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The Berniecrats have a dream...
Current AffairsA civil rights lawyer and activist is trying to defeat Nancy Pelosi. He can do it.
I ask Shahid Buttar, who is running as a progressive congressional candidate against Nancy Pelosi, to explain why he wants to unseat a leader of the Resistance. What would he say to a Democrat who wondered if she was all that bad? It’s simple, he says. “She funded Trump’s concentration camps, she imposed Republican fiscal austerity rules, she is an architect of mass surveillance, and she opposes the progressive agenda including Medicare for All and the Green New Deal… I have to pick and choose,” he says, telling me he could easily give me 10 more arguments.
For Buttar, it’s simple: A new generation of progressives demands urgent, serious action on climate change, healthcare, immigration, economic inequality, and criminal justice. Nancy Pelosi has made it clear that she is opposed to their agenda. She mocks and belittles them. (“The green dream, or whatever they call it, nobody knows what it is, but they’re for it, right?”) The stakes are too high to have the leader of the Congressional Democrats be someone who isn’t seriously fighting for the progressive agenda.
Furthermore, Buttar says, Pelosi represents San Francisco, one of the top 10 most Democratic districts in the country. The arguments for centrism that might apply to a swing district don’t hold there. San Francisco, Buttar says, needs someone with San Francisco values: “We’re a sanctuary city, we care about immigrant rights, but we’re represented by someone who is selling immigrants down the river. We’re a city that supports social services but we’re represented by a Speaker of the House who imposed Republican fiscal austerity rules.”
Of course, it’s also the case that the city has gentrified heavily, and I wonder whether the influx of tech workers might make it harder for Buttar to sell a working-class populist message. But Buttar says that tech workers are more left-leaning than the companies they work for, and he believes many feel the sense of “crisis and pressure” that he understands and his opponent doesn’t. “They’re sophisticated enough to know that their economic privilege can’t insulate them from the vagaries of climate catastrophe, so they recognize the need for a transition.” Buttar emphasizes his plans to appeal to young people who feel unrepresented by Pelosi’s brand of big money politics.
I ask Shahid Buttar, who is running as a progressive congressional candidate against Nancy Pelosi, to explain why he wants to unseat a leader of the Resistance. What would he say to a Democrat who wondered if she was all that bad? It’s simple, he says. “She funded Trump’s concentration camps, she imposed Republican fiscal austerity rules, she is an architect of mass surveillance, and she opposes the progressive agenda including Medicare for All and the Green New Deal… I have to pick and choose,” he says, telling me he could easily give me 10 more arguments.
For Buttar, it’s simple: A new generation of progressives demands urgent, serious action on climate change, healthcare, immigration, economic inequality, and criminal justice. Nancy Pelosi has made it clear that she is opposed to their agenda. She mocks and belittles them. (“The green dream, or whatever they call it, nobody knows what it is, but they’re for it, right?”) The stakes are too high to have the leader of the Congressional Democrats be someone who isn’t seriously fighting for the progressive agenda.
Furthermore, Buttar says, Pelosi represents San Francisco, one of the top 10 most Democratic districts in the country. The arguments for centrism that might apply to a swing district don’t hold there. San Francisco, Buttar says, needs someone with San Francisco values: “We’re a sanctuary city, we care about immigrant rights, but we’re represented by someone who is selling immigrants down the river. We’re a city that supports social services but we’re represented by a Speaker of the House who imposed Republican fiscal austerity rules.”
Of course, it’s also the case that the city has gentrified heavily, and I wonder whether the influx of tech workers might make it harder for Buttar to sell a working-class populist message. But Buttar says that tech workers are more left-leaning than the companies they work for, and he believes many feel the sense of “crisis and pressure” that he understands and his opponent doesn’t. “They’re sophisticated enough to know that their economic privilege can’t insulate them from the vagaries of climate catastrophe, so they recognize the need for a transition.” Buttar emphasizes his plans to appeal to young people who feel unrepresented by Pelosi’s brand of big money politics.
16 replies
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= new reply since forum marked as read
getting us the HOUSE Victory in 2018.. Over 40 red Seats were Flipped to BLUE with moderates.
Nancy's advice was to push Health Care.
The House Victory is why we're not in complete total Fascism right fucking now.
I don't think he will make it but more power to him. 
The DSA doesn't think his chances are good, even the Justice Democrats have declined to endorse him . Don't know where the OP pulled the Bernicrats bit out of but I can guess.
Not going to happen.
