Rashida Tlaib Is the Left's Way Forward

[SkyDancer]

I imagine most people don't really know her so here's a great video interview of Rashida Tlaib from Morning Joe which leads off with a clip of her being hauled off from a Trump rally which inspired her to run.

Rashida Tlaib Is the Left's Way Forward
She wasn’t the flashiest candidate in Tuesday’s primaries, but her steady, unapologetic progressivism is the movement's future.

The left—particularly the new-school, say-it-loud-and-say-it-proud democratic socialist left inspired by Bernie Sanders’ 2016 primary run—has a tendency toward maximalism. And it’s only natural: The progressive project, as both its subscribers and Fox News scaremongers alike would tell you, is revolutionary, seeking to fundamentally remake the relationship Americans have with their government and that the government has with the economy. If you believe that world is possible, it follows that there must be millions across the country who are hungry for your message, passive non-voters who, once activated by a strong progressive voice, will sweep your tribunes into the halls of power.

That was the thinking going into Tuesday’s Democratic primary elections, with a fair amount of light and heat around one in particular: the gubernatorial primary in Michigan between Gretchen Whitmer, Abdul El-Sayed and Shri Thanedar. El-Sayed, a 33-year-old physician and first-time candidate vying to become America’s first Muslim governor, carried the endorsement of both Sanders and New York socialist wunderkind Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, earning a string of speculative features about the man a Guardian headline even referred to as “the new Obama.”

Unfortunately for his backers, Sayed went down in flames on Tuesday, failing to carry a single county in a nearly 22-point loss to Whitmer, an experienced former state Senate leader. But in Michigan’s 13th Congressional District, where the former Rep. John Conyers Jr. resigned the seat he’d held for more than a half-century after facing allegations of sexual misconduct, another Sanders-backed candidate scored a primary victory that might prove more ultimately instructive: Rashida Tlaib, a former state legislator who ran on a platform of “Medicare for All,” a $15 minimum wage and tuition-free college.

No Republican plans to oppose Tlaib in November. Her presumptive district includes Detroit, the state’s most populous city and the engine of its economy, and the seat she will almost certainly inherit carries a longstanding symbolic importance due to her predecessor’s civil rights leadership. It’s an impressive, prominent position Tlaib will assume, especially considering she will be the first Muslim woman ever to sit in Congress, and just the second Palestinian-American—after her fellow Michigander, Republican Rep. Justin Amash.

Article continues here

[klook]

1. She was impressive this evening on "All In." (nt)

[Power 2 the People]

2. We need more like Rashida

A gutsy progressive.

[poetshepherd]

3. Can we stop the BS of calling her a "progressive"

Obama is a progressive. Pelosi is a progressive.

Too many here equate "far-left" w/ progress, when in actuality, progress has happened incrementally, once the Center of the political spectrum accepts what is being proposed: Medicaid, The Clean Water Act, Medicare, etc.

This future Congresswoman might be gr8, but she is not more of a progressive than Hillary or Obama--she is just left of them. And BTW, according to PEW, 40% of the electorate said Obama was too far left for them to support. 80% said bernie was too far left.

Obama won 2 elections, bernie, 0.

[SkyDancer]

6. She is a progressive

"Far left"? What is this so called "far left" you describe? You mean policies that a majority of American's support? I think it's the "alt-center" who is having a bit of trouble accepting things.

Obviously you have your opinion & I have mine and I'm not sure what Bernie has to do with anything here despite a majority of American's agreeing with his policies.

There is a massive shift happening within our party right now. That is reality. 2 years ago nobody was even mentioning the words DSA, and guess what? They are now. Notice anything? The majority of progressives running backed by groups like DSA, WFP, DFA, Our Revolution & Justice Democrats are what? Millennials and POC, with a large majority being women.

[betsuni]

9. ...

[MaryMagdaline]

4. Good candidate for our party

[SkyDancer]

7. She's awesome

[Wwcd]

5. Why doesn't she call herself a Democratic Socialist?

She simply refers to herself as a Democrat.

Just an observation.

[SkyDancer]

8. Because she is?

She is both a Democratic Socialist and a Democrat much like AOC.

[Wwcd]

10. She doesn't refer to herself as a Dem Soc. Just a regular Democrat.

A Democrat with the platform of the Democratic Party.
Guess that's why she doesn't need to add a socialist label.

Glad she's beyond the label trend.
Good for her.