Yesterday, I went to the rally being held at City Hall in support of a Democratic majority in the Senate.
It wasn’t a rally. It was a press conference. A press conference with a handful of politicians, flanked by another dozen-or-so “third-party validators” who had hastily come together to “protest” the GOP coup.
It was clear that this was a top-down orchestration. They weren’t tapping into the groundswell of grassroots anger about the coup. There were precious few non-political types there. It was also not a very broad coalition–mostly incumbent NYC Dems. No Democratic U.S. Senators or Representatives.
I understand the need to vehemently protest what has happened. But it’s been 48 hours since this coup occurred. And neither this press conference nor the Dems’ movements up in Albany indicate there has been any semblance of critical thinking about the situation. No semblance of a plan to move forward in a productive fashion. No introspection about what had gone wrong; just a knee-jerk reaction to say, “WTF–you can’t do that!”
Councilman David Yassky alluded to how a lot of NYers must be feeling about this whole mess when he spoke: “This is what makes people cynical about politics.” Yes, he’s right–but just saying that isn’t enough.
We’ve mentioned before that the silver lining out of all this may be that New Yorkers will start paying more attention to the depth of dysfunction in Albany and begin to hold their representatives accountable for their actions (and inactions). The other good that may come out of this is if we–as Democrats–begin to set the bar higher for ourselves. That we don’t let the Espadas and the Monserrates stick around while it’s politically expedient until they screw us. That we decide the caliber of Democrats should be better of our own accord.
What can we, as young Dems living in NY, do to make that happen? We would love to hear your thoughts. Here are some of the ideas we’ve put forth on this blog and as an organization previously.
- Immediate actions:
- Call the County Committees of the Bronx and Queens to make sure they don’t support Monserrate and Espada in the 2010 elections
- Go to the Drinking Liberally meeting on June 19th in the Bronx to powwow about how to deal with Espada
- Longer-term actions:
- Run for the Democratic County Committee of Manhattan (This is the org that decides who gets on the ballot with a “D” next to their name. Watchful eyes in this arena are important to ensure our party’s candidates are qualified and best represent us.) Email our Vice President, Ben Yee, if you want more info: vp [at] goMYD [dot] com
- Join an Issue-Oriented Committee to formulate MYD’s policy platforms and strategize about how to influence pols to adopt our positions. IOCs also play an important role in educating our membership about policy and politics through events like panel discussions like this one.
- Help us develop our NYCivics 101 section on this website to educate and inform New Yorkers about how their government works or develop profiles about politicians in our borough and across the state (email newmedia [at] goMYD [dot] com if you’re interested)
- If you are a high schooler or college student who wants to start a chapter of MYD on your campus, we have a very easy chartering process. We’ll support you in getting your chapter up-and-running and you’ll be plugged in to everything we have going on as well. Email our Secretary, Taylor Stirek, for more information: secretary [at] goMYD [dot] com
- One final idea we’re working on is to train young people in New York about how to organize and advocate for the issues that matter to them. If you’re interested in helping us empower young people in this way, contact me at president [at] goMYD [dot] com
You can use the Contact Us form to get in touch with other ideas–or feel free to leave a comment below.
A more effective, responsive, and quite frankly, honest Democratic Party starts with you.
View the rest of the photos from the presser here.
