New York | They are young, black, Hispanic, gay, on the way to being elected New York Democrats to Congress, where they want to promote a more leftist politics and shake up habits, including within their party.
They are walking in the footsteps of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a self-proclaimed socialist of Puerto Rican origin, who beat a Democratic Party cadre in a New York primary, before becoming the youngest elected in congressional history, in 2018.
Mondaire Jones, 33, and Ritchie Torres, 32, won the Democratic nomination in their constituencies and are virtually guaranteed to become, in November, the first two openly gay black elected to Congress.
“I am not running for Congress to make history as the first black homosexual elected, but I am well aware of the power of representation,” Mondaire Jones told AFP.
Coming from a modest background, brought up by his mother, Mondaire Jones nonetheless joined the prestigious universities of Stanford and then Harvard, before working for the Obama administration.
In Washington, the two in their thirties are expected to be accompanied by Jamaal Bowman, a 44-year-old college principal, who is also black, and heterosexual.
In a constituency that encompasses part of the Bronx, the political neophyte ousted another Democrat, Eliot Engel, 73, in Congress for 31 years.
The “new left”
For Mondaire Jones, these faces embody “new voices, more diverse, which convey an emergency, on the climate crisis, the health system, housing”.
They thus contrast, according to him, with the general tone of Congress, which has so far not done enough “to ensure that everyone can live comfortably, with dignity, and establish racial equality”.
“Those who failed in this direction must leave, to be replaced by people who are aware of the stakes”, urges the one who was raised, in part, by his grandfather, janitor, and his grandmother woman of household.
In 2018, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was an exception on the political level, within a Democratic contingent in Congress who was feminizing, but remained rather moderate.
Bernie Sanders’ new push in the Democratic presidential primary and the movement that followed George Floyd’s death strengthened the left wing of the Democratic Party.
This reform movement also crystallized in response to the radical policies of Donald Trump, underlines David Barker, professor of political science at American University.
“It’s a victory for the new left in the United States,” he said, “where the socialist movement did not even exist within the Democratic Party until recently. Today, it is a real strength ”.
And support for this movement now comes from all parts of American society, as evidenced by Mondaire Jones’ victory in a constituency that has only 10% black residents.
The evolution that the Democratic Party is undergoing contrasts with the inaction of the Republican Party, where representation remains essentially white and male, in a country where whites should find themselves in the minority by 2045.
If Mondaire Jones and Jamaal Bowman accept the socialist label, this is not the case with Ritchie Torres, who does not want to enter into chapel quarrels within the Democratic Party.
This Hispanic and black city councilor is nonetheless a reformer with, in particular, the ambition to defend the rights of the LGBTQ community.
Elected from a constituency in the Bronx with a clear Hispanic majority, Ritchie Torres left the primary in front of Ruben Diaz Sr., a New York political figure opposed to marriage for all and who had publicly believed that the “gay community” controlled the council. municipal.
Today, LGBTQ elected representatives only represent 0.17% of the American political class, while 4.5% of Americans claim it.
The voice of Ritchie Torres and Mondaire Jones “will make a huge difference in Congress,” enthuses Elliot Imse, communications manager for the LGBTQ Victory Institute. “There is still a long way to go.”
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