Tompkins County Progressives
History:
Tompkins County Progressives was founded in 2016 during Bernie Sanders' first campaign for the Presidency. Many people in Ithaca and the surrounding county joined together and built a campaign from the bottom up, taking it upon themselves to learn the rules and create literature and promote Bernie's message. After Bernie lost, they decided to keep the movement alive as best they could. They advocated for Bernie's progressive policies, while also engaging with local Democratic Party organizations and working to change the system. Over time, because Tompkins County is already home to so many organizations working around progressive issues, TCP evolved into an organization that is primarily focused on electoral politics. It became a founding chapter of the New York Progressive Action Network, and began to recruit and support progressive candidates for races at all levels. TCP members were key in helping Lea Webb win her State Senate seat in 2022.
Current Activities (an update from TCP chair, Emily Adams): TCP did not operate as a cohesive organization in 2023, largely due to the fact that members were focused on their own very local races, in Ithaca, the Town of Caroline, and other parts of the county. Now, in 2024, we are in a Presidential election year, but to be perfectly honest, none of us progressives are that enthusiastic about Joe Biden. Although OF COURSE we can't let Trump win. We still care deeply about single payer health care and taxing the rich and fighting climate change, but where is the energy for any of these causes? It is hard to find. We are exhausted. We were all so enthusiastic about Bernie and Bernie's vision in 2016 and 2020, but then COVID hit, and the Democratic establishment rallied behind Biden, and rents and prices went up while wages stagnated, and we had used up our savings getting through the first wave of COVID, and here we are, I guess. It seems to me like there was much more energy behind Black Lives Matter after George Floyd was killed, than there was or is behind any candidate for office, now.
Is there any cause or candidate that energizes the left, right now? I'd have to say: Palestinian rights. Although I can't quite say that the images on social media fill me with energy -- it's more like they fill me with dread, anger, despair, frustration, guilt, embarrassment. It's so hard to know what to do. It doesn't help that many fine progressives who would normally stand side-by-side with us, are for some reason NOT with us... that they have aligned themselves with the Israeli narrative that Palestinian lives are worth less, that Israel killing children is OK and actually Hamas's fault, that there isn't really a famine going on, that Israel has the "right to defend itself" while Palestine does not... how is it possible that our friends think so differently from us? Why didn't we notice this before? Where else have people been brainwashed so thoroughly? Have *I* been brainwashed about something, so deeply, that *I* create fantasies to try to explain away the cognitive dissonance? What fundamentals do I take as a given and unquestionable: America is a democracy? Politicians respond to the voices / needs / desires of their constituents because they will get voted out if they don't? A person needs to work 40 hours per week at a minimum to support themselves and if they don't, they are lazy? It is all very troubling.
But in the meantime, there is one action we can take: protest voting during the Democratic Presidential primaries. Vote "uncommitted" or "blank", or vote for Marianne Williamson, to register your dissatisfaction with Joe Biden's support for Israeli genocide. Learn more at www.leaveitblankny.com.
Tompkins County Progressives was founded in 2016 during Bernie Sanders' first campaign for the Presidency. Many people in Ithaca and the surrounding county joined together and built a campaign from the bottom up, taking it upon themselves to learn the rules and create literature and promote Bernie's message. After Bernie lost, they decided to keep the movement alive as best they could. They advocated for Bernie's progressive policies, while also engaging with local Democratic Party organizations and working to change the system. Over time, because Tompkins County is already home to so many organizations working around progressive issues, TCP evolved into an organization that is primarily focused on electoral politics. It became a founding chapter of the New York Progressive Action Network, and began to recruit and support progressive candidates for races at all levels. TCP members were key in helping Lea Webb win her State Senate seat in 2022.
Current Activities (an update from TCP chair, Emily Adams): TCP did not operate as a cohesive organization in 2023, largely due to the fact that members were focused on their own very local races, in Ithaca, the Town of Caroline, and other parts of the county. Now, in 2024, we are in a Presidential election year, but to be perfectly honest, none of us progressives are that enthusiastic about Joe Biden. Although OF COURSE we can't let Trump win. We still care deeply about single payer health care and taxing the rich and fighting climate change, but where is the energy for any of these causes? It is hard to find. We are exhausted. We were all so enthusiastic about Bernie and Bernie's vision in 2016 and 2020, but then COVID hit, and the Democratic establishment rallied behind Biden, and rents and prices went up while wages stagnated, and we had used up our savings getting through the first wave of COVID, and here we are, I guess. It seems to me like there was much more energy behind Black Lives Matter after George Floyd was killed, than there was or is behind any candidate for office, now.
Is there any cause or candidate that energizes the left, right now? I'd have to say: Palestinian rights. Although I can't quite say that the images on social media fill me with energy -- it's more like they fill me with dread, anger, despair, frustration, guilt, embarrassment. It's so hard to know what to do. It doesn't help that many fine progressives who would normally stand side-by-side with us, are for some reason NOT with us... that they have aligned themselves with the Israeli narrative that Palestinian lives are worth less, that Israel killing children is OK and actually Hamas's fault, that there isn't really a famine going on, that Israel has the "right to defend itself" while Palestine does not... how is it possible that our friends think so differently from us? Why didn't we notice this before? Where else have people been brainwashed so thoroughly? Have *I* been brainwashed about something, so deeply, that *I* create fantasies to try to explain away the cognitive dissonance? What fundamentals do I take as a given and unquestionable: America is a democracy? Politicians respond to the voices / needs / desires of their constituents because they will get voted out if they don't? A person needs to work 40 hours per week at a minimum to support themselves and if they don't, they are lazy? It is all very troubling.
But in the meantime, there is one action we can take: protest voting during the Democratic Presidential primaries. Vote "uncommitted" or "blank", or vote for Marianne Williamson, to register your dissatisfaction with Joe Biden's support for Israeli genocide. Learn more at www.leaveitblankny.com.