what America is about. So did Barbara Jordan, who noted: "What the people want is simple. They want an America as good as its promise."

Finally, Obama did something very similar in Selma at the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Bloody Sunday March, when he identified those who walked and bled on that bridge as the ones who truly represented what America is supposed to be:

Progressives must criticize. That is crucial. We must also tell the truth, both about the present and the pastasBiden did speaking to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the aforementioned Tulsa Race Massacre. Additionally, we must inspire, because inspiration is how we motivate action. We can and must use the story of our country, which above all is one of brave people fightingoften against more powerful people and institutions in our countryto make this a better, fairer, more just place for all Americans. That fight to make America truly great inspires me, and I hope it inspires you as well on this Independence Day.

[This is a revised and updated version of an essay I have posted previously on July 4, with some material revised and added from a post that discussed Bidens speech from July 4, 2020.]

Ian Reifowitz is the author ofThe Tribalization of Politics: How Rush Limbaugh's Race-Baiting Rhetoric on the Obama Presidency Paved the Way for Trump(Foreword by Markos Moulitsas)

Read more here:
How progressives talk about July 4 and our national history in the post-Trump presidency era - Daily Kos