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By Penny Mintz

When the election results were confirmed on November 3, 2016, I, for one, went into mourning. For years I wore nothing but black. And indeed, Trump’s election turned out to be more ominous than anyone imagined. We came close to nuclear conflagration in North Korea, and ongoing efforts to overthrow the government, reinstall Trump, and end our “democratic experiment” are still very much alive. Here’s a scary thought: he may prevail in 2024.

George Albro, co-chair of the statewide NYPAN organization, is enthusiastic about the creation of the new Manhattan chapter. According to Albro, most of the chapters in the state are already county-wide, and Brooklyn and Queens are contemplating creating similar structures. Photo: George Albro.

One effect of that horrible election, however, was that the progressive movement became energized. Here in New York State, the New York Progressive Action Network (NYPAN) had recently formed, and its local chapter, Progressive Action of Lower Manhattan (PALM), soon began to take shape. According to Arthur Schwartz, NYPAN’s political director and one of its founders, the organization was created by Bernie Sanders delegates soon after his loss to Hillary Clinton at the 2016 Democratic convention. These New York delegates wanted to keep Bernie’s issues and grassroots approach to politics alive. NYPAN, says Schwartz, was really a reaction to Andrew Cuomo and his policies. When the New York Bernie delegates had begun organizing, they’d expected Clinton to win the general election, not Trump.

By the time PALM started meeting, however, Trump had already been elected, and the stunned PALM members were looking for ways to keep local government responsive to the needs of local people. “We met and decided to focus our work on keeping Beth Israel Hospital open, on passing the New York Health Act, and on increasing school education funding,” says Schwartz.

PALM played a big role in keeping Mount Sinai from closing Beth Israel Hospital. NYPAN was instrumental in the 2018 election wins that replaced most of the State senators who, although being Democrats, caucused and voted with the Republicans. Those faux Democrats had kept power in Albany in the hands of the Republicans despite the Democrats’ electoral majority.

Even with those successes, NYPAN is reorganizing. It is now forming a Manhattan-wide chapter called Manhattan Progressive Action Network (MPAN).

George Albro, co-chair of NYPAN, “enthusiastically” supports the creation of MPAN. “This organizational initiative,” Albro explained, “brings together progressives and activists who share legislative and electoral goals. While local groups are important to fight local struggles, a larger forum is necessary to achieve larger goals, like enacting the New York Health Act, or endorsing a borough president, or working to elect a progressive governor.”

Albro makes a valid point. Manhattan-wide candidate endorsements have been tricky for NYPAN. Under NYPAN’s bylaws, all local chapters must agree on borough-wide or county-wide political candidates before the parent group can endorse. Since some of the four Manhattan chapters declined to endorse last year, the state organization was unable to take a position on the candidates for Manhattan borough president. Some local chapters made their own endorsements, but these actions lacked the impact of a full NYPAN endorsement.

The MPAN launch is scheduled for mid-November. Schwartz anticipates that MPAN will take charge of the monthly meetings of the four currently existing NYPAN Manhattan chapters, which will automatically become members of MPAN, because the expected size of MPAN’s membership will attract interesting and exciting speakers. Due to the size of the membership area, these meetings will only be conducted virtually.

For the time being, three of the four existing groups have chosen to continue to meet as NYPAN chapters. One is undecided. PALM plans to continue its own meetings.

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