The Political Revolution Comes to... Buffalo?

[Autumn]

The stunning victory of socialist challenger India Walton over the city’s four-term incumbent has ignited a revolution here—if she can keep it.

BUFFALO, N.Y.—In her victory speech, India Walton—the community organizer and first-time candidate who’d just beaten four-term incumbent Byron Brown in the city’s June 22 Democratic primary for mayor—referred lovingly to her 500 or so campaign volunteers as her “band of revolutionaries.
”That may sound trite. It’s not. It’s probably not possible to understand how disruptive Walton’s win has been unless you’re from here. But I’ll try.

Walton is a community organizer, former head of a community land trust, a registered nurse, a labor activist, and a single mother of four who earned her GED while pregnant with twins. This was her first race for political office.

York State Senate to the mayor’s office on the second floor of Buffalo’s beautiful art deco City Hall. The massive building went up in 1932 at the origin point of the city’s original radial street plan when the city’s power elite believed—or professed to believe—that Buffalo’s rapid growth over the previous 50 years would continue unabated, that this would be a city of a million people by 1950.

That’s not what happened. Disinvestment had in fact already begun in the 1920s, and, after an economic bump from World War II, the city’s industrial economy continued to decline, finally cratering in the 1970s.
Buffalo has been a client of the state and federal governments ever since. State aid provides one-third of the city’s revenue; federal money flows through the city bureaucracy to fund a network of anti-poverty nonprofits.

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/india-walton-buffalo-mayor/

[crickets]

1. Interesting. nt

[Decoy of Fenris]

2. The whole article is worth a read, shame you can only quote so much.

Republicans and Democrats alike trying to come together to stop the legitimate election of a black woman. A power-base so obscenely corrupt that the incumbent mayor couldn't even be bothered to put his name on the ballot because he was so sure he'd win. 60 years of cross-party one-hand-washing-the-other to the exclusive benefit of the rich and powerful, leaving the poor and needy to rot.

Good on Walton. She's the best type of Democrat.

[Autumn]

4. This is an excellent read on that from Salon.

https://www.salon.com/2021/07/02/the-empire-strikes-back-mainstream-dems-try-to-crush-the-left-in-buffalo-and-cleveland/?fbclid=IwAR36jIMzuzHdJu0F7QIlxaX0Ig-Xu9ima_Zu78Aq5QXU1fmF3zypA6S4s0Q

[liberal_mama]

3. I live in a suburb of Buffalo, NY, and a lot of people are really wound up about India Walton

Voter turnout was low and most people assumed that Byron Brown would win a 5th term as Buffalo Mayor. Buffalo is a pretty big city and she doesn't have any political experience, so some people are concerned about that, including my mother (a very passionate democrat). I hope she does good. I was never crazy about Byron Brown myself.

[Autumn]

5. I would think it would be hard to do less than Byron Brown did from what I have read.