Issue of the Week: Human Rights, Economic Opportunity, Disease, Hunger, Population, War, Environment, Personal Growth

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez campaign 2018

 

“I believe that in a modern, moral, and wealthy society, no person in America should be too poor to live.” 

-Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

We take a break from “The End Of Civilization As We Knew It”—to note an astonishing event that occurred last Tuesday, directly related to last week’s reflection, those before and those to come.

The stunning primary election victory of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for US House of Representatives in New York, over a long-time high-ranking member of congress from her own Democratic party who was very possibly in-line to be the next Speaker of the House.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is virtually guaranteed in an overwhelmingly Democratic district to become the youngest member of the House.

And the youngest woman ever to be elected to the House in US history.

And a Latina.

The impact of issues of gender and race in her victory cannot be over-emphasized. Or the impact of her age.

But the number one impact is the issue of class.

She made that the issue. The working class needs a champion she said. She has now almost certainly gone from being a member of the working class directly to congress.

On the following platform:

Everyone should have a guaranteed job and sufficient income, health care, housing and education.

Everyone. Guaranteed.

The importance of this event is to understand that this is the future. It will not be able to be fully or sustainably implemented except globally, a theme we will return to of course. And the full reckoning of this global process is not something this candidate has addressed—but that would hardly be expected at this point.

What Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is representing is the adoption in the US of what the Universal Declaration of Human Rights calls for—the 70^thanniversary of which approaches later this year.

Human rights were defined then, and since, as basic human needs as well as other human rights. As we have noted continuously, at some point, this will be reality under global governance or the human species will not survive.

This is not an endorsement politically or a partisan or ideological statement.

It is an observation of reality.

Whether she and others of like mind succeed or fail in the short term, whether this hinders or helps the forces of the status quo in the short term, whether this or any other movement is thwarted or coopted or corrupted in the short term—all have no bearing on what we are noting. What she represents at this point, in the main, is the inevitable future.

We will complete our comments for now on this event by, in effect, turning the floor over to three voices from three leading media outlets, ranging in degrees of partisanship and attempted objectivity, none of which we unreservedly concur with, but all of which are educational and which contain elements of the same observations we have made here.

The Millennial Socialists Are Coming:

By Michelle Goldberg, Opinion Columnist, Sunday Review, June 30, 2018, The New York Times:

What the Left’s Next Socialist Superstar Learned from Trump:

By T.A. Frank, Hive, June 27, 2018, Vanity Fair

Whenever American democracy looks rigged, an underdog comes along to remind you that it can be unrigged. Not since Republican Dave Brat beat incumbent Eric Cantor in a Virginia primary in 2014 has there been an upset quite like that pulled off last night, when 28-year-old former Bernie Sanders organizer Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez beat 56-year-old incumbent Joseph Crowley, the No. 4 Democrat in the House, in a New York primary. As The Washington Post’s Dave Weigel notes, the Web site for Flats Fix, a Flatiron-area taco and tequila bar, still carries a picture of Ocasio-Cortez shaking a drink behind the bar, because that is where she was working a year ago. Today, she’s almost certain to become the youngest member of Congress.

A primary ouster of a House incumbent is rare (it happened in only 31 out of thousands of primaries between 1994 and 2012), but it can chill the blood of incumbents everywhere, especially if policy is at the heart of the matter. Crowley had already moved reasonably far to the left by pre-Trump and pre-Bernie standards, but Ocasio-Cortez outdid him and ran on a platform of Medicare for all, federally guaranteed jobs, and the abolition of ICE. (How the last of these three could work with the first two is unclear—given that the world contains billions of people who would gladly move here for such benefits—but rhetoric will probably cede to a little realism.) Many of Crowley’s peers will consider themselves warned.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump had a pretty good night, too. His favored candidates won their primaries, and even those who were defeated seem to have gone down praising Trump all the way. If the G.O.P. has taken over Trump, Trump has also taken over the G.O.P., and its change over two short years, becoming the party of tariffs and North Korean peace, has been nothing short of remarkable. Democrats have no choice but to change in response, and the rise of Ocasio-Cortez is one indication of that. We’re seeing a left populism that is prepared to go up against a Trumpist right populism. If such are the rumblings of 2018, where on Earth does this leave us in 2020, on which many politically minded Americans are already focused?

The Republican side, at present, seems settled. Barring something huge, it’ll be increasingly Trumpist. But the nature of the party that will challenge it, the Democratic one, is still wide open, and defining it will involve a good deal more agony. Political analysis still tends to classify parties and candidates on a left/right axis, but that has become less and less useful since 2015, when populism entered into the picture and laid down some axes of its own. Donald Trump moved his party to the left on trade, and to the right on immigration, and all over the place on other issues—and Democrats have moved every which way in response. Candidates like Ocasio-Cortez have staked out a spot quite far to the social and economic left, while candidates like West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, a Democrat in a red state, have stayed put or moved to the right. Independent voters might be more attracted to a democratic socialist than to a centrist. We just don’t know.

With everything in flux, Democrats have very tough choices to make in their national campaigns. Should they push as far to the left on economics as many Republicans seem determined to push to the right? Should they take a Joe Manchin approach of granting Trump ground on the issue of immigration? Or an Ocasio-Cortez approach of calling for the abolition of ICE, and, with it, implicitly, border enforcement? Should they follow academic trends in their rhetoric on race and sex and get super-intersectional, or dial it way back the other way? Should they privilege economics or social issues? Should they rely on a hyper-energized base or persuadable independents? Should they abide by common courtesies in daily life, or should they take the advice of Maxine Waters and single out Trump White House employees for harassment? Each contender is likely to have a different combination of answers to these questions, but the party has to settle on one.

Over the weekend, Politico’s David Siders suggested that 2020 could take the form of Trump vs. Warren, as in Donald Trump versus Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, both of whom recently attended party conventions in Nevada and used their time on state to lay into one another, with Trump trotting out his well-worn “Pocahontas” insult (a reference to Warren having claimed American Indian ancestry) and Warren vowing to “hose out the Washington cesspool that Donald Trump has created.” But such a lineup would depend heavily on energy rather than voter conversion. Her steady attacks on Trump enchant much of the Democratic base, but there’s little evidence that it broadens her appeal. The same applies to several other names being floated, such as California’s Kamala Harris and New Jersey’s Cory Booker.

The oddest effect of the victory of Ocasio-Cortez—which may in fairness be a fluke, for all we know—is that it made most other Democrats look old. This isn’t because she’s 28, although that doesn’t hurt, or because she’s Latina, although that doesn’t hurt either. It’s because she offered a clarity of purpose and end goals that have eluded so many of the major names on the left. Even Warren, who was among the few who seemed to understand and explain the implications of the crash of 2008—when the government passed on hundreds of billions of dollars in debt to our grandchildren in order to sustain the lifestyle of Wall Street, which had already cleaned out the common man—has struggled to offer much in the way of vision. She has developed a reputation for grandstanding more than gravitas.

Ocasio-Cortez said something simple: working people like my neighbors and me deserve a square deal—a tuition-free college education if we’re ready to learn, a job at a living wage if we’re willing to work, and a hospital bed paid for by Medicare if we’re sick. Government should guarantee all of these. And it worked. What she seems to have learned from the old-yet-somehow-not-so-old Donald Trump is that vision works. Did Trump really believe we’d fix all our roads and airports, build a big wall, reverse our trade deficit, eliminate government waste, restore safety to our streets, and get so tired of winning that we’d beg to win less? No need to answer that. But he knew that thinking big would inspire his followers, and Ocasio-Cortez knows the same thing. It’s the sort of approach that drove Hillary Clinton crazy about Bernie Sanders, about whom she complained in her latest book that he “didn’t seem to mind if his math didn’t add up or if his plans had no prayer of passing Congress.” But perhaps he didn’t mind because it didn’t matter. You campaign on the vision, not the compromise.

This suggests, oddly enough, that Sanders, older than just about any other major player on the presidential scene, continues to look like one of Trump’s most plausible challengers. Even in a wildly polarized country, he continues to enjoy favorability ratings that regularly top 50 percent. He speaks willingly to political adversaries and, while fiercely critical of Trump, stops short of demonizing him or his supporters. He says what he must to defer to interest groups and identity politics, but his pitch remains similar to what it has always been, much of which has been adopted by Ocasio-Cortez: economic security for all Americans. It could be a winning one.

As it did in 2016, though, it seems immigration will continue to bedevil Democrats more than any other problem. Perhaps Ocasio-Cortez will retreat on her call for the abolition of ICE, or explain it away as a demand for bureaucratic reorganization rather than elimination of its enforcement functions. But the party keeps moving left on the issue, and Sanders is now weathering criticisms for refusing to join the eliminate-ICE faction himself. Even with a policy as noxious as the separation of mother and child at the border, Democrats risk overplaying their hand at the national level. A recent CBS News poll found while only 4 percent of Americans favor separation, 48 percent support deporting families together, and 11 percent support arresting the parents and allowing them to keep their children in the same detention facility. Only 21 percent support the heretofore prevailing policy of releasing them into the country to report back later. (The rest have no opinion.) Sanders seems to perceive the disconnect, but he remains caught between his base and the realities of American opinion. This will be the headache for any eventual nominee, just as it will be a gift to Trump.

The working-class struggles that propelled Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to victory:

By Jonelle Marte, Business, June 30, 2018, The Washington Post:

NEW YORK — When Ali Ahmed is not running the convenience store he owns in Queens, he is crisscrossing the city as an Uber driver.

The side job helps him to afford the mortgage and other bills on the house he bought two years ago in the Parkchester neighborhood of the Bronx. Ahmed happens to work and live in New York’s 14th Congressional District, which could soon elect the youngest woman ever to Congress: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Ahmed says he works hard to get his bills paid and try to create a better financial foundation for his children. It’s a struggle that resonates strongly among voters here who propelled Ocasio-Cortez, 28, to victory last week in the Democratic primary over incumbent Rep. Joseph Crowley.

Their constituents are a mass of working-class families who hustle to make a good life in the shadow of the extreme prosperity in Manhattan. In Parkchester, New York natives with Italian or Puerto Rican roots live alongside people who have immigrated in past decades from Ecuador, Mexico, Bangladesh and other parts of the globe. Neighborhoods in Queens, including Jackson Heights, Astoria and Sunnyside, are equally diverse.

[Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: The Democrat who challenged her party’s establishment — and won]

The district offers a window into the modern economy. The financial recovery of the past decade has buoyed some Americans who feel flush from rising home values and a steady march up in the stock market. Yet despite record-low unemployment across the nation, those who live on the fringes of a strong economy find they are working double time just to keep up.

Ahmed, 41, moved his family to the Bronx after more than 20 years in Queens because the rent on his apartment in Astoria, an increasingly trendy neighborhood, was becoming too expensive.

The move made some things better and other things more complicated. He used to be a few minutes from his store. Now it takes up to an hour to drive there. His bills are larger as a homeowner. But his family has more space. There is a yard. And his kids, a 4-year-old daughter and an 8-year-old son, are happier.

“My family is comfortable here,” he said, adding later that he thinks it will be better for his children in the long run. “I want to make my kids educated, I try to do my best,” he said in a phone interview from the park as his children played. “My hope is that I make something better for them. So they can have a good career.”

The business owner said that he has noticed a pattern among his friends and neighbors — many people are moving to more affordable places in New York City. Professionals who work in Manhattan are moving to Queens as they look for lower rent. That shift is pricing out families and immigrants like him.

“For any one-bedroom apartment, there are 15 people who want to move in, so they put pressure on you,” he said. He watched as many of his friends moved from Queens to the Bronx or out of state.

Living costs are also creeping up around him in the Bronx. A cousin searching for apartments in the area was recently quoted about $1,500 for a one-bedroom, Ahmed said. The same place would have cost $1,000 just two years ago.

The congressional district that Ocasio-Cortez would represent if elected in November has gone from being predominantly white in 1980 to being nearly 50 percent Hispanic, 17 percent Asian and 23 percent white in 2016, according to census figures.

Some of the residents there have achieved the milestones considered staples of economic success in America, such as owning a home, sending a child to college and running a business. Others struggle more to make ends meet, toiling away as servers, drivers and cashiers.

For many, life is characterized by long commutes and even longer workdays. The district has the fifth-highest percentage of workers with service-sector jobs out of all congressional districts, including Washington, according to census data. It ranks seventh for having the longest average commute time.

It’s no surprise, then, that voters here were pulled over by Ocasio-Cortez’s platform of Medicare for all, free education and a livable minimum wage.

In Parkchester, which is a roughly 35-minute train ride north of Grand Central Terminal, people converse and do business in a mix of languages, including English, Spanish and Bengali. On Starling Avenue, which was renamed Bangla Bazaar, a long-standing pizza place shares the street with a Bangladeshi restaurant and a halal meat shop.

Within a few blocks of the busy Parkchester train station, residents can find a Starbucks, a hair-braiding salon, a barbershop and Latino restaurants. A pharmacy’s “help wanted” sign on the window says applicants must speak and write Spanish. A note on the awning, which labels the pharmacy in both English and Spanish, lets people know that workers also speak “Bangla.”

George Penn, who owns the Phase One barbershop on Westchester Avenue, said the neighborhood has changed a lot since he moved there from Harlem as a kid. It used to be much whiter. “There was a lot of racism,” he said. But that faded as more black and Hispanic people moved into the neighborhood — creating a more welcoming environment for his wife and children, who are black and Puerto Rican.

Penn, 44, said higher rents and luxury developments around the city are contributing to an influx of people from other boroughs who need an affordable place to live. “People come from Brooklyn, Harlem — they’re coming to the Bronx,” he said.

[Perspective | Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the intersectional remix of Latino roots and socialist politics]

But many people who live in the area feel squeezed. “The only thing that’s affordable around here are the clothes,” said Elsa Luna, 60, who moved to Parkchester from Ecuador two years ago so she could be close to her daughter and two granddaughters.

Their apartment is blocks away from a busy street with a Macy’s, Marshall’s and other retailers. “Everything else is expensive,” Luna said in Spanish.

The family’s budget is tight because she is unable to work due to a back injury. But they pass the time taking trips to the park and going to church. There are so many languages spoken in the neighborhood that it can be hard to communicate.

“My neighbor is Indian. She likes me and she knows that I like her, but we can’t really say more to each other beyond ‘hello,’ ” Luna said.

Affordability has been a major theme of Ocasio-Cortez’s platform. In an interview with Vogue this month, Ocasio-Cortez noted that the median price of a two-bedroom in New York has increased by 80 percent in the past three years.

“Our incomes certainly aren’t going up 80 percent to compensate for that, and what that is doing is a wave of aggressive economic displacement of the communities that have always been here,” she told the magazine.

[Analysis | What Ocasio-Cortez wants for America after beating Joe Crowley]

After her father died of cancer during the financial crisis, Ocasio-Cortez took on three jobs to help her family fight off foreclosure.

“In a modern, moral and wealthy society, no person in America should be too poor to live,” she said on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” on Thursday night.

People in her neighborhood know all too well.

Rezwana Parvin, who moved to Parkchester a year ago from Bangladesh, said her family is struggling to save even though her husband works 60 to 70 hours a week as a cashier at a grocery store in Queens.

“He pays the rent, and there’s nothing left,” she said, sitting on a bench with her two daughters at a small park with a fountain, just blocks from the apartment where Ocasio-Cortez lives.

Her husband is usually off on Sundays, but they typically spend the time doing laundry, grocery shopping and preparing for the week. “It’s work, work, work,” she said while feeding her 9-month-old.

With the changing makeup of the neighborhood, crime levels ebb and flow over time, Penn said. He no longer sees as many smashed car windows, but he worries about incidents of violent crime. Some other residents in the area echoed his sentiment, recalling stories of fights on the subway or of people hit by stray bullets.

But generally, people said they felt safe here. Bad things happen everywhere, they say.

There is struggle, but there is optimism, too. Penn says he considers his neighborhood to be  “on the upswing.”

And maybe Ocasio-Cortez could help. Penn agreed to display one of the candidate’s bold blue fliers in his barbershop after a friend came in to talk about how she wanted to bring her young, vibrant energy to Congress.

“When you see nothing is really changing,” he said, “you say, let me try somebody new.”