( Democratic Socialists of America )
New York State Senator Jabari Brisport (D 25th), chair of the committee on Children and Families, talks about how DSA endorsed candidates have preformed in the city's election.
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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. For progressives like members of the Democratic Socialists of America the New York City election results were mixed. Eric Adams, if he wins, was definitely not their first choice. In some other races, they did better. The landmark win for progressives came in Buffalo where the DSA supported mayoral candidate there upsetting the sitting democratic mayor.
We'll talk upstate and downstate now and whether the first socialist mayor in America in 61 years, is a bellwether for a growing movement nationally. Here is that stunning upset winner 38-year-old India Walton, who beat 62-year-old four-term incumbent democratic Mayor Byron Brown. Here Walton is on election night.
India Walton: The entire intent of this campaign is to draw down power and resources to the ground level and to the hands of the people. When we think about socialism-- we're perfectly fine with socialism for the rich. We will bail out Wall Street banks and give a billion dollars in tax incentives to one of the richest people in the world to build an empty Tesla factory in South Buffalo. When it comes to providing the resources that working families need to thrive, socialism becomes scary at that point. I'm very proud to be a democratic socialist. I am proud to have the support of Buffalo, DSA, and national DSA.
[cheering]
Brian Lehrer: Again, that's self-described democratic socialist India Walton soon to be mayor of Buffalo. Here in New York City, while we won't know the final election result for a matter of days or even weeks for mayor, Eric Adams has a roughly nine-point lead over the second-place Maya Wiley. When it comes to a best-case scenario for progressives, many organizers have turned their attention to watching down-ballot races, the 51 open city council seats plus controller and Public Advocate among others.
How did the left do in the election in all races besides the mayor's race? With us now is New York State Senator Jabari Brisport. He is a DSA, Democratic Socialists of America, member, and his district covers parts of Fort Greene, Boerum Hill, Red Hook, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Sunset Park, Kiwanis, and Park Slope. Senator Bridgeport, welcome to WNYC. I hope I didn't leave out any neighborhoods.
Senator Jabari Brisport: Good morning, Brian. There are a few. Don't forget North Crown Heights and Prospect Heights, but it's a big district with lots of beautiful people in it, so thanks for giving a bunch of them a shout-out.
Brian Lehrer: Great and we'll open the phones in a minute from people from your district and elsewhere, but I want to start with the toughest question first, or what might be the toughest question. The mayoral race isn't over, but Eric Adams did really well in areas that the DSA would say it's all about neighborhoods with the biggest concentrations of essential workers, as Adams called them working-class people of color. Is the DSA more ideological than actually representative of what those working people of color want?
Senator Jabari Brisport: It's not an issue of being ideological versus representative. Eric Adams had the millions of dollars in his campaign account to flood the airwaves and push out mailers and do a lot of press and visibility. The DSA does not have millions of dollars to do that level of outreach, but in the areas that we could concentrate our focus on, we did very well. Even referring to these outer areas, I think a good test that would be Jaslin Kaur's race in the farthest reaches of Queens, way out in Glen Oaks, where she ran as an unabashed socialist and is second place right now in a toss-up race, doing incredibly well.
Brian Lehrer: Just to stay on Adams for a minute and I guess, DSA support in general, how much do you think this is a generational thing? I asked Maya Wiley about this on Monday's show that when you looked at the Marist Poll that came out last week, and early indications are that the election results did track that poll she was leading among people under 45. Eric Adams was leading among people over 45 and that went across racial lines. The problem for Maya Wiley and other progressives is that people over 45 make up two-thirds of the electorate.
You heard Eric Adams line on election night where he says people on social media don't define election results, people on social security do. How much is it a generational thing in your opinion?
Senator Jabari Brisport: You do see generational splits in many elections. We saw that in this one we also saw during the presidential primary last year, but in terms of the messaging, I think it's a matter of continuously building up the bench of left and socialists because people of all ages believe that housing is a human right everyone should have access to health care and everyone should have a decent fulfilling job if they want one.
Brian Lehrer: The lines of agreement when you lay it out like that are pretty broad. The DSA endorsed in six city council races. Well, actually let me back up one step, because the DSA did not endorse anyone for mayor, not Dianne Morales not Maya Wiley, not anybody, but getting endorse in city council racist, why did the group make that decision?
Senator Jabari Brisport: The DSA is very considerate of what our capacity is. Again, we don't have millions of dollars to just flood the airwaves or flood the city with mailers. We have to spread the movement by knocking on doors and having one on one conversations with voter after voter after voter. In terms of what we can handle, six city council races was that. The entire city is massive. New York City has over 8 million people, it's the size of some small countries. We're not there yet, but that's not saying we won't be there in the next 5, 10 years.
Brian Lehrer: I read that only two of those six city council races have a DSA-backed candidate leading right now, Tiffany Cabán in the 22nd Council District in Queens and Alexa Avilés for the 38th Council District in Brooklyn. Is that just a lukewarm result for your slate two out of six?
Senator Jabari Brisport: That's not even the result. We don't know the final results until the rank choice voting comes in, but even if it were to which I don't think it will be that would be incredible for a movement that was basically non-existent five years ago, to have multiple openly socialist city council members entering city council is just a massive explosion in the energy and dynamism of the left in New York City. It just speaks to the amount of work we're putting into it and how vibrant our message is resonating with New York City voters.
Brian Lehrer: Listeners, do you have a question or comment about how progressives fared in Tuesday's election? Whether DSA, Democratic Socialists of America, specifically or anything else that you would describe as progressive, 646-435-7280. 646-435-7280. If Wiley or Morales or another progressive was your first choice for Mayor are you concerned about a potential Adam's mayoralty? What would your biggest worry be? 646-435-7280.
I wonder if we also have any listeners in Buffalo right now, we took a few buffalo calls yesterday so we can keep talking about India Walton's upset over Democratic Mayor Byron Brown. In that mayoral primary, did you vote for her? Were you surprised about her win? What do you think the national implications if any, are of her win? 646-435-7280. 646-435-7280, or tweet @BrianLehrer. For my guest, New York State Senator Jabari Brisport of Brooklyn, want to talk about Buffalo? Did you know, do you know India Walton?
Senator Jabari Brisport: Oh, believe me, I know, and I'm impressed and just in love with what's about to happen to Buffalo. The socialist state legislature letters, we all endorsed India about a month ago or a month and some change ago and started fundraising for her and putting out messaging about her. Socialists got to support socialists, wherever we're running because it's about consensus and partnership and in the movement.
Brian Lehrer: Do you think there are national implications to that? The reference I read in the Washington Post is that she would be the first explicitly socialist mayor of a major American city since a mayor of Milwaukee left office in 1960. Do you see national implications to this win?
Senator Jabari Brisport: Absolutely Brian, I really do think that what AOC did for inspiring leftists and progressives to run for Congress, India Walton can do for inspiring the same thing for mayoralties across the nation.
Brian Lehrer: Caller asks, "What about Burlington?" Which is a good point. When Bernie Sanders was mayor of that city before he went to Congress. I don't know if he's explicitly a DSA member, but just calls himself an independent socialist, but he does call himself a socialist.
Senator Jabari Brisport: True. I think that just speaks to how many more we need to run. We could point to a few examples in the past century.
Brian Lehrer: I guess we have to stand corrected on that 1960 stat because I think Bernie Sanders as mayor of Burlington should count. Here in the city, a story of Queens will now have a democratic socialist elected at every level of government. Tiffany Cabán presumably if that shakes out for city council, Zohran Mamdani as assembly member, and of course, AOC in Congress. Is there something distinctive about that area, Western Queens, that's allowed that many DSA members to be elected?
Senator Jabari Brisport: I think the best thing to do is to give kudos to the incredible organizing that socialists are doing in that part of the city. I think that's the clearest example of continuously reaching out to voters again and again and again, and communicating their message, and showing that over time socialists do better and better.
Brian Lehrer: Continuing on the historical detail. I'm now told that The Times notes that Burlington Vermont is one-sixth the size of Buffalo. It wasn't counted in its calculation of major American cities with the past socialist mayor so there's that detail. The city council race with maybe more of a disappointing outcome from a DSA standpoint falls in your governing district, the city council district 35, Fort Green, Clinton Hill, Crown Heights, Prospect Heights, Bed-Stuy, Michael Hollingsworth is the DSA-backed candidate and I think he's trailing, right?
Senator Jabari Brisport: It's a toss up. He's trailing by about four points before any of the absentees or ranked-choice sets him.
Brian Lehrer: What about in the state Senate? There was so much made of the kind of progressive sweep giving the Democrats a supermajority, meaning a veto-proof majority against the more conservative Democrat governor Cuomo. If he were to veto legislation that got through a progressive legislature, obviously, he's had his own troubles, which has kept him even more on the sidelines from second-guessing the Senate. For DSA specifically, am I right that it's only you and Senator Julio Salazar?
Senator Jabari Brisport: As the socialist and is in the Senate? Yes.
Brian Lehrer: Yet there's this other progressive wing that includes Jessica Ramos and others. What's the distinction there, if there's one worth making?
Senator Jabari Brisport: I think Julie and I as open socialists believe that the means of production should be run democratically and publicly as opposed to a for-profit and that is something that guides everything we do. I think that's the main distinction between a socialist and a progressive is that we have a very clear horizon of the abolition of private property and the shifting of all the economy into the hands of workers and working people and that's what guides our policy.
Brian Lehrer: How far do you go with that? Should all private enterprise be disbanded in favor of government enterprise? I know that's not what you're saying, but when you say worker control, how do you do that?
Senator Jabari Brisport: There's several different ways. If you want to [laughs] have like an hour-long conversation about different forms of socialism I'm happy to talk more, but the main thing is that you want to make sure that workers reap what they sow. That profit, which is ultimately stolen labor from workers is constantly returned back to the people that generated that wealth in the first place and that they have a say in how it's being distributed.
Whether that is a worker co-op, whether it's a government one enterprise whether it's a network of worker co-ops and in a specific industry. It is important that the people who are doing the actual labor and generating the wealth in industry have a say in how it's distributed.
Brian Lehrer: Let's take a phone call in fact, from your district, in fact, from the DSA member. Jolene in Bed-Stuy you're on WNYC with state Senator Jabari Brisport, hi Jolene?
Jolene: Hi, thank you so much for taking my call. I'm a big fan of yours Brian and thank you Jabari big [inaudible 00:14:27]. All right. I forgot to mention I'm a community college professor so the students that I work with, are generally living in poverty primarily Latina, Asian, and Black. The interests of the DSA do represent these communities. I've been living here in New York city since 1993 and I have seen this city become just a playground for the wealthy.
There's very little [unintelligible 00:14:59] housing and wages have not gone up and small businesses are closing down because the last three mayors have just [unintelligible 00:15:08] that protected affordable housing and small businesses and they let in the big chain stores, and now our neighborhoods look like anywhere [unintelligible 00:15:18].
Brian Lehrer: Whoops, well, we're losing Jolene's line apparently, but she got enough in there that you probably want to respond, right?
Senator Jabari Brisport: Yes. I think that she's, Jolene, one, thank you for calling in and your support, but also I think you're right on the money that the messages that we're fighting for and when we're fighting for the working class, we're fighting this unfortunately for Black, brown, Indigenous people of color who are struggling under capitalism. That's why I think our message is resonating in the neighborhoods that we do a lot of work in. We are fighting back against decades like Jolene said of austerity and New York becoming a playground for the rich and just seeing what we've been able to do and just really at the past four or five years to counteract decades of this is just astounding.
Brian Lehrer: Still here in New York city in some respects, Eric Adams, if he becomes mayor would be to the right of Mayor de Blasio, while as we've been talking about the next city council might be slightly to the left of the current city council. When we're talking about some of the more controversial policing agendas that Eric Adams has been campaigning on, is that something that you would expect the new city council to be likely to fight?
Senator Jabari Brisport: I do. A lot of the candidates I saw and a lot of the ones that are winning, not just limited to the DSA candidates understand that just pumping more and more money into a bloated police budget is a failed public safety strategy. That true public safety comes from stabilizing communities through access to stable housing, to good jobs, to solid education, and to healthcare, especially mental health care.
Brian Lehrer: Some pushback, I think from our next caller, Joe on Staten Island, you're on WNYC with Senator Bridgeport. Hi Joe.
Joe: Hi, good afternoon. I'm a registered Democrat for many years and what I'm hearing now is not the democratic party that I belong to. I believe that everyone should have a fair shake in this country, but to be able to just, because someone has a lot of money or a business deem, them a problem is not the way to go because that's what makes this country move and people get jobs in this country.
I see the city now, I live in Manhattan and I see it's deteriorating very rapidly and it has to do with defunding the police. I noticed a tremendous difference and I'm about to really leave the city and leave the party because it has gone too extreme. When you go too extreme in a country like the United States, you're not going to get the outcome that you really think you're going to get. It should be gradual. It should not be to an extreme. I feel quite different than what the Senator is speaking about. Thank you very much.
Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much, Senator. This is a conversation that's happening in the party nationwide.
Senator Jabari Brisport: It absolutely is. I really want to thank Joe for taking this time to share his opinions with me. I would say, I heard the word extreme a lot and I think the most extreme thing we have in New York right now is income inequality. We're actually one in the gap between the wealthiest and the poorest. There's a problem for me and it should be a problem for everyone listening when there are billionaires in this state who increased their fortune by tens of billions of dollars during the course of the pandemic, while tens of thousands of New Yorkers were dying, were losing their jobs, were unable to pay rent, were worried about how they're going to get food.
That to me is just a supreme example of misguided allocation of resources inside of our economy and our inside of our society. Again, socialism is about ensuring that people are centered first, not profits. When it comes to policing again, we're talking about a bloated, bloated police budget, which is not solving crime. I was able to allocate $50,000 to violence interrupters in my district. These are groups, credible messengers that can go and diffuse situations or be out present in the community to stop the violence before it happens. Even that $50,000 is revolutionary for these groups. Now, just imagine if I did give them $50 million, or the $6 billion that the NYPD has. Think about what New York would look like with that.
Brian Lehrer: In our previous segment we talked about President Biden's, new package of anti-gun violence bills that he announced yesterday. It was an all-of-the-above approach if that's not too reductionist. He talked about more money not less for police. He also talked about more money for violence interrupters per se, and counselors and social workers, and otherwise investing in communities. In addition to investing in, I guess more police numbers, and more police in so-called community policing, or neighborhood policing programs, what do you think as you heard the President yesterday? I imagine you paid attention to that.
Senator Jabari Brisport: I still do think the best way to reduce violence, especially in the communities that are suffering from the most, is to increase stability. That comes from things that I'm not seeing at the federal level yet, which are housing as a human right for every single person, guaranteed access to healthcare for every single person, and guaranteed jobs and healthcare. Those are the prime supporters, and you'll see that that works because that's the model we know it works in wealthy white communities. Which are not safe because they have a police post on every corner, but because people in those communities have access to all the things that make them stable.
Brian Lehrer: Marsha in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC with Senator Brisport. Hi Marsha.
Marsha: Hi Brian. Thank you, and thank you, Senator. I really appreciate this conversation, and I would have loved to have heard it before the primary election. [laughs] I am a middle-class Jewish woman, Brooklyn, educated, some master's degree, but not finished because the New York is gentrified. I have been struggling to maintain housing and healthcare that I can afford. As I age, and there is agism as well taking place, regardless of ethnicity or color or faith background, I'm finding that I'm meeting many of my own age, white, who are registered democratic socialists of America voters.
I meet them when I'm pumping up gas at the gas-guzzling place. None of us can afford electric cars. We meet each other shopping for groceries, and not believing that we no longer can afford to eat healthily. We meet each other comparing our Medicare supplement plans and do we qualify yet for public assistance because we cannot pay $1,000 above the part A that we don't pay to carry our insurance, or we dig around and sell off things that are precious to us to do that.
We are the middle-class who have found ourselves downwardly mobile and have been struggling with others who we align with, who have never entered the middle-class, to create economic equity. I align totally with DSA on all of these issues, and now I'm going to add one last statement and then leave. I was once the Zionist professional of the year, in the 1980s, in the United States of America, when I was raising money as a young girl Wondercond for a major Zionist Jewish organization. I totally support DSA's position domestically and foreign policy, and I'd love to see a further exploration on this show. That's it. Thanks.
Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much, Marsha. We appreciate it. Certainly, Israel was founded by socialists who set up communes called kibbutz, kibbutzes, kibbutzim back in the day, and certainly, socialists come in all shapes, sizes, genders, religions, ages. How do you see the intergenerational coalition of socialists? Some that may go back to the 1930s even, and the new generation coming up that's identified as a youth movement today?
Senator Jabari Brisport: I think it's just incredible hearing people like Marsha speak about their experience, and also their journey, because to me that speaks to what I've even seen campaigning. I do remember being told when I was running for office, that if kept being so loud about being a socialist I would scare away older voters, especially older Black voters.
I just remember speaking to this older Black woman at a restaurant when I was putting up a poster, who asked me what I thought about Democratic socialism was since it was on my poster. When I explained where I was coming from, her eyes lit up and she was just so excited because she had been quietly a socialist too but hiding it. As a queer person I just-- There's this thing in the queer community that when you come out you're not just coming out the closet for yourself. You're making it easier for other queer people to come out as well. I honestly think the same for socialism. [laughs]
Brian Lehrer: New York State Senator, Jabari Brisport of Brooklyn. Thank you so much for coming on with us. We look forward to having you back.
Senator Jabari Brisport: All right. Thank you, Brian.
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