Don’t Count Out Ben Jealous and His Progressive Message for Maryland

Don’t Count Out Ben Jealous and His Progressive Message for Maryland

Don’t Count Out Ben Jealous and His Progressive Message for Maryland

A massive mobilization of an anti-Trump, heavily female, and African American base in a very blue state could lead to a November surprise.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Each week we cross-post an excerpt from Katrina vanden Heuvel’s column at the WashingtonPost.com. Read the full text of Katrina’s column here.

When much of America was watching Brett M. Kavanaugh’s interview on Fox News on September 24, there was another important broadcast being aired: the Maryland gubernatorial debate, in which Democratic nominee Ben Jealous faced off with incumbent Republican Governor Larry Hogan.

Ahead of the debate, polls showed Hogan with 64 percent job approval and a 22-point lead in the race. This debate, the only one scheduled when Jealous had requested as many as five, was an opportunity for him to share his story and vision, tying both to the state’s future. At the same time, he had to try to reveal the sheep’s clothing on the wolf who is Hogan.

Hogan has been defined by the mainstream media as a moderate. The Washington Post, for instance, has claimed that Hogan has “governed as a moderate,” and ran a headline that called him “radically normal.”

Read the full text of Katrina’s column here.

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With the midterm elections now firmly upon us, the question is whether Democratic candidates will do more than merely occupy ballot lines as mild alternatives to the red-hot crisis that is Donald Trump.

As Trump spends over $1 billion a day on a globally destabilizing war on Iran and admits that he doesn’t “think about Americans’ financial situation,” millions across the country are struggling with the surging costs of essentials. Democrats must seize this moment and advance bold, small-“d” populist ideas—not settle for cynical caution that once again snatches defeat from the jaws of victory.

The Nation elevates progressive ideas, movements, and elected officials achieving real change across the country into the national conversation. At the same time, our journalists are exposing how crypto and AI-funded super PACs are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to knock out candidates they oppose, reporting on the devastating impact of the Supreme Court’s evisceration of the Voting Rights Act, and sounding the alarm on attempts by red states to quickly redraw electoral maps, disenfranchising Southern Black voters.

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Onward,

Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editor and Publisher, The Nation

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