Background
The Full Story
I am a 38 year old biology teacher and union representative in one of the lowest performing and most impoverished school districts in the country. Over my last 10 years in education, I’ve been immersed in almost total dysfunction - both locally in my job and city and nationally as a middle class millennial watching cherished American institutions fail or be actively dismantled while more and more Americans struggle for dignity.
Since 2016 our elections have been a continuous wakeup call that both parties are actively failing us.
One party very incorrectly insists they know who and what is best for everyone while the other party increasingly welcomes authoritarian and anti-democratic values. Meanwhile, the majority of our national representatives line their pockets with donor and dark money to do nothing for their constituents as the wealthy siphon away any remaining wealth of the middle class. Ordinary Americans are left fighting each other for scraps because of policies of fabricated scarcity and rigged taxation - a reality I see every day in the students and families I serve.
Ten years later, and in a moment of shifting political winds, I am choosing to stand up and fight back. Though there is plenty to be angry about, the active dismantling of the Department of Education has been too close to my world to simply sit back and hope for the best. At a time where public education is at a precipice after decades of national cuts and neglect, not even a “progressive” state like New York can manage to address the issues city school districts like Rochester face under the status quo. If we can’t afford to fully invest in our system of education, then what future do we have as a nation?
At one time, Democrats were bold.
In 1932 in the middle of America’s worst economic crisis, Franklin Delano Roosevelt ushered in a new vision of government - he proposed a New Deal for the American people, promising relief, recovery, and reform from a collapsing system broken by business-first legislation and severe economic inequality.
Massive legislative wins like...
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the establishment of the Social Security system,
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new supervision and regulations of large corporations
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a fair and progressive system of taxation,
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a push to expand labor unions,
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the creation of large public works programs where millions of Americans were given jobs to rebuild and expand their communities
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...proved that progressive politics were not only popular, but economically successful.
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On January 11, 1944 in his fourth and final campaign for president, FDR announced a plan to go further for the American people - a Second Bill of Rights. During his State of the Union Address to Congress, he would introduce eight basic rights "under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all — regardless of station, race, or creed". This plan would lead him to an unprecedented fourth term in the 1944 election. ​
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Roosevelt's popular progressive vision would fade after his death and America’s slip into corporate and military industrial complex rule would take hold.
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FDR’s New Deal and his proposed Second Bill of Rights marked a turning point in American history - a moment when the country recognized that true freedom required economic security, that democracy wouldn’t survive on inequality, and that government had a responsibility to protect ordinary people from the failures of unregulated capitalism. His vision was clear: a nation where working families had stability, dignity, and a fair shot at prosperity.
Two decades later, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. carried that same torch of economic justice into the heart of the civil rights movement. As he traveled the country, he saw firsthand that racial equality and economic equality were inseparable; you couldn’t meaningfully address one without confronting the other. He spoke openly about the way wealth and power were concentrated at the top, warning that America had created “socialism for the rich and rugged free‑market capitalism for the poor.”
Dr. King pushed the nation to think beyond legal rights and toward material rights: living wages, fair housing, strong unions, and public investment in communities that had been systematically excluded. His final campaign, the Poor People’s Campaign, was built on the belief that every person - regardless of race, class, or background - deserved economic security, meaningful work, and a government that served human needs rather than corporate interests.
In many ways, Dr. King was extending the unfinished work of the New Deal. Where FDR laid the foundation, King challenged the nation to face its original sin and demand a country for all its people - a multiracial, multicultural democracy rooted in dignity, fairness, and shared prosperity.
It is time we reclaim their vision.
Establishment representatives are standing in the way of progress all across the country.
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For decades, career politicians have slowly led America to the doorstep of authoritarianism and the systematic dismantling of our democracy as they sit back, advocating for the absolute minimum, so long as they aren’t as bad as the other guy.
We need to reclaim the Democratic party...
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... a party that was once synonymous with the working class; a party that was bold enough to introduce massive, historic programs for the working class like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and Food Stamps; a party that had the integrity to demand the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, and, though incredibly flawed, the Affordable Care Act. Today, the Democrats represent their donors while ignoring the cries from their constituents.
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​We can be doing better because we have done better, but nothing will change until we start fighting for it.
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Progressive ideas are popular across the country, but ignored from both sides of the aisle because they threaten the ruling class. From a teacher’s perspective, we are failing an open book test. I’m willing to help deliver the proven message that our government can work when people sit down in good faith, and work together to decide how to reinvest our collective wealth in the people.
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Career politicians have sat back for decades letting big money interests drive our country firmly into the ground and people are looking for change.
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Our system of democracy is built on the idea that anyone can represent their community if their ideas are popular enough, though without bold movement this idea may not hold for future generations. I think with your support and the guidance from young leaders in Rochester, this movement is possible.