Sorry I’m a day late.
Earth Day, as it’s now celebrated, is wrapped in a kind of sentimentality. We’re made to think about the Earth, about animals, about nature, about polar bears. Don’t get me wrong — the experience of nature is important to our psychological well-being, as artists and poets have known since time immemorial; animals, plants, landscapes, and waterscapes, are obviously a part of the ecosystem that supports us. I hike. I forest-bathe. I tree-hug (mentally).
But the first Earth Day, some 50 years ago, was a signature display of public, political power. Some 20 million people responded to the call to protect our habitat. They were spurred on by photogenically hideous events like the Cuyahoga River (an oil slick, actually) catching on fire; deadly smog in big cities like New York and Los Angeles; and countless examples of local industries destroying their environs with endless downstream repercussions — a cost in human bodies, a death toll.
Congress, and indeed our national discourse, was less thoroughly corrupt than it is now — or perhaps, it was corrupt in different ways. But consensus was still possible; the government could still plainly do Big Things. And President Nixon was plugged in, having created the Environmental Quality Council in 1969; by late 1969 Congress had passed the National Environmental Council Act; by December 1970, the EPA was up and running. It had broad powers to protect the public health via environmental protection. Power was being flexed. And the public good won.
It is important to put ourselves in historical context. We shouldn’t romanticize the era of Vietnam and Watergate; and yet there has been a degradation of our democracy since then. We have endured a steady attack on institutions that protect the public good versus the predations of private greed. Plutocracy, the cult of money, has morphed into a powerful political movement.
First the media was targeted for “liberal bias”, for daring report facts that didn’t flatter plutocratic ambitions. Media consolidation has allowed a few highly-ideological players (Sinclair) to promote right-wing propaganda on the public airwaves. A right-wing media industry takes its agenda from the plutocracy, seasons it with white-people identity politics (racism), and passes it on in the form of grievance at “big government”. We’ve seen the evisceration of campaign finance laws, opening the way for moneyed polluters like the Kochs to poison public discourse with disinformation and “alternative facts”. Money has been spent at a vast scale; and it has been effective.
The EPA was targeted by the plutocracy rather early on. The “Reagan Revolution” marked a turning point away from the idea that government should safeguard public safety from private greed. Remember that the first egregious attacks on the integrity of the EPA were carried out in 1981-82 by President Reagan’s appointee Anne Gorsuch (yes, the mother of Neil). She nearly succeeded in gutting the agency; and yet her scandals have been long since surpassed by Trump’s designated saboteurs, Scott Pruitt and the less-colorful but even more dangerous ex-coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler.
The health of our democracy and the health of our ecosystem is very much intertwined. Our very flesh and blood, and especially that of our children, are on the line. Pollution kills people dead, in vast quantities. In our current pandemic, death tolls from COVID-19 are linked to exposure to pollutants, small particulates (PM 2.5) that get into the lungs and debilitate the very ability to breathe.
And like our democracy, our habitat is becoming unrecognizably crippled, perverted, and repurposed. I am reminded of the chant of the 1980s AIDS activists, protesting on Wall Street: “WE DIE, THEY MAKE MONEY”.
To preserve what is left of our home and our future, we must be as focused as our opponents on getting and using power. Since the fossil fuel industry has set itself against our very existence, I am not ashamed to repurpose a Reagan line: “We Win, They Lose.”
How? We go with the maxim, Necessary but not sufficient. None of the following are themselves game-changers, none are enough. But if we are to substantially cut emissions in the next nine years, as the IPCC says is necessary, we have to do all the things.
Elect Democrats. The Republican Party has thrown in its lot 100% with those who would destroy the world. It has become a death cult, incorrigibly set on destruction. I wish that were not the case; I wish there were Republicans that could be persuaded, but the thick fog of denialist propaganda seems to have enveloped the entire party. It seems that first — and not later — Republicans must be defeated at every level. Only then, and maybe not even, will they change their minds. Joe Biden is not my idea of a climate hero, and sadly gives little inclination he’s up for a big fight. And yet, his climate plan is far more ambitious than Hillary Clinton’s in 2016; and he is in dialogue with Bernie Sanders and Jay Inslee. No such dialogue can exist with Donald Trump nor Mitch McConnell. Elections matter.
David Roberts points to the very obvious correlation between electing Democratic trifectas and bold state action on climate: Colorado, California, New Jersey, New Mexico, Maine — and now Virginia. State and local efforts matter: They bubble up, and set the expectation that people are ready for more comprehensive action, making it politically safer because after adaptation, those measure are practically less disruptive.
Even in Massachusetts, a third term for Governor Baker would mean sluggish and reluctant action on reducing emissions. He talks a good game; he is laudably trying to piece together the Transportation and Climate Initiative. But he takes with one hand what he gives with the other: He continues to support gas pipelines and glacial timeframes on MBTA improvement. We should well expect a Governor Maura Healey (say), already a climate hero, to act with more fire, more swiftness, more urgency.
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Elect better Democrats. On the local level that means electing candidates to the Massachusetts House and Senate who explicitly run on climate action; and who in their collective numbers can put the issue front and center to leadership. There is already a fresh wave of new climate-hawk representatives: Maria Robinson, Lindsay Sabadosa; Tami Gouveia; Nika Elugardo; our own Tommy Vitolo; and others. We need reinforcements: BMGer Steve Owens is running for State Rep on a Green New Deal platform.
With the disruption in the legislative calendar, not to mention the attentions of legislators, we’ll have to see what the House can manage. Again, the Senate already passed a pretty-OK climate bill — still marred by the absence of a 100% renewables requirement by 2040.
“Elect better Democrats” also means …
Re-elect Ed Markey to the Senate. There is quite simply no one like him on climate: The author of the Green New Deal; the Little Red Hen of the 2009 Waxman/Markey cap-and-trade bill, which passed the House, and a climate hawk going back decades. Back when we were successfully tackling acid rain in the late 1980’s, Ed Markey was saying, let’s handle carbon emissions too. He was right.
Joe Kennedy III likes to take credit for co-sponsoring the Green New Deal, but one doesn’t show support by primarying the guy who wrote it. If Kennedy wins, the message is sent, and it will croak momentum for comprehensive climate action. Kennedy saw an election year with Donald Trump on the ballot, and decided it was a good opportunity to advance his own career — dividing our attention, energies, and money in the process. This is naked ambition, and it grates.
On the other hand, returning Ed Markey to the Senate — defeating a Kennedy, in Massachusetts — will be a show of power for the climate movement. It is necessary.
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Move in, and move up. We must ourselves move into places of leverage and power. We create a new normal, a new default set of assumptions about how things should work in local institutions, having them reflect strong climate commitments. That means running for office, if we’re not getting the kind of leadership we need. It means getting on Town Meetings and School Boards and Zoning Boards and whomever else will take us.
Even if we think our local institutions are run by “good people” in “progressive places”, they will de-prioritize climate because they can, because the rest of the fossil-fueled way of life makes it easy to rationalize. (For example, the Arlington High School building committee, faced with a budget overrun, removed geothermal wells and a spur to the Minuteman Bike Path. These things seemed extra, rather than fundamental to the well-being of the very children that will study there.) We need to make sustainable choices normal, common sense — the default.
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The power of example. Yes indeed, climate action will require changes in our lives. People often don’t act on their beliefs; they believe in their actions.
There’s a feedback loop between how people live, and the kinds of policies they favor. I was fortunate to get to live near a bike path, so I bike. The path made me its constituent. And so I advocate for both my path and an expanded network of bike paths.
As with the relationship between state and federal action, change is easier when it begins at home, and is reinforced by public policy decisions. People’s actions create proof-of-concept: You can bike to work. Subways and trains are a thing. You can run your home and your car on sunshine. You can use a heat pump to heat and cool your home. You can eat less meat, or none. Government (and corporate) policy can make these choices no-brainers, instead of eccentricities. The Green New Deal is an alternative future, by no means a hellscape. But it does envision certain changes in how we live.
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The power of no. The power of over my dead body, of hell no. The power of those opposing the Weymouth Compressor; those sprawling across the train tracks preventing a coal train from reaching New Hampshire; those at Standing Rock; at West Roxbury; those who make ear-splitting noise in the echoing marble halls of the State House; those who may think of themselves as warm bodies, but who show up to Climate Strikes; those who march, who stand, who sit; who don’t take evasions and brush-offs from their elected officials; those who are a pain in the ass; who won’t take yes for answer. Yes this matters — getting around protests is slow, and time is money, which affects corporate estimates of return-on-investment. Protests and gatherings are advertising. Again, no isn’t sufficient, but it sure is necessary.
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The fossil fuel industry is in dire straits; they know they can’t win on the merits of the public good, nor is their business model viable, QED. Is this their last chance? They can get what they want from the Trump administration — and they are not wasting this crisis — but what about next year?
We need to inoculate ourselves to any conversation that deals too purely in fantasies of high principle or dream policies, absent a plan to wrest power away from those who are leading us to global destruction. Fight the power. Better yet, take power.
jconway says
I endorse everything else up thread but
this is a bunch of Malarkey for Markey:
This would only be true if Kennedy were challenging Markey on his climate record from the right. Kennedy also supports the green new deal, and let’s be real, Ed is the Senate co-sponsor of AOC’s Bill. So it’s the same difference. He is not the co-author and if he is than he should answer for why the original write up and rollout was so sloppy. Probably because it was the work of a first term Congresswoman in the midst of a staff shakeup and not the work of a 40+ year veteran. Let’s be real. Markey saw the writing on the wall with the Capuano loss and latched his Biden esque record of flip flops to the rising young talent on the left.
None of this matters of course unless the Democrats have a Senate Majority. If they do, Markey has a strong argument for one final term to pass this bill through with a Democratic Senate and President. Bet let’s be reality based. Even then it won’t be a cakewalk.
Just as President Sanders or President Biden would have an equally tough time passing single payer even through a Democratic Senate, so will either Senator Markey or Senator Kennedy. I think it remains to be seen if you’d get Manchin or Sinema on board, or if Marky would eliminate the filibuster to get it passed. Joe Kennedy already said unequivocally that he would. Another point for Kennedy.
I also doubt we’d be questioning his ambitions if he were a woman or person or color taking on an establishment politician. And rightly so. Many Markey supporters have privately admitted to me they would back Pressley in a fight against Markey, seeming to indicate their aversion to Kennedy has more to do with questioning his privilege rather than his ambitions. That is well and good, but I think he is a far more conscientious, well behaved, and self aware Kennedy than any who have come before. He aced Elizabeth Warren’s Harvard Law class and is not the policy lightweight his critics are making him out to be. I think we are already entrusting the future of our party to a 78 year old man, perhaps a 38 year old Senator would not be the worst thing for our state to bet it’s future on in that environment. Another point for Kennedy.
While we might laugh off the Kennedy name locally, it still carries power throughout the country. Connor Lamb only invited two surrogates to campaign for him. Joe Biden and Joe Kennedy. Warren or Markey wouldn’t be able to win over West Pennsylvania, the must win place with jobs and local economies most displaced by the GND. They need to be brought on board, their livelihoods not causally dismissed as expendable or deplorable.
Kennedy could explain that policy to those crowds and really emphasize he is putting them to work on living wage jobs that rebuild America. He already has in his own district which is full of working class white voters. I’m thinking the guy backed by the Teamsters and IBEW will have an easier time selling that policy to those skeptical crowds than the candidate betting it all on the Sunrise Movement. A group so out of touch with reality based politics they refuse to endorse Biden even after their candidate Sanders has dropped out and done the same. Another point for Kennedy.
If we want to pass generation changing climate legislation, we will need to build a nation wide coalition, and I think Kennedy will have a much easier time winning over mainstream Democrats to this progressive legislation then Ed Markey. Kennedy will kill the filibuster which will stand in the way of any progressive legislation in the next Congress. Markey like Sanders, still buys into the Mr. Smith myth that it’s a helpful tool for the little guy.
Kennedy is willing to stack the court, kill the electoral college, pass non partisan redistricting to end gerrymandering and commit to the People’s Pledge. Markey is making outside groups and outside funding the cornerstone of his campaign. After a lifetime of taking fossil fuel money from the utilities his committee is supposed to regulate. Kennedy is going into local communities too often left behind by Massachusetts Democrats. Markey is getting a lot of reshares on lefty twitter. We should all know after this primary which action actually wins elections.
So these are the shakes. May the best candidate win. It’s time to send a Kennedy with gravitas and a national following back to the Senate.
Christopher says
Um, I don’t think we laugh at the Kennedy name in MA of all places, and I though women and non-whites were MORE likely to be knocked for being “too ambitious”.
jconway says
It’s always been a double edged<a sword, even around here. I think Joe passes the Eddie McCormack test. You don’t matriculate from Stanford and Harvard Law solely on the strength of your last name. He’s been in the peace corps, a local prosecutors office, he doesn’t drink or do drugs, he and his wife have a lovely young family. He fights for immigrants, for women, for voting rights, for climate action, for sensible gun legislation, and for ending the filibuster to make all those things possible while Markey equivocates.
The attacks on him and his family show how far lefty twitter has strayed from the days when a “Kennedy liberal” was a right wing rather than a left wing epithet. The irony all these young Sanders supporters going for an incumbent who has been in office as long as Biden and has had a similar history of backflips on progressive priorities over the years from choice to busing to trade policies to wars.
Now I have defended Markey from these attacks from overzealous Kennedy supporters, but it’s crazy seeing all this fake love for Ed come from the same people who rag on Biden for the same stuff. So it’s really the self righteous hypocrisy of his supporters that turn me off the most. Joe is a fundamentally decent guy and everyone hear sang his praises until he had the guts to take on an incumbent who is still largely unknown to the voters.
SomervilleTom says
There you go again. 🙂
I’m still waiting for Ms. Pressley to show us anything at all. Anything!
She is nearing the end of her first term. We’ve learned that she’s lost her signature hairstyles. What initiatives has she fought for, embraced, whatever?
I’m pretty sure that Mike Capuano would have been far more visible in the impeachment fight than his successor. I’m pretty sure that Mr. Capuano would be more pubicly cantankerous towards Mr. Trump and the Trumpists. He was, after all, known for that. I know for sure that in the handful of times I contacted his office, I got a real response from a real staffer. The same has not been true for Ms. Pressley.
I’m sorry, my friend, but I have the very distinct impression that as a resident of Somerville, I am chopped liver in the estimation of Ms. Pressley and her staff. I do not hail from one of their favored zipcodes.
Maybe that’s just politics, but it is not a qualification for competing against either of our currently sitting Senators.
jconway says
Her “signature hair style”’is something of deep resonance to black women and something she involuntarily lost due to a rare condition. I don’t see why mocking that or soft pedaling the affect her video had on young black girls throughout the country is needed.
Secondly, for the third time I think, I will recommend that you read this Politico profile. Trump ignored Capuano who was a silent partner to a lot of good initiatives.
Pressley gets under his skin and fights back. Unlike Capianao, she is a national figure. She also pushed impeachment far earlier and more effectively than a lot of other figures. Unlike the other swuad members, she’s a coalition builder and someone who is pragmatic. She was one of the most popular an effective surrogates for Elizabeth Warren. She’s eloquent. She’s compelling. She’s smart. And she’s a force for the parts of her district Capuano neglected. Mainly the 70% that is majority minority and within Boston city limits.
I don’t recall Capuano visibly working on any of those issues or bringing more small businesses to Roxbury, Mattapan, and Dorchester or taking a leadership role in securing sex education grants for BPS or working with the Dudley Square community on renaming and revitalizing their historic part of the city that matters as much as a Davis or Harvard square.
SomervilleTom says
I’m not mocking Ms. Pressley, and I’m fully aware of the medical aspects of her condition. My comment is intended more as a critique of the media than of Ms. Pressley. My point is that it is yet another example of media attention that puts the spotlight on some personal attribute of Ms. Pressley.
I read the politico piece the first time you offered it. I get it, I’ve read it. I’m glad that she’s doing good things for Ms. Warren and for her neighborhoods.
It would be much easier for me to celebrate all the good things she’s doing for those majority-minority neighborhoods inside the city of Boston if she — and her supporters like you — weren’t so easily and blatantly giving a raised middle finger to the rest of us.
The decision to redraw the CD-7 border in its current fashion is a great example of gerrymandering at its worst. Ms. Pressley has, so far, been a divider rather than uniter. I don’t like that, and I’m not ready to reward it.
I eagerly await and will work hard for a CD-7 candidate who seeks to represent ALL of the neighborhoods in CD-7, both inside and outside the Boston city limits. Ayanna Pressley can be that candidate anytime she chooses. Until now, she has made ZERO effort in that direction.
jconway says
That’s a lot to process Tom. It’s not gerrymandering if it’s done to protect minority interests. It’s literally what the Voting Rights Act calls for and the Supreme Court has held it up. Removing that requirement would lead to even fewer minorities in Congress, especially in the south. Capuano had six years in that configuration and should have reached out to his new constituents and he did not, jokes on him. Rep. Tlaib Rep. Cohen are two non-black reps for majority black districts. So it can be done. Capuano and Crowley were the others, and they lost and deserved to lose since they did not do their jobs of representing their constituents.
We aren’t giving a raised middle finger to anyone. I voted for Capuano in the past and even backed him against Coakley. Got nothing against the guy. I got nothing against Ed. I do have something against voting for the same people over and over again when they fail to adapt to the changing needs of their communities or changing means of communicating with voters.
It’s just that you cannot chide young people and people of color for not participating in politics, as you often have bemoaning their respective 2016 turnout, and then simultaneously attack someone who defeated her opponent by over 17 points by generating that very turnout.
Is it that we are lazy because we do not vote or arrogant when we do but select candidates you disagree with who make the effort to engage us? I see a lot of contradiction there.
Christopher says
I think what Tom is saying is that maybe Somerville and those parts of Boston don’t belong in the same district. If Pressley is better at representing the Boston neighborhoods and Capuano is better at representing Somerville that to me says they maybe should have different Representatives. Every Representative should make an effort to represent every community, though I can certainly understand being most comfortable on one’s own turf. IMO, it’s high time we dump demographic traits as a consideration anyway.
jconway says
Except that Capuano also lost Somerville by double digits. He was roundly rejected across the district, there is not a single community in it Capuano carried. He lost by 17% fair and square. The rest of the delegation is entirely white, I won’t bemoan that one woman of color got elected in a district where they make up the majority of Democratic primary voters.
Christopher says
I don’t question the results. Why do you seem bitter about this?
jconway says
I think that question would be better directed at our friend from Somerville
SomervilleTom says
I don’t question the results of the vote, never have.
The effect of this change has been to disenfranchise me. If I am given an opportunity to replace her with somebody who represents me, I’ll take it.
SomervilleTom says
James, I agree with pretty much everything you say here, in the abstract.
Here’s my objections:
1. As I said above, I want to see more policy and less identity from Ms. Pressley. I wasn’t mocking her medical condition. I’m saying that I care about how she votes, what she works on, what she accomplishes, and so on. I don’t see that so far, and she’s nearing the end of her first term.
2. However the district is drawn, I expect my representative to respond to my occasional inquiries. Ed Markey did it years ago when he was my rep. Barney Frank was famous for it while I lived in Brookline and he was my rep. Mike Capuano did it while he was my rep here in Somerville. The few times I’ve contacted Ms. Pressley, I’ve heard absolute and total silence in response.
Is it a requirement that a young black woman ignore white constituents? Do you think that’s good government? Is it unreasonable for me to ask that when I write my Representative, I at least get an acknowledgement?
I do chide anybody who doesn’t vote. I think you join me in that. I’m telling you why I’m not yet a supporter of Ms. Pressley. It has nothing to do with her age, gender, or race. It has to do with her behavior. I think that we already see the dysfunction that results from using criteria like age gender and race to select our elected officials — we see the tyranny of the majority epitomized by Donald Trump and the Trumpist GOP. The result is Mitch McConnell literally choosing to kill people from Covid because most of the resulting victims will be Democrats.
Black voters in Milwaukee managed to turn out in droves to support Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012. They stayed home in 2016. The result was that we now have the worst President in history. I’m not sure whether you’re still denying that those choices made by those Milwaukee voters (and their counterparts in MI and PA) swung the election or instead defending that choice. I disagree with you in either case.
I think that voters of every race, color and creed have an obligation to consider more than the race or gender of the candidate. I think that anybody with a functioning brain could see that Donald Trump was a TERRIBLE choice compared to Hillary Clinton. Choosing to not vote in the 2016 election was an act of intellectual laziness, apathy, or outright betrayal.
jconway says
I linked to five specific policies she has worked on as both a city councilor and a congresswoman that have an immediate and local impact. She’s working with Cory Booker in baby bonds which is exactly the kind of wealth transfer you’ve been calling for. I don’t recall Capuano pushing something like that. She has pushed for abolishing ICE, something Capuano did not favor initially until late in the primary. She is a strong supporter for the Green New Deal and Medicare for All, two issues Capuano was squeamish about visibly getting behind. She’s continuing his efforts for transit and he actually was very helpful in the transition in getting her on the committee he was on to ensure the GLX goes through, she’s also making sure more funding goes to neglected items like replacing the ancient Mattapan Line. She’s getting better birth control and Sex Ed in BPS and ICE out. She got body cameras off BPD working with students from my former school. She’s awesome, and it’s really sad you don’t see that. Give her a chance.
SomervilleTom says
I’m giving her a chance. So far, she’s ignored my concerns and my neighborhood. I’m glad she’s doing so much for her neighbors in the city of Boston. It’s too bad that that has apparently come at the price of doing anything at all for those of us who live in Somerville.
While Mike Capuano was in office, I had a rep. So far, with Ms. Pressley in office, I do not.
BTW, how could Mike Capuano have been “squeamish” about the Green New Deal when it wasn’t announced until after Ms. Pressley had already taken office?
Trickle up says
Joe3 is primarying Markey from the right. I wish he weren’t.
Replacing one of Congress’s leaders on climate change and the environment with a “me too,” however congenial, would be a loss that would reverberate nationally. I think that is Charley’s point.
By definition, the best candidate in Massachusetts is the one named Kennedy. So I say, may the best climate-change leader win.
jconway says
Evidence please? I do not think anyone would say Markey lost cause of the GND. Nearly every story focuses on the generational and star wattage differences and notes they have next to zero policy differences. If you want someone young and vigorous who knows how to use social media effectively during a time when retail politics is curtailed, vote for Joe. If you want someone who can communicate progressive policies, vote for Joe. If you want someone who has support from a younger and more diverse group of rising Democrats vote for Joe. If you want a guy endorsed by trade unions vote for Joe. If you want a guy who speaks Spanish and has experience working in the Central American nations that many of our immigrants come from vote for Joe.
jconway says
My apologies for the above getting garbled. That link is still active and shows how Markey’s campaign is struggling to even stay on the ballot since it relied on an older model of engaging caucus goers rather than engaging the broader primary electorate. I think Kennedy is reaching more voters who do not normally get engaged in Democratic primaries in Massachusetts and I think it’s a smart strategy. He’s focusing on working and middle class whites and communities of color. Ed is focusing on winning over the younger Warren/Bernie wing. It’s an interesting strategy for a statewide race. I think the Baker/Gonzalez map and Biden/Warren/Sanders map show it’s a strategy with diminishing returns, especially if you aren’t reaching the young people digitally.
The only commentary suggesting this is a loss for the left comes from the left and far left. The mainstream media, especially national outlets, and even the right wing media seem to indicate it’s a fight between two Massachusetts liberals and not between a centrist and a progressive. Only the far left of the party would consider Joe Kennedy a centrist when he has the exact same voting record as Markey, and arguably a more consistent one giving Markey’s shifts from the right to the left of the party over time.
Charley on the MTA says
(Fixed the formatting, I think)
Would point out that Markey’s social media is really perked up and fun. (He’s got a guy.) Markey has union support too — different ones, but I’d especially point to UNITE HERE (hospitality) and 32BJ SEIU (airport workers, security officers and janitors).
(I’m not aware of 1199 SEIU or 509’s endorsement, though those would be nice gets.)
Charley on the MTA says
jconway says
I will concede I enjoy the masked Markey memes. Kennedy is hosting a lot of virtual town halls and it would be nice to see him and Markey do a few together.
jconway says
My big ask for Kennedy supporters is not to exaggerate Markey’s past failures and extrapolate them to the present. I’ll be the first to say he is solidly pro choice and active on climate issues. I doubt he will support another war in the Middle East. My comparison to Biden is only to point out the incongruity in the same people attacking Biden for things that Markey is equally guilty of. It’s odd to see the NeverBiden crowd rally to Markey who has a similar history of evolution on choice, Iraq, trade, Glass Steagall, and bankruptcy reform.
My big ask for Markey supporters is to recognize that the two candidates are identical in substance and some of us favor Kennedy’s style better. We will want a visible and telegenic champion not just for climate but for immigration as well, where I think it has to be conceded that Kennedy has done better outreach with that critical constituency. He’s gotten the Chelsea, East Boston, and Revere pols behind him along with up and coming Latino progressives like Juana Mattis and Jon Santiago. So I think those communities matter just as much as Arlington and Cambridge in picking our Senator. I’ll be the first to say I’m proud to back Markey if he’s the Democratic nominee, I hope Markey supporters feel the same way about Kennedy and are not embittered if he wins. They known quantity is that will both do a good job, the unknown is who will do the best job. The voters will decide and I will follow their judgment.
Christopher says
I guess it’s not bad to be telegenic, but that shouldn’t be a top selling point.
Trickle up says
The Trump administration this year chose to observe Earth Day by promulgating a new rule that would radically shrink the scope of the Clean Water Act.
The rule will nominally take effect on June 22, but lawsuits, and delays, seem likely.