Back to all
Labor Day of this year an associate of mine and I decided to meet at the rally being held by Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Ro Khanna at the State Capitol building. David and I stood by the replica of the liberty bell as the rally roared on in front of us. We were discussing the future of the Democratic Party, as a disheveled masked individual wearing a faux leather jacket and sweatpants came barreling towards us with his middle finger flipped firmly at my face. He screamed, “fuck you faggot! You don’t belong here! Nobody wants you here! Fuck you faggot!”, and I calmly continued on with what I was saying to David about how the Democrats need to find a way to once again appeal to the working class base of the party without the rapid need for purity politics. After thirty seconds of yelling he realized he wasn’t going to get even a glance out of me and lost the drive to berate, moving on into the crowd. David asked if I get that a lot and I responded by saying, it happens. I thanked the person for illustrating my point in real time as we went on with our conversation and the rumble of the rally continued in the background.
When I signed up to run for the State House of Representatives, I did so with the understanding that I have signed up to be a punching bag. People have strong emotions and part of my job is to be accessible as an outlet for those emotions; good, bad, and all that’s in-between. I do not take moments such as that personally. However this one in particular has bounced around in my head even a month later. I assume this individual was angered by my speeches on the floor in favor of legislation which allowed certain private and public entities to separate their spaces and organizations by sex, and banning the use of cross sex hormones and puberty blockers for children under the legal age of majority (eighteen). Going about advocating against what you see as wrongful policy towards the gay community by uncontrollably screaming an epithet used against said community, is certainly a way to go about it. Maybe, under the assumption I hate gay people, he thought I use the word often, and he would be upsetting me by using it on me. Maybe he just couldn’t bring himself to call me a nigger. Who knows why he employed that word in his verbal assault?
I will give the boy props for having the gonads to scream at me; rather than veil his anger behind the piercing gaze of passive aggression employed by most who are in opposition to my position that the consent of one cannot govern the consent of another, and that children shouldn’t be medicalized into a lifetime of unintended consequences because they want to be non-conforming to the social standards of their sex.
Ten years ago those positions wouldn’t have evoked but more than a shrug.
Today, they evoke the wrath of a generation captured by the notion that sex is entirely mutable or the frigid isolation of being a leper.
There is no doubt that this issue is overplayed in the stupidest of ways. The media, and the conservative right wing, sensationalizes this topic. Making it seem online as if this is the issue which is on top of minds of the voters and accrediting the electoral victories of the last cycle to this issue. With ridiculously childish commercials riling people up to the point where they’re willing to harass a stranger who looks a ‘little funny’ to them. At the same time, the liberal left wing of the country completely shuts out any conversation around the notion that sex is immutable or that we should not allow children to be medicalized. They ridicule the psychologists, doctors, and most egregiously the people who as children were medicalized into an irreversible state of chronic ails. They accuse any one who even broaches the subject as being ‘anti LGBTQ rights’, which now commonly brings the moniker of being anti-gay. Automatically shutting out any consideration from a liberal passerby considering both sides of the issue.
You could parse the fundamentals of that paragraph, interchanging any of the hot-button issues of our time and fit them right into that same dynamic. The media sensationalizes an issue. One party uses the fervor drawn from that sensationalization to create electoral momentum. The other party now on defense attempts to rationalize their view on said sensational topic. Both parties play into the caricature painted of them, and conversation is drowned out by the sound of a million partisans. Whether it be immigration, abortion, or war. Whether it be any of the divisive topics of our time, all are portrayed in ways which pit people into emotional corners that one must defend as a matter of personal honor and dignity. Keeping we the people, from feeling as though we truly are ‘we the people’. Pitting families, friends, and coworkers against themselves as the robber barons get away with murder.
Back to all
Party politics have been in my head this month due to the 2025 New Hampshire Democratic Party convention. Otherwise known as the Raymond Buckley annual puppet show. It just so happened to coincide with an annual fall hike that my group of friends takes up Mount Monadnock but given the heavy nature of the politics of our time, I was determined to watch the show. Speaking as generously as I can, I was curious as to how Mr. Buckley planned to meet the moment.
He did not meet my already low expectations.
Walking into the convention hall at Saint Anselm College, you were met with a large sign denoting the table for Congressman Christopher Pappas’s campaign to be a United States Senator. In the lobby you were met with the flurry of tables ranging from local democratic committees to the ‘other candidates’ for the federal races. As you walked into the hall there sat a fair couple hundred people from across the state, shadowed by the signs of the campaigns given establishment credibility on the walls around them. Those being Christopher Pappas’s campaign for the United States Senate, Maura Sullivan’s campaign for the first congressional district, Stefany Shaheen’s campaign for the same, and Maggie Goodlander’s campaign for the second congressional district. At the foot of the stage lay the large banners for Christopher Pappas’s campaign, Maura Sullivan’s, and Maggie Goodlander’s.
The speeches were your average ‘they’re bad, so we must be good!’ employed by a politician lacking a vision or principles. Senators Shaheen and Hassan, spoke about their pledge to keep voting to keep the federal government of these United States of America shut down. Doing so in an effort to force the Republican majority to support a continuation of the affordable care act subsidies to the insurance companies in order to prevent the sharp rise in premiums expected as a result of cuts to the system made under the so-called Big Beautiful Bill passed in the summer. This drew rousing applause from the crowd.
I may have missed it but both Senators failed to mention a plan of action for what happens to the essential aid people receive if the shutdown continues into the next month. Not to mention the transportation networks, credit rating, and other basic functions which would begin to reach a point of failure. There has been zero indication that prolonging this has brought the Republicans any closer to the table on a deal to subsidize the insurance industry to bring prices for the consumer down. The chaos caused by the shutdown only emboldens their resolve to stand fast in their refusal. In the end this will leave the Democrats such as Senators Shaheen and Hassan, who get on stages with their dangling jewels and tailored suits to claim they are ‘fighting back for the people’, looking like fools. Although knowing those two Senators in particular I am sure they will attempt to play the hero in the end by voting to end the shutdown. It has already been rumored this month that is what is being discussed behind closed doors. They both must know that drumming all this energy up in crowds, only to in the end tell them to be happy about a deal - can only result in backlash from that same crowd.
Not that it matters to either as they aren’t on the ballot in the next election. Why should they care about further destroying their already rotting political party?
The entire event was centered around the establishment, and their chosen candidates. Each one of the incumbent members of the federal delegation made sure to endorse Christopher Pappas for Senate, and Maggie in her re-election bid. Congressional district one was more carefully avoided but both Sullivan and Shaheen received praise during the first portion of the convention.
One silver lining to an otherwise frustrating morning was when the party awarded the Hon. Former Representative Harvey Keye with an award for a lifetime of achievement in public service. Harvey, a veteran of the Vietnam War, former State Representative, radio host, husband, father, and friend to many - brought the much needed energy to that room. Riling up the crowd as he always does.
Another was the people, the regular everyday Democrat who came out to attend the convention. The young people holding onto hope in their candidate. The elder activists, organizers, and representatives who walk with the weight of decades of public service on their shoulders. All talking to one another about the shared vision they have of a government that works of, by, and for the people it has been charged to serve. The vision of a healthcare system that promotes health rather than one profiting off of sickness. An education system from which fosters true growth and curiosity in the children going through it; setting them up to far surpass those who came before. Rather than one which spits out children ready to be but ‘another brick in the wall’. The vision of a nation which promotes peace abroad rather than the most brutal of senseless violence and genocide. A nation, which takes care of it’s elderly, it’s young, and all those unable to care for themselves.
The juxtaposition of the vision and hope of the base of the Democratic Party, and the callous indifference of their leaders; is mind-boggling. The base of the party yearns for rigorous debate and even more thorough primary elections. The leadership does everything in it's power to circumvent any opportunity for such debate or elections. Anytime somebody begins to suggest that the thumb is being put onto the scale of the elections which determine the makeup of both the organization of the party, and the candidates elected to office under the label; they are immediately excommunicated from the party. Not from a grand gesture, but instead a cold shoulder. A silent shun felt only by the one being shunned. The quiet understanding that now that you have questioned the leadership of the Buckley mafia, you are no longer to be taken seriously as a figure within the body politic of the state party and it’s affiliates.
Making lepers out of people who clearly aren’t sick.
As I walked around the convention hall, I saw many lepers. People outcast from their once respected positions in the party for the crime of speaking out, or running for office when it ‘wasn’t their turn’. As many as I saw there, I thought of the many more who I knew didn’t even bother to show up. People who despite the constant bullying from the top of the party they participate in, wakeup everyday believing they can make a difference.
I was in an odd way enthused by the amount of outcasts I saw there that Saturday. If you take the people there to shill for the establishment of the party away, you’re left with a party of lepers. People who in one way or the other were shunned by the establishment for falling out of line in some way or the other; still showing up to fight for the vision they believe in.
Those who promote third party politics or the movement to leave the Democratic Party would call this relationship with the party an abusive one. When you look at the facts, it is hard to refute that claim. You’ve got a base of people who genuinely believe in a better world, and an establishment committed to preventing them from achieving it. Despite that, the base will support said establishment no matter what because of the fear instilled of what the opposition party is capable of. Voting for the lesser of two evils, is a phrase which has always evoked a visceral reaction in me because of the blatant admission you are willing to vote for evil. The base of the Democratic party is wrapped up in a mass case of Stockholm syndrome.
Furthermore, pointing this out would be seen by some in the party as treasonous. They would say that one must hate the party to be able to lob such an accusation against it. Accusing the one who did of aiding the opposition and therefore justifying excommunication.
During President Washington’s farewell address in 1796 he said, “The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism.”
His warning against private political organizations running our constitutional republic would result in them becoming instruments of division and chaos. Weapons of revenge and conflict which would divide the populace, ultimately destabilizing the nation itself entirely. Atrophying the ability of the citizenry, or it’s elected representatives to discuss the matters of the time; leaving the country in an unstoppable downward spiral.
It is not hatred, nor treason - especially in this moment - to point out the fatal flaws in the organization that is the Democratic Party both statewide and nationally. Ignoring fatal flaws can only lead to death and we are bleeding out.
I was enthused not because I long to see the sullen faces of disillusioned outcasts clinging onto tiny vestiges of hope in a party captured by the corporate establishment. I was enthused because beneath the disillusionment which engulfed the face of many burned a drive for a better world that could not be denied. A willingness to ignore the social barriers imposed by those who would try to make lepers out of the healthy. A willingness to stand up against the face of unsurmountable odds. Despite whatever particular disagreement one may have with me, or I with them, there exists an underlying understanding that we are working toward a common goal of a government for the people. That common thread if worked properly can create a fabric strong enough to withstand even the most well funded of machines.
Seeing people such as Dr. Karisma Manzur, who is running an insurgent primary campaign for the United States Senate on a platform of investing at home rather than in genocide and destruction abroad. Boldly standing up for the principles of peace and justice. Jared Sullivan, a colleague of mine in the State House, and a former real estate economist, running a progressive campaign against corporate politics for the same seat. Heath Howard, running to serve the first Congressional District on an insurgent platform of similar politics. Paige Beauchemin, running against Congresswoman Goodlander in the second congressional and Jon Kiper running a gubernatorial candidacy.
This is not an endorsement of any of these candidates. It is simply an example of the base of the party attempting to reclaim a footing where the establishment holds all the real estate. I have my gripes with some of them, and I am sure they have theirs with me; but the petty personal politics don’t matter to me. All of these candidates have heart, they have guts, and they have a vision. That is exactly what the party needs. This season, the base should demand rigorous, varied, and abundant debates between the candidates in all of these federal races. This is not simply to flesh out those particular races. Debates on those scales flesh out the principles and policies of the party as a whole. The fact the Democrats have been so lacking in them for so long has been part of the reason they find themselves so rudderless. There is an opportunity for real energy to be brought to the party but only if the insurgent candidates, and the base, demand it from the establishment.
As evidenced by the puppet show of a convention this month, the party apparatus will not simply accede to the notion the base could challenge the candidates selected behind closed doors. You must not fall victim to the trap of purity politics.
You’ll need every voice you can get to demand that the doors open.
The establishment glares at you as they would a leper.
What do you have to lose?
