theintercept--2020-09-13--Amid Terror Warnings, Railroad Industry Group Passed Intel on Environmental Journalist to Cops

Justin Mikulka was unnerved as he scanned through the pages .
“ A friend had contacted me and said that he had found some documents with my name in them , ” Mikulka recalled to The Intercept .
“ He told me I really had to see them for myself.
” Mikulka did see for himself .
Descriptions of the journalist and his work were nestled among security reports detailing bloody terrorist attacks and far-right threats , in documents prepared by a private railway industry group and shared with law enforcement .
The series of documents suggested that law enforcement @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an author whose work specializes in the hazards of transporting oil by rail — as a possible instigator of criminal activity and a threat to railway safety .
“ I knew that the industry was aware of my work and didn ’ t like it , but the idea that they were privately lumping me in with terrorists to law enforcement is frightening and shocking , ” Mikulka said .
“ To whom were these documents presented ?
Am I now on security lists , being ranked as a threat to the rail @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t challenge what I ’ m saying on a factual basis so they resorted to attacking me like this.
” While not accusing him of being a criminal himself , the documents warned that Mikulka ’ s writing about the dangers of shipping oil by rail could inspire “ criminal activity ” in the form of protests that disrupt rail activity .
“ The effect of this criminal activity is to escalate the very risk that Mikulka professes he wishes to avoid , ” one report claimed , noting , “ the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and objects are present on tracks.
” The reports singling out Mikulka alongside neo-Nazis and radical Islamic terrorists were included in a series of slide presentations prepared by the Association of American Railroads and distributed to member corporations — as well as to law enforcement .
Described on its website as “ the world ’ s leading railroad policy , research , standard setting and technology organization , ” the AAR is an industry trade group representing the political interests of the railway business in the United States .
Over the last couple @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were featured in at least four separate “ Railway Awareness Daily Analytic Reports ( RADAR ) .
” Mikulka ’ s friend found the documents the same way The Intercept did : as part of a trove of documents dubbed “ BlueLeaks ” that was hacked from so-called fusion centers — regional clearing houses coordinated by the federal government for the purposes of sharing information — and published by the transparency collective Distributed Denial of Secrets .
More than two dozen RADAR reports had been stored by two fusion centers , the Maine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Florida Fusion Center , along with dozens of additional security reports authored by the AAR .
( The fusion centers declined to comment . )
The RADAR reports serve as a poignant example of how the private industry group collaborates closely with public law enforcement agencies , assisted by a national network of fusion centers .
The intelligence hubs were designed to bring local , state , and federal law enforcement and security agencies together with private businesses to share information about potential threats .
The BlueLeaks documents provide a picture of a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a corporation ’ s bottom line into a security threat to be addressed by police .
The AAR chose a particularly sensitive moment to pass information about a journalist to law enforcement .
Even without goading from the private sector , local and federal law enforcement , as well as other security agencies , have repeatedly targeted journalists under the Trump administration .
The Department of Homeland Security , for example , recently came under fire for developing intelligence files on journalists covering anti-racism protests in Portland , Oregon , and for detaining @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , in cities from Minneapolis to Washington , D.C. , local police attacked dozens of journalists during protests in the wake of George Floyd ’ s killing .
In response to an inquiry , the AAR claimed that because their bulletins are based on open-source material , they are not intelligence reports .
“ RADAR is intended to keep industry and government partners apprised of trends and published conversations surrounding safety and security issues both in the U.S. and abroad , ” the AAR spokesperson said .
“ The document does not provide @ @ @ @ @ @ @ drawn largely from widely available news reports , social media posts , and other online publications.
” Open-source intelligence , however , is widely recognized as being drawn from these media .
The CIA , for instance , defines “ open-source intelligence ” to include “ traditional mass media , the internet , specialized journals , studies , conference proceedings , geospatial information , and more.
” Mikulka was just one of a range of fossil fuel industry critics framed by the rail industry as a potential threat .
Another RADAR report raised @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Climate Emergency Fund , noting that its board includes environmental journalists Bill McKibben and David Wallace-Wells .
Other documents detailed the activities of fossil fuel opponents like Extinction Rebellion , the Sunrise Movement , Wild Idaho Rising Tide , and the anti-Bayou Bridge pipeline L ’ eau Est La Vie camp in Louisiana .
According to Brendan McQuade , author of the book “ Pacifying the Homeland : Intelligence Fusion and Mass Supervision , ” the documents mentioning Mikulka exemplify how fusion centers act as a vein through which corporations can inject their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ forces .
This type of political policing , he said , is distinct from what happened at the height of the 1960s civil rights movement , when the FBI targeted activists .
There ’ s no villainous program like COINTELPRO specifically aimed at identifying leaders and eliminating them .
What does exist is a decentralized system that various interests can manipulate toward their own ends , with little accountability .
McQuade said that for industry critics , the documents contain a message : “ There is an active , organized , powerful set @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that are out to defeat you politically , ” he said .
“ That needs to be acknowledged and that needs to be politicized.
” Alluding to the climate crisis , McQuade added , “ It ’ s not hyperbole to say the decisions being made now will decide whether humanity survives the 21st century.
” The interests of the fossil fuel and rail industries have long been closely entwined .
According to the AAR ’ s web site , “ coal has been the single most important commodity carried by U.S. railroads @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the 1800s , when railroads not only shipped coal but also mined and stored it .
The rail industry ’ s close collaboration with law enforcement can also be traced to the era of industrialization .
Capitalists transporting goods didn ’ t trust frontier law enforcement , so they created a market for private security and intelligence agents .
In fact , the notorious Pinkerton detective agency got its start providing security services to railroad companies .
So close-knit were the coal industry and the rail industry that Pennsylvania ’ s Railroad Police @ @ @ @ @ @ @ police force in the mid-19th century , soon became known as the Coal and Iron Police , with officers hired directly by companies , but given state policing power with almost no oversight .
The Pinkerton agents , working closely with privatized police forces , didn ’ t just chase train robbers — they became synonymous with political policing , working to crush the labor movement .
“ History doesn ’ t repeat , but it does kind of rhyme .
What ’ s happening now doesn ’ t look like the COINTELPRO @ @ @ @ @ @ @ little bit like the period between the end of the Civil War and the 1930s , ” said McQuade .
“ The role of the private sector in the work of providing security was plain in that period.
” The rail industry ’ s security nerve center is the AAR ’ s Railway Alert Network , which appears to function similarly to a fusion center , with industry officials analyzing “ intelligence ” from both open sources and member corporations .
RADAR reports , as well as a second type of bulletin called @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on individual threats , are akin to fusion center reports , distributed to public officials as well as to the largest rail companies in the U.S .
The Railway Alert Network ’ s updates , in turn , are often cited in the fusion centers ’ own reports .
An online Rail Security Information Portal for Law Enforcement provides yet another vector for corporate perceptions of threats to filter to police .
Another way many industries insert their interests into police forces is through federally recognized Information and Analysis Centers , or ISACs @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Rail Intelligence Awareness Reports , or TRIADs , were included among the hacked fusion center documents distributed as part of BlueLeaks .
The reports are a collaborative project between the AAR , the federal Transportation Security Administration , and two transportation ISACs , composed of industry players .
The overall picture created by these overlapping channels for passing information is one of extensive communication between private industry and public law enforcement , allowing industry to influence law enforcement and national security policy .
McQuade said , “ If you dig through BlueLeaks , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and corporate security work together.
” One November 2018 RADAR report demonstrates how little it can take for the AAR to view something as a threat — then pass word of the purported danger on to law enforcement .
For example , one RADAR report noted that a small , local anti-fracking organization , Western NY Drilling Defense , was holding meetings at a community library .
It ’ s unclear why the meetings were of interest to the industry association , especially since the report admitted that the group had no apparent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ against the rail industry .
The document also includes a note describing how Howie Hawkins , a Green Party candidate at the time for the governor of New York , had raised alarms about so-called bomb trains — loaded with explosive fuels like crude oil — during his campaign .
RADAR documents mentioned protest actions in Germany and Australia , far from the railways of the AAR ’ s member companies .
The AAR spokesperson told The Intercept , “ The rail industry supports responsible public discourse , legal assembly , and peaceful @ @ @ @ @ @ @ facing our nation and the globe – in this case climate change .
However , trespassing onto rail property for demonstrations creates safety and security risks , exposing the protesters and railroad workers to potentially serious injury or even death .
Publicly reported information and online conversations about the potential for actions that present risks of this nature are included in the RADAR for awareness purposes.
” The RADAR documents in the BlueLeaks archive include reports from the summer of 2018 up until the summer of 2020 .
AAR personnel filed blurbs under @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rail security , ” and “ terrorism ” but also “ opposition to fossil fuels ” and “ direct action.
” The AAR ’ s references to activists often reflected a concern that the legal system and the public may come to view acts of civil disobedience by the climate movement as acceptable — and they made a point to frame such tolerance as a safety risk .
A July 2019 report , for example , claimed that even though the newly launched philanthropic Climate Emergency Fund is designed to focus on “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ funding of the activist group Extinction Rebellion “ supports the notion that unlawful behavior targeting the fossil fuel industry is both publicly acceptable and for the greater good.
” The same document lamented that fossil fuel opponents were claiming victory after prosecutors dropped charges against activists that blocked construction of the Atlantic Coast natural gas pipeline .
The AAR pointed to other states that have passed “ critical infrastructure protection ” laws to deter pipeline protesters .
Media coverage , the AAR underlined , plays a key role in whether such protest actions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ described in detail the train blockades in Canada , erected in solidarity with Wet ’ suwet ’ en First Nation leaders who opposed the Coastal GasLink pipeline .
“ The blockade campaign progressively wound down in the latter part of February and early March , ” a May 2020 RADAR report noted .
“ A key contributing factor was the shift in the tone and substance of media coverage , which highlighted the adverse impacts to small businesses and workers from halts in freight rail services.
” Another document analyzing a New York @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that climate groups ’ “ ongoing and widely publicized campaign , in combination with negative coverage by major news outlets such as the New York Times , may serve to influence or galvanize more long-term activism against the oil-by-rail industry throughout North America.
” As the rise in natural gas and renewable energy production in the last 20 years caused a sharp downturn in the transport of coal by rail , AAR lobbied heavily against new regulations limiting the train transport of liquified natural gas and crude oil .
The shifts were the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : How Industry Greed and Regulatory Failure Put the Public at Risk ” in 2019 .
The book compiled his research into a terrible railway explosion in Lac-Mégantic , Quebec , and raised the alarm about industry corruption and malpractice that made such tragedies more likely in the future .
As his research described , the environmentally hazardous practice of transporting oil by rail was putting tens of millions more people in North America at similar risk .
Efforts by the industry to deregulate its practices under the Trump administration were exacerbating the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The book was well received in environmental circles , including among activists and scholars who focus specifically on the rail industry .
It did not , however , go over well with the AAR .
While not identifying him as a criminal or terrorist , the RADAR reports characterized the environmental reporter and author as a possible radicalizing influence on others .
They went into extensive detail outlining Mikulka ’ s upcoming speaking events about his book — putting those events on law enforcement ’ s radar — while making defensive comments @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s own ostensible efforts to reduce rail disasters .
“ The significance of Mikulka ’ s article is not in its lacking factual basis , but rather the potential to influence and inspire anti-fossil fuels activists to direct their attention to actions that disrupt and delay train operations , ” noted one RADAR report from July 2019 .
The AAR suggested to its law enforcement audience that it is not industry corner-cutting that presents the true safety risk but Mikulka ’ s book itself .
Others who may read his reporting on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ might be inspired to “ criminal activity , ” such as protests and direct-action events that impede the flow of rail traffic .
“ The effect of this criminal activity is to escalate the very risk that Mikulka professes he wishes to avoid — for the potential for derailment escalates dramatically when people and objects are present on tracks , ” the AAR wrote .
The AAR also cast blame on an environmentally focused news website for which Mikulka writes , DeSmog .
“ While Justin Mikulka ’ s writings have never been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the rail industry , his DeSmogBlog posts are frequently shared and commented on by activist groups primarily focused on opposing oil-by-rail , ” said another RADAR report about Mikulka ’ s book from July 2019 .
The next slide in that same presentation was about a stabbing and car-ramming massacre by terrorists in London that killed eight people .
Mikulka said groups like railway associations are willing to “ misrepresent the facts to the public to keep running these dangerous trains .
They are willing to go very far to keep doing this @ @

Environmental reporter Justin Mikulka was unnerved as he scanned through the pages. “A friend had contacted me and said that he had found some documents with my name in them,” Mikulka recalled to The Intercept. “He told me I really had to see them for myself.”
Mikulka did see for himself. Descriptions of the journalist and his work were nestled among security reports detailing bloody terrorist attacks and far-right threats, in documents prepared by a private railway industry group and shared with law enforcement. The series of documents suggested that law enforcement was being taught to view him — an author whose work specializes in the hazards of transporting oil by rail — as a possible instigator of criminal activity and a threat to railway safety.
“I knew that the industry was aware of my work and didn’t like it, but the idea that they were privately lumping me in with terrorists to law enforcement is frightening and shocking,” Mikulka said. “To whom were these documents presented? Am I now on security lists, being ranked as a threat to the rail industry? It seems like they couldn’t challenge what I’m saying on a factual basis so they resorted to attacking me like this.”
While not accusing him of being a criminal himself, the documents warned that Mikulka’s writing about the dangers of shipping oil by rail could inspire “criminal activity” in the form of protests that disrupt rail activity.
“The effect of this criminal activity is to escalate the very risk that Mikulka professes he wishes to avoid,” one report claimed, noting, “the potential for derailment escalates dramatically when people and objects are present on tracks.”
The reports singling out Mikulka alongside neo-Nazis and radical Islamic terrorists were included in a series of slide presentations prepared by the Association of American Railroads and distributed to member corporations — as well as to law enforcement. Described on its website as “the world’s leading railroad policy, research, standard setting and technology organization,” the AAR is an industry trade group representing the political interests of the railway business in the United States.
Over the last couple of years, Mikulka and his reporting were featured in at least four separate “Railway Awareness Daily Analytic Reports (RADAR).” Mikulka’s friend found the documents the same way The Intercept did: as part of a trove of documents dubbed “BlueLeaks” that was hacked from so-called fusion centers — regional clearing houses coordinated by the federal government for the purposes of sharing information — and published by the transparency collective Distributed Denial of Secrets. More than two dozen RADAR reports had been stored by two fusion centers, the Maine Information and Analysis Center and the Southeast Florida Fusion Center, along with dozens of additional security reports authored by the AAR. (The fusion centers declined to comment.)
The RADAR reports serve as a poignant example of how the private industry group collaborates closely with public law enforcement agencies, assisted by a national network of fusion centers. The intelligence hubs were designed to bring local, state, and federal law enforcement and security agencies together with private businesses to share information about potential threats. The BlueLeaks documents provide a picture of a system capable of transforming a threat to a corporation’s bottom line into a security threat to be addressed by police.
The AAR chose a particularly sensitive moment to pass information about a journalist to law enforcement. Even without goading from the private sector, local and federal law enforcement, as well as other security agencies, have repeatedly targeted journalists under the Trump administration. The Department of Homeland Security, for example, recently came under fire for developing intelligence files on journalists covering anti-racism protests in Portland, Oregon, and for detaining journalists covering the U.S.-Mexico border. And, in cities from Minneapolis to Washington, D.C., local police attacked dozens of journalists during protests in the wake of George Floyd’s killing.
In response to an inquiry, the AAR claimed that because their bulletins are based on open-source material, they are not intelligence reports. “RADAR is intended to keep industry and government partners apprised of trends and published conversations surrounding safety and security issues both in the U.S. and abroad,” the AAR spokesperson said. “The document does not provide or contain intelligence. Its content is drawn largely from widely available news reports, social media posts, and other online publications.” Open-source intelligence, however, is widely recognized as being drawn from these media. The CIA, for instance, defines “open-source intelligence” to include “traditional mass media, the internet, specialized journals, studies, conference proceedings, geospatial information, and more.”
Mikulka was just one of a range of fossil fuel industry critics framed by the rail industry as a potential threat. Another RADAR report raised alarms about the creation of the philanthropic Climate Emergency Fund, noting that its board includes environmental journalists Bill McKibben and David Wallace-Wells. Other documents detailed the activities of fossil fuel opponents like Extinction Rebellion, the Sunrise Movement, Wild Idaho Rising Tide, and the anti-Bayou Bridge pipeline L’eau Est La Vie camp in Louisiana.
According to Brendan McQuade, author of the book “Pacifying the Homeland: Intelligence Fusion and Mass Supervision,” the documents mentioning Mikulka exemplify how fusion centers act as a vein through which corporations can inject their interests into the work of public security forces. This type of political policing, he said, is distinct from what happened at the height of the 1960s civil rights movement, when the FBI targeted activists. There’s no villainous program like COINTELPRO specifically aimed at identifying leaders and eliminating them. What does exist is a decentralized system that various interests can manipulate toward their own ends, with little accountability.
McQuade said that for industry critics, the documents contain a message: “There is an active, organized, powerful set of interests, state and corporate, that are out to defeat you politically,” he said. “That needs to be acknowledged and that needs to be politicized.”
Alluding to the climate crisis, McQuade added, “It’s not hyperbole to say the decisions being made now will decide whether humanity survives the 21st century.”
Law enforcement officers escort a train as it moves from the Port of Olympia through downtown Olympia, Wash., on Nov. 18, 2016. Photo: Tony Overman/The Olympian via AP
On Privatized Policing, History Rhymes
The interests of the fossil fuel and rail industries have long been closely entwined. According to the AAR’s web site, “coal has been the single most important commodity carried by U.S. railroads” — a circumstance that endured from the 1800s, when railroads not only shipped coal but also mined and stored it.
The rail industry’s close collaboration with law enforcement can also be traced to the era of industrialization. Capitalists transporting goods didn’t trust frontier law enforcement, so they created a market for private security and intelligence agents. In fact, the notorious Pinkerton detective agency got its start providing security services to railroad companies.
So close-knit were the coal industry and the rail industry that Pennsylvania’s Railroad Police, which was formed as a private police force in the mid-19th century, soon became known as the Coal and Iron Police, with officers hired directly by companies, but given state policing power with almost no oversight. The Pinkerton agents, working closely with privatized police forces, didn’t just chase train robbers — they became synonymous with political policing, working to crush the labor movement.
“History doesn’t repeat, but it does kind of rhyme. What’s happening now doesn’t look like the COINTELPRO era, but it might look a little bit like the period between the end of the Civil War and the 1930s,” said McQuade. “The role of the private sector in the work of providing security was plain in that period.”
Today’s system of fusion centers took root in the wake of the September 11 attacks. The centers proliferated across the U.S., just as the climate movement was growing. Among other things, the centers prioritized protecting “critical infrastructure” — a notion that meant certain industries, such as railroads and oil and gas companies, were granted favored status and their well-being viewed as synonymous with national security. Collaborative projects between law enforcement and corporate players multiplied.
Meanwhile, private industry intelligence gathering also evolved to help share information with law enforcement and national security agencies. In addition to fusion centers, McQuade noted, “There’s this alternate world of private intelligence centers.”
“If you dig through BlueLeaks, it’s plain the way police and corporate security work together.”
The rail industry’s security nerve center is the AAR’s Railway Alert Network, which appears to function similarly to a fusion center, with industry officials analyzing “intelligence” from both open sources and member corporations. RADAR reports, as well as a second type of bulletin called RAN reports, which focus more narrowly on individual threats, are akin to fusion center reports, distributed to public officials as well as to the largest rail companies in the U.S. The Railway Alert Network’s updates, in turn, are often cited in the fusion centers’ own reports. An online Rail Security Information Portal for Law Enforcement provides yet another vector for corporate perceptions of threats to filter to police.
Another way many industries insert their interests into police forces is through federally recognized Information and Analysis Centers, or ISACs. Indeed, dozens of Transit and Rail Intelligence Awareness Reports, or TRIADs, were included among the hacked fusion center documents distributed as part of BlueLeaks. The reports are a collaborative project between the AAR, the federal Transportation Security Administration, and two transportation ISACs, composed of industry players.
The overall picture created by these overlapping channels for passing information is one of extensive communication between private industry and public law enforcement, allowing industry to influence law enforcement and national security policy.
McQuade said, “If you dig through BlueLeaks, it’s plain the way police and corporate security work together.”
Railway Association Casts Wide Net
One November 2018 RADAR report demonstrates how little it can take for the AAR to view something as a threat — then pass word of the purported danger on to law enforcement. For example, one RADAR report noted that a small, local anti-fracking organization, Western NY Drilling Defense, was holding meetings at a community library. It’s unclear why the meetings were of interest to the industry association, especially since the report admitted that the group had no apparent plans to even carry out civil disobedience against the rail industry.
The document also includes a note describing how Howie Hawkins, a Green Party candidate at the time for the governor of New York, had raised alarms about so-called bomb trains — loaded with explosive fuels like crude oil — during his campaign. RADAR documents mentioned protest actions in Germany and Australia, far from the railways of the AAR’s member companies.
The AAR spokesperson told The Intercept, “The rail industry supports responsible public discourse, legal assembly, and peaceful demonstrations that help draw attention to issues facing our nation and the globe – in this case climate change. However, trespassing onto rail property for demonstrations creates safety and security risks, exposing the protesters and railroad workers to potentially serious injury or even death. Publicly reported information and online conversations about the potential for actions that present risks of this nature are included in the RADAR for awareness purposes.”
The RADAR documents in the BlueLeaks archive include reports from the summer of 2018 up until the summer of 2020. AAR personnel filed blurbs under categories like “cyber,” “rail security,” and “terrorism” but also “opposition to fossil fuels” and “direct action.” The AAR’s references to activists often reflected a concern that the legal system and the public may come to view acts of civil disobedience by the climate movement as acceptable — and they made a point to frame such tolerance as a safety risk.
A July 2019 report, for example, claimed that even though the newly launched philanthropic Climate Emergency Fund is designed to focus on “nonviolent, legal activities,” its funding of the activist group Extinction Rebellion “supports the notion that unlawful behavior targeting the fossil fuel industry is both publicly acceptable and for the greater good.” The same document lamented that fossil fuel opponents were claiming victory after prosecutors dropped charges against activists that blocked construction of the Atlantic Coast natural gas pipeline. The AAR pointed to other states that have passed “critical infrastructure protection” laws to deter pipeline protesters.
Media coverage, the AAR underlined, plays a key role in whether such protest actions are viewed as acceptable. The documents described in detail the train blockades in Canada, erected in solidarity with Wet’suwet’en First Nation leaders who opposed the Coastal GasLink pipeline. “The blockade campaign progressively wound down in the latter part of February and early March,” a May 2020 RADAR report noted. “A key contributing factor was the shift in the tone and substance of media coverage, which highlighted the adverse impacts to small businesses and workers from halts in freight rail services.”
Another document analyzing a New York Times report about oil-by-rail safety guidelines noted that climate groups’ “ongoing and widely publicized campaign, in combination with negative coverage by major news outlets such as the New York Times, may serve to influence or galvanize more long-term activism against the oil-by-rail industry throughout North America.”
Monitoring a Journalist
As the rise in natural gas and renewable energy production in the last 20 years caused a sharp downturn in the transport of coal by rail, AAR lobbied heavily against new regulations limiting the train transport of liquified natural gas and crude oil. The shifts were the context for Mikulka releasing “Bomb Trains: How Industry Greed and Regulatory Failure Put the Public at Risk” in 2019.
Firefighters inspect the wreckage on July 7, 2013, of a freight train loaded with oil that derailed July 6 in Lac-Mégantic in Canada’s Quebec province, sparking explosions that engulfed about 30 buildings in a wall of fire. Photo: François Laplante-Delagrave/AFP via Getty Images
The book compiled his research into a terrible railway explosion in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, and raised the alarm about industry corruption and malpractice that made such tragedies more likely in the future. As his research described, the environmentally hazardous practice of transporting oil by rail was putting tens of millions more people in North America at similar risk. Efforts by the industry to deregulate its practices under the Trump administration were exacerbating the dangers to both people and the environment.
The book was well received in environmental circles, including among activists and scholars who focus specifically on the rail industry. It did not, however, go over well with the AAR.
While not identifying him as a criminal or terrorist, the RADAR reports characterized the environmental reporter and author as a possible radicalizing influence on others. They went into extensive detail outlining Mikulka’s upcoming speaking events about his book — putting those events on law enforcement’s radar — while making defensive comments about his criticisms and the rail industry’s own ostensible efforts to reduce rail disasters.
“These are people who are willing to lie and misrepresent the facts to the public to keep running these dangerous trains. They are willing to go very far to keep doing this.”
“The significance of Mikulka’s article is not in its lacking factual basis, but rather the potential to influence and inspire anti-fossil fuels activists to direct their attention to actions that disrupt and delay train operations,” noted one RADAR report from July 2019.
The AAR suggested to its law enforcement audience that it is not industry corner-cutting that presents the true safety risk but Mikulka’s book itself. Others who may read his reporting on the dangerous environmental consequences of railroad practices might be inspired to “criminal activity,” such as protests and direct-action events that impede the flow of rail traffic. “The effect of this criminal activity is to escalate the very risk that Mikulka professes he wishes to avoid — for the potential for derailment escalates dramatically when people and objects are present on tracks,” the AAR wrote.
The AAR also cast blame on an environmentally focused news website for which Mikulka writes, DeSmog. “While Justin Mikulka’s writings have never been directly linked to specific direct actions targeting the rail industry, his DeSmogBlog posts are frequently shared and commented on by activist groups primarily focused on opposing oil-by-rail,” said another RADAR report about Mikulka’s book from July 2019.
The next slide in that same presentation was about a stabbing and car-ramming massacre by terrorists in London that killed eight people.
Mikulka said groups like railway associations are willing to “misrepresent the facts to the public to keep running these dangerous trains. They are willing to go very far to keep doing this.”


theintercept--2020-09-13--Operation Legend Is Bringing Surveillance Tech to Cities

40 federal agents arrived in Memphis .
Some were already on the ground by the time U.S. Attorney Michael Dunavant announced the onset of Operation Legend and the city became , along with St. Louis , the seventh to be targeted by the Justice Department ’ s heavy-handed initiative to reduce violent crime .
Many of the agents are on temporary assignment , working in collaboration with police ; nearly half will relocate by November .
But they will leave behind a city flush with grant money for local police — and heightened surveillance capabilities .
In Memphis , organizers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fight came to a head in 2017 , when a lawsuit against the city of Memphis revealed years of close surveillance of Black Lives Matter activists and union organizers .
“ We knew we were being watched and monitored and surveilled , ” said Hunter Demster , an activist who was tracked on social media by MPD .
The suit was successful , and in 2018 , a federal judge ordered an independent monitor to oversee policing in the city .
Now , activists there say that Operation Legend is a serious blow @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Operation Relentless Pursuit , are both funding surveillance technology in cities across the country .
Through Operation Legend , Memphis and four other cities received grants for gunshot detection technology , which lines cities with sensors to detect gunfire , despite longstanding concerns about its efficacy .
Other more opaque grants from the Justice Department , like a $ 1.4 million grant to Shelby County , which surrounds Memphis , in April and a $ 1 million grant in July to the city of Cleveland , are to be used in part @ @ @ @ @ @ @ support ” for investigations .
Awash in these federal funds , cities have doubled down on their surveillance investments , even as they face general budget shortfalls in the tens of millions .
On August 4 , two days before Operation Legend was formally announced in the city , Memphis signed a new contract with Cellebrite , an Israeli forensics manufacturer popular with law enforcement , whose products can hack and extract data from smartphones .
The estimated $ 65,000 contract would double previous annual spending on the technology , per city procurement @ @ @ @ @ @ @ interview request for this story and did not respond to several additional inquiries about the purchases .
On August 12 , the city of Detroit — another of the nine cities targeted by Operation Legend — also placed a $ 100,000 order with Cellebrite to acquire the company ’ s “ premium ” software package and , two weeks later , renewed an older Cellebrite license for another $ 22,000 — more than tripling 2018 and 2019 expenditures .
Chicago , meanwhile , announced on August 14 that it would employ “ enhanced @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of social media to identify looters .
One hundred federal agents from the FBI , the Drug Enforcement Administration , and the Bureau of Alcohol , Tobacco , Firearms , and Explosives were sent to Chicago through Operation Legend in late July .
Though Mayor Lori Lightfoot at first assumed a hostile attitude toward the initiative , in August she also announced a new task force on looting in partnership with the FBI .
“ This Task Force is already reviewing video camera footage and other evidence to identify perpetrators and develop strong @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Just the presence of federal agents can undermine longstanding efforts for accountability on police surveillance .
In Memphis , a unique consent decree from 1978 prohibits law enforcement from engaging in “ political intelligence ” — collecting information on individuals for political purposes .
This decree was the backbone of the 2018 American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit , which held that Memphis had violated the law .
City law enforcement has lobbied to amend and strike the decree , but so far , it has held .
Yet the Memphis law does @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ That ’ s the harsh truth .
The decree only covers the city , ” explained Tom Castelli , legal director for the ACLU of Tennessee , though per the decree , the city can not collaborate on unlawful surveillance with outside agencies .
Still , Memphis Police Director Michael Rallings has alluded to partnering with the FBI to get around some of the decree ’ s restrictions , later confirming through a city spokesperson that he “ told [ federal officials ] that we are restricted by the consent decree and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on social media.
” As U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Indiana Josh Minkler said , as he announced Operation Legend ’ s expansion to Indianapolis , federal agencies contribute “ not just manpower , but technology that can help identify and arrest the individuals .
And then they have access to federal courts.
” For Joia Thornton , an organizer with Decarcerate Memphis , a group that formed in response to Operation Relentless Pursuit , the initiatives form part of a longer legacy of federal support for policing .
“ We @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the war on drugs — all of these types of tactics to drive up mass incarceration , ” she told The Intercept .
“ We are on the front lines to resist that.
” Indeed , U.S. Attorney General William Barr has frequently defended Operation Legend by noting that it is a continuation of federal policing efforts , rather than a radical departure from the norm .
These are “ traditional crime-fighting activities ” he told reporters in Detroit — just now “ ratcheted-up.
” Defense ’ s 1033 program is perhaps the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
In 2014 , footage of military vehicles rolling down the streets of Ferguson drew national outcry , bringing scrutiny to the program .
1033 continues provide bayonets , grenade launchers , and other leftovers from U.S. wars overseas to police precincts across the country .
But the Homeland Security and Justice departments also fund law enforcement to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars a year .
The DOJ ’ s Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program , which emerged in the post-9/11 era of rapidly inflated federal spending on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ grant programs for police and has been criticized for , in effect , funding mass imprisonment .
Its grants also fund sophisticated policing technology .
Memphis is a prime example : Over the last decade , the city ’ s license plate reader system , its “ real-time crime center ” — which houses a “ video wall ” of live surveillance camera feeds — and its gunshot recognition cameras were all funded , at least in part , through Byrne JAG grants .
Years of federal investment in surveillance have resulted in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Brennan Center ’ s Liberty and National Security Program , calls a “ layering ” effect : “ These things don ’ t come all at once .
They build up , ” she said .
“ And when you start feeding one surveillance technology after another into a database , you give police departments the ability to track what people are doing very closely.
” Technologies popular with federal agencies tend to make their way down to the local level .
Take , for example , the new popularity of phone-hacking technology @ @ @ @ @ @ @ picked up more than a decade ago by federal agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the FBI .
Now , a growing number of cities and state law enforcement have access to some kind of mobile data extraction software .
“ You ’ ve got cops and cruisers using it .
The tools always trickle down , ” a forensic scientist told Motherboard in 2016 .
Yet the federal government , for years , has funded phone-hacking tools directly .
The Bureau of Justice Assistance , which has offered generous grants to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ through Operation Legend this summer , has previously funded Cellebrite products for police departments in Florida , Maryland , Kansas , and Idaho .
It has also funded artificial intelligence-based data repositories , predictive analytics , and social media monitoring tools .
In turn , the grants have created an industry of policing technology dependent on federal funding .
ShotSpotter , the largest gunshot detection provider in the country and a major beneficiary of Operation Legend , illustrates this well .
The company has spent nearly $ 2 million lobbying legislators over the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Center for Responsive Politics — most recently , on a bill that would permit the attorney general to dole out grants for gunshot detection tech .
That legislation remains stalled in the House , but for ShotSpotter , Operation Legend proved a windfall .
Five cities — Memphis , Cleveland , Albuquerque , Milwaukee , and Detroit — will receive grants to purchase or expand their gunshot detection through the program .
Milwaukee already has a ShotSpotter system in place , and Detroit now plans to deploy it again , after piloting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is little evidence that ShotSpotter reduces gun crime .
A study published this year on ShotSpotter in St. Louis found that the system , whose microphones detect and alert police to gunshots , had no impact on violent crime whatsoever : “ The results were , essentially , it doesn ’ t work , ” said Dennis Mare , a professor at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville who co-authored the study , though he admitted that it is difficult to extrapolate the results to all cities .
Why , then , is St. Louis @ @ @ @ @ @ @ technology ?
The company points to other investigative benefits overlooked by the study .
“ ShotSpotter spends a lot of money , ” was Mares ’ s answer .
ShotSpotter does , however , increase police presence in the neighborhoods where it is used — “ disproportionately in minority neighborhoods , ” according to Mares .
In response , a company representative told The Intercept that the system ’ s placement is “ not based on who ’ s living in the community .
It ’ s based on , ‘ where are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for Matthew Guariglia , a policy analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation , that has serious consequences .
“ This is yet another surveillance technology that has the potential to victimize people based on their proximity to crime and overpolicing , ” he said .
“ If you live in a neighborhood that has a gun violence problem , not only are you subjected to that , you are also subjected to the surveillance regime that comes along with it.
” As cries to “ defund the police ” resound in the streets @ @ @ @ @ @ @ demonstrations , Operation Legend is the latest reminder of the magnitude , and consequence , of federal police spending .
Advocates have long called for federal grant funding reform , with some results , but the government has continued to grow its police budget ; just two Department of Justice grant programs , Byrne JAG and the Community Oriented Policing Services program , give out about a collective $ 750 million annually to law enforcement .
“ Much of this equipment and technology is given under the guise of either narcotics , policing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ And , ultimately , a lot of it gets used to monitor protests .
”

In August, 40 federal agents arrived in Memphis. Some were already on the ground by the time U.S. Attorney Michael Dunavant announced the onset of Operation Legend and the city became, along with St. Louis, the seventh to be targeted by the Justice Department’s heavy-handed initiative to reduce violent crime. Many of the agents are on temporary assignment, working in collaboration with police; nearly half will relocate by November. But they will leave behind a city flush with grant money for local police — and heightened surveillance capabilities.
In Memphis, organizers have long battled police surveillance. The fight came to a head in 2017, when a lawsuit against the city of Memphis revealed years of close surveillance of Black Lives Matter activists and union organizers. “We knew we were being watched and monitored and surveilled,” said Hunter Demster, an activist who was tracked on social media by MPD. The suit was successful, and in 2018, a federal judge ordered an independent monitor to oversee policing in the city. Now, activists there say that Operation Legend is a serious blow.
Operation Legend and its December precursor, Operation Relentless Pursuit, are both funding surveillance technology in cities across the country. Through Operation Legend, Memphis and four other cities received grants for gunshot detection technology, which lines cities with sensors to detect gunfire, despite longstanding concerns about its efficacy. Other more opaque grants from the Justice Department, like a $1.4 million grant to Shelby County, which surrounds Memphis, in April and a $1 million grant in July to the city of Cleveland, are to be used in part for “technological solutions” or “support” for investigations.
Awash in these federal funds, cities have doubled down on their surveillance investments, even as they face general budget shortfalls in the tens of millions. On August 4, two days before Operation Legend was formally announced in the city, Memphis signed a new contract with Cellebrite, an Israeli forensics manufacturer popular with law enforcement, whose products can hack and extract data from smartphones. The estimated $65,000 contract would double previous annual spending on the technology, per city procurement records. The Memphis police declined an interview request for this story and did not respond to several additional inquiries about the purchases.
Through Operation Legend, Memphis and four other cities received grants for gunshot detection technology, despite longstanding concerns about its efficacy.
On August 12, the city of Detroit — another of the nine cities targeted by Operation Legend — also placed a $100,000 order with Cellebrite to acquire the company’s “premium” software package and, two weeks later, renewed an older Cellebrite license for another $22,000 — more than tripling 2018 and 2019 expenditures.
Chicago, meanwhile, announced on August 14 that it would employ “enhanced” technology for “around-the-clock” monitoring of social media to identify looters. One hundred federal agents from the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives were sent to Chicago through Operation Legend in late July. Though Mayor Lori Lightfoot at first assumed a hostile attitude toward the initiative, in August she also announced a new task force on looting in partnership with the FBI. “This Task Force is already reviewing video camera footage and other evidence to identify perpetrators and develop strong cases against them,” she wrote.
Just the presence of federal agents can undermine longstanding efforts for accountability on police surveillance. In Memphis, a unique consent decree from 1978 prohibits law enforcement from engaging in “political intelligence” — collecting information on individuals for political purposes. This decree was the backbone of the 2018 American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit, which held that Memphis had violated the law. City law enforcement has lobbied to amend and strike the decree, but so far, it has held.
Yet the Memphis law does not apply to federal law enforcement. “That’s the harsh truth. The decree only covers the city,” explained Tom Castelli, legal director for the ACLU of Tennessee, though per the decree, the city cannot collaborate on unlawful surveillance with outside agencies.
Still, Memphis Police Director Michael Rallings has alluded to partnering with the FBI to get around some of the decree’s restrictions, later confirming through a city spokesperson that he “told [federal officials] that we are restricted by the consent decree and depend on them to catch threats articulated on social media.”
As U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Indiana Josh Minkler said, as he announced Operation Legend’s expansion to Indianapolis, federal agencies contribute “not just manpower, but technology that can help identify and arrest the individuals. And then they have access to federal courts.”
For Joia Thornton, an organizer with Decarcerate Memphis, a group that formed in response to Operation Relentless Pursuit, the initiatives form part of a longer legacy of federal support for policing. “We believe this mirrors the three-strikes laws, the war on drugs — all of these types of tactics to drive up mass incarceration,” she told The Intercept. “We are on the front lines to resist that.”
Indeed, U.S. Attorney General William Barr has frequently defended Operation Legend by noting that it is a continuation of federal policing efforts, rather than a radical departure from the norm. These are “traditional crime-fighting activities” he told reporters in Detroit — just now “ratcheted-up.”
Photo: Charlie Riedel/AP
The Department of Defense’s 1033 program is perhaps the best-known example of federal investment in policing. In 2014, footage of military vehicles rolling down the streets of Ferguson drew national outcry, bringing scrutiny to the program. 1033 continues provide bayonets, grenade launchers, and other leftovers from U.S. wars overseas to police precincts across the country.
But the Homeland Security and Justice departments also fund law enforcement to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars a year. The DOJ’s Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program, which emerged in the post-9/11 era of rapidly inflated federal spending on policing, is one of the major grant programs for police and has been criticized for, in effect, funding mass imprisonment. Its grants also fund sophisticated policing technology.
Memphis is a prime example: Over the last decade, the city’s license plate reader system, its “real-time crime center” — which houses a “video wall” of live surveillance camera feeds — and its gunshot recognition cameras were all funded, at least in part, through Byrne JAG grants.
Years of federal investment in surveillance have resulted in what Faiza Patel, co-director of the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program, calls a “layering” effect: “These things don’t come all at once. They build up,” she said. “And when you start feeding one surveillance technology after another into a database, you give police departments the ability to track what people are doing very closely.”
Technologies popular with federal agencies tend to make their way down to the local level. Take, for example, the new popularity of phone-hacking technology with police: The technology was first picked up more than a decade ago by federal agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the FBI. Now, a growing number of cities and state law enforcement have access to some kind of mobile data extraction software. “You’ve got cops and cruisers using it. The tools always trickle down,” a forensic scientist told Motherboard in 2016.
Yet the federal government, for years, has funded phone-hacking tools directly. The Bureau of Justice Assistance, which has offered generous grants to Memphis, Detroit, and other cities through Operation Legend this summer, has previously funded Cellebrite products for police departments in Florida, Maryland, Kansas, and Idaho. It has also funded artificial intelligence-based data repositories, predictive analytics, and social media monitoring tools.
“Much of this equipment and technology is given under the guise of either narcotics, policing, or counterterrorism. Ultimately, a lot of it gets used to monitor protests.”
In turn, the grants have created an industry of policing technology dependent on federal funding. ShotSpotter, the largest gunshot detection provider in the country and a major beneficiary of Operation Legend, illustrates this well. The company has spent nearly $2 million lobbying legislators over the past decade, according to records from the Center for Responsive Politics — most recently, on a bill that would permit the attorney general to dole out grants for gunshot detection tech.
That legislation remains stalled in the House, but for ShotSpotter, Operation Legend proved a windfall. Five cities — Memphis, Cleveland, Albuquerque, Milwaukee, and Detroit — will receive grants to purchase or expand their gunshot detection through the program. Milwaukee already has a ShotSpotter system in place, and Detroit now plans to deploy it again, after piloting the technology in 2014.
Yet there is little evidence that ShotSpotter reduces gun crime. A study published this year on ShotSpotter in St. Louis found that the system, whose microphones detect and alert police to gunshots, had no impact on violent crime whatsoever: “The results were, essentially, it doesn’t work,” said Dennis Mare, a professor at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville who co-authored the study, though he admitted that it is difficult to extrapolate the results to all cities. Why, then, is St. Louis still receiving federal grants to expand the technology? The company points to other investigative benefits overlooked by the study. “ShotSpotter spends a lot of money,” was Mares’s answer.
ShotSpotter does, however, increase police presence in the neighborhoods where it is used — “disproportionately in minority neighborhoods,” according to Mares. In response, a company representative told The Intercept that the system’s placement is “not based on who’s living in the community. It’s based on, ‘where are the shootings?’” Still, for Matthew Guariglia, a policy analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, that has serious consequences.
“This is yet another surveillance technology that has the potential to victimize people based on their proximity to crime and overpolicing,” he said. “If you live in a neighborhood that has a gun violence problem, not only are you subjected to that, you are also subjected to the surveillance regime that comes along with it.”
As cries to “defund the police” resound in the streets and cities fly surveillance planes low over demonstrations, Operation Legend is the latest reminder of the magnitude, and consequence, of federal police spending. Advocates have long called for federal grant funding reform, with some results, but the government has continued to grow its police budget; just two Department of Justice grant programs, Byrne JAG and the Community Oriented Policing Services program, give out about a collective $750 million annually to law enforcement.
“Much of this equipment and technology is given under the guise of either narcotics, policing, or counterterrorism,” Guariglia said. “And, ultimately, a lot of it gets used to monitor protests.”


theintercept--2020-09-13--The Old Consensus Dies in Latin America

The Old Consensus Dies in Latin America

Wait !
Before you go on about your day , ask yourself : How likely is it that the story @ @ @ @ @ been produced by a different news outlet if The Intercept hadn ’ t done it @ @ @ @ @ of media would look like without The Intercept .
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How many covert wars , miscarriages of justice , and dystopian technologies @ @ @ @ @ reporters weren ’ t on the beat ?
The kind of reporting we do is @ @ @ @ @ it is not easy , cheap , or profitable .
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Joining is simple and doesn ’ t need to @ @ @ @ @ can become a sustaining member for as little as $ 3 or $ 5 a @ @ @ @ @ all it takes to support the journalism you rely on .

This week on System Update, guest host Victor Pougy talks to Benjamin Fogel, contributing editor at Jacobin and Ph.D. candidate in Latin American history, about the political turmoil in Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico, and how it relates to political decisions made in Washington.


theintercept--2020-09-15--A Slate of Insurgents Is Taking on the "Delaware Way"

Since at least the early 1800s , Delaware ’ s political establishment has been guided by an ethos known today as “ the Delaware Way.
” The state is small , and its inner circle of leaders tiny .
Cooperation , including between the two parties , is the order of the day .
Spoken and unspoken pacts have long greased transitions as politicians move from one elected office to another .
The most famous maneuver is probably what ’ s known as “ The Swap ” : when the popular Republican governor , Mike Castle , switched places with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , at the end of Castle ’ s tenure in 1992 .
Both glided into their new positions effectively unopposed .
When Joe Biden vacated his Senate seat for the White House in 2009 , a similar arrangement played out .
Biden ’ s longtime lieutenant , Ted Kaufman , was appointed to Biden ’ s seat for two years .
Kaufman pledged not to run for reelection , opening the way for Castle to ease from the House over to the Senate in a 2010 race not expected to be competitive .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ a New Castle County executive , Chris Coons , was tapped to be the sacrificial lamb .
But Delaware ’ s Republican primary voters had other ideas and stunned the party by nominating eccentric tea party conservative Christine O ’ Donnell over Castle .
O ’ Donnell ’ s general election campaign stumbled early , as she famously declared in a television ad that she was “ not a witch.
” ( She was responding to surfaced video of an appearance of hers on Bill Maher ’ s HBO show , in which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ witchcraft.
” ) Things only got weirder from there , her polling numbers cratered , and Washington Republicans fumed at the blown opportunity .
O ’ Donnell declined comment for this story , telling The Intercept she had “ moved on from the 2010 campaign.
” The beneficiary of all this chaos was Coons , who was suddenly saved from a slaughter on Election Day .
“ Just the luckiest guy in the world , ” said Tom Gordon , a former New Castle County executive whose terms bookended Coons ’ s time @ @ @ @ @ @ @ known in Delaware as “ the accidental senator.
” Coons joined Carper in the Senate , where Carper had been elected in 2000 after serving his two terms as governor .
In 2018 , progressives finally tried their hand at an O ’ Donnell-esque disruption of the Delaware Way , minus the weirdness , when Kerri Evelyn Harris had the temerity to challenge Carper for his Senate seat .
Harris raised very little money but got a last minute burst of national support from groups like Justice Democrats , who were feeling good @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez .
Harris , who had the support of the Working Families Party , had campaigned for Ocasio-Cortez , and she returned the favor , traveling south to Delaware to rally for Harris .
Carper survived comfortably , winning 65 percent of the vote — but his total tally was just 53,000 votes , an enticingly small number .
The slate , backed by the Working Families Party , includes two candidates for Wilmington City Council ( Shané Darby in the 2nd District and Coby Owens in the 1st ) , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Madinah Wilson-Anton , and Larry Lambert ) , and a state Senate candidate ( Marie Pinkney ) .
Combined , the local candidates are aiming to win around 10,000 votes , while Scarane ’ s team believes she needs around 40,000 to top Coons .
By Monday , 60,071 Democrats had returned ballots , according to Scarane ’ s campaign .
What primary day turnout will look like given the pandemic is hard to predict .
Nothing like it has been tried in Delaware , and the members of the slate have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ community not to rock the boat .
Owens , running for a Wilmington council seat , has faced particular resistance .
Owens , 25 , is the nephew , on one side of his family , of the longest-serving Black man in Delaware politics , and , on the other side , the longest-serving Black woman .
But raised by a single mom in the city , he decided that the system was not serving those it needed to .
In 2018 , he bucked the Delaware Way and backed Harris , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ own .
“ It ’ s been difficult , ” said Owens .
“ I ’ ve been around politics since I was a baby , ” he went on .
“ Both sides of my family are very political and I ’ ve been engaged , so I ’ ve built those relationships , and I think on some ends , people have enough respect for me to understand that this isn ’ t personal — I ’ m still gon na break bread with you after I push like hell to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but on the other side , some people are upset and think that I push too hard.
” For instance , Owens said , he recently organized the largest Black Lives Matter rally ever held in Wilmington , but he ran into opposition when he used that energy to push for actual legislative changes .
Owens and his allies collected the information of as many people at the rally as possible , and had them demand repeal of the Law Enforcement Officers ’ Bill of Rights , as well as calling for other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ independent expenditure — rare in a city council race — has popped up to combat Owens .
The IE has been sending mass texts to voters in Wilmington telling them that Owens supports defunding the police , exploiting the gap between the national rhetoric around policing on the left and the type of police reform many voters in hard-hit cities like Wilmington say they want .
The incumbent councilmember , Linda Gray , did not respond to a request for an interview .
Though Owens has been protesting for years , and been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not engage in some of the more radical posturing that lives online .
At the Wilmington protest he organized , he successfully kept it nonviolent .
is facing his first primary challenger , having been unopposed in 2010 and 2014 .
The senator has largely been able to dodge national attention from the left during his career , despite the fact that he serves in a blue state and frequently aligns with Republicans .
Coons has made bipartisanship the cornerstone of his approach to the Senate , refusing to sign onto any bill @ @ @ @ @ @ @ co-sponsor .
Republicans have no similar pretensions to cooperation , meaning that Coons ’ s areas of legislative pursuit have been limited to issues like patent reform that can garner GOP backing .
( Coons has also been one of the most outspoken defenders of the filibuster , but he has begun to soften amid the primary challenge and as the prospect of Republicans thoroughly bottling up Joe Biden ’ s agenda has come into focus . )
In recent years , however , that record has been harder to ignore , as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump ’ s judicial and executive nominations — his “ present ” vote in April 2018 on Mike Pompeo ’ s nomination for secretary of state was pivotal to moving the vote out of committee and speeding up the confirmation process .
That type of political maneuvering , which led Politico to dub him “ the GOP ’ s favorite Democrat ” in 2018 , has now led to increasing criticism from the left for the junior senator , and a challenge from Scarane .
The Scarane campaign has painted Coons as out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a corporate-funded style of politics that the Democratic Party needs to move away from .
She ’ s been relentlessly on the attack ; on Labor Day , after Coons posted on Twitter about his commitment to labor , she tweeted a video of the senator referring to his tough bargaining against unions as county executive of New Castle County .
For a politician of Coons ’ s stature in the party to be continually running interference for the GOP , said Scarane , shows the incumbent is out of touch .
Scarane @ @ @ @ @ @ @ himself as a compromiser and mediator between Republicans and Democrats , in practice that just means voting for GOP policies and getting nothing in return .
“ These votes are not gaining compromises , they ’ re selling us out , ” she said .
The Coons campaign sees it differently .
“ I don ’ t know what votes they ’ re pointing to but any honest accounting Senator Coons for the last several years has been holding the Trump administration accountable at every turn , ” said spokesperson Sean Coit .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Chris has been willing to work across the aisle to get things done for Delawareans.
” It could all be mooted if Joe Biden wins the presidential election .
A Biden administration could spell a cabinet position for Coons , most likely in the State Department , meaning he might now be spending millions to defend a seat he ’ ll vacate in less than six months .
But it wouldn ’ t be for nothing : If he holds onto his seat and then joins the Biden administration , the Delaware establishment @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a replacement for the next two years until a special election can be held .
“ We don ’ t want him to spend $ 7 million so the governor can appoint someone unelected to that seat again , ” Scarane said .
“ The senator would be honored for the opportunity to serve Delaware for another term , ” said Coit when asked by The Intercept about Coons ’ s possible cabinet seat .
The senator dropped more than half a million dollars on digital and TV ads to kick off September @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that appears set on ignoring his challenger , whom he has not faced in a debate .
“ You can ’ t get away from his ads , but he ’ s not willing to have a conversation or debate about where we stand on the issues , ” Scarane said .
Coit rejected that claim , telling The Intercept that the Coons campaign had not heard from Scarane ’ s team about holding a debate before last week .
“ It ’ s hardly something we ’ ve heard from the Scarane @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for the ad buy , Coit said , “ the senator takes running for election incredibly seriously.
” about both Scarane ’ s platform and Coons ’ s record , the progressive insurgent ’ s campaign argued , voters quickly move her way .
Politicians like Coons , Scarane told The Intercept , have used their power to perpetuate a political culture in the state where the urge to maintain the power of the status quo has led voters to not expect better .
“ People are seeing what our vision of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on ‘ better things aren ’ t possible , ' ” said Scarane , a member of the Democratic Socialists of America in Delaware .
She ’ s running on a platform that includes universal health care , abolishing ICE , conditioning aid to Israel on the treatment of the Palestinians , and many other progressive priorities .
While Scarane faces the institutional power of a well-connected senator with a huge amount of cash , she can rely at least in part on the enthusiasm from local groups who have thrown their support @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the work that began in 2018 to overthrow the state ’ s party establishment .
Yianni Jannelli , a member of DSA ’ s Delaware chapter , said the group backed Scarane in part because she is a member but also because she shares their goals and priorities .
The group also backed Harris in her 2018 challenge to Carper .
Jannelli told The Intercept that he believes Scarane has a good chance to take out Coons , citing Coons ’ s record of voting with Trump at a higher rate than other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ brings up to voters during phone banking .
“ Senators better in touch with their Democrat constituents like Kamala Harris , Cory Booker , and Elizabeth Warren have barely voted with Trump 15 percent of the time on average , ” Jannelli explained .
“ By comparison , Chris Coons has voted in support of Trump ’ s interests by nearly twice that number .
A staunchly blue state , one of few left in the union , can not afford to have such misrepresentation in the Senate.
” While the national wing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ involved in the race , the local hub , Sunrise Newark , endorsed Scarane on June 19 .
Scarane signed the No Fossil Fuel Money Pledge , showing she is serious about climate policy , said the group ’ s president Carl Nelson-Poteet .
“ We reached out to both candidates , ” said Nelson-Poteet , “ asking them to sign the pledge and fill out a questionnaire ; she was the only one who signed the pledge.
” Sunrise Newark chief political officer Brant Roun added that Scarane ’ s policies align @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that the progressive insurgent understands the magnitude of the crisis .
That is more pronounced in Delaware , a seaside state which will be — and already is being — drastically affected by climate change .
Both Nelson-Poteet and Roun told The Intercept they are sensing voters are receptive to Scarane ’ s message .
“ Her platform resonates with people , ” said Nelson-Poteet .
“ It seems every time we hear something about her from voters , it ’ s positive.
” Yet despite that broad-based support on the ground , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ attention and energy into the race presents challenges for the campaign .
Major groups like Justice Democrats haven ’ t gotten involved in the contest , and while Our Revolution and Sunrise Movement ’ s local hubs have backed Scarane , the national groups have not .
Media focus has only recently turned toward Delaware ’ s last-in-the-nation Democratic primary after covering dynamic campaigns in New York , Missouri , and Massachusetts for the summer .
That ’ s left Scarane without much institutional support outside of her state ’ s progressive establishment @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to Scarane ’ s race is in contrast with the ways the Senate campaigns of Charles Booker in Kentucky and Ed Markey in Massachusetts were prioritized and has left her underfunded and without the full gamut of volunteer resources other insurgent candidates have had .
The campaign had been hopeful that with enough people on the phones , they would be able to turn out the 40,000 voters they believed Scarane needs .
( By Monday , 60,071 Democrats had returned mail ballots , the campaign said . )
Why some races catch @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is always a bit of a mystery , but also has a chicken-and-egg element to it .
Groups like Justice Democrats and the Sunrise Movement have limited capacity , and so they look to direct their energy where they can have the most impact .
Fundraising and media coverage can serve as a gauge of whether a campaign ’ s viability is viable enough to get behind , but without backing from those types of groups , and without access to wealthy donors , that fundraising , momentum , and media coverage is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Scarane ’ s ability to garner national attention is her lack of a compelling , working-class backstory , which in American politics has driven public interest in candidates since before the founding of the country .
Scarane is a former digital marketing specialist who moved to Delaware 10 years ago .
It ’ s a hurdle in a state where the political culture places high value on generations-long connections to the region .
Voters in Delaware value political experience , and while Scarane has been active in her community and in multiple causes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — a limitation that held Harris back too .
Scarane staffer Will Weidner , a member of DSA Delaware , told The Intercept that he finds the lack of national attention and support frustrating .
To Weidner , Scarane ’ s push against Coons should be a bigger deal for progressive groups , especially considering that by a number of metrics the campaign is in line with other successful primary challengers with respect to volunteers and the ground game .
“ We ’ re a group of people who are pragmatic and relentless @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that , I mean we think we ’ re competitive here and we ’ re not going to get down because we ’ re not getting attention from other key players.
” Because of what Scarane and Coons represent , Weidner continued , for big national groups and organizations to not be on board with the progressive ’ s campaign is confusing .
“ I don ’ t think there is a better , bigger example of what left talks about in politicians they want than Jess and Democrats to be scared of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Weidner .
Coit said the insurgent campaign was overly reactive and obsessed with Twitter .
In comments referring to Coons ’ s decades in Delaware as a contrast to Scarane , Coit opined that convincing voters to reject the senator was relying on “ a playbook that doesn ’ t make much sense.
” “ I think it ’ s been disorganized and not really a clear message , ” said Coit .
Mark Egerman , a longtime Democratic Party activist who worked on Harris ’ s Delaware Senate 2018 primary campaign , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the lack of national attention and resources to the contest .
Calling the race a contest that “ ought to be a winnable primary , ” Egerman said a lack of sustained progressive energy and organizing between election cycles has left races like Scarane ’ s the victim of a still-developing movement .
Part of the problem that ’ s bedeviling the Scarane campaign more broadly , said Egerman , is that the progressive movement ’ s wins over the past few years have been surprise victories where candidates “ catch fire , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Missouri and Jamaal Bowman in New York , and even the high-profile loss of Alex Morse in Massachusetts .
Egerman said the singular focus on one candidate can leave organizers on the back foot when it comes to building the kind of infrastructure needed to keep the movement going in between cycles .
But Scarane told The Intercept that in her view , that ’ s just what the progressive movement is doing in Delaware .
“ We know people are hungry for better options , but not having that infrastructure can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ We built on the Kerri and Bernie runs and built up our volunteers to continue challenging establishment power.
” A further challenge for organizers and progressive insurgents , said Egerman , is that “ high salience ” elections , like the primaries in 2020 , bring out more voters .
But with more voters come more lower-information , local-level voters who will vote for the incumbent due to name recognition .
“ Last minute heroics don ’ t work anymore due to mail-in voting and high salience elections , ” said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ voting in all elections , and because of that you can ’ t necessarily get upsets like you got with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
” Still , said Connor , Scarane and her slate have gotten to a place where they can ’ t be ruled out .
“ She ’ s had enough money to effectively campaign , ” said Connor .

Update: September 15, 2020
Incumbent Sen. Chris Coons was declared an early winner on election night, likely to finish with more than 70 percent of the vote against his challenger Jess Scarane. But Scarane’s slate was headed for a rout of the establishment, with a potential statehouse sweep on the board. In the state Senate, Marie Pinkney held a two-point lead against Sen. David McBride, who was first elected to the seat back in 1980. The slate’s three state House races were also going well, with Larry Lambert Jr. up 18 points against incumbent Rep. Larry Seigfried; Eric Morrison up by more than 20 points against Rep. Earl Jacques Jr; and Madinah Wilson-Anton, who would be the first Muslim woman to serve in elected office in the state legislature, up slightly against incumbent Rep. John Viola.
The slate also ran two Wilmington city council candidates, and Shané Darby is poised to win her open race for the second district in a landslide. Her ally in the first district, Coby Owens, however, was trailing as the night was closing. Owens, a 25-year-old local activist who organized the city’s largest Black Lives Matter protest, faced an extraordinary amount of opposition from the party establishment. The mayor backed an independent expenditure that spent some $80,000 attacking him for supporting defunding the police, a staggering sum for an election whose winner will likely have fewer than 1,000 votes. He’s trailing by six percentage points.
Since at least the early 1800s, Delaware’s political establishment has been guided by an ethos known today as “the Delaware Way.” The state is small, and its inner circle of leaders tiny. Cooperation, including between the two parties, is the order of the day. Spoken and unspoken pacts have long greased transitions as politicians move from one elected office to another. The most famous maneuver is probably what’s known as “The Swap”: when the popular Republican governor, Mike Castle, switched places with the popular House member, Tom Carper, at the end of Castle’s tenure in 1992. Both glided into their new positions effectively unopposed.
When Joe Biden vacated his Senate seat for the White House in 2009, a similar arrangement played out. Biden’s longtime lieutenant, Ted Kaufman, was appointed to Biden’s seat for two years. Kaufman pledged not to run for reelection, opening the way for Castle to ease from the House over to the Senate in a 2010 race not expected to be competitive. Democrats put up only nominal opposition; a New Castle County executive, Chris Coons, was tapped to be the sacrificial lamb.
But Delaware’s Republican primary voters had other ideas and stunned the party by nominating eccentric tea party conservative Christine O’Donnell over Castle. O’Donnell’s general election campaign stumbled early, as she famously declared in a television ad that she was “not a witch.” (She was responding to surfaced video of an appearance of hers on Bill Maher’s HBO show, in which she had said she “dabbled into witchcraft.”) Things only got weirder from there, her polling numbers cratered, and Washington Republicans fumed at the blown opportunity. O’Donnell declined comment for this story, telling The Intercept she had “moved on from the 2010 campaign.”
The beneficiary of all this chaos was Coons, who was suddenly saved from a slaughter on Election Day. “Just the luckiest guy in the world,” said Tom Gordon, a former New Castle County executive whose terms bookended Coons’s time in the office, of the man known in Delaware as “the accidental senator.”
Coons joined Carper in the Senate, where Carper had been elected in 2000 after serving his two terms as governor. In 2018, progressives finally tried their hand at an O’Donnell-esque disruption of the Delaware Way, minus the weirdness, when Kerri Evelyn Harris had the temerity to challenge Carper for his Senate seat. Harris raised very little money but got a last minute burst of national support from groups like Justice Democrats, who were feeling good after the primary win earlier that summer by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Harris, who had the support of the Working Families Party, had campaigned for Ocasio-Cortez, and she returned the favor, traveling south to Delaware to rally for Harris. Carper survived comfortably, winning 65 percent of the vote — but his total tally was just 53,000 votes, an enticingly small number.
Photo: Coby Owens
Harris’s campaign was hobbled by a dearth of progressive infrastructure, but the locals who came together to support her campaign hoped to build something lasting. Out of her race, some green shoots are emerging. A statewide slate of candidates, topped by Jess Scarane, who is challenging Coons, is now taking a run at the party establishment in the polls on Tuesday, hoping to get a toehold on power in the state that, by virtue of its laissez-faire approach, sets corporate tax and regulatory policy for the rest of the country.
The slate, backed by the Working Families Party, includes two candidates for Wilmington City Council (Shané Darby in the 2nd District and Coby Owens in the 1st), three state House candidates (Eric Morrison, Madinah Wilson-Anton, and Larry Lambert), and a state Senate candidate (Marie Pinkney).
Combined, the local candidates are aiming to win around 10,000 votes, while Scarane’s team believes she needs around 40,000 to top Coons. By Monday, 60,071 Democrats had returned ballots, according to Scarane’s campaign. What primary day turnout will look like given the pandemic is hard to predict.
Nothing like it has been tried in Delaware, and the members of the slate have faced intense pressure from the Delaware political community not to rock the boat. Owens, running for a Wilmington council seat, has faced particular resistance. Owens, 25, is the nephew, on one side of his family, of the longest-serving Black man in Delaware politics, and, on the other side, the longest-serving Black woman. But raised by a single mom in the city, he decided that the system was not serving those it needed to. In 2018, he bucked the Delaware Way and backed Harris, and this cycle has stepped forward on his own. “It’s been difficult,” said Owens.
“I’ve been around politics since I was a baby,” he went on. “Both sides of my family are very political and I’ve been engaged, so I’ve built those relationships, and I think on some ends, people have enough respect for me to understand that this isn’t personal — I’m still gonna break bread with you after I push like hell to see the embetterment of my community — but on the other side, some people are upset and think that I push too hard.”
For instance, Owens said, he recently organized the largest Black Lives Matter rally ever held in Wilmington, but he ran into opposition when he used that energy to push for actual legislative changes. Owens and his allies collected the information of as many people at the rally as possible, and had them demand repeal of the Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights, as well as calling for other concrete police reforms.
Now, an independent expenditure — rare in a city council race — has popped up to combat Owens.
The IE has been sending mass texts to voters in Wilmington telling them that Owens supports defunding the police, exploiting the gap between the national rhetoric around policing on the left and the type of police reform many voters in hard-hit cities like Wilmington say they want. The incumbent councilmember, Linda Gray, did not respond to a request for an interview.
Though Owens has been protesting for years, and been arrested for civil disobedience, he does not engage in some of the more radical posturing that lives online. At the Wilmington protest he organized, he successfully kept it nonviolent.
Organizer Coby Owens is having the crowd chant a commitment to nonviolence #netDE pic.twitter.com/NE3HoUcBv6 — Jeanne Kuang (@JeanneKuang) June 5, 2020
In Scarane, Coons is facing his first primary challenger, having been unopposed in 2010 and 2014. The senator has largely been able to dodge national attention from the left during his career, despite the fact that he serves in a blue state and frequently aligns with Republicans. Coons has made bipartisanship the cornerstone of his approach to the Senate, refusing to sign onto any bill that doesn’t have a GOP co-sponsor. Republicans have no similar pretensions to cooperation, meaning that Coons’s areas of legislative pursuit have been limited to issues like patent reform that can garner GOP backing. (Coons has also been one of the most outspoken defenders of the filibuster, but he has begun to soften amid the primary challenge and as the prospect of Republicans thoroughly bottling up Joe Biden’s agenda has come into focus.)
“These votes are not gaining compromises, they’re selling us out.”
In recent years, however, that record has been harder to ignore, as Coons has shown willingness to approve Donald Trump’s judicial and executive nominations — his “present” vote in April 2018 on Mike Pompeo’s nomination for secretary of state was pivotal to moving the vote out of committee and speeding up the confirmation process. That type of political maneuvering, which led Politico to dub him “the GOP’s favorite Democrat” in 2018, has now led to increasing criticism from the left for the junior senator, and a challenge from Scarane.
The Scarane campaign has painted Coons as out of touch with the state and representing a corporate-funded style of politics that the Democratic Party needs to move away from. She’s been relentlessly on the attack; on Labor Day, after Coons posted on Twitter about his commitment to labor, she tweeted a video of the senator referring to his tough bargaining against unions as county executive of New Castle County.
This you claiming that union fights for healthcare and benefits can “sink a company”? Saying you fought them tooth and nail? ? https://t.co/jEVJvZWaHD pic.twitter.com/OZ7b8gznyy — Jess Scarane (@JessforDelaware) September 7, 2020
For a politician of Coons’s stature in the party to be continually running interference for the GOP, said Scarane, shows the incumbent is out of touch. Scarane told The Intercept that while Coons portrays himself as a compromiser and mediator between Republicans and Democrats, in practice that just means voting for GOP policies and getting nothing in return. “These votes are not gaining compromises, they’re selling us out,” she said.
The Coons campaign sees it differently. “I don’t know what votes they’re pointing to but any honest accounting Senator Coons for the last several years has been holding the Trump administration accountable at every turn,” said spokesperson Sean Coit. “At the same time, certainly Chris has been willing to work across the aisle to get things done for Delawareans.”
It could all be mooted if Joe Biden wins the presidential election. A Biden administration could spell a cabinet position for Coons, most likely in the State Department, meaning he might now be spending millions to defend a seat he’ll vacate in less than six months. But it wouldn’t be for nothing: If he holds onto his seat and then joins the Biden administration, the Delaware establishment would once again be able to appoint a replacement for the next two years until a special election can be held. “We don’t want him to spend $7 million so the governor can appoint someone unelected to that seat again,” Scarane said.
“The senator would be honored for the opportunity to serve Delaware for another term,” said Coit when asked by The Intercept about Coons’s possible cabinet seat.
The senator dropped more than half a million dollars on digital and TV ads to kick off September, despite taking an approach to campaigning that appears set on ignoring his challenger, whom he has not faced in a debate. “You can’t get away from his ads, but he’s not willing to have a conversation or debate about where we stand on the issues,” Scarane said.
Coit rejected that claim, telling The Intercept that the Coons campaign had not heard from Scarane’s team about holding a debate before last week. “It’s hardly something we’ve heard from the Scarane campaign,” Coit said. As for the ad buy, Coit said, “the senator takes running for election incredibly seriously.”
When voters learn about both Scarane’s platform and Coons’s record, the progressive insurgent’s campaign argued, voters quickly move her way. Politicians like Coons, Scarane told The Intercept, have used their power to perpetuate a political culture in the state where the urge to maintain the power of the status quo has led voters to not expect better.
“People are seeing what our vision of the future actually is, rather than running on ‘better things aren’t possible,'” said Scarane, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America in Delaware. She’s running on a platform that includes universal health care, abolishing ICE, conditioning aid to Israel on the treatment of the Palestinians, and many other progressive priorities.
While Scarane faces the institutional power of a well-connected senator with a huge amount of cash, she can rely at least in part on the enthusiasm from local groups who have thrown their support behind her campaign as a continuation of the work that began in 2018 to overthrow the state’s party establishment.
Yianni Jannelli, a member of DSA’s Delaware chapter, said the group backed Scarane in part because she is a member but also because she shares their goals and priorities. The group also backed Harris in her 2018 challenge to Carper. Jannelli told The Intercept that he believes Scarane has a good chance to take out Coons, citing Coons’s record of voting with Trump at a higher rate than other senators, a topic the group frequently brings up to voters during phone banking. “Senators better in touch with their Democrat constituents like Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, and Elizabeth Warren have barely voted with Trump 15 percent of the time on average,” Jannelli explained. “By comparison, Chris Coons has voted in support of Trump’s interests by nearly twice that number. A staunchly blue state, one of few left in the union, cannot afford to have such misrepresentation in the Senate.”
While the national wing of the Sunrise Movement has not gotten involved in the race, the local hub, Sunrise Newark, endorsed Scarane on June 19. Scarane signed the No Fossil Fuel Money Pledge, showing she is serious about climate policy, said the group’s president Carl Nelson-Poteet. “We reached out to both candidates,” said Nelson-Poteet, “asking them to sign the pledge and fill out a questionnaire; she was the only one who signed the pledge.”
Sunrise Newark chief political officer Brant Roun added that Scarane’s policies align with those of the climate-focused group and that the progressive insurgent understands the magnitude of the crisis. That is more pronounced in Delaware, a seaside state which will be — and already is being — drastically affected by climate change.
Both Nelson-Poteet and Roun told The Intercept they are sensing voters are receptive to Scarane’s message. “Her platform resonates with people,” said Nelson-Poteet. “It seems every time we hear something about her from voters, it’s positive.”
Yet despite that broad-based support on the ground, an absence of national groups investing their attention and energy into the race presents challenges for the campaign. Major groups like Justice Democrats haven’t gotten involved in the contest, and while Our Revolution and Sunrise Movement’s local hubs have backed Scarane, the national groups have not. Media focus has only recently turned toward Delaware’s last-in-the-nation Democratic primary after covering dynamic campaigns in New York, Missouri, and Massachusetts for the summer. That’s left Scarane without much institutional support outside of her state’s progressive establishment.
“A staunchly blue state, one of few left in the union, cannot afford to have such misrepresentation in the Senate.”
The lack of national progressive attention to Scarane’s race is in contrast with the ways the Senate campaigns of Charles Booker in Kentucky and Ed Markey in Massachusetts were prioritized and has left her underfunded and without the full gamut of volunteer resources other insurgent candidates have had. The campaign had been hopeful that with enough people on the phones, they would be able to turn out the 40,000 voters they believed Scarane needs. (By Monday, 60,071 Democrats had returned mail ballots, the campaign said.)
Why some races catch on nationally and some don’t is always a bit of a mystery, but also has a chicken-and-egg element to it. Groups like Justice Democrats and the Sunrise Movement have limited capacity, and so they look to direct their energy where they can have the most impact. Fundraising and media coverage can serve as a gauge of whether a campaign’s viability is viable enough to get behind, but without backing from those types of groups, and without access to wealthy donors, that fundraising, momentum, and media coverage is hard to come by.
Also hampering Scarane’s ability to garner national attention is her lack of a compelling, working-class backstory, which in American politics has driven public interest in candidates since before the founding of the country.
Scarane is a former digital marketing specialist who moved to Delaware 10 years ago. It’s a hurdle in a state where the political culture places high value on generations-long connections to the region. Voters in Delaware value political experience, and while Scarane has been active in her community and in multiple causes, she has never held elected office — a limitation that held Harris back too.
Scarane staffer Will Weidner, a member of DSA Delaware, told The Intercept that he finds the lack of national attention and support frustrating. To Weidner, Scarane’s push against Coons should be a bigger deal for progressive groups, especially considering that by a number of metrics the campaign is in line with other successful primary challengers with respect to volunteers and the ground game. “We’re a group of people who are pragmatic and relentless,” said Weidner. “By that, I mean we think we’re competitive here and we’re not going to get down because we’re not getting attention from other key players.”
Because of what Scarane and Coons represent, Weidner continued, for big national groups and organizations to not be on board with the progressive’s campaign is confusing. “I don’t think there is a better, bigger example of what left talks about in politicians they want than Jess and Democrats to be scared of, which is Coons,” said Weidner.
Coit said the insurgent campaign was overly reactive and obsessed with Twitter. In comments referring to Coons’s decades in Delaware as a contrast to Scarane, Coit opined that convincing voters to reject the senator was relying on “a playbook that doesn’t make much sense.”
“I think it’s been disorganized and not really a clear message,” said Coit.
Mark Egerman, a longtime Democratic Party activist who worked on Harris’s Delaware Senate 2018 primary campaign, said that he understands the frustration over the lack of national attention and resources to the contest. Calling the race a contest that “ought to be a winnable primary,” Egerman said a lack of sustained progressive energy and organizing between election cycles has left races like Scarane’s the victim of a still-developing movement.
Part of the problem that’s bedeviling the Scarane campaign more broadly, said Egerman, is that the progressive movement’s wins over the past few years have been surprise victories where candidates “catch fire,” citing the wins of Cori Bush in Missouri and Jamaal Bowman in New York, and even the high-profile loss of Alex Morse in Massachusetts. Egerman said the singular focus on one candidate can leave organizers on the back foot when it comes to building the kind of infrastructure needed to keep the movement going in between cycles.
But Scarane told The Intercept that in her view, that’s just what the progressive movement is doing in Delaware. “We know people are hungry for better options, but not having that infrastructure can make that hard, ” she said. “We built on the Kerri and Bernie runs and built up our volunteers to continue challenging establishment power.”
A further challenge for organizers and progressive insurgents, said Egerman, is that “high salience” elections, like the primaries in 2020, bring out more voters. But with more voters come more lower-information, local-level voters who will vote for the incumbent due to name recognition. “Last minute heroics don’t work anymore due to mail-in voting and high salience elections,” said Egerman. “There’s more voting in all elections, and because of that you can’t necessarily get upsets like you got with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.”
Still, said Connor, Scarane and her slate have gotten to a place where they can’t be ruled out. “She’s had enough money to effectively campaign,” said Connor.