Reaching the Voters in 2022

For John, BLUF:  A Reporter asks if Democraft can reach back to the ordinary people, to give them a reason to vote Democrat in November.  She looks at the examples of two Democats with ties to Braddock, PA.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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People, places and politicians: Abstract rhetoric doesn’t respond to voters’ real concerns

From The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, by Reporter Salena Zito, 29 May 2022, 9:04 AM.

Here is the lede plus six:

BRADDOCK, Pa. — For much of the past 300 years, this tiny borough hugging the banks of the Monongahela River has had a front-row seat for key moments in the formation of the country and in the development of its Industrial Age prosperity.

It was here in the first major battle of the French and Indian War that British Gen. Edward Braddock, tasked with capturing French strongholds, marched with an army of British soldiers, Native American allies and Colonial provincial troops, including a young George Washington.

The battle ended in utter failure for the British Army: The region remained in French hands for three more years; Braddock lost his life; and the North American conflict accelerated into a global war. This set in motion both the career of George Washington and a series of events, beginning with British taxes on the colonies to pay for the war, that led to the American Revolution.

One hundred years later, a Scotsman named Andrew Carnegie began building one of the first Bessemer steel mills in the United States. It featured a new and inexpensive process in which molten pig iron was blasted with air to remove its impurities. Carnegie named the mill the Edgar Thomson Steel Works and hired competent managers to run the place.

What had been a mostly agrarian community was transformed into a thriving and diverse town of immigrants, African-Americans and many others. The cramped housing for unskilled workers was built hastily and close to the mill; nicer homes for skilled workers began dotting the slopes. The mill’s success was built on the backs of those workers: Their blood and sweat built the American steel industry.

Joanne Bruno recalls a childhood in the 1950s filled with trips to Braddock Avenue’s vibrant business district filled with dress shops, hotels, grocery stores, barber shops, beauty salons, specialty shops and restaurants. “Even as a young mother in the 60s my friends and I would meet and have coffee,” she said.

Today the mill still stands, and still defines the skyline, but the town is a shadow of what it once was: 18,000 people lived in Braddock when Ms. Bruno was a child; today that number is 1,721.

I think the defeat, yesterday, of San Fransisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin shows that Progressives are on a path, and even if they wanted to step off it, don't know how.

And, those Progrressives don't really have a plan to get to the future they envision, as with Mr Boudin.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff