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Sorting through this week's humiliating defeat by Donald Trump at the polls, Democrats are having a hard time finding any bright spots in all the darkness. But Trump's victory was a very close one (he lost the popular vote) and may be easy to reverse in 2020 with a better campaign.
So amidst the dead ashes of defeat, where are the red-hot coals that may spark new fire in the populist rebellion that represents the party's only hope?
Sorting through this week's humiliating defeat by Donald Trump at the polls, Democrats are having a hard time finding any bright spots in all the darkness. But Trump's victory was a very close one (he lost the popular vote) and may be easy to reverse in 2020 with a better campaign.
So amidst the dead ashes of defeat, where are the red-hot coals that may spark new fire in the populist rebellion that represents the party's only hope?
Some of that promising tinder can be found in communities that voted on Tuesday against the private takeover of their public schools.
Reacting to the vote tally coming in against Question 2, education historian Diane Ravitch writes on her personal blog, "On a sad night for the nation, it is heartening to see that the people defended their public schools ... and won."
First, in Massachusetts, voters rejected a referendum called Question 2 that would have forced the expansion of charter schools in the state. Charter schools, which receive taxpayer money but are privately operated, have come to represent another example of the creeping privatization blob rapidly absorbing public infrastructure - transportation, schools, sanitation, prisons, and other essential services - into business pursuits for the wealthy.
As the New York Times reports, voters, "easily turned aside a $26 million effort to increase the number of charter schools" in the state and delivered a victory for public education, a cornerstone of American democracy.
Public school advocate Jennifer Berkshire - a colleague of mine at The Progressive and a Boston resident - points out at her that blog Question 2 was generally an effort by "rich, entitled assholes from New York" to tell Massachusetts voters what's best for their children. Bay State folks would have none of it.
Opposition to Question 2 came from far and wide, especially from the progressive community, including political icons Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders who opposed the charter expansion.
As Berkshire explains, "The coalition extended well beyond the teachers unions that funded it, growing to include members of all kinds of unions, as well as social justice and civil rights groups, who fanned out across the state every weekend. By election day, the sprawling network of mostly volunteer canvassers had made contact with more than 1.5 million voters."
Opposition came from nearly every kind of community in the state - urban, suburban, and rural - except for the very wealthiest and whitest counties.
Reacting to the vote tally coming in against Question 2, education historian Diane Ravitch writes on her personal blog, "On a sad night for the nation, it is heartening to see that the people defended their public schools ... and won."
In Georgia, another progressive victory for public schools shone bright through the cloud of misery up-ballot.
In that state, conservatives led by Republican Governor Nathan Deal had placed a referendum on the ballot, called Amendment 1, that would install a state agency to take over the lowest performing schools in the state and hand them over to private management groups that operate charter schools. Again, money from charter school proponents, such as members of the Walton family of Wal-Mart fame and dark money groups, poured into the state to pass the referendum, while teachers unions and public school advocacy groups supported a local opposition made up of labor groups, progressives, community organizers, and black clergy.
Opposition to the charter takeover agency was widespread, with six out of ten voters opposing the bill, according to an Atlanta news outlet, with no votes coming from both Republicans and Democrats. What "galvanized opposition," according to the reporter was widespread resistance to handing" local operations to for-profit charter school companies."
The fact that people generally want some say in where and how they can access their schools should surprise no one, but advocates for privatizing the system with charter schools keep missing the point.
In the state of Washington, the threat to public schools appeared on the ballot in the form of a race for state Supreme Court.
Charter proponents - such as Microsoft founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen and other major contributors to previous attempts to force charters on the state - spent at least $500,000 in an effort to unseat current judges who upheld lower court decisions ruling the method for funding charters in the state unconstitutional. The court had also ruled that the state legislature was not adequately funding schools and had levied a fine of $100,000 a day against the lawmaking body
The judge who wrote the court's charter school decision Justice Barbara Madsen was the primary target of charter advocates, notes Ravitch in another post on her blog. Madsen won reelection by 64 percent, according to a state news source, the largest margin of victory of the three incumbent candidates.
In Montana, charter school advocates had targeted Democratic Governor Steve Bullock for defeat. Bullock had the temerity to express, according to a state-based news outlet, "I continue to firmly believe that our public education system is the great equalizer. Anyone who says public schools have failed isn't seeing what's happening."
His Republican opponent, who had become rich from selling off his high-tech startup, was the founder of a private school and an advocate for "school choice" that encourages parents to withdraw their children from public school at taxpayer expense.
Bullock received the endorsement of the Network for Public Education, a public school advocacy group Ravitch helped found, for his "strong, support for public education and democratically governed schools."
The ascendancy of public education as an important progressive cause was prevalent in state and local elections around the country--in races for state board of education in Nebraska, in school board elections in Minneapolis, San Francisco, and Detroit.
NPE's endorsement quotes Bullock saying although he supports schools being able to apply for "public charter" status, which would provide more "flexibility to innovate and implement new strategies," governance of schools must remain under the purview of the locally-elected school board and the state education agency. "Public resources should be used to support our outstanding public schools," he states.
Bullock won in a tight race, but it was a victory nevertheless, and a win for public education.
The ascendancy of public education as an important progressive cause was prevalent in state and local elections around the country - --in races for state board of education in Nebraska, in school board elections in Minneapolis, San Francisco, and Detroit.
Of course, support for public education did not win everywhere. There were bad outcomes in state legislative races in California and New York.
Trump has expressed his strong dislike for public schools - calling them "government schools" and a "failed monopoly" - and proposed during his campaign a $20 billion federal block grant to allow states to give vouchers to low-income students to attend whatever school they want. With Trump's election, school choice and charter advocates now have their strongest proponent in charge of federal policy.
And among establishment Democrats, support for charter schools remains firm. In an astonishing feat of rhetoric, some of these centrist-minded Democrats who support charter schools are conflating Trump's win with the victories for public education in Massachusetts and Georgia, saying the starkly dissimilar events were somehow equally bad for "kids."
As these out-of-touch Democrats celebrate the defeats of progressives such as Zephyr Teachout - who campaigned for good public schools and well paying jobs but lost to a charter school advocate backed by Wall Street - we need to remind them that it was establishment Democrats who handed this election to a rightwing populist, void of decency and respect for others and mobilized by hate and division.
These sell-outs to the big money behind "reforms" such as "free trade," "right to work," and "school choice" are the ones who are complicit in this defeat. And it's time progressive Democrats took their party back. Public school advocates in Massachusetts and Georgia just showed us how to do that.
On a dismal election night, voters in four lucky states found something progressive to celebrate--recreational marijuana legalization.
California, Maine, Massachusetts, and Nevada all voted to make it legal for adults over 21 to smoke weed, a sweeping mandate that many expect will prompt a legislative domino effect throughout the country.
Nowhere is that felt more strongly than in the politically influential state of California. Advocates have long said that if legalization passed there, other states would be likely to follow suit. Both California and Nevada's wins also help strengthen a West Coast "marijuana bloc," as the New York Timesput it, joining Alaska, Washington, Colorado, and Oregon in making recreational use legal in their states and throughout the region.
Arizona, the final state considering full legalization, narrowly rejected its ballot measure. Medical marijuana remains legal in the state, however.
"Marijuana reform won big across America on Election Day--indeed it's safe to say that no other reform was approved by so many citizens on so many ballots this year," said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the advocacy group Drug Policy Alliance (DPA), although he also cautioned that the election of Donald Trump threatens the advances made on Tuesday.
"The momentum for ending marijuana prohibition took a great leap forward with the victories in California and elsewhere, but the federal government retains the power to hobble much of what we've accomplished. The progress we've made, and the values that underlie our struggle--freedom, compassion, reason, and justice --will be very much at risk when Donald Trump enters the White House," he said.
Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) expressed a more optimistic view, telling the Times on Tuesday that the sweep would help pressure the federal government to lift the nationwide ban on marijuana and allow each state to make its own regulations. "The new administration is not going to want to continue this toxic and nonproductive war on drugs," he said.
Many other campaigners were also joyous. Aaron Smith, executive director of the National Cannabis Industry Association, said Wednesday, "Last night's results send a simple message--the tipping point has come. Voters have spoken clearly in states across the country. More than 16 million voters, including in two of the three most populated states in the nation, chose legal, regulated cannabis programs that promote safety, boost the economy, help sick patients, and address social injustices."
Indeed, the push for legalization in California was rooted in large part on the impact the measure would have on criminal justice reform in the state. One provision allows for individuals serving sentences for convictions that are made legal under Proposition 64 to appeal for resentencing. It also stipulates that anyone under 18 who is convicted of use or possession would not be sent to jail.
"With its carefully crafted provisions for helping to heal the damage caused by the war on marijuana to poor communities and people of color, Prop. 64 represents the new gold standard for how to legalize marijuana responsibly," said Lynne Lyman, DPA's California state director. "This not only protects youth from accessing marijuana products, it also protects them from being harmed by the criminal justice system."
Lauren Mendelsohn, who chairs the board of directors of Students for Sensible Drug Policy, told the Times, "I think of this victory in California as a major victory. It shows the whole country that prohibition is not the answer to the marijuana question."
Meanwhile, victories in Maine and Massachusetts mean that neighboring East Coast states may soon put legalization on their ballots, too. As New York State Assembly chair Richard Gottfried toldWAMC before the election, "if Massachusetts moves forward with recreational use, that will help bring the day sooner when New York will do the same, and I think that would be a good thing."
In addition to recreational legalization, voters in Arkansas, Florida, and North Dakota approved medical marijuana initiatives.
The sweep comes shortly after a Gallup poll found public support of legalization to be at a record high of 60 percent as the call to end the so-called war on drugs continues to grow.
With any luck, the long national nightmare of the 2016 election will be over Tuesday night.
The New York Times has a helpful breakdown of when polls close across the nation (and when we could potentially know who won).
For those looking for a non-corporate take on election night, both Democracy Now! (7pm ET) and the Real News Network (7:30pm ET) are live-streaming starting this evening.
Watch Democracy Now! below:
The Real News Network:
And the Young Turks is also providing all-day election coverage:
For real-time reactions to election night developments, follow along on social media with these independent journalists and progressive advocates:
A Twitter List by commondreams
And with nine states voting on recreational or medical marijuana measures, Cannabis Radio is live-streaming with policymakers and advocates through what it calls "Marijuana Election Night." Watch below: