As proud residents and workers of North New Jersey, the North Jersey Democratic Socialists of America feels compelled to weigh in on Senator Cory Booker’s announcement that he will seek rithe nomination to run for president in 2020. Cory Booker does not represent the interests of the working people of New Jersey, let alone the US and the countries affected by its policies, and as an organization committed to the working class, we feel compelled to share actions taken by Booker that prove he consistently works against the interests of the people.
After winning a mayoral election for the city of Newark, Booker immediately made it a priority to begin the privatization of public schools under the guise of providing “choice” to the students of Newark. During this time in his career, Booker made several allies in his campaign to privatize education, including the DeVos family, Wall Street executives, and Mark Zuckerberg, who, with the distraction of a large donation, helped Booker close public schools and open charter schools, ignoring the community members and teachers who are so crucial to making education excellent.
In 2012, Mayor Booker attempted to privatize Newark’s water infrastructure, implicitly attempting to put the cleanliness of Newark’s water in the hands of capital, rather than the people.
More recently, in 2017, during the most contentious public debates over healthcare in our country’s history, Booker voted against an amendment co-sponsored by Bernie Sanders that would allow Americans to purchase pharmaceuticals from Canada, increasing access to life saving and improving drugs to millions. This should come as no surprise as Booker is consistently a recipient of donor funds from the pharmaceutical industry, including $328,000 for his 2014 senate campaign. Additionally, Booker stated yesterday that he opposes ending private health insurance, despite co-sponsoring Sanders’ 2017 Medicare for All bill and claiming support of the popular single-payer national health system.
Booker has also attacked the non-violent Boycott, Divestments & Sanctions movement, using the murder of eleven American Jews in the Tree of Life shooting to announce his support for the Israel Anti-Boycott Act. As stated in a previous statement released by some of our members who are Jewish and descendants of Holocaust survivors, Israel is an apartheid state that oppresses Palestinians and Jews of Color alike. Limiting Americans’ free speech through what the ACLU called, “a full-scale attack on Americans’ First Amendment freedoms”, he does nothing to protect Jews from rising antisemitism in the United States.
Going into 2020, almost all Democratic candidates are going to declare that they are “progressives”. Cory Booker has shown from the beginning of his political career that not only is he not progressive, but that his interests all too often align with Wall Street, the pharmaceutical industry, and settler-colonial governments overseas.
Take it from your comrades in Jersey and say “no” to Booker 2020.