The original 2018 photo that gave rise to the term ‘The Squad.’ From left to right: Reps. Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. (Photo: AOC/Instagram)
Dec. 4, 2020 by David Silverberg
11:00 am corrected Donalds affiliation.
Rep.-Elect Byron Donalds (R-19-Fla.) has joined a Republican effort to imitate and counter the four progressive Democratic members of Congress informally known as “The Squad.”
Seven newly-elected Republican House members are calling themselves “The Freedom Force.” According to Donalds, they reject the kind of progressive programs and policies advocated by The Squad.
Rep.-Elect Byron Donalds announces his membership in ‘The Freedom Force’ on Fox News. (Image: Fox News)
Americans, Donalds stated in an interview on Fox News, “just want to have opportunities to succeed. They don’t want people in Washington telling them how they’re going to go about doing that. They want the freedom to choose for themselves and I’m here to fight for that and that’s what the Freedom Force is here to do.” He said the group was necessary because “the Left has people out there every single day pushing this narrative that America is some worse off country, that we need a heavy hand from government, that you have to have this ultra-progressive left-wing policies.”
“The Freedom Force is nothing more than a media opportunity for a bunch of freshman representatives who will otherwise not have the ability to do anything in Congress as part of the minority party,” Cindy Banyai, Democratic candidate for Congress in the recent election, pointed out in an e-mail to The Paradise Progressive. “The squad was branded as such because of their massive popularity and ability to make change. They didn’t name themselves that to seem important, like this group. These pathetic copycats can’t even come up with their own concept to counter this powerful group of effective women that they maligned to get elected.”
In alphabetical order, the members of The Squad are: Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) (D-14-NY), Ilhan Omar (D-5-Minn.), Ayanna Pressley (D-7-Mass.), and Rashida Tlaib (D-13-Mich.).
The members of The Freedom Force are: Reps.-Elect Stephanie Bice (R-5-Okla.); Byron Donalds (R-19-Fla.); Carlos Giménez (R-26-Fla.); Nicole Malliotakis (R-11-NY); Maria Elvira Salazar (R-27-Fla.); Victoria Spartz (R-20-Ind.); and Michelle Steel (R-48-Calif.).
Asked about The Freedom Force by NBC News, Omar said: “I mean it sounds ridiculous to me. I think they think they’re in high school. We’re in Congress.”
Donalds attacked AOC in mailers and campaign literature during his run for Congress, said Banyai. He likened Banyai to AOC and tried to “scare his donors and fan the flames of fear of socialism.”
The Squad was informally named in 2018 after the four members were elected to the House of Representatives and had their picture taken while attending a progressive orientation session. AOC titled it “Squad” and shared it on Instagram and created the hashtag #Squadgoals. It then became the focus of media attention because all the members had broken barriers and represented new faces of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.
In an interview on CBS This Morning on July 17, 2018 Pressley explained the genesis of The Squad. Their intention was “not just about dismantling, but what we’re intentional about is building and fostering,” she said. “Anyone who is committed to the work of building a more equitable and just world is a part of the squad.”
Rep. Francis Rooney at May 31, 2017 town hall meeting in Bonita Springs. (Photo: Author)
June 7, 2020 by David Silverberg
Conservative Republican Rep. Francis Rooney (R-19-Fla.), representing Southwest Florida, is considering supporting Democrat Joe Biden for president because Trump is “driving us all crazy” and Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic led to a death toll that “didn’t have to happen.”
Rooney said of Biden, according to the article, “What he’s always been is not scary. A lot of people that voted for President Trump did so because they did not like Hillary Clinton. I don’t see that happening with Joe Biden — how can you not like Joe Biden?”
Rooney was withholding a full endorsement, he said, because he was uncertain whether Biden would remain in the political mainstream.
According to the article, Rooney has been lobbied by Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), a Biden ally.
Rooney announced his retirement from Congress in October 2019, in large part because of the backlash that occurred when he said he was open to hearing the evidence of wrongdoing during the president’s impeachment trial. Since that announcement he has evidenced increasing disillusionment with Trump and the Republican Party.
Rooney’s change of heart is especially stunning because he ran in 2016 on a staunchly conservative platform and campaigned with Trump. In his first term he voted 97 percent of the time with Trump. Prior to his election he was a generous donor to the Republican Party and conservative causes.
Rooney’s statements came on the same day that former Secretary of State Colin Powell announced his endorsement of Joe Biden. The New York Times article detailed the disillusionment of former President George W. Bush, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and military leaders with Trump.
Updated April 13, with correction and additional policy position.
Another Republican candidate has filed for Congress in the 19th Congressional District of Florida, bringing the total number of candidates to an even dozen.
Christy McLaughlin
Christina “Christy” McLaughlin filed her candidacy with the Federal Election Commission on Monday, March 9. This brings the number of Republicans running for the seat being vacated by Rep. Francis Rooney to nine. Also running are two Democrats and an Independent.
According to her campaign website, ChristyforCongress.com, McLaughlin is a Naples, Fla., native, and a graduate of Florida Gulf Coast University and Ave Maria School of Law. She states that she sat for the Florida Bar but does not state if she passed the examination. She interned at the Florida state attorney’s office in the 20th District for two summers and for a judge of the 20th Circuit Court. In the summer of 2019 she interned in the office of Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-25-Fla.).
On her website McLaughlin declares that she “supports all of President Trump’s agenda. I have supported President Trump since he descended the escalator” and calls him “the greatest president ever.”
She is anti-abortion, pro-border wall, opposes birthright citizenship, opposes gun regulation, denounces socialism, applauds the Space Force and supports Israel’s right to exist.
There is no initial mention on her website of any local or environmental issues. She subsequently stated that “In Congress, I will fight to receive the necessary funding we need for the restoration and proactive measures we must take to keep our waters clean.”
McLaughlin states that she is the daughter of Cuban immigrants who came to the United States in 1961.
In addition to her professional activities she states that she established the Republican National Lawyer’s Association Chapter at Ave Maria School of Law and served as its president in 2018 and 2019. She also expanded the Young Republicans Party of Florida into Collier County and serves as the Collier County Chair. In 2014 she was crowned Miss Naples and Miss South Florida Latina.
Her father, Hugh McLaughlin, a software consultant, serves as treasurer of her campaign committee.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on the streets of New York in her campaign video, Courage to Change.
Jan. 2, 2020 by David Silverberg
The story is told that Napoleon Bonaparte, when asked which historical generals he most admired, responded: “The ones that won.”
As it is with generals, so it is with political candidates. All the ideals in the world don’t make a difference if you don’t win your election.
It’s no secret for Democrats in Southwest Florida that the odds of winning an election are long. But there are candidates who faced similar odds in other circumstances and overcame them. What did they do right and what lessons can Southwest Floridians learn from them?
This article, the first in a series, will examine some of the mechanics of campaigning. In this one, we’ll look at elements of the ground game, the getting from A to B, or as one person called it, “the hustle.”
Pound the pavement, knock on doors
Perhaps no one is a better embodiment of the successful, come-from-nowhere insurgent than Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-14-NY), now nearly universally referred to as AOC. On June 26, 2018, the 28-year-old Boston University graduate and sometime bartender defeated Rep. Joe Crowley, a 10-term incumbent and the fourth-most senior Democrat in the House of Representatives in the Democratic primary.
AOC campaigned early, often and relentlessly—and her supporters did the same.
“In a year of campaigning, Ocasio-Cortez and her volunteers made a hundred and seventy thousand phone calls, knocked on a hundred and twenty thousand doors, and sent a hundred and twenty thousand text messages,” wrote David Remnick in a New Yorker profile. “Ocasio-Cortez spent the last week of the campaign going door to door, hoofing it to the end.”
AOC stops to change shoes as depicted in her campaign video.
“Look, it’s a credit to her. She did a very good job of organizing and in generating a turnout spike among younger voters,” an unnamed political expert told reporter Grace Segers of CityandStateNY.com.
“Something I can’t emphasize enough: There is no replacement for strong volunteer canvass. $3 million dollars is not a replacement for volunteer canvass. If you’re wondering what you can do to change the political situation right now, the answer is ‘volunteer canvass,’” analyst Michael Kinnucan wrote in Jacobinmag.com. “Ocasio-Cortez — a brilliant candidate at the right moment — brought in a whole mess of volunteers from all over the place, from other organizations as well as off the street.”
The same went for volunteers for Doug Jones, the insurgent Democrat who in 2017 defeated Republican Roy Moore for the US Senate seat in Alabama.
Doug Jones celebrates his 2017 senatorial victory in Alabama.
“Roy Moore had no ground game,” Rebecca Rothman, a Doug Jones organizer told Collier County Democrats during a visit to Party headquarters in December 2017. “They were so confident of winning that they didn’t put out any lawn signs or go door-to-door.” In contrast, Jones supporters vigorously went door-to-door, canvassing neighborhoods. The visits were critical even in areas that were regarded as safely Democratic because they helped turn out the vote there.
Closer to home and on a state level, the 2018 special election victory of Margaret Good in State District 72 in Sarasota was also the result of activist mobilization and grassroots, door-knocking efforts.
Margaret Good
Good was running in a majority Republican district very similar to those in Lee and Collier counties but overcame her numerical disadvantage with a strong field operation.
“Very early we made a conscious decision to invest in the field organization,” Reggie Cardoza, the director of political operations for Democrats in the Florida House, told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. “The most effective and efficient way to reach a voter is face to face.”
That kind of campaigning not only introduces the candidate to voters, it expands the electorate; people who may never have voted before can be inspired to go to the polls for the first time.
Margaret Good is now running for Congress in the 16th Congressional District against Republican incumbent Rep. Vern Buchanan.
In Southwest Florida, where Democratic candidates have to find new voters in order to win, face-to-face campaigning can start to make the necessary difference—and nowhere is it more important and more effective than when it’s done by the candidate in person.
Keeping tech in its place
Digital technology is seductive. It’s a great ego boost for a candidate or campaign to put up Facebook posts and see the yellow line of page visitors rise and count the numbers of “engagements”—actions taken by visitors—and to believe that this constitutes real progress in convincing voters.
It does constitute progress—but without face-to-face, on the ground introductions and follow-up, it also means nothing.
Before going further, let’s ask a crucial question: What do we mean when we refer to “technology?” Marshall McLuhan, the famous thinker and author of Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, wrote that technology is an extension of a human capability by artificial means. In this instance, think of a loudspeaker or amplifier broadcasting or amplifying the sound of a person’s voice.
All recent successful campaigns have used technology, chiefly digital media, in new and creative ways to broaden their messages. Savvy politicians have always realized that new technologies extend their ability to reach voters. What newspapers and telegraphs did for Abraham Lincoln and radio did for Franklin Roosevelt, so Twitter did for Donald Trump—and for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
If Donald Trump uses digital media, especially Twitter, as a weapon, he uses it like a madman waving a club, swinging it insanely in all directions and battering anything and everything around him. AOC uses digital media like a dagger, thrusting it at a focused target and driving it home with the greatest impact.
In addition to her 2018 campaign’s 120,000 text messages and her massive Twitter use, AOC’s campaign produced a moving, beautifully crafted 2-minute video called “The Courage to Change.” It effectively introduced AOC, her platform, the issues and called for action. It cost less than $10,000 to make and it was durable; no matter what was happening in the news, it served over the long term of the campaign. It was never broadcast by local television stations or used in paid advertising but while it was only distributed digitally, it went viral and has had over a million views—and keeps being accessed to this day.
Unfortunately, in Southwest Florida, there is no reliable, publicly-available data on people’s media habits, so it’s very hard for a campaign to determine which platforms people use most and trust. As a result, campaigns can’t focus their messages accordingly.
However, it seems safe to say that given Lee and Collier counties’ high proportion of older people, traditional media (television and print newspapers) and more established social media (Facebook, perhaps Twitter) are probably their leading information sources, as opposed to newer applications like Instagram or Tik-Tok.
In Southwest Florida, Democratic candidates cannot rely on established mainstream media to do its traditional, constitutional job of objectively and comprehensively covering politics and government. Politics is a very low priority for local media and Democratic and progressive activity is usually overlooked, ignored or dismissed (hence the reason for The Paradise Progressive).
As a result, any Democratic campaign in Southwest Florida has to build its own media machine and aggressively push out its message. Fortunately, digital media provides a low-cost means of doing that. (Ironically, various digital platforms’ crackdown on false and misleading political messages also means cutting off a channel for low-financed, insurgent political campaigns.)
But media can only do so much. For those voters—and most importantly, new and potential voters who might not subscribe to digital media channels, nothing can take the place of a knock on the door, a friendly greeting and a handshake, or what’s known in campaign slang as “pressing the flesh.”
There is simply no substitute for committed, energetic, continuous, face-to-face campaigning, especially in person by the candidate.
Pressing the flesh—effectively
Former President Bill Clinton addresses a crowd in Immokalee, Nov. 1, 2016. (Photo: author)
Former Democratic President Bill Clinton is the ultimate “people person.” Those who have met him have commented on his uncanny concentration on the person he’s with, making that person feel like he or she is the most important person in the universe—indeed, the only person in the universe.
Clinton’s people skills were on display on Nov. 1, 2016 in Collier County when he visited Immokalee on a campaign swing for his wife Hillary.
Although it was a small gathering for a man who has addressed massive crowds, Clinton nonetheless treated the audience with the same respect he would show a national convention. He was articulate and intelligent, addressing people as peers. He was unfazed by brief heckling and argued convincingly when challenged, showing full command of facts and figures.
But it was actually after he finished speaking that the complete Clinton treatment was on full display. Clinton just loved being there. An observer could see and feel it. Clinton gave the impression that there was nothing in the world he would rather be doing than shaking hands and posing for selfies with voters in the heat of Immokalee. His enjoyment seemed to just wash over the crowd and radiate outward. These were the people he most wanted to meet and the crowd reciprocated his pleasure. He would have stayed for hours if his entourage hadn’t pulled him away.
Clinton’s famous empathy and focus won him his elections in Arkansas and took him to the White House. It marks him as one of the most effective politicians in American history. And speaking clinically, it’s a key to making personal appearances effective with voters.
It’s also something AOC has, according to Michael Kinnucan: “If you’ve ever been in a room with Ocasio-Cortez, you know what I mean. She has the thing. You don’t need the thing, lots of sitting politicians don’t have it, but when you find it —it’s something else.”
It’s best if a candidate has “the thing” in her or his bones but it can be developed.
“The digital age has turned many of us into multitaskers who are constantly on the lookout for our next dopamine burst of novelty,” according to Geoffrey Tumlin, author of Stop Talking, Start Communicating: Counterintuitive Secrets to Success in Business and in Life. Clinton, on the other hand, “has the ability to connect with an audience and then turn around and make the person who was helping with the slideshow feel like they’re the most important person there.”
In the 2014 article “How to Communicate like Bill Clinton” in the magazine Fast Company, Tumlin provided tips on making effective personal appearances. (They are: unplug from technology; seek out conversations; adopt “we-based” communication forms; empathize; and practice.) They’re lessons Southwest Florida Democratic candidates need to learn.
A winning candidate here should enjoy meeting people, being with them, listening to them and winning them over. It’s best if this is instinctive behavior but if it’s not, it can be learned. By the same token, a candidate who is detached, remote, aloof, dismissive or passive will definitely not succeed.
Hustle
So in-person campaigning, technological savvy and empathy are some of the tactics that will help Democrats win in Southwest Florida. But all of this is nothing without sheer hard work, the willingness and drive to get up every morning and do what needs to be done, to campaign at every moment and opportunity, to inherently want to win over voters.
AOC put this very well after her victory. Her stunning upset had pundits pointing to every possible factor to explain her success, a major one of which was the change in her district from majority white to majority Latino.
But AOC was having none of it. She knew how much work she and her campaign had put into the effort. On June 29, 2018 she tweeted out her reply:
“Some folks are saying I won for ‘demographic’ reasons.
“1st of all, that’s false. We won w/voters of all kinds.
“2nd, here’s my 1st pair of campaign shoes. I knocked doors until rainwater came through my soles.
“Respect the hustle. We won bc we out-worked the competition. Period.”
Pound the pavement; expend the shoe leather; respect the hustle: that willingness to work is the key ingredient if Democrats are ever to win in Southwest Florida.
This week you will face the most momentous vote of your time in Congress: whether or not to impeach President Donald J. Trump.
Only you know the full events of your past but I do not think I’m exaggerating if I say that this may be the single most important decision of your life. Previously your decisions affected you, your family, your business and your employees. As a member of Congress you have voted before to chart the course of the United States. However, this vote, more than any other, will determine the future of all the people of the United States, and indeed the people of the entire world and the planet on which we all live.
I also know from your statements that you fully appreciate the gravity and momentousness of this matter as well as its burden and responsibility and the magnitude of its implications.
I will not go over the evidence and arguments that have already been made. You have been far closer and better informed about this matter than any of us outside government could ever be.
But as a constituent and a citizen and American who still has and cherishes the fundamental right to speak freely and petition government for a redress of grievances, I would like to address larger issues.
When the founders of this nation met to draft the Constitution they had to deal with the ultimate fundamentals: How do people behave? What is government? What is fairness? What is justice? What is effective? What is right? What is wrong?
We have not had to think of these things in the last 240-plus years because they got it so right. We’ve very successfully lived within the framework and rules they created. By doing so, generations of Americans built the richest and most powerful nation humanity has ever seen and spread its best ideals and values around the world.
But now we have to address those fundamentals again. It is extraordinary that a single man has in less than three years so challenged centuries of precedent, experience and institutional strength to the point where the foundation of this society and civilization is at risk. But here we are.
You, more than most, know the full scope and sweep of American power and influence. Having served as an ambassador representing the United States abroad, you also have a broader perspective than many of your colleagues in Congress. You have worked shoulder to shoulder with the men and women of the US diplomatic corps and you know first-hand their intelligence, their commitment and their patriotism. These are the people under relentless attack by this president.
You know the subtleties of policy and how decisions made in the US capital can ripple outward and either erode or nourish foreign shores. You, more than most, can appreciate the full dangers of a president using the vast power of the United States for petty, personal ends—and I believe that you have a full appreciation of the scope of that economic, military and political power.
As an advocate of Kurdish independence you appreciate more than most the disaster this president’s casual betrayal of the Kurds caused and the genocide he unleashed.
You have very reasonably and responsibly said that you will keep an open mind about the evidence in this case and its implications. For that you’ve been attacked by the people who were your political base before that moment. You have quite rightly said that “impeachment is such a grave matter that it demands that a strong and clear case be made” and those who pursue it should “assure that no stone is left unturned.”
But who is the person who has ensured that those stones remain unturned? Who has built a virtual stone wall around the White House and Oval Office to ensure that Congress did not get the facts and testimony it legitimately sought and to which it is legally entitled?
Very much to your credit you urged the administration to cooperate and fulfill its constitutional duties. You specifically called on Energy Secretary Rick Perry and other top officials to testify.
You and I come from very different ideological perspectives and there is much about which we disagree. But I can say without fear or favor that in these matters you’ve behaved with probity and responsibility. Your observations have been insightful and your actions prudent. Your statements have been well-reasoned and logical.
However, when it comes to this president, White House and administration, your “repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury,” as the founders put it in the Declaration of Independence.
And so we come to the current pass and this week’s vote.
When you vote this week, you’ll be voting on more than just two articles of impeachment. As the founders did, you’ll be addressing fundamentals. You’ll be voting on whether the entire structure of this government will remain standing, whether this Constitution will stay in force, whether the experiment begun by the founders to have a government that rests on reason and compromise and the popular will rather than the whims of a single individual will survive. In short, you’ll be voting on whether “government of the people, by the people, for the people” shall or shall not perish from the earth.
As an American, as a constituent, as a citizen, as the grandchild of immigrants, let me issue this appeal: For the sake of ourselves, our families, our grandchildren and their grandchildren; for the sake of all Americans; for the sake of every person everywhere who has aspired to American dreams and ideals; for the sake of huddled masses yearning to breathe free; for the sake of equal justice under law; for the sake of fighters against tyranny everywhere; for the sake of the founders; for the sake of the Constitution; for the sake of democracy; for the sake of liberty; for the sake of freedom; for the sake of independence; for the sake of your honor; for the sake of your courage; for the sake of your place in history; for the sake of your conscience; and for the sake of your country, the last best place on earth, please, please, please
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announces impeachment proceedings.
Dec. 5, 2019 by David Silverberg
The US House of Representatives will move forward with impeachment proceedings, House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-12-Calif.) announced today.
“Sadly, but with confidence and humility, with allegiance to our Founders and our hearts full of love for America, today, I am asking our chairmen to proceed with articles of impeachment,” she said in a formal statement. (Also available on video, here.)
Two candidates for the 19th Congressional District seat being vacated by Rep. Francis Rooney (R-19-Fla.) were vocal in their reactions to the announcement. All sitting members of Congress from Southwest Florida were silent.
“After careful review of the report release yesterday by the U.S. House of Representative Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, I fully support the Speaker of the House directing that articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump proceed,” stated Democratic candidate Cindy Banyai on her website. “It simply cannot be tolerated that funds legally allocated by Congress be manipulated for domestic political and personal purposes of the president. Such actions are not only improper, but put US national security at risk, which is unacceptable.”
As of this writing, Democratic candidate David Holden had not issued a statement.
State Rep. Dane Eagle (R-77-Cape Coral) initially tweeted a denunciation of Pelosi and the impeachment proceedings immediately after Pelosi’s statement but subsequently deleted it.
Republican candidate Daniel Severson issued a tweet yesterday, Dec. 4, denouncing law professor Pamela Karlan, who testified before the House Judiciary Committee, stating: “This is your unbiased witness on impeachment today. These #ImpeachmentHearings are nothing more than a partisan exercise to undo an American election. @TheDemocrats know they cannot win at the ballot box against @realDonaldTrump so they are abusing their power to remove him.”
As of this writing, Republican candidates State Rep. Heather Fitzenhagen (R-78-Fort Myers), Fort Myers Mayor Randy Henderson, Antonio Dumornay and William Figlesthaler had not issued statements.
Early election results in Kentucky and Virginia indicate that Democratic hopes for an upset in Southwest Florida are not misplaced.
In deeply conservative Republican Kentucky, Democratic challenger Andy Beshear unseated Republican Gov. Matt Bevin, a staunch Trumpist for whom the president actively campaigned. This occurred in a state, like Florida, where Republicans hold both chambers of the legislature and both US Senate seats. As of this writing Bevin had not conceded and was citing “irregularities” in the vote.
Democrats swept Virginia’s legislative elections, giving the party complete control of the state government.
In Mississippi, however, Republican Lieutenant Governor Tate Reeves defeated Democratic Attorney General Jim Hood.
Analysis: What this means for SWFL
The tendency in any election is for the winners to generalize the results while losers particularize them.
As in: Democrats will likely claim that the Kentucky and Virginia results show that Trumpism is a losing ideology and Democrats in deeply conservative jurisdictions can win despite Trump’s electoral base and his active campaigning. Republicans will likely claim that the Kentucky results are specific to that state , the result only of Bevin’s personal unpopularity. They will likely also point out that the Mississippi results show that Trump has not lost his touch.
In deeply conservative Southwest Florida, however, the Kentucky results do indicate that Democratic aspirations are not misplaced and that a good candidate, hard work and effective campaigning can bring a Democratic victory.
Tonight both of Southwest Florida’s representatives in Congress voted against a congressional resolution “Condemning President Trump’s racist comments directed at Members of Congress.”
Both Rep. Francis Rooney (R-19-Fla.) and Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-25-Fla.) voted against the resolution. As of this writing, neither had issued a formal statement explaining their votes.
The resolution was introduced by Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-7-NJ) after President Trump tweeted on July 14 that four members of Congress, Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-14-NY), Ilhan Omar (D-5-Minn.), Rashida Tlaib (D-13-Mich.) and Ayanna Pressley (D-7-Mass.), all American citizens and three out of four born in the United States, should “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.”
The resolution, which is non-binding and does not have the force of law or compel any action, nonetheless expresses the sense of Congress and is an unusually strong condemnation of a sitting president.
The resolution cites the contributions of immigrants to the United States and the support and praise past presidents have expressed for immigrants and open immigration.
Noting that “President Donald Trump’s racist comments have legitimized fear and hatred of new Americans and people of color,” the resolution stated that the House of Representatives:
“(1) believes that immigrants and their descendants have made America stronger, and that those who take the oath of citizenship are every bit as American as those whose families have lived in the United States for many generations;
“(2) is committed to keeping America open to those lawfully seeking refuge and asylum from violence and oppression, and those who are willing to work hard to live the American Dream, no matter their race, ethnicity, faith, or country of origin; and
“(3) strongly condemns President Donald Trump’s racist comments that have legitimized and increased fear and hatred of new Americans and people of color by saying that our fellow Americans who are immigrants, and those who may look to the President like immigrants, should “go back” to other countries, by referring to immigrants and asylum seekers as “invaders,” and by saying that Members of Congress who are immigrants (or those of our colleagues who are wrongly assumed to be immigrants) do not belong in Congress or in the United States of America.”
Joe Biden November 7, 2020
Rep. Francis Rooney at May 31, 2017 town hall meeting in Bonita Springs. (Photo: Author) 
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on the streets of New York in her campaign video, Courage to Change.
AOC stops to change shoes as depicted in her campaign video.
Doug Jones celebrates his 2017 senatorial victory in Alabama.
Former President Bill Clinton addresses a crowd in Immokalee, Nov. 1, 2016. (Photo: author)
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announces impeachment proceedings.
The Paradise Progressive 