Next Left: Tiffany Cabán Has Only Begun to Fight

Next Left: Tiffany Cabán Has Only Begun to Fight

What’s next for the progressive former Queens District Attorney candidate?

John Nichols
Copy Link
Facebook
X (Twitter)
Bluesky
Pocket
Email

Tiffany Cabán started 2019 as a 31-year-old public defender in her native New York City. She knew that the criminal justice system wasn’t working for her clients or for the city. Something had to change, and she decided that she would be the change agent.

With encouragement from a small circle of friends and fellow reformers, she entered the race for district attorney in Queens. There were other candidates running in the Democratic primary, better known candidates with more money and more political connections. But Cabán embraced a movement politics that took its cues from grassroots activists and policy specialists. She declared, “I am a public defender. I have spent my career working for people who did not have resources to defend themselves against the brutal system of mass incarceration. I am running to transform the Queens District Attorney’s office after years of witnessing its abuses on the front lines.”

Tens of thousands joined in. This movement campaign electrified activists not just in Queens and New York City but across the country. On the primary election night in June, Cabán finished narrowly ahead. An extended recount cost her the nomination. But she has not stopped building the movement to transform a criminal justice system that fails to deliver justice.

This week, Tiffany Cabán is our guest on Next Left.

* * *

Show Notes

Tiffany Cabán Was the Next Progressive Hope. Now What? New York Times, Jan Ransom and Jeffery C Mays

How Tiffany Cabán Lost the Vote But Won the Fight in Queens, Jacobin, Amir Khafagy

Public Defender Cabán Enters Crowded DA Race, Queens Daily Eagle, David Brand

Tiffany Cabán’s Rebel Campaign in Queens, New Yorker, Jennifer Gonnerman

Tiffany Cabán Wants to Transform What It Means to Be a DA, The Nation, Isabel Cristo

What Tiffany Cabán’s Concession Means for Queens, The Nation, Ross Barkan

“Good As Hell,” Lizzo

Your support makes stories like this possible

From illegal war on Iran to an inhumane fuel blockade of Cuba, from AI weapons to crypto corruption, this is a time of staggering chaos, cruelty, and violence. 

Unlike other publications that parrot the views of authoritarians, billionaires, and corporations, The Nation publishes stories that hold the powerful to account and center the communities too often denied a voice in the national media—stories like the one you’ve just read.

Each day, our journalism cuts through lies and distortions, contextualizes the developments reshaping politics around the globe, and advances progressive ideas that oxygenate our movements and instigate change in the halls of power. 

This independent journalism is only possible with the support of our readers. If you want to see more urgent coverage like this, please donate to The Nation today.

John Nichols John Nichols is the executive editor of The Nation. He previously served as the magazine’s national affairs correspondent and Washington correspondent. Nichols has written, cowritten, or edited over a dozen books on topics ranging from histories of American socialism and the Democratic Party to analyses of US and global media systems. His latest, cowritten with Senator Bernie Sanders, is the New York Times bestseller It’s OK to Be Angry About Capitalism.


Ad Policy
x