A Eulogy For George Santos’ Career?
Today, my Representative was kicked out of the House. I'm thrilled! Here’s what needs to happen next.
Hello, friends,
I hope you’re keeping well. I’m fantastic.
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So George Santos Lost His Job
In a more-than-two-thirds vote, the House of Representatives voted to expel my very own Representative, George Santos. I couldn’t be happier.
But What Happens Next?
According to the above NBCNews article, Jay Jacobs (our state Party leader, who has orchestrated the downfall of our party in the past three election cycles by nominating candidates like this) has said he wants a “moderate” challenger in the special election coming up. That article suggests that county heads pick the Democratic candidate, meaning Jacobs might just make the call himself.
As if Robert Zimmerman, a nice enough guy who had no real big policy agendas, wasn’t moderate. As if Laura Curran wasn’t moderate - almost more like conservative - when she ran to retain her County Executive status. As if Anna Kaplan wasn’t moderate when she ran to keep her State Senate seat. As if Josh Lafazan wasn’t a super-conservative “Police are a protected class” Democrat who still lost his legislature re-election bid.
Gee, it’s almost as if picking “centrist” (usually conservative) Democrats hasn’t been working out too well for us, lately.
As if the idea of a “Democratic party” defending Democracy is a bad thing.
From all the statements gathered in the NBC article, the Democratic strategy is going to be “Attack Republicans for being extremists, especially regarding Abortion.” And, sure, that’ll play kind of well. But it isn’t a positive, “Vote for me and you’ll get change” agenda.
So much ink has been spilled to raise donations to fight Santos’ perfidy that without him in the picture, Democrats have no clear plan because they don’t even know who they’re running against yet.
It’s not reassuring.
So What Should Happen?
The last thing we need is for the party to simply choose a nominee.
We need some kind of an open Primary process so that the voters can choose whoever they think is best to run in the special election. That might mean that the party has to accept a more Progressive victor, just as it means we Progressives might have to accept a less-than-stellar candidate if we try but fail to get someone good nominated.
I’m generally all for supporting the winner of a primary. Unless they do something wholeheartedly evil and stupid, I’m willing to play fair and say, “I promised my vote to a party, I voted in my primary, it was a fair primary, so I’m going to keep my end of the bargain and vote for my party’s nominee.”
But if there is no primary? New York has made clear that “Vote Blue No Matter Who” doesn’t apply in New York. It certainly didn’t when India Walton won the Democratic nomination in Buffalo, NY, and Democrats like Jacobs supported Byron Brown’s third-party bid by comparing a Black woman to a KKK Grand Wizard.
So I hope there’s a primary because I want to be able to vote in it, even if a lot of my choices are probably terrible. Like, if Lafazan won, I’d be out because of his police-as-protected-class beliefs being a red line. I don’t support police statists. But if Anna Kaplan won, I could see myself voting for her in a general - even if I have serious trust issues with my former State Senator who promised me she supported the New York Health Act, but didn’t follow through.
A vigorous primary will give us the best options of the bunch of candidates, and will let us speak our intent to improve this district and this country.
In Other News…
Penguin Random-House is suing Iowa to block its censorship laws. Take a lesson from that, Scholastic!
It’s been reported that the “Kids Online Safety Act” (which we’ve explored in detail.) has had the brakes put on it. That’s a start, but I would rather see it eliminated for good.
The results of the recount on that decided-by-one-vote Sheriff’s race we mentioned last week are back. The outcome is the same - the Democrat won by one vote!
Politico published an article that says that the Florida Democratic Party is going to scrap its primaries. This is absolutely unacceptable and it exposes all of the “Democracy is on the ballot” narratives as fraud. I cannot explain how bad it looks to say, “We really love Democracy, we just don’t use it in our party’s decision-making. Vote for your betters as we decide it.”
MSNBC fired journalist Mehdi Hasan. He was, in my estimation, their second-best journalist-presenter (Maddow being their best), and by a mile their best interviewer. I will not be watching MSNBC in the future. I’d love to see him join a network like The (also, but less problematic) Young Turks.
It’s the holiday, and while inflation remains an issue, gas prices have dropped for 60 days or so. While burning gas is still bad for the environment, it means that families are going to have a (relatively) easier time getting to see their relatives.
Thank you for reading The Progressive Cafe. If this article has helped you, please consider signing up for our mailing list. This article is by Jesse Pohlman, a sci-fi/fantasy author from Long Island, New York, whose website you can check out here.