Democrats behaving stupidly.

[yardwork]

I'll try to keep this short and to the point, without sacrificing important background and details. (Sorry - it's long.)

TL;DR. The current Democratic primary for the 4th congressional district in North Carolina is the kind of shitshow that reflects badly on everybody and hands victory to Republicans.

Because of extreme gerrymandering by the Republican-controlled state legislature, the NC 4th congressional district is bright, deep blue. We will send a Democrat to Congress.

It's a majority minority district, with a history of Black political and economic strength and success. People move here from all over the world, many affiliated with our research universities and biomedical research industry. It's a vibrant, diverse, fun place to live. I've lived here for decades and I love it.

Politics here are always scrappy, but this spring we're dealing with a level of negativity brought by outside forces that is really ticking me off. And it didn't have to be this way.

Our incumbent representative is Valerie Foushee, a Black woman with deep roots in this community. Her mother was a housekeeper for the town of Chapel Hill. Valerie was elected to our state legislature in 2012 and elected to Congress in 2022. She's running for reelection and our Democratic primary is next week.

I have a lot of admiration for Valerie Foushee. Like many people in this community I am personally acquainted with her and I know her to be a kind and ethical person. I don't agree with all her positions. She's more moderate than I am and I would like her to speak out more, as I've shared with her polite and responsive local staff. Valerie holds regular town halls.

Nida Allam is running against Valerie in the primary. Nida has served on the Durham County Commission since 2020. She's 32 years old. Born in Canada, she moved to this area as a child when her dad took a job with IBM. She is a devout Muslim. Her background is fairly typical of people her age in this district. Many of us came from elsewhere and made this our home.

I have a lot of respect for Nida Allam. I've appreciated her outspoken support for abortion rights and other human rights. She's always had my vote for county commissioner.

If this state weren't so gerrymandered there would be room for both Valerie Foushee and Nida Allam to represent districts in this blue region. But we only get one so we have to choose.

I was leaning toward voting for Nida Allam until I saw her ads attacking Valerie Foushee. Really negative, unnecessarily attacking, Bernie Sanders all over them (again, this is a Congressional race in a safe blue district in NC; we don't need a senator from Vermont putting himself front and center). Nida's ads are in the infamous tradition of Jesse Helms - just nasty. They look like Trump ads.

Valerie responded with a negative ad of her own. And Nida sued her! Used a high priced DC law firm. Kind of hypocritical.

So now we have this spectacle of a young progressive Muslim woman pitted against an older moderate Black woman, with accusations flying, racist dog whistles (I'm sorry but running ads saying that a Black woman is "owned" by corporations and foreign influences is not ok. Especially in the south.)

Valerie Foushee has my vote again even though I don't agree with all her positions. I'm not going to support the kind of behavior Nida's campaign is demonstrating. The Black community here is furious with Allam for very understandable reasons. It's caused a schism among Democrats.

The icing on the cake is I received an email appeal from Bernie Sanders today accusing Valerie Foushee of dreadful things and comparing Nida Allam to Zohran Mamdani. You know, one reason Mamdani won in NYC is he ran a clean, positive campaign. He's upbeat. He didn't insinuate nasty things and sue his opponents. He focused on a message of what he would do. I so wish that Nida Allam had done the same.

Do better, progressive Democrats. I want to support you but I'm not going to support racist dog whistles and tearing down Black politicians who have paid their dues.