New Guy, Gadfly

Last year, in a surprising upset victory, Jamaal Bowman beat long-term (since 1989) incumbent Eliot Engel to become my US Representative.  Engle, a decent enough man, just seemed to lose his idealism, and was replaced by a more activist representative.

Next week, Representative Bowman will deliver a response to President Biden's address to a joint session of Congress on behalf of the Working Families Party (he ran on a Dem/WFP ticket):

Bowman ... said the response is intended not to be critical of Biden but rather to credit him as appropriate and cue him for what the left wants to see next.

"It's a balancing act. He's already done a lot that I love. And he's going to say a lot of things that I like, as well," Bowman said in an interview. "But if we relent, it doesn't mean that what's been going on so far is going to continue. It's important for us as progressives to continue to push and continue to organize."

I'm digging this, because I elected him to be a gadfly, working to move the party in the direction that he, and I, want it to move.  There is no sense in engaging in a dialog with a Republican Party that is increasingly residing in Cloudcuckooland, the real debate is between centrist Democrats and the left-wing of the Democratic Party- the Democratic Socialists of America and the Working Families Party.  Biden has already governed far to the left of where I suspected he would, but I'm glad that up and coming members of the party, like Rep. Bowman, are putting some pressure on him.

Eliot Engel is a decent man, but my district needed somebody with a little more fire in the belly, and it looks like we got exactly that.  I'm looking forward to following Representative Bowman's career for years to come.