Why We Need to Listen to Rashida Tlaib
Jeffrey C. Isaac
January 10, 2019
Public Seminar
Defending liberal democracy from Trumpism is not a distraction from what is really important. It is itself really important, as an end and as a means of further advancing a progressive agenda.
Rashida Tlaib is seen at her campaign headquarters in Detroit, Michigan, Aug.7 2018, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=75701495
Last week saw the swearing in of the new, Democratic-controlled Congress, the fruit of the “blue wave” that swept across the country last November. The 116th Congress has been rightly hailed as “historic” for its demographic diversity. The country’s first female speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, was re-elected, and a record number of women joined the ranks of the Democrats in Congress, including the first Native-American and Muslim-American women ever to serve in the House.
Less remarked by the mainstream media has been the ideological diversity of the newly-elected Democrats, who bring to the forefront of national politics not simply a broader range of “faces” but a broader range of ideas about public policy and social justice.
At the same time, the media have taken notice of two of most visible “faces” (and audible voices) of ideological diversity, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib. Both are young women of color, one a Latina and one an Arab-American Muslim. But more importantly, both are members of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) who successfully ran very vigorous campaigns from the left of the party, and who have been outspoken in their support of progressive issues.
