In New York, Progressive Values Have a Line on the Ballot

When I was a little girl growing up in New York, my mother would often take me to the polls and say, “You know what? Liberal Party These lines are meant to show who we are as Democrats, what we stand for, and what we value. ”

Decades later, when I became a mother, I did the same thing with my own children. I take them to the polls and we are Democrats, but we show people what we stand for by voting in Column D, which is the Working Families Party column. I told them I was there. This year, I’m voting for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz on the WFP line – and I’d like to explain why is it so important.

In New York, we are fortunate to be able to show that we don’t just blindly support a candidate and their platform. We have third parties and amalgamated voting that allows us to find a political home closer to our beliefs and add nuance that is desperately lacking in our two-party system. Now, this is more important than ever.

When I woke up on October 7th to the news that 1,200 innocent lives had been brutally taken by Hamas, I thought of the victims, their families, and the hundreds of others taken hostage. , and I wept at the thought of the unspeakable violence that would soon be unleashed by Hamas. Israel’s far-right government is targeting captive Palestinians already living under a brutal occupation. But the violence that followed was far worse than any of us could have imagined. Bombings, burnings, sniping, wounding and torture of men and women, and record numbers of children. unprecedented killings of journalists, doctors, human rights defenders, and UN staff; Every hospital, every university, and countless cultural institutions, schools, refugee centers, entire neighborhoods, entire families were almost completely destroyed, and even entire family lines were permanently erased.

Most worryingly for Democrats, the Israeli genocide has been aided, abetted, abetted, and financed by our Democratic president – whose bearhug diplomacy has failed so spectacularly. end, making a mockery of U.S. law and the international laws governing human rights. Equally alarming is President Biden’s seeming lack of concern or even awareness of the brutal realities coming out of Gaza, the West Bank, and now Lebanon. It is. This reality is keeping the rest of the world up at night and threatening to elect a more empathetic, but unfortunately all too silent, vice president.

I cannot and will not support the Democratic Party’s position on the war in Gaza. And we hold fast to the plain truth that genocide should never be tolerated, much less punished. At the same time, Doornold Trump has always been and will continue to be awful. He gleefully called for further escalation, telling Prime Minister Benjamin Nitanyahu:finish work” and “Do what you need to do,”

Under a second Trump presidency, Americans have faced challenges ranging from the ravages of unstoppable climate change to the eradication of lifesaving health care for women, girls, transgender people, and millions of Americans through Obamacare. Until then, they will be fighting for their own survival. Widening income inequality is the pet project of President Trump’s billionaire donors, and it is rapidly tearing apart the very fabric of our country.

This is a dark choice for voters who value human rights. But I’m a New Yorker, so I can vote for a party that aligns with both progressive values ​​and the cause of Palestinian freedom. For more than 25 years, WFP has been home to my constituents and home to me. Last year, I was one of the first public figures. calls for a ceasefire from the Biden administrationWFP was with me when the word meant more than a delaying tactic, rallying people behind a cause. When AIPAC, enriched with millions in cash from Trump mega-donors and billionaire conservatives allied with Netanyahu, targeted every Democrat who dared support the Palestinians; WFP hit back. We haven’t won every battle. But this funding has been embraced by many people, and our message is resonating with more people than ever before.

There is so much at stake in this election that we can’t go back to the four years Trump was in the White House any more than we can go back to the bad old days that Trump is trying to bring back. But in this election season, I’m focused on using my vote to build the strength of the movements I’m a part of and ultimately win the change we’re fighting so hard for. .

In New York, that means voting for Harris/Waltz in column D. working family party We’re targeting all of the exciting candidates WFP supports, including dozens in New York and hundreds in states across the country. Although not all states have Fusion voting, many states have active and thriving branches of the Working Families Party that only surface once every four years to spoil an election. Instead, we fight every day to win a broad progressive agenda for many people. Only a few.

And to my fellow New Yorkers for whom Kamala Harris may not be the perfect candidate: As my mother would say if she were here, when we vote for Harris/Waltz as the WFP candidate. , we are signaling (God willing) our future president. We are voting for her as part of a movement for her to improve. And our vote is not the end of our interaction with her, but only the beginning.