Has the WFP Lost its Social Justice Vision?

As election night this past Tuesday approached, political observers and voters alike eagerly waited for the results of the Democratic primary for governor and lieutenant governor. Would Gov. Andrew Cuomo and his running mate, Kathie Hochul, trounce their rivals or would there be an electoral surprise?

By the close of the night, Cuomo’s opponent, Zephyr Teachout, had received over 34 percent of the vote (182,024 votes) and would go on to win half of the state’s counties. Teachout’s running mate Tim Wu, received more votes than she did (203,713), garnering 40 percent of the votes for lieutenant governor. This was an impressive feat given the fact that the governor drastically outspent his opponent, drawing aggressively from his $40-million-plus campaign kitty. 

Which begs the question: If the Working Families Party (WFP) had endorsed both Teachout and Wu, could there have been a political tsunami in New York? In the end, we will never know, but the decision the WFP made to endorse Cuomo sure calls into question its very mission and method.

Did the Working Families Party abandon its progressive philosophy and values for political expediency and survival?

The WFP commenced its activities in 1998, exactly when the Liberal Party began to fall. In many ways, the WFP has been a mirror image of its antecedent; it took on the values and mission that the Liberal Party had initially espoused in the ’40s through the ’60s (universal healthcare, adequate funding for education, fair wages and the like), and its founders also came from labor unions and progressive community organizations and were liberal activists and intellectuals.

The Liberal Party emerged from a group of labor leaders (like Alex Rose and David Dubinsky) and liberal organizations and intellectuals (like Reinhold Niebuhr) that became dissatisfied with their own affiliated groups (the American Labor Party in the case of Rose and Dubinsky) or whose organizational work shifted into a different mode of political activity (the Union for Democratic Action in the case of Niebuhr). It was this alliance of labor groups, intellectuals and progressive organizations that would make the Liberal Party a much respected and influential political party in New York through the 1970s. After this decade, the founding members’ vision and influence faded and the Liberal Party’s initial mission of advocating for progressive ideals became subordinate to political expediency and power sharing in city and state government. 

It is ironic that the WFP’s rise and current path mirrors the course the Liberal Party took. Just like the Liberal Party, the WFP was founded with the logistical, monetary and philosophical support of labor unions, organizations, activists and intellectuals who were disgruntled with the likes of the Liberal Party and the non-existence of political groups that would champion the cause of social justice. And just like the Liberal Party, the WFP also has succumbed, it seems, to political expediency and the drive to obtain political power for the sake of power itself, rather than to achieve the philosophical aims it was created to pursue.

The WFP’s decision to endorse Cuomo in this election and abandon the true progressives in the race (Teachout and Wu) is further proof that it has abandoned its ideals for practical and selfish purposes.

Perhaps it is time for progressive intellectuals (like Wu and Teachout), activists and those labor unions upset with the WFP’s decision to support Cuomo and what he stands for to commence a process of reflection and introspection and explore the possibility of forming a new alliance that will be faithful to the cause of justice.

Eli Valentin is a Democratic consultant and pastor of the Iglesia Evangelica Bautista in Manhattan. He is a frequent guest analyst on NY1’s Inside City Hall.