Corrected first page of this newsletter
Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
November 6, 2022
Hello All – According to the (often-wrong) public opinion polls, Democrats will not do well in Tuesday's election and the Republicans may take control of one or both houses of Congress. If this happens it is a disaster from which it will not be easy to recover. But we must; and to do this we must give serious thought to why our deformed democracy has been so compromised by the insanity that has taken over the Republican Party and propelled it to a position of dominance.
The sad truth is that the fight to restore democracy will not only be between Republicans and Democrats, but within the Democratic Party itself. Since the days of Bill Clinton, the Democrats have not been able to sustain a populist economic program for fear of losing the support of well-to-do Democrats, upon whom the party depends for financial support. As money has become the key ingredient for political success, this dilemma has only grown worse. The party leadership must not stray too far towards taxing and regulating the rich to benefit lower-income people. Yet, that's where the votes are.
The failure of the two campaigns by Bernie Sanders for the Democratic nomination for the presidency illustrates the problem. It was clear that it was Sanders, not Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden, who had the best chance of obtaining support from at least a portion of the white lower-middle-class voters who ended up in the Trump camp. Yet the Democratic Party leadership saw that an economic program with a "preferential option for the poor" was incompatible with retaining the financial support of its affluent base.
One of the things we can do – both in Tuesday's election and going forward – is to give vigorous support to entities such as the Justice Democrats and the Working Families Party. They are part of the True Reform wing of the Democrats. They support candidates like Jamaal Bowman when the Democrats are too timid and prefer traditional "moderates." They provide money and organizers for grassroots campaigns. Their endorsement is recognized as a signal that a candidate will work for ordinary people, not just the rich.
This election season support for the Working Families Party is also important just to keep them on the ballot for future elections. A few years ago, Governor Cuomo saw the Working Families Party as a threat to the welfare of his rich, corporate friends. He
