A Chaotic 2022 in Review: Part 2
Reasons for optimism
Welcome to a New Year’s Eve edition of Progress Report.
I think we should all congratulate ourselves on making it to the precipice of 2023 after a year left pockmarked with enough tragedy, pain, and outrage to fill four trips around the sun. Eons of human evolution produced only a limited ability to process and actively remember tragedy and trauma because it otherwise overtakes the mind in short order. Clarity and hope are two of the basic necessities for survival.
So many of this year’s grimmest events — the end of Roe v. Wade, the death of a new Voting Rights Act, the Jan. 6th committee’s findings, the horror of mass shootings — were born of deficiencies in our legal system, legislative bodies, and national culture. Congress could and should have responded to each of those failures with radical fixes; in a functioning democracy, they would have done so.
Instead, it’s up to us continue to fight to force those in power to summon the necessary courage, or find other leaders who will do so. As I detailed in the first part of our annual review, defeats and tragedies were met with the energy of regular people pushing back in defense of freedom, equality, and opportunity.
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This year ends with what’s left of an always imperfect democracy bloodied but not yet vanquished. The marquee battles in November were far too close for comfort — just this week, an Arizona court ruled that Democrat Kris Mayes had won the state attorney general election over a far-right, election-denying stooge by just over 500 votes.
Yesterday, another Arizona judge ruled that a new state law that bans abortion after 15 weeks takes precedence over a complete ban passed when Arizona was still just a territory. The ruling also found that doctors cannot be prosecuted for performing abortions before that 15 week mark. Those 500 votes are the difference between the state further pursuing the case or accepting the decision.
As we’ve discovered again and again over the past few years, the presence of a Democrat in office does not necessarily mean that progress — or even preservation of the barely tolerable status quo — is assured.
Take the demise of the Build Back Better program, which would have delivered a vast majority of the promises that the party made during the 2020 election. Instead, all of the groundbreaking programs that would have delivered reshaped our economic and social structures to deliver direct help to working people — universal Pre-K, child care, paid leave, Medicaid expansion — were jettisoned.
It’s easy to blame the failure on Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, but that’s not entirely accurate. Much stronger drug price negotiations were killed by a brigade of conservatives in the House, many of whom will be lobbyists (or consultants) within the next few months, and the elements of the PRO Act that were all set to be included suddenly disappeared without any clear indication why.
Further, the Democratic establishment defended many of the party’s members of Congress, including Henry Cuellar, the last anti-choice Democrat in Congress. They also allowed AIPAC, a business lobby masquerading as an advocate for Israel’s right-wing government and patron of America’s right-wing politicians, to buy nearly a dozen primary elections.
But even here there are several silver linings.
First and foremost, the worst Democrats played their hand and shed their masks. Whereas they once lurked in the shadows of Congress, quietly killing good legislation that would help working people before it even had a chance to reach the House floor, these corporate servants had to kneecap these programs and provisions in the plain light of day.
We can now identify the politicians most in thrall to pharmaceutical companies and private equity titans and challenge those remain in office in the years to come. Many have left Congress, including Oregonian pharmaceutical rep Kurt Schrader, Long Island’s Kathleen Rice, and Florida’s Stephanie Murphy. The latter two will always have their trinkets by which to remember the damage they wrought. Kyrsten Sinema, still in office but chased out of the Democratic Party, has one to match, as well.
Most of the crises we face are long-term problems, like a rapidly spreading housing crisis that’s being exacerbated by corporate greed and the criminalization of homelessness. Instead of surrendering to the forces that seek to drive them from their homes, rent insecure people around the country began or joined tenant’s unions to enlist in fights against bad corporate landlords and bad local laws. That was one of the big focal points in our coverage in 2022, and will continue to be so in the year to come.
We’ve also been closely watching and breaking news on the growing attacks, in schools and in safe spaces, against the LGBTQ+ community. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has led that charge, but I’ve been heartened by the pushback from the community and honored to provide it a platform.
The year to come will be dominated by legislative battles, grassroots activism, and the grind of progress. There are more Democratic legislatures and governors, broadening the scope of what is possible (and the leaders we’ll have to pressure to deliver on promises). The right-wing will not rest, and in some places, just defending what exists will be a battle. But after 2022, I think people are ready for anything.
Happy New Year.
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