Post by the Scribe on Aug 5, 2020 21:24:13 GMT
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Spotlight: Progressives Are 'Here To Stay'
The big result from the primaries in multiple states Tuesday night was the upset pulled off by Cori Bush, a 44-year-old nurse and Black Lives Matter activist.
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She defeated 20-year incumbent William Lacy Clay, whose family — between him and his father — had represented this St. Louis-area district for half a century. The district, which Democrat Hillary Clinton won with 77% of the vote in the 2016 presidential election, includes Ferguson, which saw mass protests in 2014 after the death of Michael Brown, a black teenager who was shot and killed by police. Bush gained prominence during those protests as an activist.
“If you don’t know, now you know,” said Alexandra Rojas, executive director of the progressive group Justice Democrats, which backed Bush, channeling rapper The Notorious B.I.G.
“The Squad is here to stay, and it’s growing.”
“The Squad” refers to a group of young, progressive members of Congress, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. And the number of young progressives set to take seats in the next Congress is growing.
Ocasio-Cortez was backed by the Justice Democrats in her 2018 race, and launched her own super PAC earlier this year. She has endorsed progressive candidates and primary challengers in roughly half a dozen House and Senate races.
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Last month, for example, in New York, Jamaal Bowman, a former high school principal, knocked off longtime Rep. Eliot Engel, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
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In total, so far, a record seven incumbents — with 100 years between them since being first elected — have lost in their bids for reelection. But it’s hardly just a Democratic phenomenon. In fact, more Republican incumbents (four) have lost than Democrats (three).
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What’s going on is both ideological and generational. Leadership in Congress is aging, and there has been little room for advancement for younger members. And there’s an urgency and impatience among a younger generation on the left for what it sees as a lack of progress — and effective fighting against President Trump and Republicans.
On the GOP side, there is a fissure between pro-Trump ideologues (some with conspiratorial views), who have in some ways been an outgrowth of the Tea Party, versus traditional, establishment Republicans.
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Since 1994, polarization has taken hold in Congress with positions becoming more sharply defined and divergence from the party line punished.
But in the past decade — first with the Tea Party on the right and now progressives on the left — there are sharp divides within the parties. On the right that plays out in spending, foreign affairs and culture; on the left it's primarily with climate change and income inequality.
The intra-party fight on the left is going to give some Democrats heart burn because moderates, who won in right-leaning districts in 2018, helped the party take control of the House. And Trump’s campaign is eagerly trying to paint Biden as beholden to the left.
No matter who wins the presidential election in November, the two parties will likely be farther apart — and so will members within those parties.
— Domenico Montanaro, NPR’s senior political editor/correspondent