Cynthia Nixon: I'm a democratic socialist

[brooklynite]

Source: Politico

ALBANY — Gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon considers herself a democratic socialist, she told POLITICO on Tuesday.

Nixon, an actor best known for her role in “Sex and the City,” is running a left-flank challenge to Gov. Andrew Cuomo in a Democratic primary this September. She has promised to raise taxes on the rich to increase funding for public schools and mass transit, and she supports a single-payer health care system.

Nixon spokeswoman Lauren Hitt said that the campaign has been in touch with members of the Democratic Socialists of America, which backed Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as well as Julia Salazar, a state Senate candidate in Brooklyn who has cross-endorsed Nixon. In an email passed along by Hitt, Nixon told POLITICO that she sees herself in their vein.

“Some more establishment, corporate Democrats get very scared by this term but if being a democratic socialist means that you believe health care, housing, education and the things we need to thrive should be a basic right not a privilege then count me in,” Nixon wrote. “As Martin Luther King put it, call it democracy or call it democratic socialism but we have to have a better distribution of wealth in this country. I have long stood in support of a millionaires tax, Medicare for all, fully funding our public schools, housing for all and rejecting all corporation donations — all of which align with democratic socialist principles.”

Read more: https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/albany/story/2018/07/10/cynthia-nixon-im-a-democratic-socialist-503279

---

That's not going to get her the extra votes she needs.

[stonecutter357]

1. lol

[saidsimplesimon]

28. As a daughter of a

32nd degree Mason, I have a problem with using the compass on a political board. Check with your local temple, please advise if they are OK with your use.

[stonecutter357]

41. As the Grandson of a 32nd Scottish Rite Free Mason AND a 32nd Scottish Rite Free Mason ...

I sadly decline your request !

[still_one]

2. Too bad she isn't doing something useful like trying to get Democrats to win in the midterms

[okaawhatever]

37. +100 NT

[SergeStorms]

3. Save your breath, Cindy.

You're wasting your time and other people's money. You don't stand a chance against Cuomo.

[JCanete]

5. Seriously right? What business does she have challenging an incumbent with massive financial support

...the gall.

[Demsrule86]

7. I know you are being sarcastic but imagine what the money spent on this race where

Cynthia is completely unqualified and won't win could do if spent on Senate races...polls show we have a chance. We could shut down Trump judges...now that is a battle worth fighting. And just a word for this candidate...while the Democratic socialist meme worked in the Bronx...probably won't work in Buffalo...this is a statewide race!

[JCanete]

21. These races ARE important. Democracy is important. We disagree now and will continue to disagree

about whether or not we should shelve representative democracy in the short term as a means of sustaining representative democracy for the future. Put up people to give the public a choice about who they want to represent, and get them active in the primary. That gets them invested. Keeping democracy low key leading into the GE does what good for turnout really?

And leftwing candidates have consistently shown, if nothing else, they pull our middle of the road candidates left, and that is never a bad thing.

[Demsrule86]

44. I am more concerned what Trump will do to our Republican...I just disagree...money

could go to the Senate races...not a good year for us. But we have shot...Trump would be shut down in terms of judges if we get the Senate. I think that is way more important than running for a deep blue seat against an incumbent Democrat.

[melman]

38. 'while the Democratic socialist meme worked in the Bronx...probably won't work in Buffalo..'

Cute how you dismiss it as a meme.


btw, did you know Buffalo is one of the most progressive cities in the country?

https://www.newyorkupstate.com/buffalo/2017/07/buffalo_is_more_liberal_than_portland_the_50_most_progressive_us_cities_ranked.html

[Demsrule86]

42. Buffalo area is almost 50 50....not socialist Democrats at least when I was there....

Buffalo went for Hillary by about 5 points...traditional Democrats and union. There is a GM stamping plant there. I mean no disrespect with the word 'meme'...just a word. I am not a Democratic socialist...I am a liberal Democrat...no issues here-we need a big tent to take back the majority.

[LiberalLovinLug]

4. Bravo Cynthia!

Takes guts to say what you believe in. A Democratic socialist does mean that "you believe health care, housing, education and the things we need to thrive should be a basic right not a privilege". I'm stoked that Bernie broke the S word ceiling and now Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and others, mostly women, are brave enough to use the term. All it takes is enough Democrats to tip the scales and the S word will have lost its fangs. Its unnecessarily paranoid to fret about it. With the right holding all the power and headed off into Handmaid Tale land, the Democrats have to NOT just tag behind thinking they can fill the gap where moderate Republicans are fleeing. They tried that. The winning strategy is to leap frog ahead, make the base really excited. They will drag the rest along once Democratic socialist ideals are explained and take hold.

Hillary would have been the slow and steady way forward towards progressive goals. I was resigned to that. But now we have been dealt a perpetual daily acceleration into a cesspool of fascism and death. And the only thing that will be powerful enough to take over the converstaion back on our side is to shoot for the moon. (And a lot of cowbell). Trump is taking advantage of the chaos he is creating. We can also take advantage of the chaos that we didn't ask for. We can get away with more as well. We can introduce Democratic Socialism in a new way. If they insist that this is a time for "saying it like it is", and thumbing your nose at traditional decorum, then be all means we should oblige.

[Demsrule86]

8. Historically when you move to the right as country... you move to the center first and then to the

left when the pendulum swings. Ms.Cortez is to be commended. But she won a race in a deep blue district where gentrification is a problem and was her main issue...this won't work in other more centrist/conservative areas or statewide races.

[LiberalLovinLug]

20. I think we are living in an abnormal historical present

You described what I assumed would be the road of a Hillary Presidency. Much like Obama's. But that has proven to not work. Because no one is moving left. Republicans are moving right, into Nazi territory now. Democrats have been moving to the center/right (presumably from the left, but the Dems really have no "left" other than a couple of reps). We have been steadily moving to a choice between hard right and center right.

There has been some writing in the area of how big changes in society occur, and just how that is accepted. Some authors believe we don't advance in slow predictable increments, but in dramatic leaps, both big and small. Such as one day even top Democrats were going on about the sanctity of heterosexual traditional marriage, including Obama and Hillary, and in a matter of a few years, they along with a majority in the country back the rights of LGBT to marry. The same leap is happening all across the country in regards to legal pot.

Maybe its the human tendency that if you drag something out, and over analyis it, ideas become clogged in counter arguments, and attacks from those against. Also small tiny gestures towards some future final goal just isn't exciting enough for most humans to get behind.

I think the same can be applied to things like universal healthcare. Or maternity leave. Once enough Americans see enough other Americans on board believing it will happen......even if there is no clear drawn up plan yet......it will happen.

[LakeArenal]

23. "This won't work"...

That’s just speculation. And your opinion.

Anybody with guts and a platform can run.
If one believes in everything she stands for but insist on following the monied candidates... what does that say about Dem values?

[CanSocDem]

12. Well said LiberalLoving Lug

If nothing else, Americans can consider public ownership without having a cardiac arrest.



.

[LisaM]

29. DEMOCRATS believe in those things. All those things.

I'm sick of being told otherwise, frankly.

[LiberalLovinLug]

40. Democrats at the grass roots maybe

But Democrats guaranteeing the right to shelter and to a doctor? To use the federal government to establish those rights? Circumventing a lot of the State's rights now? And to be sneered at for being socialists? Not many of top Dems go on the record about it.

That is what is so refreshing about this new batch of Dems. Not afraid to call it by name. Too long Dems say they want these things, but then go scurrying back into the shadows and bristle at being called the S word. Even though if you want these things, they will have to be implemented in some kind of socialist funded way. Democratic Socialists are the same as traditional Democrats, just more honest about it. and are not afraid of the socialist aspect of their platform. Thus they can't be "smeared" with the label, because they proudly have been wearing it.

[Voltaire2]

6. She knows she has no chance of winning a conventional

campaign. Instead she is running an unconventional one. Good for her. She is speaking the truth and not pretending to be yet another middle of the road caretaker Democrat.

[Demsrule86]

9. Fine, it will be over soon...but I regret the money that could have been spent on important races

where a Republican is ousted. I am completely against this sort of primary in the age of Trump.

[Voltaire2]

15. Oh that is nonsense.

This theory that we shouldn’t have primaries, that incumbents are somehow entitled to their spot on the ticket, is anti-democratic and encourages a stultified unrepresentative party divorced from the people it supposedly represents.

And further it seems that at least here this argument is used by supporters of the specific incumbent and not used when the incumbent does not align with their political views.

[LakeArenal]

24. Yes.

[Squinch]

10. Oh, Cynthia. Just stop.

[IrishEyes]

11. She should have run for a smaller office.

She doesn't have any political experience. She isn't qualified to be the governor just because she is rich and famous.

[LakeArenal]

25. The same was said about Franken.

[crazycatlady]

34. There's a difference between a senator and governor

The former is in a body of 100, the latter is an executive. Even though I'm over celebrity candidates I'd vote for one for Senate over governor.

[LakeArenal]

36. Thanks for the education update.

Glad you vote how you like.

[Tarc]

13. Ha! Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez isn't even in office yet and she already has coattails to ride

Too little too late, Cynthia; you ain't her.

[DinahMoeHum]

14. The NY State Senate races this year are far more important. . .

. . .than even the governorship or attorney general ones.

We have the opportunity to oust the so-called Independent Democratic Caucus members in the primaries and get real Democrats into these offices, so that there can be a real Democratic majority in the state senate and break the legislative logjam. We can maybe finally get single-payer healthcare in New York as a result.

http://www.noidcny.org/learn/challengers



Even if I was with Cynthia Nixon (which I'm not), she's not a priority with me, for the above reason..

And unlike a Congressional seat (or state senate, state assembly, city council), which are representational legislative offices, the governorship is an executive position, and as such, is no place for political novices like her.

[Crutchez_CuiBono]

26. SWEET FISH

Love the bottom of your page!!

[ucrdem]

16. lol, so how much has her accountant safely stashed for her in Cayman islands

or real estate in Vermont

[JCanete]

22. how much?

[OilemFirchen]

32. Some percentage of her $60 million net worth?

If she's smart, of course.

[Historic NY]

17. YUP..

[haele]

18. Again, I'd rather be a Social Democrat - a New Deal type Democrat.

Democratic Socialists are not the same as Social Democrats. Democratic Socialists are closer to Trotskyites than to FDR or LBJ. While the Trotskyites have some good ideas - there still is the element of centralized authoritarianism; there's a lot more political inflexibility to Socialism than there is to Democracy.
The successful Scandinavian governments - the European model in general - are based on Social Democracies, not Socialist Societies.
On edit - I suspect that many people are enamored of the term "Democratic Socialist" because they don't want to be called Democrats and the cute political contrarianism of the "Feel the Bern" movement resonated with them.

Haele

[GulfCoast66]

43. Thank you.

Call me liberal. Call me social Democrat. Call me a member of the Democratic Party.

Do not call me Democratic socialist or progressive.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

19. Best of luck in the primary.

What we don't need, Cynthia, is for you to run as an independent/green/socialist/etc after losing the Democratic primary. We don't need more Democratic votes pulled away from the Democratic nominee.

[DeadLetterOffice]

27. I don't care what she calls herself...

... she isn't qualified for the position of governor of New York. I am hardly Cuomo's biggest fan, but movie stars who want to go into politics should maybe get some more ground-level experience before they figure they know how to run an entire state.

[Wwcd]

31. K & R your post.

[Wwcd]

30. Hey CNixon Dem Socialist, who covered all the qualifiers BEFORE your label became trendy?

Some more establishment, corporate Democrats get very scared by this term but if being a democratic socialist means that you believe health care, housing, education and the things we need to thrive should be a basic right not a privilege then count me in,” Nixon wrote. “As Martin Luther King put it, call it democracy or call it democratic socialism but we have to have a better distribution of wealth in this country. I have long stood in support of a millionaires tax, Medicare for all, fully funding our public schools, housing for all and rejecting all corporation donations — all of which align with democratic socialist principles.”

WHO?
THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY, That's who.

No one claimed choice parts as their own & gave those parts as exclusive to a trendy label, Ms Nixon.
All those qualifiers you claim exclusive to your new label were ALWAYS the basic tenats of the Democratic Party.

Your Label doesn't own those qualifiers.
They are written in the basic platform of the Democratic Party.

You don't get to shave off from the Dem Party Platform & make them 'exclusive' to your newfound political label.

Go back to Hollywood where your talent & creds were respected.
You know ZERO about governance on a National scale.

[OilemFirchen]

33. Oh yeah?

I'm a Socialiste Démocratique. Who's hipper now?

[CarlosDem]

35. Explain something

I'm a little young and naive but what is your take on this concept of "wealth distribution"? How does it work?

[Sunlei]

39. Gov. Andrew Cuomo & candidate Cynthia Nixon are both on my team!

[betsuni]

45. I couldn't help but wonder, why doesn't Cynthia Nixon know what a Democrat is?

Health care, housing, education, distribution of wealth and the things we need to thrive are Democratic issues.

When the Obama administration managed to pass the ACA and Republicans freaked out, when Republicans accused Obama of redistributing wealth and being a socialist. Obviously, health care and more equal distribution of wealth are Democratic things. Republicans freak out about education all the time because Democrats want more public schooling, not less. Republicans always accuse Democrats of raising taxes and of course they want rich people and corporations taxed more. Republicans know what Democrats are, why the hell don't people like Cynthia Nixon know?

What's all this nonsense about Democrats not having a message? Republicans know the message.