Bloc Party

The first big Democratic primaries of the 2022 cycle are done. The voters of Texas’s 35th and 28th Congressional districts have cast their ballots.

Topline results: A big win, and an excruciating close-tie. What does it all mean?

Justice Democrats campaign all-stars sifted through the results, read the post-election hot takes, and now we’re bringing Group Chat back together to make sense of it all. Do these Texas primaries tell us anything important about the left in American elections, what works and what doesn't? What did we do well, where did we disappoint ourselves.. ?

Before Group Chat, I sat down with Justice Democrats’ new campaign director Geoff Simpson to break down the numbers and look back on the strategies that really mattered on a new season 2 segment: Campaign Breakdown.. with Coach Geoff.

It’s time. The rematch for Texas' 28th Congressional district: Cisneros vs. Cuellar.

Human rights attorney Jessica Cisneros, who fell 2,700 votes short of unseating incumbent Rep. Henry Cuellar in March 2020, joins us to talk about how she recovered from a tough, narrow loss and why this race may still come down to The Wire.

But first, Waleed Shahid takes on a new role as a private investigator, reporting on shady deals and probable crimes committed by the ruling Congressman of Texas’ 28th District.

In the second half, Professor Ian Haney-López sits down with Waleed to answer questions that no one in the Democratic Party can agree on: What’s going on with Latino and Hispanic American voters shifting towards Trump and the GOP since 2016? How might Democrats approach issues of race, class, and identity differently, in an effort to construct a multiracial majority?



JESSICA CISNEROS FOR CONGRESS

Volunteer with Justice Democrats.



Readings & citations:

Jessica Cisneros Takes Her Second Shot at the King of Laredo

AFTER FORGING TIES WITH AZERBAIJAN OIL EXECUTIVES, REP. HENRY CUELLAR PUSHED NATION’S AGENDA IN CONGRESS

Henry Cuellar’s Corporate Ties


Democrats Are Anxious About 2022 – and 2024

Democrats Find Urgent New Reasons to Worry About Latino Voters

Why Democrats Are Losing Texas Latinos

Mapping the Trump Meridian in Texas

How Latinos Could Redefine the GOP in Texas

Trump didn’t win the Latino Vote in Texas. He won the Tejano vote.


Project JUNTOS study of Latino racial identity.

EQUIS 2020 Post-Mortem Study: The American Dream Voter.

Ian Haney-Lopez on Twitter.

Build Back Better is dead. The Group Chat is resurrected.
Welcome to Bloc Party Season 2.

New episodes dropping twice a month, starting this week. 
Text your friends, call your representative, subscribe & share wherever you get your podcasts:
⏯https://podlink.to/blocparty 🟪

Putting the bloc back in Bloc Party.

Freedom Caucus. Progressive Caucus. Blue Dogs. Why do we care?
Justice Dems spokesperson and co-host Waleed Shahid sits down with Ruth Bloch Rubin, author of Building the Bloc: Intraparty Organization in the US Congress. Ruth tells Waleed that size matters when it comes to congressional voting blocs, but bigger isn’t always better. What can we learn from Congressional ideological factions of the 20th and 21st centuries? Why and how did they succeed and fail in their own goals? Why is collective action exceptionally difficult in the U.S Congress? 
Amira Hassan, JD’s political director, joins Waleed to break down why Congress is the place where solidarity goes to die.

Readings & clips:
Ruth Bloch Rubin’s book BUILDING THE BLOC.
Robert McCormick, NBC, on Hon. Lee Metcalfe and Democratic Study Group. 1960.
“Meet the Blue Dog Democrats!”
“Democrats have grown frustrated with Blue Dogs..” Chris Van Hollen on WAMU 88.5.
Washington Unplugged, 07.15.09
House progressives are building something new, exciting, and powerful

Is the AFL-CIO falling in love with the Democratic Socialists of America? Why is DSA’s PRO Act campaign drawing praise from unlikely allies in mainstream unions, the Democratic establishment, and beyond? What have these young socialists figured out about organizing towards working-class power? And why did this campaign come from [checks notes] DSA’s Green New Deal campaign committee?
Guido joins Daniel Denvir, host of The Dig Radio from Jacobin magazine, to investigate DSA’s groundbreaking organizing effort to pass the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO Act) Act.

FIRST, The Dig interviews Gustavo Gordillo and Sydney Ghazarian from DSA's GND campaign committee on the origins and tactics of their PRO Act campaign.

AFTER THE BREAK, Dan joins Guido for a very special, all-DSA Group Chat to chop it up on movement strategy and labor history with Green New Deal campaign committees members Thea Riofrancos and Ashik Siddique.

Join DSA’s PRO Act campaign here: pro-act.dsausa.org
Support The Dig Radio: https://www.patreon.com/thedig

Readings and references:
House Democrats Pass Bill That Would Protect Worker Organizing Efforts
The Dig Radio: We Need the PRO Act with Jimmy Williams
How the filibuster goes down
The racist roots of Right-to-Work
To win a Green New Deal, pass the PRO Act
WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON, by Thomas Geoghegan

“Trickle-down economics has never worked.”
In his Joint Address to Congress President Joe Biden discarded the prevailing economic consensus of post-Reagan Revolution America. What does that tell us about American politics in 2021? Is the Reagan era really over? Is neoliberalism really dead?
Guido, Amira, and Waleed jumped into a Group Chat to capture their reflections and vent their fears as the Biden administration marches on past the first 100 days. 
After the break, Amira puts on the tinfoil hat and investigates a conspiracy among Democrats; Waleed brings a policy proposal from Radical Reconstruction.

Are We Entering a New Political Era?
What Comes After Trickle-Down Economics?
Biden to Propose $6 Trillion Budget to Make U.S. More Competitive
Senator Markey and AOC introduce Civilian Climate Corps for Jobs and Justice 
Why Some Black Democrats Haven’t Embraced a Voting Rights Push
Democrats’ Odds of Keeping the House Are Slimming Fast 
Biden, Do the Right Thing and Release the Vaccines From Pharma’s Grip 
Joe Biden is proving progressives wrong. And they're loving it.
Black Democrats urge party to shift its voting rights push

Folks… Odessa’s running.
Justice Democrats’ Executive Director Alexandra Rojas makes her debut on the Bloc alongside a very special guest. Odessa Kelly, the first Justice Democrat of the 2022 cycle is running for Congress in Tennessee’s Fifth Congressional district, challenging Representative Jim Cooper and the Cooper dynasty. Odessa teaches Guido and Alexandra how to pronounce the name “Prentice” in the South, before telling us what led her to decide to run for Congress as a Justice Democrat.
After the break, Alexandra unveils the secret sauce of Justice Democrats’ candidate recruitment process and shares her biggest lessons learned from previous electoral cycles. 

More about Odessa for Congress: www.odessaforcongress.com
Nominate a leader to run as a Justice Democrat: www.justicedemocrats.com/nominate  
Odessa Kelly Takes Aim at Cooper ‘Dynasty’ in Congressional Primary Bid
The First Progressive Primary Challenge of 2022
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/odessa-kelly-democratic-primary-jim-cooper_n_60679a3cc5b66c4ab6b2905b

45 million Americans hold a total of $1.7 trillion in education debt. How did we get here?
Guido sits down with writer and filmmaker Astra Taylor to discuss the seeds of the current crisis. How did government-backed, private loans and an anti-civil rights, anti-peace movement backlash led by Ronald Reagan and neoliberal economists produce the historic debt crisis in higher education? 
Also, there’s a small bit of good news for student debtors in the American Rescue Plan, and AOC says: the time is ripe to mobilize and win. But how? In the second half, Guido talks to Umme Hoque, the Organizing Director of the Debt Collective, about her decision to go on a debt strike and demand Joe Biden cancel all student debt. 
Waleed stops by to contemplate President Biden canceling Senator Biden for supporting welfare work requirements in the 1990s, and wonders if Biden’s newfound, self-directed cancel culture could extend to federal student loan borrowers.

Readings & resources:


You Are Not A Loan, a film by Astra Taylor


Umme Hoque: I'm going on a debt strike. The Biden administration must cancel student debt: 

Debt Collective


Anne Helen Petersen: The future of the middle class depends on student loan forgiveness 

Most Black voters support eliminating student loan debt, new survey finds

Corinthian College Student With $30K In Loans Refuses To Pay, Takes Part In Debt Strike

Rep. Pressley on the Education Debt Crisis & A New Deal for Higher Ed

The Political Case For Student Debt Cancellation

The Great Mistake: How We Wrecked Public Universities and How We Can Fix Them, by Christopher Newfield

This is not Bill Clinton’s Democratic Party. But it’s not the Squad’s party either.
Today, a very special Group Chat to discuss a very large stimulus bill. Amira and Guido are joined by Mary Small, National Legislative Director for Indivisible, to react to the passage of President Biden’s American Rescue Plan. What does the massive investment in stimulus checks, expanded unemployment insurance, and the child tax credit tell us about the state of the Democratic Party halfway through Biden’s first 100 days?
After a break, Mary and Amira break down progressives’ strategy during the Congressional negotiations over the American Rescue Plan. There were threats of progressives voting as a bloc! What did progressives win, what did progressives lose, how has the Congressional Progressive Caucus changed since the Obama era, and what can we learn about wielding the power of the progressive bloc in future legislative fights?
Readings & resources:

What’s in the Stimulus Bill? A Guide to Where the $1.9 Trillion Is Going

Biden’s COVID-Relief Bill Is a Big F**king Deal

Where Do We Go From Here on Tax Credits?

How Democrats miscalculated Manchin and later won him back

An Expanded Child Tax Credit Would Lift Millions of Children Out of Poverty

Analysis: Senate ‘gangs’ show Biden what’s possible, and not

‘A Racist Narrative’: Biden Warned of Welfare Moms Driving Luxury Cars


No, Joe Biden Won’t Give Us Social Democracy

Clinton’s 1996 State of the Union

Dismantling the Welfare State? Reagan, Thatcher and the Politics of Retrenchment

Did the Sunrise Movement… negotiate a win?
Guido sits down with Varshini Prakash, co-founder of the Sunrise Movement, to check in on her well-being after four marathon years of campaigning for a Green New Deal. More than two years after the sit-in with AOC, Guido and Varshini look at Biden’s recent climate announcements and ask themselves: are we reading this wrong or did the Green New Deal.. win the debate over Democratic climate policy? And if the answer is “yes, we did notch some wins but not enough,” how did the climate movement achieve that and what’s next — for the movement and for its army of young people?
But first, Guido and Waleed debrief the right-wing attacks on the Green New Deal following blackouts in Texas, and break down how a Green New Deal would prevent such massive blackouts from ever happening again.

Additional readings & references:

BIDEN-SANDERS UNITY TASK FORCE RECOMMENDATIONS

TACKLING THE CLIMATE CRISIS AT HOME AND ABROAD EXECUTIVE ORDER

At last, a climate policy platform that can unite the left

“End the lies-for-profit games.”

Why Texas Republicans Fear the Green New Deal