An article in today’s Globe observes that many “Massachusetts Democrats who are widely considered the party’s rising stars” have been openly critical of Donald Trump.
And then writer Jim O’Sullivan adds this observation…
Representative Joseph P. Kennedy III, another of the party’s up-and-comers, and Mayor Setti Warren of Newton, who is actively exploring a challenge to Baker in 2018, have been less openly critical of Trump.
Clearly, Democrats have lost our way. The party has become Republican Lite. We only have two high profile progressives, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. The rest of the party has inexplicably moved to the middle and it’s killed us…
Joe Kennedy was supposed to be our up and coming liberal star. One of the first things he did when he got to Congress was vote for more NSA spying. And locally, what progressive issue has Setti really tackled? When the City Council screwed up the licensing for a medical marijuana clinic [which kept Newton patients from access to medication for years], Setti said absolutely nothing…
If Kennedy and Warren are the kind of people we’re going to count on to resurrect the party, we might as well start the funeral now.
It’s been hard to watch other mayors and representatives speak out on progressive issues and stand up for our common values which have come under attack and realize that our mayor and our rep are not among them.
Hmm. I would think the only thing keeping an elected leader from criticizing Trump more would be the need to sleep 8 hours a night.
I don’t know, I watched a whole bunch of people jump all over Charlie Baker when he didn’t make an endorsement during the presidential election. Now, I guess all of you are OK when 2 of the local dem leaders don’t make a statement and criticize Trump for his ridiculous statements. You vote for no guts, you get no guts. (I actually like Joe Kennedy).
This is a bit off-topic, but I’d nevertheless like to express my opinion that Joe Kennedy is a major disappointment as Congressman. I know at least two other people (in addition to myself) who have emailed his office on policy topics that ought to be of interest to him, and have either received no reply, or have received a completely irrelevant and inapplicable response.
In my case, in 2015 I learned from a colleague in Kathmandu that India had instituted a unilateral embargo against Nepal on foodstuffs and fuel in an attempt to influence Nepal’s domestic political situation – the embargo had troubling humanitarian ramifications following Nepal’s earthquake, and it was in clear violation of the Convention on Transit Trade of Land-locked States.
My email was a simple enquiry to determine Representative Kennedy’s awareness of the issue and whether Congress or the State Department had made any effort to engage Indian authorities on the topic. Over the course of several weeks, I sent three separate emails to Rep. Kennedy’s office and received absolutely no reply.
I’ve also spoken to two friends from the 4th District who have either received no reply or completely inapplicable replies to their queries.
The fact that Rep. Kennedy’s office is incapable of sending out even form-letter replies, especially in this day and age when they could easily implement content-scanning programs that would automatically generate basic replies to placate his constituents, speaks volumes.
Most of Rep. Kennedy’s political stances are identical to mine, but given the incompetence and apathy of his office, and/or his apparent contempt for having to perform the most basic of constituent services, he’ll never receive my vote again.
All this to say, it’s my belief that Joe Kennedy is the last person we should be expecting great things from, in this frightening new political environment where we desperately need competent leadership. Little things like constituent services are a pretty solid indicator of overall competence.