What’s Holding Us Back From Change?

Attending the LDCC’s luncheon made me want to share some thoughts on the different analyses being offered after the 2024 election, and the fight over the future direction of the Democratic Party. I will not waste my breath on Republicans and right-wingers as the immorality of their actions is obvious to anyone subscribed here; instead I want to offer a critique of the Democratic party on its failures, in the hopes that if the party as a whole cannot correct course, then we can, with more refined judgment, build the movement ourselves.

In short, the Democrats are duping us; and it’s holding us back. The party is an extremely cunning machine which operates overtime to goad voters into believing that the next centrist they pull out of a hat will finally be the one to bring real change to our lives. It’s a purposeful maneuver to quell movements and maintain a status quo where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. What's more, the Democratic Party, a center-right party, is constantly absorbing, polishing, and normalizing further right wing ideas toted by the Republican Party. This occurred most recently  throughout Biden’s presidency but was shown in full as the presidential campaigning season ramped up. We would go on to witness the Biden and Harris Democratic Party capitulate to the right-wing framing of immigration by pushing for a brutal bipartisan immigration bill that became a large talking point throughout Biden’s and Harris’ short run.

When did reaching across the aisle, to a party so obviously driven by hate and fearmongering, become something to be lauded?

This party, if it wishes to truly win the people over, must meet the people where they are but time and time again they fight our calls for change.

Case in point, look at how the Democratic party reacts when someone threatens any semblance of change:

• David Hogg’s removal from the DNC vice-chair position after pushing for better candidates to challenge failing and ineffective incumbent Democrat seats.

• The Democratic Party machine’s bias against Bernie Sanders during the 2016 and 2020 presidential races.

• Or more recently, as Democrats continue to refuse to endorse Zohran after he handedly won the New York City mayoral primary.

So let’s finally clear the air on why the Harris campaign lost so badly in the 2024 presidential campaign. Hint: it’s the same reason the Democrats are always losing. The party refused to hold a competitive primary despite lackluster support for yet another pair of center-right candidates like Biden and Harris. They ran on more military power, continuance of funding a genocide and providing diplomatic cover to its perpetrators, uninspiring means-tested programs that will definitely not build back the middle class, and wasted crucial time attempting to win over imaginary fence-sitting Republican voters.

They were so war hungry, Trump seemed like a peace keeper. They allowed people to turn to a party which preys on the dejected and misinformed. They failed to articulate a hopeful and transformative vision for the country, and for that reason, they lost. 

The current vision of the Democratic party is backwards, it’s time we expect more and refuse to accept anything less.

This lesson may seem high-browed but it is not because our very own city council contains its share of backwards ideas. They continuously reject housing, violate our rights, have gone against calls to declare racism a public health emergency and our city a sanctuary city, and continuously fail to properly improve our urban planning - contributing to the climate and cost-of-living crisis. It is imperative that we move together, as one cohesive mass, against the status quo, and demand true working class representation and for our needs to be fulfilled.

Every year, our cost-of-living is even more out of reach and this crisis is quite literally killing our community members. This problem has been brewing in our city for decades and our residents feel it. One in five households in this city cannot afford a rent of $700, and the average rent in this city is over $2000.

The solution to this is simple; we need to build more city owned, affordable, and beautiful units, and strengthen our tenant protections against evictions, rent increases, and undue lease non-renewals. We need to focus on getting our homeless neighbors into permanent housing and provide them with the necessary social services to begin the process of healing required to improve one’s physical and mental health. 

A call for anything short of this is a betrayal of the residents of this city and as city councilor, as your voice in our city council, I would strongly push for the solutions we know work. 

That is why I believe we should be re-voting on our housing production plan, which our incumbent rejected. That is why I believe in reversing the 2024 ordinance which directed our police force to sweep the homeless encampments -  which our incumbent voted for. In other words, our city councilor is part of the problem; John Descoteaux will not improve the conditions of this city as evident in his actions such as rejecting improving our city planning and his support for the callous violation of the rights of our unhoused community members. John Descouteaux, and challenger Francisco Maldonado, along with other city councilors, are more concerned with spending more of our tight budget on increasingly criminalizing vulnerable people as opposed to implementing those solutions you and I know will alleviate the various crises Lowell is facing.

Our government already steps in as it needs to, to provide a minimum quality of life for residents through things such as the fire department, public education, and street maintenance. However, for many reasons, we do not extend that enough to housing, and that is why I am compelled to act to bring much needed change to the lives of our struggling families. Homes are a right. For this reason, we need to do everything we can to build enough homes for all our residents, and make sure there are protections in place for them. Further, we need to remove the profit motive from housing because wherever private capital dominates, scarcity is enforced and price-gouging occurs, and scarcity in housing and pocket-emptying rents is destructive to our society. We must move towards utilizing public resources to meet the needs of people we know private capital will not.

This past weekend we managed to raise nearly $400!! The support I have received from community members has been astounding and I can’t wait to see what we can do this upcoming month. All of this generosity is allowing us to purchase some lawn signs and produce more literature for our campaign.

I believe this campaign is entirely winnable. If we can each simply activate one friend or family member to register to vote or to vote for the first time in a while, then we will be well on our way to a better district 8, to a better Lowell.

For this week’s quote, I'd like to direct our attention to Matthew Desmond, Harvard sociologist and author of books such as Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, who was able to succinctly describe the current situation not only felt in our district or city at large but the entire nation:

“No moral code or ethical principle, no piece of scripture or holy teaching, can be summoned to defend what we have allowed our country to become.”

Neighbor, Son-of-immigrants, and Believer-in-a-better-world,

Marcos Antonio Candido Jr.