Yesterday Lancaster Stands Up, the foremost progressive activist organization in ancestrally red Lancaster PA held a post election meeting in Lancaster City. We heard from a lot of people, and the session was keynoted by our congressional candidate this year, Jess King. More than 400 people turned out to a community opportunity center in southwestern Lancaster City to hear Jess King speak, as well as inspirational pep talks from her campaign manager and other LSU members, including one of its founders, Jonathan Smucker.
King, who energized her base in a campaign against incumbent U.S. Rep. Lloyd Smucker, reminisced about her decision in 2017 to make what seemed at first like a hopeless run for office. “I’d do it again,” she said — and the crowd, sensing a second push for Congress, erupted in cheers. “I meant this one!” she shouted, briefly burying her head in her hands.
I commend your attention to the article in The nation for an explanation of who Lancaster Stands Up is, what the political makeup of the city and the county are, and what these enthusiastic young progressives have been able to do in an area that national Democrats wrote off a long time ago. With that as background, be aware that our candidates for congress, and my local candidate for state representative did not win. While we moved the needle significantly toward the Democrats this voting cycle — and indeed, Jess King won several of the surrounding previously Republican townships surrounding the city (including my own; I had a modest role in that) — it was not enough, particularly as the reformatted Pennsylvania congressional districts had changed ours from the 16th to the 11th and made is a lot more red this cycle, by drawing its boundaries around the entire county of Lancaster and southern York county, which is even redder. No longer would we have the gerrymandered fragments of Reading and Coatesville to help us send a Democrat to Congress. Indeed even given the results nationally, it was a quiet party at my local Democratic headquarters; we couldn’t budge enough Repubs to give us a win, and we were as disappointed as any at the results of the Senate contests
But nevertheless, the energy at this post-election event was quite high and we all left feeling invigorated, not dispirited. Why? Well for one, we are not giving up. The resistance to the sort of insolent nihilistic quasi-fascism that seems to be running the country will not quit. No, we are just getting started. And the number of people who turned out on a weekend to hear a defeated candidate is in itself an indicator. There are consequential municipal elections coming up next year and we all know that real political change is not foisted on us from the leaders down; here in America it comes form the bottom up. Lancaster is not thoroughly red anymore; indeed in spots it begins to look quite purple
But the final and I think most important reason for our enthusiasm, high spirits and coming together was the political amity that someone like Jess King inspired, and that LSU maintains. There is no significant split here among Democrats; the young progressives and older whiter Dems get along just fine. We all united solidly behind her candidacy; there was no Bernie vs Hillary Bullshit here. Bernie in fact was received very well when he came out earlier this year to endorse Jess King, and some of the people cheering him on were former Hillary supporters. me for one. The reason is really quite simple; we are united in our basic aims; we all despise Twump and what the Republicans are doing, and we all realize that no one is going anywhere — and no one will be able to go forward if we do not unite.
Jess King will be back. What she represents will be back. And if we can generate this sort of spirit in a race that no single national organization I ever saw rated anything but safe Republican, well, that bodes well for the future