Skip to main content

Julia Salazar is looking to land the next blow against the New York Democratic machine

Progressive 'epidemic' about to spread rapidly in New York

Julia Salazar, a candidate for the New York state Senate, was standing outside a barbershop in her North Brooklyn neighborhood one recent afternoon, when a barber looked up and saw her through the window. Squinting through the glass, he pointed to a “Salazar for Senate” sign on the wall of the shop, gestured in her direction, and mouthed, “That’s you?” She smiled. “That’s me.”

The 27-year-old community organizer has become a recognizable name and face in the neighborhood thanks to an aggressive ground game in her challenge to eight-term incumbent Democratic state Sen. Martin Dilan. Salazar and scores of volunteers have blanketed the district collecting signatures to get her name on the ballot for the September 13 primary. Salazar, her campaign told The Intercept, plans to submit many times more than the requisite 1,000 signatures from registered Democrats in the district by the July 9 filing deadline.

Dilan, a vestige of the corrupt patronage machine of former Brooklyn Democratic boss Vito Lopez, has held the North Brooklyn seat since Salazar, a working-class Colombian immigrant, was 11 years old.

Interest in Salazar’s insurgent campaign spiked last week when Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, another millennial Latina, shook the political world by trouncing Queens Democratic Party boss Rep. Joe Crowley in a congressional primary. As news of Ocasio-Cortez’s upset spread, Salazar tweeted, “This is the most inspiring campaign victory I have ever witnessed.” Over the past few months, Ocasio-Cortez and Salazar have shared stages, knocked doors together, and endorsed each others’ campaigns. “Alexandria, mi hermana, mi heroína,” Salazar wrote on election night, “I am so grateful to be in this movement with you.”

Saturday morning, Ocasio-Cortez emailed her supporters encouraging them to sign up to petition for Salazar and a few other progressive women candidates. “I can’t think of a better place to start the fight for progressives like us than helping get Julia Salizar [sic], Zephyr Teachout and Cynthia Nixon on the ballot!” she wrote. (Nixon, who’s challenging Gov. Andrew Cuomo, also endorsed Salazar this week.) “When nobody else would endorse us or cover our race, these three women broke ranks and endorsed Ocasio 2018. Now it’s time to stand by them.”

Ocasio-Cortez followed up with a tweet on Monday, encouraging her followers to help gather signatures on Salazar’s behalf: “@SalazarSenate18 isn’t the next me, she’s the first HER.”

A win by Salazar would help solidify the gains made by Ocasio-Cortez, who defeated, but did not vanquish, the party machines. The similarities between the candidates are more than superficial. Both are committed socialists endorsed by Democratic Socialists of America. Both support abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a once-fringe rallying cry that has seeped into mainstream liberal discourse in recent weeks. Both were raised by working-class parents and threw themselves into community organizing as teenagers. And, tragically, both endured the deaths of their fathers before their 20th birthdays. Most of all, Salazar and Ocasio-Cortez represent a new generation of young, diverse, unapologetically radical women poised to take over the Democratic Party.

The night of Ocasio-Cortez’s win, Salazar, who was at the victory party, felt the earth shift beneath her feet. “At first, I was shocked,” she told me last week. “I’m less shocked now. When you do this kind of work, you’re constantly managing expectations. You have a grander vision, but on a daily basis, you’re just putting one foot in front of the other. That night, I realized we can do so much more. We can win.”

More:


Related:



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Oct. 7 Reports Implode: Beheaded Babies, NY Times Scandal, & More

Glenn Greenwald    

Πώς ο Γκρίνμπεργκ μπορεί να θάψει το καθεστώς Μητσοτάκη

του system failure    Είναι ξεκάθαρο ότι η αναμφίβολη πρωτοκαθεδρία του καθεστώτος Μητσοτάκη οφείλεται σχεδόν αποκλειστικά σε μια άκρως επιθετική επικοινωνιακή εκστρατεία που είχε καταφέρει μέχρι στιγμής να κρύβει κάτω από το χαλί (τουλάχιστον ως ένα βαθμό) τον αυταρχισμό και τη διαφθορά του καθεστώτος, καθώς και τις καταστροφικές πολιτικές που εφαρμόζει.  Και δεν είναι πλέον μυστικό, ότι ο άνθρωπος-κλειδί πίσω από αυτή την εκστρατεία είναι ο Αμερικανός δημοσιοσχετίστας, Σταν Γκρίνμπεργκ .    Όμως καθώς το καθεστώς επαναπαύθηκε στις δάφνες της νίκης των τελευταίων βουλευτικών εκλογών, τα μεγάλα προβλήματα συνέχισαν να συσσωρεύονται και φάνηκε ότι το καθεστώς είτε δεν ήθελε, είτε δεν μπόρεσε να τα αντιμετωπίσει. Έτσι, είδαμε σε σύντομο χρονικό διάστημα να έρχονται τα πρώτα σημαντικά πλήγματα στην πρωτοκαθεδρία του, μέσα από τα αποτελέσματα των δημοτικών και περιφερειακών εκλογών. Παρόλα αυτά, η αλαζονεία των καθεστωτικών στελεχών παρέμεινε αμετάβλητη, καθώς θεώρησαν ότι η τραγωδία των Τ

Zionist and US imperialist criminals are about to grab the natural gas off shore Gaza

globinfo freexchange   As the genocide against Palestinians of Gaza is about to be completed with an act of unprecedented brutality by the Zionists and butcher Netanyahu through the bombardment of about 1.4 million civilians in Rafah, it seems that they have already set their next primary goal. Which, in short, is to grab the natural gas resources off shore Gaza, together with their US imperialist buddies whose contribution to the genocide has been undoubtedly critical.     As already reported , in 2007, Hamas came to power and Israel launched an offensive on Gaza Strip, leaving behind 1,400 dead Palestinians, but taking with it the gas fields. Within a year, Israel announced the discovery of the Leviathan natural gas field, which did include Gaza's riches, valued at 453 billion dollars. But Gazans have been denied around 47 billion dollars in revenue. As for Tel Aviv, it's gunning to become a new hub. At that moment in time, that is 2022, Russian oil and gas were sanctioned.

Israel’s Descent Into Madness & the Holocaust Comparison

BreakThrough News   Rania Khalek was joined by Tarik Cyril Amar, a historian from Germany and associate professor at Koc University in Istanbul, to discuss Israel’s descent into genocidal fascism. Prof. Amar addresses whether it’s useful to make Holocaust and Nazi comparisons and the real reason behind the West’s unshakeable loyalty attitude when it comes to Israel’s barbarism.   

Neocon Queen Victoria Nuland Ends Her Reign: Exposing a Catastrophic Career

Glenn Greenwald    

The Shadowy, Intelligence-Linked Group Driving the US Towards War With Iran

"United Against Nuclear Iran does not miss an opportunity to try to bring the United States closer to a military conflict with Iran. And on the other side of the equation, they also have worked very hard to oppose efforts to de-escalate the U.S.-Iran relationship."   by Alan Macleod   Part 7 - A Lesson From History   The history of Iran has been intimately intertwined with the United States since at least 1953 when Washington orchestrated a successful coup against Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. Mosaddegh had refused U.S. demands to stamp out Communist influences in his country and had nationalized the nation’s oil. The U.S. installed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi as a puppet ruler. An unpopular and authoritarian ruler, the Shah was overthrown in the Revolution of 1979. Since then, it has become a target for regime change, and its nuclear program is something of an obsession in the West. Often orchestrated by UANI officials while they were in government, the U.S. has carried

Το σκάσιμο της φούσκας Μητσοτάκη με νέα επίσημη χρεοκοπία και οριστικό τέλος της μεταπολίτευσης

του system failure   Τα αποτελέσματα των εκλογών της 25ης Ιουνίου ήταν λίγο-πολύ αναμενόμενα όσον αφορά τις πρώτες θέσεις με βάση και τα αποτελέσματα της πρώτης κάλπης του Μαίου. Αν συμπεριλάβουμε και το ποσοστό της αναμενόμενης αποχής, δεν μας έδωσαν κάποια ιδιαίτερη έκπληξη. Αυτό όμως που φαίνεται να αιφνιδίασε ακόμα και το συστημικό κατεστημένο, είναι η είσοδος των δύο υπερσυντηρητικών, ακροδεξιών κομμάτων Νίκη και Σπαρτιάτες, με το τελευταίο να έχει ξεκάθαρες διασυνδέσεις με τον πρώην Χρυσαυγίτη, Ηλία Κασιδιάρη. Παρά τη μεγάλη νίκη Μητσοτάκη, οι μιντιακοί ινστρούχτορες της καθεστωτικής προπαγάνδας εμφανίστηκαν σε γενικές γραμμές "μουδιασμένοι" και αυτό οφείλεται στο γεγονός ότι το συστημικό κατεστημένο (δηλαδή τα μεγάλα οικονομικά συμφέροντα που ελέγχουν και το σύνολο των μεγάλων ΜΜΕ πανελλαδικής εμβέλειας), πέτυχε μόνο έναν από τους τέσσερις μεγάλους στόχους που είχε θέσει εξ'αρχής. Μιλώντας με ποδοσφαιρικούς όρους, ουσιαστικά έχασε με σκορ 3-1.   Ο μεγάλος στόχος πο

Study Finds Media Giants New York Times, CNN, and Fox News Pushing for US War in Yemen

by Alan Macleod  Part 2 - Biased Reporting MintPress conducted a study of four leading American outlets: The New York Times , CNN, Fox News and NBC News. Together, these outlets often set the agenda for the rest of the media system and could be said to be a reasonable representation of the corporate media spectrum as a whole. Using the search term “Yemen” in the Dow Jones Factiva global news database, the fifteen most recent relevant articles from each outlet were read and studied, giving a total sample of 60 articles. All articles were published in January 2024 or December 2023. The study found the media wildly distorted reality, presenting a skewed picture that aided U.S. imperial ambitions. For one, every article in the study (60 out of 60) used the word “Houthis” rather than “Ansar Allah” to describe the movement which took part in the Yemeni Revolution of 2011 and rose up against the government in 2014, taking control of the capital Sanaa, becoming the new de facto government. Ma

The truth about Alexei Navalny

Glenn Greenwald / Dangerous Ideas with Lee Camp / The Hill /  

Top German military commanders plan direct attacks on Russia

by Johannes Stern  Top German generals and the German government are discussing in concrete terms how “Taurus” cruise missiles can be delivered to Ukraine and used against Russian targets. This emerged from an approximately 30-minute conversation on February 19, which was reportedly intercepted by Russian intelligence and published over the weekend by the Russian news channel RT. The conversation involved Air Force Inspector Ingo Gerhartz, Head of Operations and Exercises in the Luftwaffe Command Frank Gräfe and two lieutenant colonels of the Bundeswehr (armed forces) Space Command named Fenske and Florstedt. According to their own statements, the military commanders met to prepare a meeting with Defense Minister Boris Pistorius (Social Democrats, SPD) and to discuss with him whether and how the Taurus can be delivered to Kiev and used against the nuclear-armed power Russia. Pistorius wanted to “ get really deep into Taurus, ” Gerhartz began the conversation. He leaves no doubt that he