Rev. William Barber II: Democrats Focus Too Much On Winning Next Election, Not Lifting People Up Photo: Geraldine Sipes, left and her fiance Anthony Smith prepare to leave their home under an expressway where they live in Philadelphia, Monday, Feb. 5, 2007. A Project H.O.M.E. Outreach Response Worker convinced Sipes and Smith to go into a shelter in the face of bitterly cold temperatures. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Outspoken community activist Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II thinks the Democrats’ current focus is misplaced. The party leadership, he claims, is so worried about winning and staying in power that they are forgetting the people who put them there. He says the party should be lifting people up.
Barber founded the Repairers of the Breach organization in 2015, a nonpartisan nonprofit that “seeks to build a moral agenda rooted in a framework that uplifts our deepest moral and constitutional values to redeem the heart and soul of our country.” The organization says it challenges the position that the preeminent moral issues are prayer in public schools, abortion, and property rights. “Instead, we declare that the moral public concerns of our faith traditions are how our society treats the poor, women, LGBTQ people, children, workers, immigrants, communities of color, and the sick.”
Barber is also co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call For Moral Revival. He has authored four books: “We Are Called To Be A Movement”; “Revive Us Again: Vision and Action in Moral Organizing”; “The Third Reconstruction: Moral Mondays, Fusion Politics, and The Rise of a New Justice Movement”; and “Forward Together: A Moral Message For The Nation.”
With a poor showing in the Nov. 2 elections, the Democrats have been scurrying for a plan to secure a win in the 2022 midterm elections, when all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 34 of the 100 seats in the Senate will be contested. Democrats lost the governor’s race in Virginia when Terry McAuliffe lost to Republican businessman Glenn Youngkin.
“One the Democrats’ fundamental flaws is that they worry too much about what will help them win rather than what will lift the people. Winning the next election as a motivating purpose is insufficient to move the nation” Rev. Barber II tweeted on Nov. 13.
He added, “Doing what’s right, caring for the people, standing big with the people should be the focus when you have power, and the rest will take care of itself.”
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Some fellow tweeters didn’t hold out much hope for the Democrats.
“That’s because BOTH the democrats & republican parties are the SAME! They are both owned by the SAME corporate donors! The only difference is superficial. The @aglantzOP will stab you in the throat & @TheDemocrats will stab you in the back! Neither cares about #WeThePeople!” Ironic Icons Art@Ironic_IconsArt tweeted.
Others disagreed with the reverend. “This is so misleading and irrational. Democrats can’t “lift the people” unless they win elections,” Cherlk @cherlk__ tweeted.
