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:
(This is an update from TCP chair, Emily Adams, from November of 2024. Views are her own and do not necessarily represent the entire group)

Well, the unspeakable happened. Trump was elected to a second term, because (IMO) the lack of enthusiasm for Biden spilled over onto Harris when she failed to differentiate herself from him. Like Hillary Clinton, she snubbed progressives and chased after "reachable Republicans," this time by associating her brand with the Cheneys rather than the Kissingers, and by using hawkish messaging about Israel and the southern border.  I was supporting the whole Democratic slate, of course, and like before, I was silently praying that her campaign advisors were right and I was wrong. "For every progressive and working class voter like me that she loses, she'll gain 2 moderate/conservatives, I guess? I don't see it happening, but she has the best paid consultants on the planet, and she must know... so if chasing moderates is what she has to do to win, I'll hold my tongue." Sigh. I am just so tired of being snubbed and holding my tongue.

If it had been me running her campaign, I would have advised her to make a firm but respectful break from Biden, talk about "saving democracy and opposing fascists" consistently -- both at home with Trump and abroad with Netanyahu, talk about taxing the billionaires and corporations, especially the ones who got even more filthy rich at our expense during the pandemic, and lean in on policies that would help the working class -- raising the minimum wage, making healthcare a right for everyone, bringing back the child tax credit, lowering taxes on the self-employed and small businesses, increasing social security benefits, cutting money from our obscenely high defense budget, investing more in the IRS so it can recover lost taxes from billionaire tax cheats. A populist message, spoken with conviction, returning frequently to fairness and families, and pointing people with frustrations at the real cause of their suffering: greedy billionaires, not undocumented immigrants or trans girls on high school soccer teams. That's what I wanted to hear, and I think it would have resonated with enough Americans to win her the Presidency.

What do we all do now? Well, we can't give up. Like Bernie always says, "despair is not an option." Giving up is precisely what the far right wants us to do, so for that reason alone we must not do it. 

The first step to not giving up, in my view, is to gather our forces together, and bring our friends and neighbors with us. Not let anyone stay home, feeling alone and scared, feeling like they have to face the next four years on their own and just hope they survive. Along those lines, my first step was signing up as a local organizer with an alliance of progressive groups (including the Working Families Party, Indivisible, MoveOn, Citizen Action, etc) called "We Are Worth Fighting For." www.weareworthfightingfor.org. They seem to have a plan and some really good national organizers working on it. Our local group has already held two events in Ithaca, and I saw many new faces in the crowd.

And now my second step is to dust off Tompkins County Progressives. Hold some meetings... gasp... in person (which we have not done since COVID). Recruit new members, build working relationships with our locally elected officials (Anna Kelles, Lea Webb and Josh Riley) so they can represent us well and be effective, push to get the New York Health Act passed in New York before Trump destroys Medicare nation wide.... Are you ready to join me? See the "action" tab for how to become a member (or renew your membership).

Previous update from the chair:
(This is an update from TCP chair, Emily Adams, from March of 2024. Views are her own and do not necessarily represent the entire group)

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? Is that real or just wishful thinking? 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 philosophical musings aside, there is one action we can take right now: 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.