School Scope: Rockaway Progressive Women Respond to Trump

Published Sept. 21, 2018  in The Wave (www.rockawave.com).

School Scope:  Rockaway Progressive Women Respond to Trump

By Norm Scott

About 80 people turned out last Friday night for a Rockaway Women for Progress (RWP)-sponsored dinner and performance inside the tent at Bungalow Bar by Me the People, an anti-Trump group of professional actors, who perform topical material – and by topical, I mean TOPICAL – like songs and comedy about up to the minute breaking news. Critic Joel Benjamin wrote: “You’d need a ten ton truck to haul away all the slings and arrows slung and shot at Donald Trump in Me the People: Fire & Fury Edition, the red-hot political revue currently on stage at the Laurie Beechman Theatre.”

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The crowd, about 90% women, never stopped laughing for the entire delightful show. The few men in the audience laughed right along.

A scene from the show.

The RWP began to organize around the anti-Trump woman’s march on the day he was inaugurated in January. 2017. The mission of Rockaway Women for Progress is “to develop and implement strategies that uphold democracy and protect human rights. Any women in the Rockaway/ Breezy Point/ Broad Channel areas, who are interested in joining, are encouraged to email rockawaywomenforprogress@gmail.com. “

The Rockaway women’s group, seems to be mostly from the West End, which is estimated to have gone for Trump by 75% in the 2016 election. Making a dent in those numbers would be an accomplishment. It would be interesting to explore the different political forces in the mostly white west end and compare them to what is going on in other parts of Rockaway, but don’t expect me to get off my ass to do it. (My ambition to do anything that involves hard work has left the room.) I hope there are alliances being built with East end progressive groups like the Rockaway Youth Task Force. Then there is the area between east and west ends of Rockaway, where gentrification, mostly white progressives, is taking place.

With all the news of a potential blue wave, the RWP group fits right in. They backed democratic socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortex who defeated Queens Democratic boss Joe Crowley in the June primary. In the recent primary in September there was a relatively large turnout but even that was only 25%. SAD, to coin a phrase. The progressives did help knock out most of the slugs in the IDC, the Democratic party traitors who went over to the Republicans in the State Senate, but didn’t take any of the top three positions. Phony progressive Cuomo won big while his Lt. Governor Hochul squeaked by over Brooklyn councilman Jumaane Williams and Zephyr Teachout lost out to Tish James for Attorney General. James has always been viewed as a progressive - until she hooked up with Cuomo. I still like her and expect her to run for mayor but she may face a crowded Democratic field, with Williams, who has a shot at replacing James as Public Advocate, also jumping into the race. Our own City Councilman Eric Ulrich will probably also be vying for the mayor’s job, which will make things very interesting. Too bad he is a Republican.

Which brings me to the love-fest The WAVE seems to have with Tom Sullivan who won the Republican nomination to oppose Joe Addabbo Jr. for State Senator and earned a major front page headline and photo. (Does he have dirty pictures of people at The Wave?) I received a phone call a month ago that was disguised as an honest political survey. After wasting 10 minutes of my time trying to answer questions honestly, I became suspicious as the questions turned out to be from the Sullivan campaign. The questions were some of the sleaziest, dishonest, bordering on racist and Trumpist, I’ve encountered. I don’t love Addabbo but will now vote for him.

I also have a big beef with Democrats generally, including our local elected reps, who don’t seem to care much of a fig about reforming the most regressive election laws and corrupt state legislature in the nation (yes Lou there are bigger things than bridge tolls). There’s a lot wrong with both parties and we seem to be stuck with them. There is slim hope the new progressive wing of the Dem party can make a dent in the machine but as the Cuomo big win indicates, the machine still rules. As for Republicans, including our locals, they can’t run away from Trump, nor do they seem to want to. I pray he is not impeached as he has been the best tonic for getting progressive people off their asses.

Norm  doesn’t have to get off his ass to blog at ednotesonline.com.

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