I LOVE YOU TOO, STEVEN GOLDSTEIN, BUT YOU ARE NOT A PROGRESSIVE by Bertin Lefkovic

In general, rebuttals should not be nearly as personal as this one is going to be, but for the most part, the arguments that I am going to make apply to many more people than Steven Goldstein, who had the temerity to lecture his “fellow” progressives about how we and our candidate, Bernie Sanders, should fight Our Revolution in a recent InsiderNJ op-ed titled “To My Many Wonderful Friends Who Support Bernie Sanders”.  But you wanted to talk “tachlis”, Steven, so let’s talk tachlis.

You, Steven Goldstein, are not a progressive and neither are most, if not all, of the party leaders and elected officials who you call allies and friends.  Most of them were never progressives and you are no longer a progressive.

First and foremost, Steven, we are in the year 2020, not 1992 or 1996 or 2003.  I bring up these years, specifically, because 1992 was the year that I was on the barricades doing clinic defense during the Democratic National Convention when it was being held in New York City and right-to-lifers were trying to blockade abortion clinics, including the one at which my sister worked, 1996 was the year that I was fighting alongside my LGBTQ allies in opposition to the Defense of Marriage Act, and 2003 was the year that I first met you when I was campaigning here in New Jersey for Governor Howard Dean’s Presidential campaign and asked you to support his Presidential candidacy.

Back in 1992, when I was fighting for a woman’s right to choose, or in 1996 when I was fighting for marriage equality, which I continued to do for more than a decade, including a year on the board of Garden State Equality, the organization that you founded, issues like income inequality and single payer universal healthcare were not yet on my radar, because our President at the time, Bill Clinton, had only just begun to transform the Democratic Party from the party of FDR, LBJ, the New Deal, and the Great Society into the pro-choice and LGBTQ-tolerant wing of the Republican Party that it is today.  Back then, social justice issues like these were all that mattered to me.

It was only when I became involved with the Dean campaign, primarily because he was the first Governor in our country to sign civil unions legislation into law, that I also began to learn more about other important economic justice issues like universal healthcare.  No, he did not advocate for single payer back then, like Congressman Dennis Kucinich, his opponent, but he advocated for policies that would eventually take us in that direction.

Unlike Obamacare, which simply threw billions of taxpayer dollars at the private health insurance industry, Dean wanted to expand Medicaid to cover individuals and families earning 350% of the poverty line or less, bringing it in line with sCHIP, expand Medicare to cover individuals over age 55, and allow everyone in between to purchase coverage directly from the Medicaid or Medicare programs with the hope that over time the number of people receiving coverage versus the number of people purchasing coverage would expand over time until the two programs could be merged into a single payer program.

However, when I went to you to ask you to support Howard Dean, you turned me down flatly, saying that you were supporting Senator Joe Lieberman.  What did Dean, who supported marriage equality, do to lose your support, and what did Lieberman, who opposed marriage equality, do to win it?  Did Dean have high-profile and onerous supporters like Omar, Sarsour, and Tlaib?  No.  He simply used the wrong word, “even-handed” instead of “honest broker” to describe the role that a President of the United States should play in negotiating a peaceful resolution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

Mind you, this erroneous choice of words was not a product of Dean’s ideology on the issue, which was not even close to being a priority of his campaign, but instead the poor advice of his liaison to the Jewish community, Jeremy Ben-Ami, who put his own policy agenda ahead of his employer’s.  He would eventually leave the campaign and go on to form J Street, the pro-Israel organization that has become the progressive alternative to AIPAC.  You also admitted to me that you were to the right of Lieberman on Israel, so while it is entirely possible that your position on these issues might have moderated somewhat over time, please excuse me if I do not believe you when you write “I love Israel even as I detest its current government, in the same way I love the United States but detest its current President.”

Israel is not even close to being a recurring talking point for Bernie Sanders.  As a Presidential candidate, Israel is an issue on which Bernie Sanders has to have a position and his position on this issue is most certainly to your left as well as mine, but it is also to the right of people like Omar, Sarsour, and Tlaib, who you claim “hold influence with him, who he showcases proudly”, which is most certainly not true.

You, Steven, should know as well as anybody that when you are trying to build a movement to create transformational change, as you did here in New Jersey in the fight for marriage equality, you have to ally yourself with people with whom you may not necessarily agree on any number of other issues.  Bernie’s priorities are Medicare for All, Green New Deal, Tuition Free College, Student Loan Forgiveness, and a $15 per hour minimum wage among other critical economic justice issues.

Israel just completed its third election in a year and the outcome of that election, just like the previous two, clearly proved that the majority of its people want to get rid of Bibi Netanyahu, their disgraced and indicted Prime Minister, just as a majority of Americans would like to get rid of Donald Trump, our disgraced and impeached President.  Any Democratic President, including but not limited to Bernie Sanders will most certainly give a new Prime Minister of Israel more than enough space and time to get his country back on track in the same way that this new Democratic President will require space and time to get our country back on track.

Israel is an important issue, but it is not a top priority for any new Democratic President.  Only people who want to stop Bernie Sanders by any means necessary, including but not limited to re-electing Trump, are willing to smear his brand of Zionism by turning him and supporters like Omar, Tlaib, and Sarsour into boogeymen who will supposedly destroy Israel the first chance that they get.

There is no reason that anybody who claims to be a progressive, Zionist or otherwise, can even consider staying at home in November as long as the Republican opposition is led by someone who is as much of an existential threat to everything that we all care about as Trump, and that includes both Zionists who claim to be progressive, yet have bought into scare tactics like yours, AND Bernie Sanders supporters who are upset because they are disappointed and angry if Joe Biden winds up becoming the Democratic nominee.

The only reason that someone who claims to be a progressive might stay at home if Bernie Sanders is the Democratic nominee for President OR if he is not the Democratic nominee for President is if they are not truly a progressive, which brings me back to the main point of this op-ed.  You, Steven Goldstein, are not a progressive.

In fact, Steven, you are one of the most intellectually dishonest people who I have ever met in New Jersey politics and considering how patently and pathologically dishonest most people who are involved in New Jersey politics are, that is saying something.  You will embrace and discard anyone and everyone necessary to achieve your goals and objectives, which was great for the LGBTQ community when you were fighting for marriage equality, but it most certainly does not make you a reliable progressive ally.

First, when Governor Jim McGreevey and State Senator Ray Lesniak were two of the most powerful people in the state, domestic partnerships were as far as they were willing to go, and you wanted marriage equality, according to you they were two of the worst people in Trenton.  Years later, when they served your purposes, they were brave champions for equality.

Then Acting Governor Dick Codey was one of the worst people in Trenton until he became one of the best.  Then, Jon Corzine, who paid you a crazy amount of money to help him win the Democratic nomination for the Senate in 2000 was the most progressive person to ever run for elected office in New Jersey history and was later the most progressive Governor in New Jersey history until he was only willing to fight for and sign civil union legislation instead of marriage equality at which point he joined the ranks of the worst people in Trenton.

Finally, when Steve Sweeney prevented marriage equality legislation from making it to Corzine’s desk during the last days of his term as Governor before Christie was going to assume the office, he became the worst person in Trenton until he became the best person in Trenton when he allowed the same legislation to pass even though he knew that Christie would veto it.  I am not sure if I am only the person to pick up on this pattern of hyperbolic manure spreading that has been your calling card, but to the best of my knowledge, I might be the first person to publicly call you out on it.

No, Steven, you are not a progressive and neither are many other people in the Democratic Party who call themselves progressives.  I know that I risk upsetting some of my female and LGBTQ friends by saying this, but here goes nothing.  In the year 2020, if you live in New Jersey and your progressivism is still limited to supporting a woman's right to an abortion and/or marriage equality, you are not a progressive.  You are a moderate.

If you are unable or unwilling to recognize the existential threat to our society as a whole that the healthcare crisis in our country, especially with the corona virus pandemic looming on the horizon, represents and that the only solution to this problem is Medicare for All, then you are not a progressive.

If you are unable or unwilling to recognize the existential threat to our economy that the insane cost of higher education and the student loan debt crisis represents and that the only solutions to these problems are Tuition Free College and Student Loan Forgiveness, then you are not a progressive.

If you are unable or unwilling to recognize the extreme state of income inequality in our society and the existential threat to our social fabric that it represents and that even an increase to $15 per hour does not even come close to mitigating it, then you are not a progressive.

And if you continue to ally yourself with a Democratic Party establishment that does not operate democratically, as you have Steven, then you are not a progressive.  Correct me if I am wrong, Steven, but have you ever, even once, spoken out against the party line ballot that both the Democratic Party and Republican Party establishments use to rig primary elections in New Jersey, making it nearly impossible for progressive insurgents to be competitive anywhere?

That is, unless there is a once in a lifetime election cycle, when a candidate like Bernie Sanders temporarily emerges as the front runner for the Presidential nomination and has progressive insurgents like Larry Hamm, Ashley Bennett, Arati Kreibich, Hector Oseguera, Zina Spezakis, and so many others who are ready, willing, and able to run on his opposition line.  Suddenly, everyone from United States Senator Robert Menendez to State Senate President Steve Sweeney to a litany of frightened county Democratic chairpersons start to talk about an “open” primary election for President, while retaining the party line ballot for all of the other downticket races from Senate to County Committee, hoping and praying that Bernie Sanders voters will walk into a voting booth, cast a vote for him, and then walk out without voting for Hamm and other progressive insurgents for the other elected and party offices.

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of progressives throughout the state who are organizing as I write this to try to either force the Democratic Party establishment to accept the consequences of their undemocratic party line ballot or abolish it altogether.  Have you been to any of our meetings, Steven?  Are you willing to stand with us in this fight the way that so many of us fought alongside with you on the marriage equality fight?  I did not think so.

When was the last time that you supported the most progressive candidate in a primary election, Steven?  New Jersey almost never has contested primary elections because of the party line ballot, but on the rare occasion that we do, who have you supported?

I can only assume that you are supporting Cory Booker over Larry Hamm.  I don’t know if your congressman is Gottheimer or Pascrell, but I cannot imagine that you would give either Arati Kreibich or Zina Spezakis a moment of consideration.  Now that #MayorCheat is out of the race, I can only assume that you are supporting Joe Biden.  You supported Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders in 2016.  A good friend of mine has a saying that I will quote.  “If you never support the most progressive candidate in a primary election, you are not a progressive.”

And please do not get me started on Hillary Clinton, Steven.  She and her husband made their beds the day that they put Ricky Ray Rector, an African-American man who had killed a cop and then lobotomized himself in an attempt to commit suicide, to death to score political points.  He was so badly incapacitated that not only was he unqualified to stand trial, he saved the dessert from his last meal before being put to death “for later”.

Add to this their litany of other crimes against our country, party, and progressivism, including but not limited to calling African-American men superpredators, DADT, DOMA, NAFTA, and the banking and financial legislation that paved the way for the economic collapse of 2008, which would among many other things cost millions of struggling families their homes.  Bernie Sanders does not have a Hillary Clinton problem.  Hillary Clinton has a Hillary Clinton problem.

Hillary lost to Trump in 2016 because her own pathological fear of transparency led her to do public business on a private server, which would inevitably damage her irreparably.  In addition, she was a singularly terrible candidate who failed to invest critical time, money, and other resources in Midwestern states that were hardest hit by the worst effects of NAFTA, her husband’s signature policy “achievement” and that she would eventually lose by the narrowest of margins.

People like you, Steven, want to blame Bernie Sanders and his supporters for her loss to Trump, but he worked much harder to help her defeat Trump in 2016 than she and her husband worked to help President Barack Obama defeat Senator John McCain in 2008 and their differentiated efforts produced significantly differentiated results.  In 2008, 25% of Hillary’s supporters, most of whom were longtime Democrats, voted for McCain for President while in 2016, 12% of Bernie’s supporters, most of whom were not longtime Democrats, voted for Trump.

Bernie Sanders and his progressive supporters have done nothing to alienate establishment hacks like yourself, Steven.  You and others like you have been alienating yourselves from the progressive grassroots for decades, using us for support, thanking us for our efforts, and then doing absolutely nothing to advocate for our issues of concern when we have needed your help the most.

If Joe Biden is the Democratic nominee for President, the millions of people who supported Bernie Sanders will most certainly be very disappointed and some of us will even be angry, but when push comes to shove, most of us (I predict many more than those who voted for Hillary) will vote for Biden in November, not only because Bernie Sanders will do the right thing and support him against Trump, but also because we know that our country and world cannot survive four more years of Trump.  However, if Bernie Sanders miraculously wins the Democratic nomination, Steven, I am not convinced that you and others like you will do the same.

Based on your op-ed, Steven, your willingness to cast a vote for Bernie Sanders against Donald Trump is clearly conditional.  My willingness to cast a vote for whomever the Democratic nominee might be most certainly is not.  So by all means, you and the rest of the Democratic Party establishment can go ahead and continue to do your worst as I expect that you will.  I will still be voting Democratic in November either way.  Can you say the same if Bernie Sanders miraculously wins the Democratic nomination?  I doubt it.