Blue America's newest endorsee is Jason Butler, the progressive candidate taking on reactionary Trump enabler George Holding in a North Carolina red district (NC-02) that has started trending purple. Last cycle, Holding only eked out a bare 51.3% win-- in a district where Obama lost both times and where Trump beat Hillary by over 10 points! It's just a matter of time-- and Butler makes a good case for why that time is now.Earlier in the week Jason shared some of his approach to the campaign with us. Since then he decided to tell his supporters about why battling the Climate Crisis is a major part of why he decided to run for Congress. "As a dad with three young kids, I think a lot about the kind of world my generation will pass on to the next," he wrote. "And as a pastor, it’s important to me to live my faith through good stewardship of our planet."
But as we watch the Amazon burn, see glaciers disappear, and face more and more extreme weather here in North Carolina, I’m deeply worried-- and I just can’t sit by and do nothing.If the health of our environment wasn’t enough reason to take the climate crisis seriously, a dire warning from a UN expert has raised the stakes.This human rights expert warns that the world is at risk of facing “climate apartheid,” where the wealthy and powerful pay to escape the worst effects of the crisis-- and undermine basic human rights and even the rule of law for hundreds of millions of people.We have to act, friends. And we’re running out of time.I’ve spent years organizing and advocating for justice. That’s shown me that you can only get so far when your representatives have a vested interest in defending the status quo. Our current leaders are failing to meet the climate crisis with the urgency it demands. We need a new generation of leaders ready to fight for bold solutions like a Green New Deal. That’s why I’m running for Congress.
As Anthony Deutsch wrote yesterday, young Republicans are as worried about the Climate crisis as normal people are. "A growing majority of U.S. Republicans, especially younger voters, are worried that human behavior is damaging the planet, according to a survey of global attitudes to the environment conducted by an Amsterdam-based polling agency. The number of Republican voters aged 18-34 who are worried about the issue rose by 18 percentage points to 67%, said the poll, which also showed a 10 percentage point increase among all U.S. Republicans who said they tried 'to live eco-consciously... When looking deeper into the data it becomes clear that the highest rise in environmental concern (worldwide) is visible among younger Republicans,' said Glocalities pollster Martijn Lampert, who predicted that shifting views on the environment would influence the next U.S. election in 2020."The DCCC and EMILY's List has each recruited a more conservative, establishment-type candidate to stop Jason. The DCCC found themselves a typical order-taker, a former Marine Corp officer who served the country in Iraq and Afghanistan. As we have seen this year, all of the former military recruits the DCCC sold us on in 2018 have turned out to be shills for the Democratic leadership-- NO INDEPENDENT THINKING among the whole lot of them. Frankly, I was shocked by it. And they're all a bunch of tepid conservatives afraid of bold ideas and afraid to lose their new prestigious jobs in Congress. It literally stunned me. Of the 94 Democrats who have signed on as co-sponsors to AOC's Green New Deal resolution so far-- not a single one was one of the military heroes the DCCC was pushing last cycle. That doesn't mean the DCCC recruit for NC-02 won't be the exception. But... a big clue is on his campaign website and what he says about policy positions: nothing, which is exactly what the DCCC tells it's sappy candidates to do. Nice photos of him and his attractive family though, and lots of meaningless cliches that say NOTHING about how someone is going to behave in Congress.As for EMILY's List, they found a school board member with an even skimpier website than the one the military guy has! Look, please, if Democratic candidates are hiding their positions during the primary campaign, do you think we can expect bold, courageous action from them if they ever get into Congress? If so, it would be a first.As for George Holding, he's begun acknowledging Climate Change... but he isn't fooling anyone about where his sympathies are regarding how to deal with it. There are few members of the House who are as corporately-motivated as George Holding. His positions are reflected in his League of Conservative Voters scorecard. They summed him up perfectly: "Rep. George Holding put polluters' agendas ahead of the health of North Carolinians, environmental protections and action on climate change."We pretty much know exactly where Trump stands on the Climate Crisis and on all the issues, what his dark, toxic vision for America is and where he would bring the country if he is-- God help us-- reelected in 2020. Still, he's not going to speak the words on TV. Don't expect any 2020 Trump presidential debates. Impossible, you say? How many norms has Trump steamrolled right over and smashed to bits-- and with virtually no consequences whatsoever?Three Stooges vs The Clown by Nancy OhanianTrump isn't able to form a coherent sentence, let alone debate any opponent. By labelling his Republican primary challengers as the Three Stooges, he has set the tone for refusing to debate former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld (R), former Illinois Congressman Joe Walsh (R) and former Governor and Congressman Mark Sanford (SC). The only Democrat he is likely to debate would be the one pathetic specimen he could probably beat, doddering, deteriorating and already senile Joe Biden. Nothing would get Trump up on a debate stage with Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders-- or even well-practiced phonies like Kamala Harris or Mayo Pete.
