[Today, the second-largest cities in New York and Ohio are
battlegrounds between activists fighting for progressive change and
establishment forces determined to prevent it.]
[[link removed]]

THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK AT THE LEFT IN BUFFALO AND CLEVELAND  
[[link removed]]


 

Norman Solomon
July 2, 2021
CounterPunch
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
* [[link removed]]

_ Today, the second-largest cities in New York and Ohio are
battlegrounds between activists fighting for progressive change and
establishment forces determined to prevent it. _

The two biggest cities on the shores of Lake Erie are now centers of
political upheaval,

 

The two biggest cities on the shores of Lake Erie are now centers of
political upheaval. For decades, Buffalo and Cleveland have suffered
from widespread poverty and despair in the midst of urban decay.
Today, the second-largest cities in New York and Ohio are
battlegrounds between activists fighting for progressive change and
establishment forces determined to prevent it.

For Buffalo’s entrenched leaders, a shocking crisis arrived out of
the blue on June 22 when socialist India Walton won the Democratic
primary for mayor, handily defeating a 15-year incumbent with
a deplorable track record
[[link removed]].
“I am a coalition builder,” Walton said in her victory speech
[[link removed]] that night. But for the
city’s power brokers, she was a sudden disaster.

“This is organizing,” Walton said as rejoicing supporters cheered.
“When we organize, we win. Today is only the beginning. From the
very start, I said this is not about making India Walton mayor of
Buffalo — this is about building the infrastructure to challenge
every damn seat. I’m talking about committee seats, school board,
county council. All that we are doing in this moment is claiming what
is rightfully ours. We are the workers. We do the work. And we deserve
a government that works with and for us.”

To the people running City Hall, the 38-year-old victor seemed to come
out of nowhere. Actually, she had come out of grassroots activism and
a campaign that focused on key issues
[[link removed]] like “food access,” “pandemic
recovery,” education, climate, housing and public safety. And for
corporate elites accustomed to having their hands on Buffalo’s
levers of power
[[link removed]],
there would not be a GOP fallback. Mayor Byron Brown had appeared to
be such a shoo-in for a fifth term that no Republican bothered to run,
so India Walton will be the only name on the November ballot.

Alarm sirens went off immediately after election night. The loudest
and most prominent came from wealthy (net worth $150 million)
real-estate developer Carl Paladino
[[link removed]],
a strident Trump supporter and former Republican nominee for governor,
who became notorious in 2016 for racist public comments
[[link removed]] about
Michelle and Barack Obama. Walton’s victory incensed Paladino, who
made it clear that he vastly preferred the black incumbent to the
black challenger. “I will do everything I can to destroy her
candidacy,” Paladino said
[[link removed]],
and he urged
[[link removed]] fellow
business leaders in Buffalo to unite behind Brown as a write-in
candidate.

In tacit alliance
[[link removed]] with
Paladino while keeping him at arm’s-length, Brown announced
[[link removed]] on
Monday evening that he will mount a write-in campaign to stay in the
mayor’s office. Brown cited among his mayoral achievements “the
fact that the tax rate in Buffalo is the lowest it’s been in over 25
years.” Then he began scaremongering.

“I have also heard from voters that there is tremendous fear that
has spread across this community,” Brown said. “People are fearful
about the future of our city. They are fearful about the future of
their families. They are fearful about the future of their children.
And they have said to me that they do not want a radical socialist
occupying the mayor’s office in Buffalo City Hall. You know, we know
the difference between socialism and democracy. We are going to fight
for democracy in the city of Buffalo. The voters have said that they
don’t want an unqualified inexperienced radical socialist trying to
learn on the job on the backs of the residents of this community. We
will not let it happen. It will not stand.”

Such attacks, with McCarthyite echoes of Trumpism, are likely to be at
the core of Brown’s strategy for winning the general election. But
he’ll be in conflict with the formal apparatus of his party in
Buffalo. After the write-in campaign announcement, the chair of the
Erie County Democratic Party issued an unequivocal statement
[[link removed]] about
India Walton, “to strongly affirm once again that we are with her,
now and through the general election in the fall.” It added: “Last
Tuesday, India proved she has the message and the means to move and
inspire the people of Buffalo. It was a historic moment in Western New
York politics. The voters heard her message and embraced her vision
for the city’s future, and we look forward to working with her and
her team to cross that final finish line on November 2.”

Two hundred miles away, in northeast Ohio, the clash between
progressives and corporatists has been escalating
[[link removed]] for
several months, ever since Rep. Marcia Fudge left a congressional seat
vacant when she became President Biden’s HUD secretary. Early voting
begins next week, and the district is so heavily Democratic that the
winner of the Aug. 3 primary is virtually certain to fill the vacancy
this fall.

On Tuesday, the No. 3 Democrat in the House, Rep. Jim Clyburn, went
out of his way to be emphatic that he doesn’t want the frontrunner
in the race, progressive stalwart Nina Turner, to become a colleague
in Congress. Though nominally endorsing Turner’s main opponent,
Shontel Brown, the clear underlying message was: _Stop Turner_.

Clyburn went beyond just making an endorsement. He provided some
barbed innuendos via an interview with the New York Times,
which reported
[[link removed]] comments
that say something about Clyburn’s self-concept but nothing really
about Turner. “What I try to do is demonstrate by precept and
example how we are to proceed as a party,” he said. “When I spoke
out against sloganeering, like ‘Burn, baby, burn’ in the 1960s and
‘defund the police,’ which I think is cutting the throats of the
party, I know exactly where my constituents are. They are against
that, and I’m against that.”

In fact, Democrats are overwhelmingly in favor
[[link removed]] of
programs being championed by Turner, none more notably than Medicare
for All, a proposal that Clyburn and many of his big funders have
worked so hard to block. “Clyburn has vacuumed in more than $1
million from donors in the pharmaceutical industry — and he
previously made headlines vilifying Medicare for All during the 2020
presidential primary,” the Daily Poster pointed out
[[link removed]] on
Wednesday.

The corporate money behind Clyburn is of a piece with the forces
arrayed against Turner. What she calls “the commodification of
health care” is a major reason.

In mid-June, Turner “launched her television spot
[[link removed]] entitled
‘Worry,’ in which she talks about how her family’s struggle to
pay health care bills led her to support Medicare for All,”
the Daily Poster reported. “The very next day, corporate
lobbyists held a Washington fundraiser
[[link removed]] for
Turner’s primary opponent, Shontel Brown. Among those headlining the
fundraiser was Jerome Murray — a registered lobbyist for
the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers Association
[[link removed]],
which has been backing a nationwide campaign
[[link removed]] to
reduce support for Medicare for All.”

Whether Clyburn’s endorsement will have significant impact on the
voting is hard to say, but it signaled that high-ranking Democrats are
more determined than ever to keep Turner out of Congress if they
possibly can. His move came two weeks after Hillary Clinton endorsed
[[link removed]] Brown,
who has also received endorsements from the chair of the Congressional
Black Caucus, Rep. Joyce Beatty, and the chief deputy whip of House
Democrats, Rep. Pete Aguilar. On the other hand, a dozen
[[link removed]] progressive
members of the House have endorsed Turner, including Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez, Ro Khanna, Rashida Tlaib and Jamaal Bowman, as well as
Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Carmen Yulín Cruz, the former mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico — who,
like Nina Turner, was a national co-chair of the Sanders 2020
presidential campaign — is a strong supporter of Turner for
Congress. This week, summing up the fierce opposition from power
brokers who want to prevent a Turner victory, Cruz used words that
equally apply to the powerful interests trying to prevent India Walton
from becoming the next mayor of Buffalo: “They’re afraid of a
politician that can’t be bought.”

_NORMAN SOLOMON is executive director of the Institute for Public
Accuracy, where he coordinates ExposeFacts
[[link removed]]. Solomon is a co-founder
of RootsAction.org. [[link removed]]_

_COUNTERPUNCH’S mission is to help readers make informed
assessments – vital for a healthy, democratic society – on the
public issues of the day.  We do this by publishing alternative,
left-leaning reporting, commentary, and essays that you won’t find
in the mainstream press. We also carry out our mission by publishing
non-fiction books._

_CounterPunch is reader supported! Please help keep us alive
[[link removed]]._

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
* [[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web [[link removed]]
Submit via email
Frequently asked questions [[link removed]]
Manage subscription [[link removed]]
Visit xxxxxx.org [[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]