Excerpt From Heather Cox Richardson

Under the direction of President Joe Biden, over the past three and a half years the Democrats have returned to the

economic ideology of the New Deal coalition of the 1930s. This week’s convention showed that it has now gone

further, recentering the vision of government that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s secretary of labor, Frances

Perkins, called upon to make it serve the interests of communities.

Biden set out to prove that democracy could work for ordinary people by ditching the neoliberalism that had been in

place for forty years. That system, begun in the 1980s, called for the government to allow unfettered markets to

organize the economy. Neoliberalism’s proponents promised it would create widespread prosperity, but instead, it

transferred more than $50 trillion from the bottom 90% of Americans to the top 1%. As the middle class hollowed out,

those slipping behind lined up behind an authoritarian figure who promised to restore their former centrality by

attacking those he told them were their enemies.

When he took office, Biden vowed to prove that democracy worked. With laws like the American Rescue Plan, the

Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act, the Democrats directed

investment toward ordinary Americans. The dramatic success of their economic program proved that it worked. On

Wednesday, former president Bill Clinton noted that since 1989, the U.S. has created 51 million new jobs. Fifty million

of those jobs were created under Democratic presidents, while only 1 million were added under Republicans—a

striking statistic that perhaps will put neoliberalism, or at least the tired trope that Democrats are worse for the

economy than Republicans, to bed. 

Vice President Kamala Harris’s nomination convention suggested a more thorough reworking of the federal

government, one that also recalls the 1930s but suggests a transformation that goes beyond markets and jobs. 

Before Labor Secretary Perkins’s 1935 Social Security Act, the government served largely to manage the economic

relationships between labor, capital, and resources. But Perkins recognized that the purpose of government was not to

protect property; it was to protect the community. She recognized that children, women, and elderly and disabled

Americans were as valuable to the community as young male workers and the wealthy men who employed them.

With a law that established a federal system of old-age benefits; unemployment insurance; aid to homeless,

dependent, and neglected children; funds to promote maternal and child welfare; and public health services, Perkins

began the process of molding the government to reflect that truth.

Perkins’s understanding of the United States as a community reflected both her time in a small town in Maine and in

her experience as a social worker in inner-city Philadelphia and Chicago before the law provided any protections for

the workers, including children, who made the new factories profitable. She understood that while lawmakers focused

on male workers, the American economy was, and always has been, utterly dependent on the unrecognized

contributions of women and marginalized people in the form of childcare, sharing food and housing, and the many

forms of unpaid work that keep communities functioning.

This reworking of the American government (is) to reflect community rather than economy.

Walz personifies this community vision.  “[G]rowing up in a small town like that,” he said, “you'll learn how to take care

of each other that that family down the road, they may not think like you do, they may not pray like you do, they may

not love like you do, but they're your neighbors and you look out for them and they look out for you. Everybody

belongs and everybody has a responsibility to contribute.”.....

June 2024

🎴🛴⛵✈️

News Letter for 27C

Dear Fellow Democrats,

The primary is over and the Democratic candidates have been elected for the General Election:

Senate District 18-Natalie Figueroa, Senate District 21- Athena Christodoulou and House District 27 – Marian Matthews. Even with all the hard campaigning, participation was only about 22%.

May I remind everyone that this election is extremely important. The Heritage Foundation is still funding radical right wing Republicans in local races, because that is where the gerrymandering and right wing Congressman and Senators get voted in. They are also pushing the Supreme Court hard to the right, so that if the right wing agenda can not be created in Congress, It will happen in the Supreme Court. R- Nella Dominici ( former Hedge Fund CEO ) is running against Senator Martin Heinrich, Yvette Herrell is going after Gabe Vasquez. Yvette who did nothing for CD-2 in her one term as Congressperson while Gabe has done a lot.

The young voters are idealistically uninspired about Biden. But Trump and the far right policy makers are pushing hard to make the next trump administration more Right Wing Radical, Christian Nationalist intolerant, with a stronger Executive Unity government. Trump and his ilk will use the courts and the justice department to go after President Biden, the Judiciary, The FBI, Homeland Security and tear up the Constitution into shreds. Good Bye America, Land of the Free!

On June 5, the S&P closed at a record high 5354 points, the NASDAQ hit a record high 17,187 and the DOW ended at 38,807. If the Republicans were seriously concerned about the economy, they would be jumping up and down at how good things are. The economy grew 272,000 more jobs. Wages grew 4.1%, inflation is at 4%. But that is not the reason why Republicans want control. They want to dismantle the FBI, the Justice Dept, Homeland Security, Intelligence from all branches of the armed services, Energy and the Treasury. They want to cut taxes on the very rich, go back to supply side economics, which does not work, bailing out corporations does not help working families. Getting rid of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and any other social program that helps the common man only drives a bigger wedge of economic disparity. And further discontent. The power hungry want more power.

Can you believe it, Byron Donalds praised the Jim Crow era in American History, because it kept Black Families together. Seriously? The Senate voted to filibuster the vote on protection for the right to have contraception.

The Rabid Republicans want to pull us back to the 19th Century, this country will be unrecognizable, if Republicans are allowed to win. We can not fail to win the White House, the Congress and our own Legislature.

So as we take a break from campaigning, I urge you to talk to your neighbors, children and grandchildren, nieces and nephews and tell them how huge the stakes are. They all must come out and vote.

Andele pues,

Scotti Romberg

Ward Chr 27C

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🎆WELCOME  January 2024 🎆

Strangely, this does not seem much different from 2023, and yet another year has rolled over into a new calendar. So I look at this new year with fresh determination and commitment to do my best to save Democracy in this country. Lofty goals, I know. But as I see it, we have no choice.

So I go to my scholar of choice, Heather Cox Richardson and glean some kernels of wisdom to share with you.

Biden said.

America, as we begin this election year, we must be clear Democracy is on the ballot. Your freedom is on the ballot. The alternative to democracy is dictatorship – the rule of one, not the rule of ‘We the People

Today, we’re here to answer the most important questions. Is democracy still America’s sacred cause? This is not rhetorical, academic or hypothetical. Whether democracy is still America’s sacred cause is the most urgent question of our time. And it’s what the 2024 election is all about.

Officer Michael Fanone (whom rioters beat and tasered, giving him a traumatic brain injury and a heart attack) said on January 5,2024, to Emily Ngo, Jeff Coltin and Nick Reisman of Politico: 

I think it’s important that every institution in this country, every American, take the responsibility of upholding democracy seriously. And everyone needs to be doing everything that they can to ensure that: 

a) Donald Trump does not succeed and 

b) the MAGA movement is extinguished.

Jan 6, 2024, three years to the day after the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capital, was to prevent the counting of the electoral ballots that would make Democrat Joe Biden president, officers from the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested three fugitives wanted in connection with the attack.

So let's look how the Pollock Family views January 6 - 

Siblings Jonathan and Olivia Pollock (whose family owns Raptured Guns and Knives) described on its Facebook page as a “christian owned Gun and Knife store” in Lakeland Florida. Joseph Hutchison III,who once worked there, are all suspected of some of the worst violence of January 6. The FBI had offered a $30,00 reward for “Jonny” Pollock, while the other two had been arrested but removed their ankle bracelets in March 2023 and fled.

Family members of the fugitives and the other Lakeland residents arrested for their involvement in the January 6 attack on the Capital insist their relatives are innocent, framed by the government eager who is to undermine their way of life. The Pollock family has gone so far as to erect a monument that state it is "in honor of the ones who lost their lives on January 6, 2021”.

Who do the Pollock Family honor or not honor ? 

It honors the insurrectionists: 

• Ashli Babbitt, shot by law enforcement officers as she tried to break into the House Chamber through a smashed window (her family today sued the government for $30 million for wrongful death)

.... and three others 

• one who died of a stroke, 

• one of a heart attack, and 

• one of an amphetamine overdose.

Their monument does not honor the law enforcement officers who were killed or injured. 

I share the above quotes not to demoralize you, but to give you a reason WHY it is so important for YOU, ME and everyone else to see WHY we need to get involved in this year’s election, because it is that important. 

So what you can participate in?

• The 30 day session of the Legislature (which starts January 16)

• The Pre-Primary - determines the election of delegates who will vote for the candidate in the Democratic primary.

• The Primary - the actual vote to elect the democratic candidates 

• The Post Primary convention - elects the Democratic National Committee male and female representatives.

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When I hear Trump and others talking about his “patriots” I want to vomit. If they read their American history, they would realize the sacrifice ordinary citizens made to get away from the King’s rule. No uniforms, no supplies, no food, sickness and misery and death for eight years. Those idiots who stormed the Capital.

We know our WHY, the stakes are HIGH. I ask you as you make your New Year’s resolution, to check your resolve. We need you and I will see you on the trail.

Andele Pues,

Scotti Romberg

Ward Chair 27C