I love how Rep. Katie Porter communicates the Progressive message in an easy-to-understand manner. Democrats need to mint many more like her.
Katie Porter
No one explains Progressive policies for all to understand, irrespective of their ideological slant, better than Porter. This segment on Lawrence O’Donnell’s Last Word made it clear Katie is an all-around politician and public servant.
The segment begins with a ‘service announcement’ Porter made showing her constituents how easy it is to vote. But it was her substantive interview with O’Donnell where she articulated the Democratic message.
“The stakes are incredibly high. They’re high for women’s reproductive freedom — for abortion rights,” said Porter. “High for our climate crisis. But they’re also high for issues that maybe aren’t getting as much attention, including the future of Social Security and Medicare programs that all working Americans rely on.”
Porter makes sure not to concentrate solely on the very important abortion issue but on the litany of Progressive issues that matter to all. And then she reminds O’Donnell that Social Security and Medicare are also on the cutting block by Republicans, a very important campaign issue.
Importantly as well Porter reminds the viewers of the importance of local elections.
“It’s incredibly important to vote down the ballot because to solve most of the problems that Americans care about, including problems like the climate crisis, health care, housing affordability, we have to have the right leaders at the federal, state, county and local level,” Porter said. “And I think there were a lot of moments during the pandemic that really showed that where we provided funds to states and counties, they could invest those resources in helping to address things like hunger, making sure that we can keep firefighters and law enforcement working. So we have to have the right partners. The climate changes, for example, is not something you can solve at any one level of government.”
Porter pointed out that greedy corporations are responsible for more than half of the inflation. Their increased profits tell the story. She showed the pilfer in her charts on the floor as she questioned an expert. O’Donnell asked if other Democrats were leaning into Porter’s message. She said she hoped so. Many are not, and one hopes they will do so during the next 11 days toward the election.
Katie makes an important statement. She acknowledges that Americans know that the GOP is playing games. But Democrats must make it clear that they have plans to move the country forward.
“They [Americans] get that Republicans are playing the blame game,” Porter said. “But what they want to hear from Democrats is that we are on top of this [economy/inflation], and we are willing to fight to do something about it. So Republicans are simply pointing fingers at Democrats. But Democrats need to come back to voters and say they are just pointing fingers. We have solutions. We see the issues. We see the challenges. Here’s what we’ve done, and we know there’s more to do. You can trust us to do it.”
Katie Porter nails it as usual.