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From Protests To The Polls, Democrats Rebuild The Party Through Local Elections

From Protests To The Polls, Democrats Rebuild The Party Through Local Elections

Reprinted with permission fromAlterNet.

The anti-Trump resistance faced the first of many post-Trump electoral tests this past week, with Democrats fighting for four state senate seats, one in Delaware and three in Connecticut. Activists may have showed up for a month of protests and standing room only town hall meetings, not to mention weeks of jamming their representatives’ phone lines, but the question remained: Would they storm the voting booths as readily as the streets? If three out of four wins in both states are any indication, Democrats are beginning to realize that for the resistance to be resilient, it needs to campaign for and win elections.

With a bruising presidential loss, not to mention the fact that Democrats control just 42 percent of American statehouses, and lost 46 seats along with the presidency in November, this year’s stakes were even higher for state and local races. Stephanie Hansen won her election for state senate in the 10th District of Delaware with voter turnout at 35 percent, a high-water mark for state races, not to mention a special election, both of which even committed voters frequently ignore.

Delaware’s statehouse may have traditionally run blue, but, as Sarah Fox, a volunteer organizer with You Matter, a New York City-based activist group that sent 25 volunteers to canvass for Hansen, told AlterNet, “We also know that after November, anything goes. We can’t count on things to be what we thought they were.”

Fox and the You Matter team knew that “while it’s always important to have the best possible ground operation,” and that while “the campaign was incredibly gracious and welcoming [of outside volunteers] before, during and after… [there was concern that] particularly going into a rural place in Delaware, that they might not be in love with the city slickers coming from New York.” Whatever the response from voters may be, Fox said one of Hansen’s staff told her, “it speaks volumes that so many people from New York care about our election. We’ve never seen something like that before.”

Connecticut had three special elections the same week, and Democrats took the two they were favored to win, though not the third, which would have given Democrats a majority in the upper chamber of the statehouse. Still, even though Democrat Greg Cava lost to Republican Eric Berthel, as the Connecticut Mirrornoted in its election coverage, “In the most Republican Senate district in the state, Cava lost by 10 percentage points, which Democrats say is their best showing there in decades.” Cava’s campaign also benefited from a surge in volunteer participation, both in-state and across the country. Aaron Schrag, campaign manager and treasurer for Cava, said “the 32nd district has never seen a campaign like this before,” noting that they had support from “California, Texas, Delaware, all the surrounding New England states. Really across the country. We know we’ve done something special here.”

Schrag continued, “Protests are great, marches are awesome, but it’s just the beginning. Now they’ve found something they can put all that energy into.”

Ilana Novick is an AlterNet contributing writer and production editor.

IMAGE: The mascots of the Democratic and Republican parties, a donkey for the Democrats and an elephant for the GOP, are seen on a video screen at Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign rally in Cleveland, Ohio March 8, 2016. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

Grassroots Democracy Building in Iowa

Grassroots Democracy Building in Iowa

As Henrik Ibsen said: “You should never wear your best trousers when you go out to fight for freedom and truth.”

Democracy is never given to us, but has to be won through constant struggle against the elites who keep scheming to siphon ever more of society’s money and power into their own hands. A Woody Guthrie song about outlaws tells this story in one stanza: “As through this world I’ve wandered / I’ve seen lots of funny men / Some will rob you with a six-gun / And some with a fountain pen.”

American democracy is the gritty story of workaday folks who get fed up with the fountain pens, get organized, and get moving to stop the thievery. Indeed, not only does such gutsy grassroots confrontation work; it is the only thing that really succeeds in reclaiming, maintaining, and advancing our democratic values.

To see an uplifting example of organized people power in action, look to the heartland, where a coalition called Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement has had its democracy-building work clothes on since 1975, uniting and empowering people of all ethnic backgrounds to push back against the avarice and arrogance of big-money corporations. With more than 3,000 dues-paying, activist members, CCI is organized in every county in Iowa. They’ve rallied thousands of other Iowans to join their local and statewide actions, including winning battles against factory-farm manure polluters, corporate wage thieves that prey on low-wage workers, payday lenders that trap poor people in cycles of debt with 300 percent interest rates, gas, and electric companies that gouge customers and banking interests that were either foreclosing on or refusing to lend to good farmers.

In the process, CCI has become a national model of direct, non-partisan civic action to re-establish some measure of America’s highest moral ideals: (1) government of, by, and for the people — not just big-money corporations and (2) economic fairness and prosperity that works for everyone, not just the wealthy few. Some people wring their hands at the perverse ethic of inequality and the rise of plutocratic rule that have invaded our America, hoping in vain that some golden-haired politician will ride in to save them. They might as well trust their last pork chop to a coyote.

Another great songwriter and activist, Patti Smith, has a song that brings all three of her talents into a single refrain: “People have the power / To dream / To rule / To wrestle the world from fools.”

For “people power” to be more than a cliché shouted out at rallies, it has to do something — such as dream, wrestle, and rule. That pretty well defines this remarkable, grassroots group of people-power doers who’ve come together under the principled banner of CCI. These feisty farmers, conservationists, workers, students, consumers, and other everyday Iowa people have strategized, organized, and mobilized to take on bankers, bosses, big shots, bastards, and BSers in battle after battle for economic, environmental, social and political justice.

The members of CCI have joined hands with the people of Iowa and beyond to wrestle their world from the greedheads and boneheads who feel entitled to fool around with ordinary people’s lives. That scrappy democratic spirit is what we need to bring about change in today’s political process.

Years ago, I came across a small moving company consisting only of two guys and one truck. But they had a big, can-do attitude that was summed up in their advertising slogan: “If we can get it loose, we can move it.” That’s the operating model offered by CCI — get democracy loose at the grassroots level, and the people themselves will move it forward. For information and inspiration about people taking charge, go to www.iowacci.org

To find out more about Jim Hightower, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Web page at www.creators.com.

Photo: JimmyWayne/Flickr

Tea Party Groups Raise Huge Sums Of Money For Next Election Cycle

Most people are well aware that the allegedly grassroots tea party movement has significant backing from big money. But how much will the tea partiers be able to influence upcoming elections? Based on recently released financial reports for some of the largest tea party-affiliated groups, a whole lot. Politico reports:

The groups — Americans for Prosperity, FreedomWorks, Club for Growth, Leadership Institute and Tea Party Express — raised $79 million last year. That’s a 61 percent increase from their haul in 2009, when the tea party first started gaining traction, and an 88 percent increase over their tally in 2008, according to a POLITICO review of campaign reports and newly released tax filings.

And the two biggest groups — Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks — tell POLITICO they’re planning to raise and spend a whopping $156 million combined this year and next, laying the groundwork for what could be a massive tea party organizing push against Democrats and the occasional moderate Republican in 2012.

While local tea party affiliates are still relatively small grassroots efforts, the profitability of the large, national groups shows that the extreme right wing will no doubt play a role in upcoming elections. In some states, like North Carolina, Democratic candidates are already struggling against the tea party’s massive money machine, thanks to contributions from wealthy conservatives. And, unsurprisingly, electoral evidence shows that the large sums of campaign cash often yield success.

As tea party groups continue to fill their coffers, the impact on elections will certainly not be minimal.

Republican Business Lobbies and Tea Party Disagree On Debt Plan

The debt ceiling debate continues to reveal a deep rift in the the Republican Party between the business elite (including former Bush Administration officials who raised the ceiling without controversy or chaos) and the grassroots, anti-establishment Tea Party base. The split — which pits a single-minded focus on keeping business running smoothly against a single-minded focus on bringing the federal government to its knees — was previously masked by a unified front of opposition to Democratic policies such as health care reform and stricter environmental regulations.

On Tuesday, the Chamber of Commerce sent a letter to Congress encouraging them to vote for Speaker of the House John Boehner’s plan to raise the debt ceiling for six months. But the Republican Study Committee, a group of over 170 conservative members of the House, announced that they opposed the bill. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), chairman of the Republican Study Committee, doubted that Republicans would accept the plan. “We think there are real problems with this plan,” he told the AP. Michele Bachmann, presidential candidate and chairman of the Tea Party Caucus in the House, continues to oppose all attempts to raise the debt ceiling.

Instead of Boehner’s plan, the Republican Study Committee supports the Cut, Cap, and Balance Act, which has already passed the Republican-dominated House but has no chance of passing the Senate. The Cut, Cap, and Balance Act is a darling of ultra-conservatives and Tea Party lawmakers because it forces Congress to pass the Balanced Budget Amendment — an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would require massive cuts to entitlements and social welfare programs like Medicare and Social Security — before raising the debt ceiling. Boehner’s plan requires a vote on the Balanced Budget Amendment after the debt ceiling has been raised, but does not require Congress to pass the amendment first. This does not satisfy conservatives in the House, who prefer the pure vision of the Cut, Cap, and Balance Act. “The Senate should resume debate on the Cut, Cap, and Balance Act, amend it if necessary, and pass it, so we can provide the American people a real solution,” Rep. Jordan said in a statement

The Chamber of Commerce, on the other hand, is more concerned with protecting the interests of Big Business than fidelity to ultra-conservative ideology. In 2008, they supported Obama’s stimulus package, which most grassroots conservatives fiercely opposed. And now they support Boehner’s plan to raise the debt ceiling and avoid the government defaulting on its debt. In a letter sent to Congressmen on Monday, they underlined the severe risks to the economy of such a default. “A default on the obligations of the United States,” the letter reads, “would most assuredly cause severe, immediate, and pervasive economic harm ” and “political brinksmanship is no longer an acceptable strategy for either the White House or congressional leaders.” The Chamber may not be thrilled with Boehner’s plan, but they are not willing to oppose it and risk default.

It may turn out that none of this matters. Obama has already promised to veto the Boehner plan since it only raises the debt ceiling until December, which would force put the government into the same situation it’s in now — legislative gridlock and a real threat of default — in six months. Obama has pushed instead for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s plan, which raises the debt ceiling through 2013.

Meanwhile, the latest polls show that most voters (86%) are worried about the consequences of default, and a majority (56%) believe that a plan to reduce the deficit should include some spending cuts and some revenue increases — which both business-friendly and Tea Party Republicans strongly oppose.