CD7 & SD15 Outreach & Inclusion Officers Report for January 2025
The election sucked- We did OK here, but forgetting our farming and mining base in CDs 1 and 8 lost our state house majority while nationally the big D Democrats spending a billion $$$ couldn’t even beat an insane career criminal in the popular vote, never mind the electoral college and congress too. We are now stuck with years of misgovernment, and the only question is whether the GOP will do more damage by evil intent or just plain incompetence?
So what to do? Right now your social media is overflowing with demands that you protest in the streets or at least online… Half that content is probably from bots or their supposedly more educated “brethren”, AI. And none of it is going to accomplish much, other than get your name and handles on lists you don’t want to be on.
A bit of history is in order here- My Farmer Labor socialist grandparents were in attendance at the 1934 Teamsters Strike and numerous other actions, and grandma even managed to get thrown outa the party on accusations of being a communist ‘cause she signed a communist party candidate’s nomination petition. But they kept a low enough profile to avoid prison and became Carpenters and ILGWU officers and earned union scale and pensions through the “Red Scare” and survived to be elders of the “New Left”. Nixon like Trump swore vengence and weaponized federal prosecutors and grand juries to persecute his “Enemies List”. But his signature Vietnam war was cancelled due to lack of interest as by war end 98% of New York City draftees didn’t even show up for induction, while Stonewall kicked off another movement that wasn’t even on Nixon’s radar. Reagan’s union busting honed labor’s tactics by developing corporate campaigns and made the Teamsters a force in Minnesota politics, and his intentional ignorance of the AIDS epidemic further organized the queer communities. Brat Bush tried to capitalize on 9/11 and left us with a couple trillion national debt and fertile ground for the election of our first black president, Barack Obama.
Notice some common threads?
The first is timing- The GOP pretty much hold the levers of power through 2026 and maybe 2028 and beyond. Trump and his cast of incompetents will screw up, and when they don’t they won’t be helping us any- We can accurately predict they will create runaway inflation, a farm crisis, worker shortages, oandemic(s), and probably a war or three too. But we can’t even replace the U.S. House and maybe the Senate until 2028 and they won’t take office until 2029. So our 1st priority for 2025 is surviving- Stock up, lock down, and prepare for all the destruction a criminal senile insane Trump and his henchmen can do!
The 2nd common thread is decentralization- Jailing the 1934 Teamsters strike leaders, labelling the Teamsters as Communists during the Red Scare, and using RICO against the Teamsters in the 80s failed because the Teamsters are decentralized and use clever tactics like making the Secretary Treasurer the actual head of the union while the President was 2nd in command and targeted by the fascists. Same with HUAC, Nixon, Reagan, and Brat Bush- Their repressive focus was too narrow while our progressive democratic movements grew broader. After survival, our task for 2025 is to fix our own democratic farmer-labor party by decentralizing power away from the cities and reducing the self serving power of the extremists. After accomplishing that we can take back our party from the myopic power brokers and professional campaigners of metro DC and start demanding fair elections and win them.
Respectfully submitted, Dyna Sluyter Comments welcome!
Sassy Democrat 