July 2, 2018
It is a challenge to feel hopeful after what feels like the worst week of the ongoing clusterf__k that is the Trump administration. Five journalists were gunned down in Annapolis, Maryland by a violent misogynist. 2000 immigrant kids remain separated from their parents and Trump’s Executive Order traded family separation for family detention, substituting one viciously inhumane practice for another. Justice Kennedy announced his retirement, paving the way for Trump to assemble a hard right majority on the court that will strip women of their bodily autonomy and myriad other hard won rights from people of color and working people.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s dramatic upset victory over Democratic Party stalwart Joe Crowley was a welcome bright spot in the darkness. Her win shows those of us willing to pay attention what it will take to right our ship of state – unabashedly progressive leadership from women of color who refuse to focus on a narrow sliver of likely voters or chase elusive “Reagan Democrats,” who at this point should simply be called Republicans. Ocasio-Cortez chose instead to affirmatively make the case to those that politicians all too often overlook — disaffected young people, people of color and working people – that government can and should be responsive to their needs.
Those dismissing her victory as a function of the particular demographics of her district are exposing their own insularity. The last time I checked, this nation still operates on the principle of “one person, one vote” and the vote of a 19 year old Puerto Rican kid in the Bronx counts just as much as the vote of a middle aged white man in Long Island City.
Republicans know that, which is why they are so invested in voter suppression. Since 2010, 23 states have enacted laws making it harder to vote, from strict voter I.D., to cutbacks in voting hours, to tightened felon disenfranchisement (Source: “New Voting Restrictions In America,” Brennan Center for Justice). In addition, the Trump administration plan to add a citizenship question to the Census is designed to engineer an undercount of people of color in order to further deprive us of representation.
Meanwhile, like former college athletes replaying their winning touchdown in the Ohio State/Michigan Game, the leadership of the Democratic Party insists on strategizing like it’s 1992. They are nostalgic for the days when the appearance of cultural competency was enough to secure the votes of people of color, without having to give us an actual seat at the table.
The awful truth is that in 2018, every day brings more evidence that our democracy is hanging by a thread. The truth is that the people who have been clearest from the beginning about the danger a Trump presidency posed are the same ones who have been persistently dismissed and overlooked – women of color. The Democratic Party has counted on us to provide winning margins for Ralph Northam and Doug Jones, but didn’t want to throw its full weight behind Stacey Abrams and now wants to chalk Ocasio-Cortez’s win up to “demographics.” The truth is that whether party stalwarts want to acknowledge it or not, whether Americans want to admit it or not, women of color are our country’s last, best hope. I only hope that we realize it before it’s too late.