11/6 – Onward!

Hi!

As you’re probably aware by now, we came up 196 votes short in Tuesday’s general election. I would like to thank not only the 592 people who voted for me (totaling 43%), but the many others from across Northampton who knocked on doors, held parties, offered advice and organized for our coalition.

While some of our campaigns came up short, whether my own in Ward 5 or elsewhere, the election of Meg Robbins for councilor at-large with the highest overall vote total marks a tremendous advance and sets a tone for our entire city. With less than 1% of votes standing between Gina-Louise Sciarra and Jillian Duclos and a recount likely pending, our austerity government has suffered a critical blow to its legitimacy. We have taken the fight for working-class dignity, public goods and democracy to every corner of Ward 5 and to every street in Northampton, and we aren’t going anywhere.

And we should note, as I did in my letter two weeks ago, that the bourgeois political machine in our city has shown its hand: it has no use for a democracy that no longer suits its own material needs. It is a reminder that the working class is the only force that can consistently struggle for democracy, and that we cannot truly do so when subordinated to other interests. In this sense, by revoking its endorsement of Sciarra and taking up a leading role within the opposition, our labor movement has taken an extraordinary step forward.

By the same token, I again condemn the red-baiting, the erosion of democratic space, the burgeoning tactics of intimidation and harassment within our council chambers and elsewhere, and the systematic abuses of office by our outgoing city council president. Political honesty means that, by one path or another, class struggle will compel the world to see you as you truly are. For those who could use a mirror — red-baiting radio ideologues and champions of civil discourse alike — you’ll find none better than the Communist Party.

And what truths will emerge from our incoming council, with its fragile majority cobbled together through frantic backroom negotiations? We will see an intensification of the social and political crises that set the terms of this year’s election. Not only is the Democratic machine incapable of resolving the problems that it itself created, but its attacks on public services will cede space to the extreme right and offer no answer for MAGA’s assault on federal institutions. The prospect of an override vote coinciding with the re-election campaign of the deeply unpopular Gov. Healey (whose intervention on behalf of austerity in our mayoral race mirrors her statewide commitments) again demands a fighting working-class contribution, lest their contempt of progressive forces lead our state further toward a fascist abyss. Just as we have been in this election, the CPUSA and our allies will be there.

So I ask for your continued engagement in these coming weeks and months. The world will still be ours to win in two years, as it will be in four, and we have much faith to keep. If this campaign was an inspiration to you, you can do more than just get ready for more like it — I welcome you to take part in building our shared future at cpusa.org/join-us.

And as it was this time, it is our obligation to lay the continued culpability for these crises at the feet of the governing majority that has created them. With joy; with grit; with relentless humanity: we will see you in the struggle. Forward together!

-Luke