Bernie Sanders Flown-in to Help Keep District 15 "Blue"
When I first entered politics as a lefty Democrat, the hope of "Turn Texas Blue" didn't seem far-fetched. Far from coming even close to fruition, the historically 'Bluest' part of Texas will go Red.
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders flew into McAllen Sunday morning, a week before midterm elections, as deep South Texas may go Red for the first time ever. Alongside current and former candidates for office, Sanders campaigned and block-walked for Michelle Vallejo, who’s running to “keep District 15 Blue” against Republican, Monica de la Cruz, who nearly beat incumbent, Vicente Gonzalez, in 2020. It was a show of desperation, as the ‘Bernie’ movement has long been dead and discredited as a fraud and farce, as Vallejo has now been as well.
Gonzalez, for whom I briefly volunteered in early 2016 during his first bid, fled to neighboring District 34 after Texas Republicans redrew Congressional maps in 2021. He faces Republican incumbent, Mayra Flores, who won a special election after former Dem. incumbent, Filemon Vela Jr., retired before his term expired, to more quickly become a lobbyist, as federal law requires a designated time in retirement. Flores became the first Mexican-born Congressperson in U.S. history, as well as the first woman to represent District 34, or the Rio Grande Valley, in U.S. Congress.
Criticized by Democrats for abruptly exiting, Gonzalez has resorted to spreading false campaign smears and ads, like repeating the lie that police officers died at the Capitol January 6, in pointing to Flores’ alleged support for the protests. Fleeing 15 for 34, he’ll soon find that while he could run from the red tide, it extended to the gulf coast.
With national sentiment turning against the Democratic Party’s anti-democratic positions and actions, especially within the U.S. working class, the local and statewide parties are in deep crisis here, as they realize its formerly reliable left-wing base is disillusioned. Fundraisers and campaign events for Vallejo are extremely underwhelming, according to sources close to the campaign. And the old Democratic establishment in the RGV is perplexed by Vallejo’s strategy of honing-in on political correctness and giving up on the rural parts of the district. The Vallejo camp doesn’t appear to be trying to win; they seem to be preparing excuses for impending defeat.
Ever since Sanders first capitulated to the Democratic establishment in 2016, even after they cheated him, as well as his second capitulation in 2020, after they cheated him again, he steadily lost all credibility among the hardline left that once made up the physical and intellectual muscle of the old Sanders movement. He veered away, overtime, from his early militant message of taking on the Democratic establishment, never truly fighting for the proposals he claimed to believe in and would turn out to be a loyal servant for the very establishment he once supposedly set out to overthrow. On the one hand, bringing him in shows the urgency for 15. On the other hand, it demonstrates tone-deafness, in assuming he’d be received as he once would’ve been.
Only around a couple hundred, out of the expected several hundred, showed Sunday in McAllen.
During the primaries last Spring, Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez campaigned for Jessica Cisneros who lost (again) to incumbent, Henry Cuellar. Weeks before the primary, FBI agents raided Cuellar’s campaign headquarters and home in Laredo, as part of a grand jury indictment against Azerbaijani businessmen with whom Cuellar was allegedly connected. No charges have been filed against him, and none ever will. Despite Sanders, AOC and the FBI’s intervention, Cisneros still lost. Cuellar faces a formidable Republican challenger in Cassy Garcia, a race also considered a toss-up. Cuellar, in my opinion, has the strongest chance of keeping his district (28) Blue.
The raid on Cuellar’s campaign and home is just a part of a long litany of the FBI interfering in elections to attack politicians they dislike. Cuellar has a reputation for being a conservative Democrat and not shying away from working with Republicans. He opposes abortion and was known for working with former President, Donald Trump, who is public enemy number one for the FBI and liberal Democrats. Cisneros hailed the raids on Cuellar. Working class people on both the left and right are, by and large, concerned about these attacks on constitutional rights coming from the DP.
Juanita Valdez Cox, longtime director of LUPE (La Union del Pueblo Entero for whom I also worked in 2017-18), also spoke at the rally in support of Vallejo, largely reading from prepared remarks that didn’t at all appear to be written by her. The speakers encouraged early voting, as this has become a tactic of Democrats in hopes of getting people to cast votes in their favor before any damaging information about their candidates gets publicized, as recently occurred with former Pennsylvania Lieutenant Governor, John Fetterman, who recently suffered a stroke. Most in attendance had already voted.
Vallejo was but a fixture at her own event, which seemed to be more of a rally for Bernie Sanders and Jessica Cisneros, the latter of whom MCed. Cisneros was in a preachy mood that Sunday morning, as she awkwardly lectured the audience throughout the event, particularly at the end while Vallejo and Sanders tried to have a moment. At times, I needed to remind myself I wasn’t at a Bernie event and that he wasn’t running for President, as he gave the same, old, tired speech as always, with minor updates to references. He derided corporations, as if he didn’t vote for their bailout during the pandemic, or as if the Dems would actually take them on.
I recognized several in the audience as paid DP activists who in all likelihood were on the clock. No recognizable local, elected officials were in attendance. The local establishment is staying away from Vallejo as much as possible, so as to not be tied to the historic loss that is well underway. The crowd nevertheless chanted on and on. Fitting, therefore, that this event should’ve occurred on a Sunday morning, for it was in effect a religious service: Just as Pentecostalists would whale and flail in vain hope of the Messiah “returning,” Vallejo’s middle-class base hopelessly and cultishly cheered their saviors and condemned the Republican demons. They knew it was over.
Liberal-leaning polls show Vallejo narrowly winning. This is wishful thinking. Such models don’t take into account contempt and scorn working people across the country and the RGV have received from the middle-class, liberal left, over the years, especially in recent years, as the capitalist crisis has intensified, alongside an attack on constitutional and democratic rights workers need to resist the bosses. Although De la Cruz is a religious nut, pseudo-intellectual, a rightist and — politically — shallower than a puddle, many will go out and vote for her, not for what she stands for or advocates, but simply to give the Democratic Party the black eye it deserves.