Don't Be Misled By People Pushing Identity Politics To Make A Quick Buck For Themselves

Tom Guild & Kendra Horn-- guess which one is better on women's issues

Yesterday the LGBTQ Victory Fund endorsed 25 new candidates around the country, including 5 for state legislative seats. Presumably they're all Democrats, but who knows? The Victory Fund doesn't mention what party their candidates are running on, let alone whether they are progressives or conservatives. The only thing they care about is that these candidates are gay. This is so bizarre to me, especially since Congress has so many gay-- albeit closeted-- members who are no friends of the LGBTQ community. Like Patrick McHenry (R-NC), Adrian Smith (R-NE), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Jason Smith (R-MO)...

And I don't mean to pick on the gays for this identity politics nonsense. Yesterday, a friend of mine sent me a link to an article in the Jewish Daily Forward highlighting 8 candidates for Congress. Some of the candidates are Democrats and some of them are Republicans. All of them, though, are Jewish. All of them are also relatively conservative. The Forward seemed to boast that "Studies have long shown that Jews are not only more likely to vote in elections, but are also overrepresented in political office." They make no value judgement about why a candidate should be backed-- or opposed-- just they're Jewish. Example:

Renee Unterman, Republican from Georgia

Unterman, a health insurance executive and former mayor, is the only Jewish member of the Georgia state senate, where she’s represented parts of the Atlanta suburbs since 2003. She’s an outspoken conservative-- she wrote an anti-abortion “heartbeat bill,” supports a border wall and has been endorsed by the National Rifle Association. But she’s also shown she’s not afraid to buck members of her own party-- in 2018, she called for an investigation into then-Secretary of State Brian Kemp, who was running for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, over questionable campaign donations he had received. After a Kemp spokesman called her “mentally unstable,” she opened up about her history of depression and her son’s death by suicide. “I feel like it’s unusual to be a Republican and Jewish,” she told the Atlanta Jewish Times later that year. “But because of my background, I can connect with certain social issues I may not have if I wasn’t Jewish.” The district is open due to the retirement of incumbent Republican Rep. Brad Goodall, who won the tightest congressional election in the country in 2018 by a margin of 419 votes; Cook rates the race a toss-up.

GA-07 is the most competitive congressional race in Georgia this year. As of December 31, three Democrats-- Carolyn Bourdeaux, Zahra Karinshak (the most conservative of the Dems in this race) and Nabilah Islam (the most progressive in the race)-- and 4 Republicans-- Unterman, Lynne Homrich, Richard McCormick and Lerah Lee-- had raised over half a million dollars each. It's worth noting though that 3 of the 4 Republicans are trying to buy the seat with their own wealth. Unterman's own $602,841 amounted to 63% of her contributions. Homrich's $338,410 was 37% of her contributions. And McCormick's $524,639 was 60% of his contributions. Only one of the Democrats-- Karinshak-- is a self-funder.

All of the Republicans are conservatives as are some of the Democrats. Presumably all that matters, though, is that one is sort of Jewish. (Unterman, who tries playing up her Jewishness, is a convert.)

Anyway, on and on it goes-- very profitable women's operations try to get voters to vote for women; very profitable black operations and latino operations want you to vote for blacks and latinos-- just like gays and Jews-- no matter if they're a Blue Dog like Kendra Horn (women), David Scott (black), Henry Cuellar (Latino), Charlie Crist (gay, albeit semi-closeted) or Josh Gottheimer (Jewish). Many of them are in or have been in primaries against progressives who aren't in the identity group but would be a far better representative of the identity group. Let's take Kendra Horn, one of the 5 most right-wing Blue Dogs in Congress. She's against everything remotely progressive-- virulently opposes the Green New Deal, a living wage and Medicare for All, as 3 painfully obvious examples-- and she's running against progressive educator and college professor Tom Guild in Oklahoma City. It is easy-peasy to make the case that although Horn is a biological woman and will be promoted by very profitable women's groups, Guild is, by far, a better candidate for women.

The national minimum wage is the minimum amount per hour employers can now pay most workers. It increases only if Congress passes a bill and the President signs the legislation into law. To the detriment of working people, it has risen slowly over the decades-- it was last raised in 2009, with 2020 marking a record 11-year gap in increases. An increase in the wage to $15 an hour passed the House in 2019, but shamefully Horn was one of a tiny handful of Democrats who voted against raising it. When adjusted for inflation, the minimum wage is 17% lower than it was in 2009, and 31% lower than it was at its peak in 1968. In 1968 the minimum wage put American workers in a position to pay their bills and survive solely on their paychecks. The slow deterioration of the wage now leaves many families unable to pay for their basic necessaries to survive. A living wage regularly adjusted for inflation will bring workers back to a comparable position they were in back in 1968 when they were able to cover their basic expenses every month. Who suffers most? Women and children, of course. On top of that poll after poll shows that it is women who overwhelming support Medicare-for-All and who support an end to endless wars. Horn has a voting record that is shockingly pro-war and anti-healthcare, Guild is anti-war and pro-healthcare... the exact opposite. I spoke to him this morning and we discussed these things and I hope I have his quotes correctly below. Please, if you like what he has to say, consider clicking on the Blue America thermometer and contributing what you can to his campaign.

Under no circumstances, should American troops fight in Iran without prior congressional approval. I’m deeply disappointed that Horn voted twice to give the current volatile and impulsive president or any president carte blanche to start another costly endless war in the Middle East. Enough is Enough! Women tend to be much more reluctant to engage in military adventurism.  Women are especially protective of their families, and do not want them to have their lives prematurely ended in another endless war. Many women consider health care to be the single most important issue affecting their health and welfare and that of their family members and friends. Horn’s refusal to support any particular plan to bring universal health coverage to the American people is disturbing. Her opposition to the one serious plan on the table is baffling and particularly harmful to the women she is charged with representing.

Horn has no serious plan for addressing climate change and the comprehensive and reasonable plan now on the table, with majority support among Americans, particularly women, Horn opposes. Although Horn took money from labor, she voted with Republicans against raising the minimum wage, and has no plan to make sure that all of the people in the fifth district make a living wage. Since American women make up the vast majority of low paid workers, Horn’s position hurts women and their families in their struggle for survival and dignity. Horn also opposed labor’s biggest agenda item this year by voting with the Republicans in the House in an attempt to defeat the Protecting the Power to Organize Act. Women are often greatly benefited by the representation of organized labor. With friends like her, labor and women do not need enemies.

What can we do to make people’s lives better, now and after the pandemic has run its course of destruction? We can provide clean water and air by seriously pursuing ambitious climate action. By pursuing a path of renewable energy, we can create millions of good paying jobs as we repair and restore our environment. We can provide paid family leave and childcare. Rising costs in this area were eating family budgets alive, even before the current health and economic crisis. We can ease the burden on hard working parents and help them care for their most important assets, their children. Seniors are overwhelmed by the skyrocketing price of prescription drugs. By lowering drug prices, we can ease the strain on their finances and improve their peace of mind.