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RSN: Robert Reich | America Is Exceptional in All the Wrong Ways

25 June 20

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Robert Reich | America Is Exceptional in All the Wrong Ways

Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog
Reich writes: "As our incompetent president flounders in the face of crises - leading the worst coronavirus response in the industrialized world, and seeking to crush nationwide protests for black lives - the hard truth about this country comes into focus: America is not exceptional, but it is the exception."

No other industrialized nation was as woefully unprepared for the pandemic as was the United States. With 4.25% of the world population, America has the tragic distinction of accounting for about 30% of pandemic deaths so far.

Why are we so different from other nations facing the same coronavirus threat? Why has everything gone so tragically wrong in America?

Part of it is Donald Trump. 

He and his corrupt administration repeatedly ignored warnings from public health experts and national security officials throughout January and February, only acting on March 16th after the stock market tanked. Researchers estimate that nearly 36,000 deaths could have been prevented if the United States had implemented social distancing policies just one week earlier.

No other industrialized nation has so drastically skirted responsibility by leaving it to subordinate units of government – states and cities – to buy ventilators and personal protective equipment.

In no other industrialized nation have experts in public health and emergency preparedness been muzzled and replaced by political cronies like Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who in turn has been advised by campaign donors and Fox News.

In no other industrialized nation has Covid-19 so swiftly eviscerated the incomes of the working class. Around the world, governments are providing generous income support to keep their unemployment rates low. Not in the U.S. Nearly 40 million Americans have lost their jobs so far, and more than 30% of American adults have been forced to cut back on buying food and risk going hungry.

At best, Americans have received one-time checks for $1,200, about a week’s worth of rent, groceries and utilities. After a massive backlog, people finally started collecting their expanded unemployment benefits – just in time for the expansion to expire with little to no chance of being renewed.

In no other nation is there such chaos about reopening. While Europe is opening slowly and carefully, the U.S. is opening chaotically, each state on its own. Some are lifting restrictions overnight.

And not even a global pandemic can overshadow the racism embedded in this country’s DNA. Even as black Americans are disproportionately dying from coronavirus, they have nonetheless been forced into the streets in an outpouring of grief and anger over decades of harsh policing and unjust killings. 

As protests erupted across the country in response to more police killings of unarmed black Americans, the protesters have been met with even more police violence. Firing tear gas into crowds of predominantly black protesters, in the middle of a pandemic caused by a respiratory virus that is already disproportionately hurting black communities, is unconscionably cruel.

Indeed, a lot of the responsibility rests with Trump and his hapless and corrupt collection of grifters, buffoons, sycophants, lobbyists and relatives.

But the problems at the core of our broken system, laid bare by this pandemic, have been plaguing this country long before Trump came along.

America is the only industrialized nation without guaranteed, universal healthcare.

No other industrialized nation insists on tying health care to employment, resulting in tens of millions of U.S. citizens losing their health insurance at the very moment they need it most.

We’re the only one out of 22 advanced nations that doesn’t give all workers some form of paid sick leave.

Average wage growth in the United States has long lagged behind average wage growth in most other industrialized countries, even before the pandemic robbed Americans of their jobs and incomes. Since 1980, American workers’ share of total national income has dropped more than in any other rich nation.

And America also has the largest CEO-to-worker pay gap on the planet. In 1965, American CEOs were paid 20 times the typical worker. Today, American CEOs are paid 278 times the typical worker.

Not surprisingly, American workers are far less unionized than workers in other industrialized economies. Only 10.2 percent of all workers in America belong to a union, compared with more than 26% in Canada, 65% in Sweden, and 23% in Britain. With less unionization, American workers are easily overpowered by corporations, and can’t bargain for higher wages or better benefits.

So who and what’s to blame for the largest preventable loss of life in American history?

It’s not just Trump’s malicious incompetence.

It’s decades of America’s failure to provide its people the basic support they need, decades of putting corporations’ bottom lines ahead of workers’ paychecks, decades of letting the rich and powerful pull the strings as the rest of us barely get by.

This pandemic has exposed what has long been true: On the global stage, America is the exception, but not in the way we would like to believe.

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Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. (photo: Getty)

ALSO SEE: Trump Plan to Cut Federal Support for Covid-19 Testing Sites Sparks Alarm

White House Ordered NIH to Cancel Coronavirus Research Funding, Fauci Says
Beth Mole, Ars Technica
Mole writes: "The National Institutes of Health abruptly cut off funding to a long-standing, well-regarded research project on bat coronaviruses only after the White House specifically told it to do so, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases."
READ MORE

Wilmington, North Carolina police car. (photo: WilmingtonNC.Gov)

'We Are Gonna Go Out and Start Slaughtering Them': Three North Carolina Cops Fired After Talk of Killing Black Residents
Tim Elfrink, The Washington Post
Elfrink writes: "Sitting in his patrol car in Wilmington, N.C., Officer Michael 'Kevin' Piner predicted Black Lives Matter protests would soon lead to civil war. 'I'm ready,' Piner told another officer, adding that he planned to buy an assault rifle."
READ MORE

New York Police Department. (photo: Dave Sanders/The New York Times)

Megan Day | We're Learning More About the Relationships Between Race, Class, and Police Brutality
Meagan Day, Jacobin
Day writes: "A new paper finds that for white Americans, socioeconomic status is a major determining factor in susceptibility to fatal police violence, while for black Americans, class is critical but not decisive."
READ MORE

Attorney General Bill Barr. (photo: CNN)

Trump's Department of Justice Is Harassing Legal Weed Companies Because Bill Barr Hates Pot
Greg Walters, VICE
Walters writes: "A DOJ whistleblower says that because of Barr's personal antipathy toward cannabis, the department is using unnecessary antitrust investigations to harass legal weed companies."
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A boy from the Comuna Domingo Playa with skin conditions due to the oil spill. (photo: Alliance of HR Organzations)

Ecuador: 75 Days From Oil Spill, Still No Justice for Victims

teleSUR

Excerpt: "Seventy-five days after some 15,000 barrels of oil gushed into two of Ecuador's most important rivers in the northern Amazon, Indigenous communities are still suffering the consequences while the government is not taking any actions."

"The river water is still polluted, and the communities continue to consume it, due to the lack of other means," Kichwa leader and President of FCUNAE, the region's Indigenous Federation of United Communes, Carlos Jipa, said at the press conference.

Skin problems, an outbreak of dengue fever, and cases with symptoms associated with COVID-19 are increasing in the region. At the same time, local authorities and the State are unable to provide urgent and adequate action. 

"People have received medicines such as ibuprofen or fusidic acid, without consideration of their age group, pathologies, and clinical history," the Alliance denounced.

The spill occurred on April 7, following the breakage of a section of the Heavy Crude Oil Pipeline (OCP) within the Trans-Ecuatorian Oil Pipeline System (SOTE).

Urgent containment measures were not taken at the time to stop the spill, which could reach the waters of the River Coca and Napo, causing severe ecological and environmental problems.

Pollution has affected more than 2,000 families and left some 120,000 people stranded without a safe source of food and water, amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The legal action was aimed to demand immediate reparation, relief for affected peoples, and repair or relocation of the pipelines to prevent future spills. But as more than 75 days have passed, authorities are accused of failing to meet their responsibilities toward Indigenous communities.

"Indigenous communities are experiencing four damages at once; pollution from the spill, COVID19, dengue fever, and floods. There is an abandonment of the State," Bishop of the Apostolic Vicariate of Aguarico Jose Adalberto Jimenez Mendoza said with concern at the press conference.

teleSUR English@telesurenglish

Ecuador’s Indigenous peoples rise against the neoliberal reforms of #LeninMoreno’s government. #ParoNacional #ElParoRecienComienza

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Saiga antelope (pictured, a calf in Russia) roam the steppes, or arid grasslands, of Eastern Europe and most of Central Asia. (photo: Igor Shipilenok/Minden Pictures)

Floppy-Nosed Antelope Has Baby Boom, Raising Hope for Critically Endangered Species
Jason Bittel, National Geographic
Bittel writes: "In 2019, a herd of saiga in Kazakhstan's Ustyurt Plateau produced just four calves. This year, scientists found over 500 - a sign conservation efforts are working." 

ach spring since 2007, scientists have scoured Kazakhstan’s Ustyurt Plateau for baby saiga antelope. Because this population of the critically endangered species is the country’s smallest and most imperiled, the results are usually not encouraging.

In 2018, for instance, scientists found a total of 58 calves living in these southwestern steppes. In 2019, that number dropped to four newborns.

This decline makes the May discovery of 530 saiga calves hunkered down in the knee-high grass a welcome sign of a possible baby boom for an animal hunted nearly to extinction.

As recently as the 1980s, millions of adult saiga—known for their comical, trunk-like noses—roamed the plains of Central Asia. But after the Soviet Union collapsed, demand for the antelopes’ horns grew in traditional Asian medicine markets, and poachers descended.

Then, in 2015, a lethal bacterial outbreak, which killed around 200,000 of these goat-size animals, dramatically hobbled herds. In short order, more than 70 percent of the remaining population disappeared. In a promising turnaround, a 2019 census reported that the Kazakh population had rebounded to 334,400 animals—more than double the number of saiga found two years prior. (Read more about the saiga antelope mass die-off.)

Not only is the number of baby saiga a good sign, but the aggregation of adults that birthed them is the largest anyone has seen in this area in almost 10 years, says Albert Salemgareyev, a saiga specialist at the nonprofit Association for the Conservation of Biodiversity of Kazakhstan (ACBK).

“It’s really exciting for all of us,” says Saken Dildakhmet, press secretary for the Kazakhstan government’s Committee of Forestry and Wildlife. (Fariza Adilbekova, national coordinator of the Altyn Dala Conservation Initiative, which is part of the ACBK, translated Dildakhmet’s comments over a video call.)

“Due to good protection and patrolling efforts of the state rangers after the mass die-off, every year we’re seeing a steady growth of the saiga population,” says Dildakhmet.

Population collapse

Although poaching has declined, the sand-colored antelopes continue to face multiple threats. One critical threat was introduced by human infrastructure.

In 2014, the Kazakh government installed fencing along the country’s border with Uzbekistan in an attempt to prevent smuggling and drug trafficking.

“It was never really going to work, because it’s such a remote area, and it’s just barbed wire,” says E.J. Milner-Gulland, a conservation scientist at the University of Oxford and chair of the Saiga Conservation Alliance. “But it works as a saiga trap.”

The migratory animals winter in milder Uzbekistan and travel back northward to Kazakhstan to reproduce and give birth, starting in late April. But the border fence effectively cut this migration in half, though there was evidence that some determined animals did manage to find a way across. “Our specialists found saiga fur on the fences,” says Adilbekova, “and blood.”

Highways and other human developments also thwart migratory movement. (Learn about the world’s great animal migrations.)

A few years ago, Salemgareyev, Adilbekova, and colleagues received government approval to install gaps in the border fence, which would allow for the antelopes to pass. For unknown reasons, the saiga didn’t use the gaps—until this past winter.

“This year, we got the news from our Uzbek colleagues,” says Salemgareyev. “A group of saiga had appeared.”

“Hovering on the brink”

Considering how many saiga formerly to traveled these steppes, a few hundred newborns is a very small number, cautions Milner-Gulland, who was not involved in the discovery. But in a decade during which many experts have been concerned that the Ustyurt Plateau population is on its way to disappearing altogether, it is a promising sign.

The saiga population is “still hovering on the brink, but it’s going in the right direction,” she says. “Any baby saiga is a good news story.”

As research continues, scientists are learning more about the species’ life cycle. “Every year, we find something new,” says Salemgareyev. Recently, he and his colleagues happened upon a herd of about 5,000 saiga in the Ural population to the west; the bleating sounds were so loud, he says, that it was impossible to hear the person standing next to you. (Read more about efforts to save saiga.)

A group that size did not at first appear to be unusual—until the scientists realized the herd was entirely male, which have horns. Salemgareyev searched the scientific literature for similar observations and could not find previous documentation; his supposition is that the males go their own way during the calving season. Researchers have also found that, in some areas, newborn calves seem to skew heavily toward males—a change from findings 20 years ago.

Unknowns aside, one thing for certain about saiga “is that it's a survivor,” says Milner-Gulland. “It’s a species that's been knocked down several times, and it keeps bouncing back.”

READ MORE

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Steve Bullock represents the best of America’s ideals. He cares about his constituents and works every day to make sure their lives are better. We are proud to support Steve Bullock and usher in a new era of decent, fair, and honest leadership.

How A President Leads

Biden is the clear choice when it comes to compassionate and decent leadership. In a battle of heart, mind, and character Joe Biden wins by a landslide. We need to ensure that’s reflected in the vote this November.

Column: Saying the name of Eurie Stamps & “The Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Forces”

Column: Saying the name of Eurie Stamps

By Rick Holmes
Opinions/Mass Political Editor

That means we have to try harder. The deaths of George Floyd, Eurie Stamps and so many others at the hands of police have exposed deep flaws in America’s law enforcement systems. In their names, we must make real change happen, from the White House to City Hall.

Columns share an author’s personal perspective and are often based on facts in the newspaper’s reporting.

After the Framingham Police SWAT team killed Eurie Stamps Sr. in 2011, there were no protest marchers chanting his name. There were no cameras running during the midnight raid on Stamps’ house, hence no viral videos. We didn’t get to see Stamps lying face-down on the hallway floor on the orders of the cop who, moments later, shot him in the head. Eurie was 68, African-American, a grandfather and a suspect in no crime.

There was no nationwide coverage of Eurie Stamps’ death, but the local MetroWest Daily News treated it as a major story. I wrote about it in editorials and columns, and nine years later I’m still outraged.

Town officials, intimidated by the police department and the advice of lawyers, did nothing and said nothing in the days after the killing of an innocent man. The Middlesex County DA cleared the officer and he returned to the force. Framingham’s selectmen commissioned independent reports and adopted minor policy changes and, some months later, a major one: The police chief disbanded the SWAT team.

SWAT teams are modern policing at its worst. They are equipped and trained to use military force against civilian targets, with an emphasis on intimidation and surprise. In most places, there are few situations ­– riots, active shooters, hostage standoffs and the like – for which SWAT teams are designed. So the Framingham SWAT team used the task of serving the routine search warrant for the Stamps house as a training opportunity. Even though the suspect in the investigation was already in custody and Stamps’ wife greeted them on the sidewalk, the police used all their toys: battering rams to knock down two doors, flash-bang grenades to shock anyone inside, full battle gear with fire trucks standing by in case they had to burn the house down. Mr. Stamps was the only one inside, watching the Celtics game in his pajamas. Moments later, he was dead.

If this sounds familiar, it’s the same kind of raid that left Breonna Taylor, 26, dead in Louisville last March: a no-knock search warrant, served after midnight. The suspects in the case were already in custody. After forcing their way into the apartment with a battering ram, police fired 20 shots into the apartment, eight of which hit Taylor. We say her name, along with that of George Floyd, the latest in a long line of victims.

But we don’t say the name of Eurie Stamps Sr. After Ferguson, I went to a rally in Framingham Centre where politicians, clergy, leaders of the black community and even, as I recall, the police chief, gathered to protest racial injustice. They read the names: Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin. But not the name of Eurie Stamps.

There was another rally earlier this month, in front of City Hall. If Eurie’s name was spoken, there was no mention of it in the account in the local paper. I’m told the police chief took a knee along with the protesters. Good for him.

I left Framingham three years ago, and I’m in no position to judge how the city’s police department has changed. But a video that made the news last August when Framingham and Natick officers invaded a home without a warrant in search of marijuana indicates the warrior cop mentality – the mindset on display across the nation this month as police clash with protesters – is still an issue in MetroWest. Four years after voters legalized marijuana, they are still acting like old-time narcs.

The deaths of innocents at the hands of police have sparked an overdue debate over how to fix America’s police departments, and there’s no shortage of ideas for reform. Some have already been implemented in some places: bodycams on officers; training in de-escalation and subconscious bias; civilian review boards.

We’re now seeing a new crop of reform proposals: repealing the “qualified immunity” that protects bad cops from accountability; banning chokeholds and tear gas; prohibiting no-knock warrants; reining in police unions, so that contracts cover only wages and benefits, not use-of-force policies or disciplinary procedures. Another set of reforms falls under the “defund the police” slogan, which is best understood as a way to reduce the police footprint by taking away jobs cops aren’t good at: Put social workers in schools instead of police “resource officers.” Invest in emergency mental health services, addiction counselors and social workers, and have them respond to 911 calls when no serious crime is alleged. Let trained, unarmed civilians handle crowd control and construction details, even traffic citations.

In the wake of the Ferguson protests, President Barack Obama suspended the transfer of military equipment to police departments and stepped up the Department of Justice’s use of consent decrees to encourage reforms at the local level. Both those policies were reversed by President Donald Trump. If you want change, win elections.

Congress is already debating some of these ideas, and an election is coming up. Police reform is now a national issue. But managing police departments is a local responsibility. In cities like Minneapolis, New York and Los Angeles, elected officials and activists are already engaging on a new agenda for police reform.

But it’s a different story in smaller cities and towns. Fixing police departments is hard work. It requires changes in recruiting, hiring, training and discipline. Policies need to be rewritten. To do these things right, strong relationships must be forged among elected officials, police officers and members of the community. That takes a sustained commitment. Especially here in New England, decisions are made by the people who show up at the meeting. Will the people marching in the streets today be there for the police department budget hearing next spring?

Compounding the difficulty is the withering of local newspapers. Half the jobs in America’s newsrooms have disappeared since 2008. In thousands of American communities, there’s no longer a reporter reading police reports every day. There’s no one covering the city council meeting where the police chief discusses budgets and priorities. There’s no editorial page to advocate for reform. And when someone witnesses police misconduct, there’s no newspaper they can call.

That means we have to try harder. The deaths of George Floyd, Eurie Stamps and so many others at the hands of police have exposed deep flaws in America’s law enforcement systems. In their names, we must make real change happen, from the White House to City Hall.

Rick Holmes is the former opinion editor for the MetroWest Daily News.

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RICK HOLMES: Goodbye Officer Friendly; hello ‘Warrior Cop’

Just after midnight on Jan. 5, 2011, Framingham police smashed through two doors of Eurie Stamps’ home, threw a flash-bang grenade through a broken window and invaded. Stamps, a 68-year-old grandfather, was in his bedroom in his pajamas, watching sports on TV.

Just after midnight on Jan. 5, 2011, Framingham police smashed through two doors of Eurie Stamps’ home, threw a flash-bang grenade through a broken window and invaded. Stamps, a 68-year-old grandfather, was in his bedroom in his pajamas, watching sports on TV.

The assault on the modest home played out like a military raid. Within seconds, an officer had Stamps face-down on the floor, his M4 assault carbine inches away from his back, the safety switch turned off. Investigators later concluded that the officer stumbled over Stamps and his gun went off. Within seconds, he was dead.

Stamps was suspected of no crime; no guns were found in the home. Framingham police were serving a search warrant related to a non-violent drug offense. They captured their target, Stamps’ stepson, on the street outside the home before the raid was launched. They launched it anyway.

Friends called the retired transit worker a “gentle giant” and “a stand-up guy.” He left behind a large family, including 12 grandchildren.

The killing of Eurie Stamps Sr. wasn’t a mistake, and it wasn’t a tragedy. It was a symptom of what has happened to America’s police forces since government started declaring war on domestic crimes.

There are as many as 50,000 SWAT raids like that every year, according to academic studies, and very few of them involve hostage situations or violent threats for which SWAT teams were supposedly created. The vast majority of SWAT deployments are for serving warrants in non-violent drug cases, though the military tactics have also been used to break up charity poker and to bust bars for underage drinking.

Stamps is one of at least 50 innocent people killed in SWAT raids targeting non-violent consensual crimes like drugs and gambling, journalist Radley Balko says. All were killed when police, who are supposed to prevent violence, instead applied lethal force to situations where no violence was threatened.

We’ve become so used to these raids that it’s easy to forget that, not long ago, the idea of local police smashing down the door of a quiet house in the middle of the night was unthinkable. The principle that a citizen’s home was his castle, safe from unannounced raids by government agents, predates the Declaration of Independence.

Before Richard Nixon declared “war on crime,” followed by presidential declarations of war on drugs and war on terror, there was a clear distinction drawn between cops and soldiers. Police dressed in blue, with badge numbers or name tags identifying individual officers. They carried billy clubs and revolvers, weapons appropriate for walking beats on neighborhood streets.

SWAT teams today dress in black, with body armor and sometimes masks. It’s no wonder that when they crash into homes in the middle of the night, yelling obscenities and pointing guns at people – and often shooting family dogs, Balko reports – they are sometimes assumed to be criminal gangs.

Framingham’s SWAT team, like many, dresses in jungle camouflage, matching the camo paint on their military-issue armored personnel carrier. It’s a uniform I’ve never understood. Do they plan to hide out in the jungles of Massachusetts? Who would they be hiding from?

These fashion statements come with new laws, new tactics and a new attitude. Goodbye Officer Friendly. Hello “Warrior Cop.”

In his new book, “The Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Forces,” Balko shows how this transformation took place. A procession of politicians exploited fears sparked by rising crime in the ’60s and ’70s. Compliant judges upheld new laws authorizing “no-knock raids” and forced entry warrants. Federal grants encouraged the flow of military hardware to local police departments. Asset forfeiture laws giving a portion of assets seized from criminal suspects to local police made it more profitable to spend police resources chasing drug dealers than those who commit violence or property crimes.

There were no paramilitary police units before 1969, when the first SWAT team was created in Los Angeles. Now they are everywhere. Balko estimates that 80 percent of communities with populations between 25,000 and 50,000 have SWAT teams.

And if you’ve got a SWAT team, and a warehouse full of military equipment – local police now get grants to purchase helicopters, tanks, even bayonets – you might as well use them. So the Framingham SWAT team showed up at the Stamps house in full battle gear, nearly two dozen officers, with paramedics and firefighters along for the ride. They smashed the doors with government-issue battering rams. They threw a flash-bang grenade into the apartment to scare every living thing into submission.

Winding back the policies encouraging militarization will be tough, Balko writes, but even more troubling is the mindset that has come with it. Police recruitment videos and popular culture celebrate breaking down doors and blowing things up. Police policies and rhetoric give force protection a higher priority than citizens’ rights.

Crime rates have fallen dramatically in the last 20 years, not because of aggressive police tactics – drug use, the main target of those tactics, has not noticeably declined – but in spite of them. But the militarization continues, and it is now being pushed by defense contractors and what Balko calls a growing “police-industrial complex.”

But there is hope. A new generation of political leaders is challenging the war on drugs and the mass incarceration model for criminal justice. They should all read Balko’s book, and begin an overdue discussion of the difference between a civilian police force and an army of occupation.

Rick Holmes, opinion editor for the MetroWest Daily News, Framingham blogs at Holmes & Co. (http://blogs.wickedlocal.com/holmesandco).

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We did it

We did it.

When we won in 2018, many dismissed our victory as a fluke. But, last night, we proved that our movement is not an accident. It is a mandate.

We showed up in the streets and at the ballot box for transformational change. We sent a resounding message: we do not have to settle for crumbs, and we do not have to deal with corporate players to win.

Like us, Jamaal Bowman (NY-16) and Mondaire Jones (NY-17) also won resounding primary victories last night. But, as you read this, Charles Booker (KY-Sen) is in a close race, and he’s fighting to make sure that every vote is counted.

Charles needs to be prepared for any necessary recount efforts or legal fights that might arise as votes are counted. And Jamaal, Mondaire, and Charles are all going to have to be ready to fight in the general election, which means they need our help now.

Help us make the most of our momentum by splitting a contribution between these campaigns and help us keep up the fight for the working-class people of America.

This was not a small challenge. We organized our hearts out. On Primary Day, our volunteers made over 56,000 phone calls to voters, shattering our previous one-day records. Many more volunteers played critical on-the-ground roles distributing voting information and watching the polls.

Thank you to everyone who supported, contributed, and volunteered. We can’t thank you enough.

Together, we are standing up for the right thing, even though it’s often the hard thing.

Today, the right thing is spreading the power we’ve built far and wide. Let’s get Jamaal Bowman, Mondaire Jones, and Charles Booker into Congress with us. Split a contribution here.

Pa’lante,

Team AOC

Paid for by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for Congress

To contribute via check, please address to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for Congress, PO Box 680080, Corona, NY 11368.

Email us: us@ocasiocortez.com

Last night's primary results

Thank you so much for the volunteer efforts and financial support you are providing for great progressive candidates up and down the ballot. Together, we are effectively taking on big-money interests and the political establishment, transforming American politics and creating a movement that fights for working families, not just the 1 percent.

As you know, in yesterday's Democratic primary elections we were actively involved in a number of important races — from U.S. Senate to District Attorney.

Because of the pandemic, and the huge increase in absentee ballots that were cast but not yet counted, most of the final election results will not be known until next week. But, I did want you to know that based on the votes that were tabulated yesterday, some of our progressive candidates have already won and others are doing very well and stand an excellent chance of winning.

One major election that has been decided is a great victory for our progressive movement. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has been a leader in Congress on virtually every major issue facing the American people — workers' rights, climate change, health care, immigration reform and so many others — was opposed by a very well-funded establishment opponent. Nonetheless, she won a landslide victory with, at this point in the vote count, some 72 percent of the vote. Congratulations, Alexandria.

Another hotly contested race was in NY Congressional District 16. Jamaal Bowman, a New York City school principal and strong progressive, took on Eliot Engel, a 16-term incumbent actively supported by the entire Democratic establishment and a reactionary super PAC. At this point in the vote process, Bowman is leading Engel with 60.9 percent of the vote to Engel's 35.6 percent.

In NY Congressional District 17, Mondaire Jones is leading with 44.8 percent of the vote in an 8-person race. This was a crowded race and Mondaire is showing that the people in his district want real progressive leadership.

All six of the New York state legislative candidates we endorsed did incredibly well in their primaries last night. Julia Salazar, Jessica Ramos, Mike Gianaris, Ron Kim and Yuh-Line Niou won big, and Jabari Brisport has opened up a wide lead as ballots are still coming in. We also endorsed Matthew Toporowski for Albany County District Attorney and absentee ballots are being counted for his race.

In Kentucky, we are still awaiting results for Charles Booker who is running for Senate to defeat Mitch McConnell. Charles has gained a ton of momentum in the race and closed the gap with his Democratic primary opponent. Kentucky will be processing absentee ballots with another race update to come early next week.

Let me be very clear: we are making great progress because supporters like you got involved to make a big difference in these races.

These are candidates who believe that health care is a right, not a privilege, that climate change is an existential threat to the planet, that the time is long overdue for us to end institutional racism in this country.

These are candidates who understand that all of our people, regardless of income, deserve the ability to get a higher education and that we need to strengthen public education all across the country. They understand that we need real immigration reform and we need to raise the minimum wage to a living wage to end the absurdity of half of our people living paycheck to paycheck.

These are candidates who are prepared to take on the billionaire class of this country and continue our struggle for justice.

If we're going to bring about transformative change in this country — if we're going to take on the powerful special interests — we need to elect more great candidates at the grassroots level.

Last night was a big night for our movement and while we are still awaiting final results, it looks like we are doing very well. But let us not forget that there is still much to be done to carry out the goals of our movement and create a government that works for all of our people, not just the wealthy.

Let's roll up our sleeves. Let's keep up the good work. Let's continue electing progressive candidates all across this country.

In solidarity,

Bernie Sanders

 

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PO BOX 391, Burlington, VT 05402