Pat Ryan For Congress: Just Another Normal Corporate Democrat In Power.

If one is to listen to the likes of Krystal Ball or Ryan Grim of “Breaking Points” and “Rising” respectively, you would get the sense that District 19 in New York State was just won by a populist Democratic candidate; A Candidate that is spewing forth anti-establishment rhetoric and getting ready to do battle in Congress for the next 4 months. The facts on the ground since I have lived in the much talked district on and off since birth is that what happened is far from a win for populism in any form!

Pat Ryan describes himself as a fifth generation Ulster County native. I’ve spent a lot time in the county of Ulster, NY.  It’s full of things like fall hayrides and haunted mazes—and it was the home of John A. Coleman Catholic High School in West Hurley , NY where I attended High School.  My high school was a bastion of white privilege in a decaying city in the mid to late 1990’s.  Founded in the early 1960’s so that basically wealthy IBM employees didn’t have to send their kids to the local public schools and face the integration of their good white, catholic boys and girls with the masses of culturally different and ethnically diverse population of the city of Kingston, NY (the first Capital of NYS for history buffs). IBM Kingston closed in 1995. With the basic engine of the city’s economic life on life support after the fall of IBM Kingston the city was set on a trajectory of down spiraling.  Now, luckily for the area just down the river about 30 miles resided IBM Poughkeepsie. For a few fortunate members of the Kingston workforce they were moved to Poughkeepsie workforce which allowed the impeding spiral into economic decay to be pushed off somewhat into the future.  However, eventually even IBM Poughkeepsie was downsized and by 2016 IBM Poughkeepsie shed off 3,000 employees and is now a shell of its former self in the area.  But Poughkeepsie still managed to maintain some IBM presence were as Kingston was left completely empty and over time it has destroyed the economy of Kingston.

The IBM plant in Kingston was both an engineering and design facility so it had a nice mix of employees from those on the line assembling the mainframe systems they built to those designing the systems themselves. This fact gave the community a broad and deep base of well paying jobs for not only college graduates in business and computer science, engineering, and industrial design—but, also a vast number of well paid and skilled non-college graduates that made the computers and maintained the buildings of the plant as well.  All in all the 1950’s to the mid 1980’s were a great time to be in Kingston, NY.

And this story was repeated all long the Hudson River both in the Valley and in the little cities and towns lived on the prosperous nature of first real wave of computerization in business that began in the late 1960’s and by the 1990’s was completed. IBM led the charge and its hubs in Poughkeepsie and Kingston, NY supplied mainframe computers to the major Universities, Businesses both in the US and Internationally. Kingston was riding High and so was Poughkeepsie—but, then something happened the computer craze of the 1980’s started to blow up with cheaper competition from IBM Clones and other major computer manufacturers from Silicon Valley moved in IBM’s over reliance on mainframe computing and started to put pressure on the stalwart giant of business machine manufacturing. By 1995 the IBM plant in Kingston was closed.  This took a large chunk out of the economic engine of Kingston, NY and it’s surrounding areas in Ulster, Greene, Dutchess, and Columbia Counties (all of which were part of the NYS 19 boundaries which has been redrawn).

For most of my adolescents the Hudson Valley Mall played a major part of the social circles of my friends.  I lived in a small town 48 miles north-east of Kingston during High School so it didn’t play as big of a part of my in my life until I got a drivers license. But, today the once vibrant and vital economic engine of the Hudson Valley Mall stands decaying and dying. Ironically inside of the mall where the store fronts have been covered over and the Ulster County Historical Society has developed a series of displays that create time capsule of photographs in a wall mural that span from about 1880 to 1920.   Now where stores once resided large photographs depicting the city of Kingston and its manufacturing roots and its ability to drive economies from as far north up the river to Albany, NY and as far south as New York City.  In one set of photos the streets of “North Front  , Crown Street, Green Street and so on “  are shown in their economic glory as the primary source of commerce in the city. The great irony is that the mall revolution of the late 1960’s that put most of the original business in this district out 60 years ago has turned again.  Now, what was once a rundown and shabby part of Kingston’s socio-economic landscape dotted with a few stores and dive bars has become once again the posh-economic center for trendy visitors to Kingston.

It is this landscape of up-state gentrification, that has always been both a boon and bane to our economies, pulling and tugging not only the local economic strings, but also increasing the displacement of the locals in favor of transplantation of not only city monetary capital but human capital as well. The lovely little stores that now dominate the New North Front and its adjacent streets are filled with trendy items designed to fit into the apartments of upwardly mobile members of the Brooklyn Chic scene.  You know the type the hipsters in skinny jeans that worry that their figures will be ruined by drinking animal based dairy products—so, they opt for the obviously more egalitarian Almond milk— totally ignoring the fact that almonds use more than 10 gallons of water per handful and are contributing to the Southwest’s massive drought issues.  But, just so long as these hipsters aren’t inconvenienced by those pesky facts the world is their oyster! These are same people that purchase most of their food either from door dash , uber eats or some other delivery service because they cannot bare to be inconvenienced by things like shopping for themselves on weekdays. But, when they come to Kingston its all Farm-to-Table dining establishments that depend on these transplants. Its a push-button society that despises the idea of being asked to do anything that is at all inconvenient to their daily schedules. And its also a society that is about maximizing their own profits— homes that once housed industrial workers in the heart of Kingston are now becoming AirBnB rentals within walking distance of the new chic North Front Street revitalization project.

And these facts are critical to understanding  Pat Ryan - Marc Molinaro Race in NYS 19. But, let’s not forget that Pat Ryan is stepping into Antonio Delgado’s shoes. And Delgado won NYS 19 the first time by unseating John Faso—and how was this accomplished? Delgado won the major population centers of the district:  Poughkeepsie, Beacon, Hudson, and Kingston. Cities that have been seeing two factors: one an increase in urbanization through gentrification, and two have seen an increase in people coming from NYC to live out their Green Acre’s fantasies in what they consider small town America.

Those are huge factors that none of the online pundits seems to a) recognize or b) even seem to have a clue about n the victory of Pat Ryan over Marc Malinaro in the special election. But this is true for the old NYS-19 district. The new District NYS-19 is far from being pro-democratic in away shape or form.  And this is very important.  The only major cities in the new NYS-19 are Ithaca , Hudson, Kingston,  and Binghamton, NY.  Both Ithaca and Binghamton are slightly larger than Kingston and Poughkeepsie and they are more likely to go Republican. These are are the facts.

The New District 19 was populist friendly in 2016 in every county that makes up the new NYS-19 Bernie Sanders won by solid margins of 20+ points.  In 2016 all of these same counties were won by Donald Trump.  And in 2020 2.5 counties (since Ulster county is cut in half to make a new district 18) still voted for Trump.  This new district is 11 counties with most of them being firmly Republican  and Rural like my own county of Greene. Democrats loose in most of the small towns in Greene county and the Trump Flags still are in place and they will not come down for anything or anyone until the Trump cult is replaced.

So, that leaves us with the claim that Pat Ryan is a populist and not a normal democrat. Ryan’s two biggest  claims to fame are these: 1) a 100 family $500 per month stipend for a pilot program in Ulster County. And 2) fighting overcharging in the Utilities of Electricity namely Central Hudson.  These two developments were good but far from being truly amazing signs of Pat Ryan’s Populist credentials.

Let’s first look at the Universal Basic Income project.  It was a small pilot program only affecting 200 families in total: 100 in the control group and 100 in the test group (families with incomes under $47,000.00) receiving $500.00 per month for 12 months (originally 6 months).  The program has been operating since May 1st 2021 and is set to end in September 2022;  the program itself is administered by the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Guaranteed Income and Project Resilience[Ulster Gov]—in conjunction with grant money from various sources. Including a Go-Fund Me for Project Resilience (part of the United Way).  So you can see this is a win-win for the Ulster County Government. It is funded in full by community donations most notably Project Resilience administered by U. Penn and Ulster Savings Bank.  So very little risk has been taken by Ulster County in this project.  But, lots of glory is present for Pat Ryan if the project is a hit. If it is popular Ryan can claim to be a pioneer in UBI benefits on the county level. And if it’s not popular it will just disappear with no adverse political blow back since the program is funded and operated by all non-county entities.

Now, here is what is funny no where in Ryan’s Congressional Website does he mention anything about UBI or the pilot program in Ulster County.  This is really rather odd. The website under Priorities makes no mention of creating a more equitable society through the use of UBI or any other program.  This is the extent of statements for leveling the playing field:

Working families and small businesses are suffering. Pat has fought greedy corporations, cut taxes, and brought jobs to New York. Pat has called out big corporations for overcharging customers, brought hundreds of jobs to Ulster county, and spearheaded the rehabilitation of a former IBM site, leading to over $200 million in investment in the region. All while never raising taxes and even cutting the gas tax by 50%, as residents suffer high prices at the pump. 

In Congress, Pat will fight inflation by going after price-gougers who are harming customers, guarantee middle-class voters get a tax cut, and make sure billionaires and big corporations pay their fair share. Pat will work with organized labor to guarantee better wages and protections for working families, pass paid family leave for all Americans, and ensure that equal work means equal pay.g families and small businesses are suffering. Pat has fought greedy corporations, cut taxes, and brought jobs to New York. Pat has called out big corporations for overcharging customers, brought hundreds of jobs to Ulster county, and spearheaded the rehabilitation of a former IBM site, leading to over $200 million in investment in the region. All while never raising taxes and even cutting the gas tax by 50%, as residents suffer high prices at the pump. [Pat Ryan For Congress]

Not exactly something that you expect to see from a Populist Rabble Rouser that both conventional media and the alternative left media is making Pat Ryan out to be.  This is some pretty anodyne stuff- the usual massaging from any number of politicians running on the democratic ticket echo these same ideas for example let’s look at Jamie Cheney (who was also running NYS 19 in the new district) had to say:

SUPPORTING WORKING FAMILIES

As a young mother, I saw firsthand the struggles women had in the workplace as they balanced the demands of work and family. I jumped right into the fray and founded a company whose mission was to help keep working parents in the workforce and provide them with the tools to be successful. I went to boardrooms, often as the only woman present, and convinced these entrenched institutions that it was time to change their treatment of working mothers. I told them that they needed to provide healthcare, subsidized childcare and flexible schedules so they could attract and retain outstanding talent. I am proud to say that ten years later, I have helped thousands of parents balance having a family and feeding that family.

We need to take this same approach with federal legislation. I firmly support the following:

• Bringing back and pre-paying the extended child tax credit

• Universal pre-k

• Capping the cost of childcare at 7%, which would save the average family $14,800 per year

• Raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour

UNIONS

Wall Street didn't build this country. Unions built this country. And unions built the middle class.

Unions serve as an important counterweight to the unprecedented power that corporate interests have accumulated over the past several decades.

In Congress, I will co-sponsor the PRO Act on day one, and will always fight against attempts to weaken Davis-Bacon or any prevailing wage laws. [Jamie Cheney For Congress]

And now how about Josh Riley (primary winner of the new NYS 19th) another 5th Generation Kid by the way! (What are the odds of that being both Josh and Pat’s  claim to fame for winning the hearts and minds of NYS-19 District locals? Seems like it was focus group tested by a media company to generate a sense of belonging and trust with an audience to me?)

A. Upstate New Yorkers Can Compete With Anyone Anywhere–So Long As We’re Competing On A Level Playing Field.

Nobody works harder than Upstate New Yorkers. But bad trade deals have forced us to compete against regions where workers are exploited, environmental protections are weak, and corruption is rampant. Upstate New York has lost hundreds of thousands of jobs as a result.

First, we must end bad trade deals that ship American jobs overseas, and we must ensure that all future trade deals include strong labor, environmental, and legal standards, along with the resources and authorities necessary to enforce them.

Second, we must strengthen and update the Trade Adjustment Assistance program to provide renewed and increased investments in communities that have lost good manufacturing jobs because of bad trade deals.

D. Working Families Deserve Tax Cuts; Big Corporations That Ship Jobs Overseas Don’t.

Today, the wealthy and big corporations employ armies of accountants and lawyers to shield their money from taxes while working families are left to take their lumps and pay their dues. It’s little wonder that the top 1% now have more wealth than the entire Middle Class combined. That’s not just an economic issue; it’s a moral issue.

First, we must ensure that the wealthy and big corporations pay their fair share. Josh supports:

• a minimum tax on corporations with over $1 billion in profits, thereby preventing them from exploiting loopholes and deploying accounting gimmicks to avoid paying taxes;

• an enforceable and adequate corporate tax on overseas profits, thereby incentivizing corporations to do business and hire workers here at home instead of sending them abroad;

• a surtax on personal income over $5 million, regardless of its source, and a surtax on wealth for trusts and estates valued at $25 million or more.

Second, we must give working families a break. Josh wants to put more money in their pockets by:

• increasing the standard deduction so working families can keep more of their hard-earned money

• expanding and making permanent the Child Tax Credit, which has put food on kids’ tables, clothes on kids’ backs, and lifted so many families out of poverty;

• expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit so it covers more working families and provides them larger tax credits. [Josh Riley For Congress]

As you can clearly see these statements all basically claim the same normal things about the economics of the region. They all employ the nice catch words  like “Sustainability”,  “Growth” and “Fairness” but they are scant on details and even less on how they plan on really distributing wealth amongst the most in need in our community. Ryan forgets to tell his past days of working at a Cyber-Security Defense Contractor instead he is a Fifth Generation Kid from Kingston, NY that wants to make your life better with what exactly??? In his pitch for Congress he leaves out anything that seems too dangerous like supporting UBI. Even if the UBI you support is nothing more than a charity from the United Way and administered by U.Penn and Ulster Savings Bank.  These things you might want to see on the campaign achievements of a man with real populist credits on his resume. Instead  Ryan declares that he is just going to fight the overreach of big business and his own development of the region with hundreds of jobs—many of which will not replace the decaying nature of his own former hometown of Kingston, NY which is now in an economic civil war between gentrification and box-store consumerism.

Oh right he will go after the big businesses.

Now, let’s talk about going after the big businesses in the region in this case the power Utility Central Hudson.  According to Ryan Grim’s statements on Rising last Friday Ryan is a dedicated fighter of consumers being abused by their corporate masters.  Grim points to the recent controversy over Central Hudson’s billing practices.  Central Hudson instituted a new electronic billing system during the pandemic and with the issues of the pandemic and the economic the billing stalled literally. When Central Hudson finally resolved the issues with their billing system they billed their customers massive bills with late fees and surcharges to make up for the loss in revenue. By April of this year nearly 1,000 complaints reached NYS representatives  Michelle Hinchey (a New York Legacy Project) and Kevin Cahill (also another local NY establishment name) with more than 11,000 customers identified as having issues with billing in the area Ryan Grim stepped in and sent a letter to the New York State Public Service Commission (Ryan Letter) asking for investigation into the matter of Central Hudson’s billing practices.

It’s a good step and a necessary one for sure.  However, does basic competency in your job make you a populist? Is that how low our bar is set these days for supporting a politician? If so that speaks volumes of where our society is both politically and morally.  We are so easily impressed with the bare minimum that we turn that low bar into a major victory because we know that it nothing else can really be achieved in this system.  No one is going to really fight the power of corruption by corporations in both the media and political spheres instead you get to pick the corruption that best mirrors your own wants and desires.  You want to be a six figured paid Internet Pundit follow this pattern of activities and your dreams will come true.  You want to be a seven or eight figure pundit on television write this book about this problem with these solutions and sell the hell out of it. Now you will get what you want. That’s why Pat Ryan is a populist he is popular with the people in the punditry class and he is just like them—ambitious motivated and willing to sell out to the highest bidder! In fact this basically the pundits of the alternative left-media in a nutshell.

Grim for example in his piece on Rising uses it to present the idea that Pat Ryan’s success is some how predicting a Democratic Party with this narrow victory. And that Ryan is a populist because he stood up to an electric utility that was already going to be called to mat by two other Democrats in State Legislature. That is a very low bar.  And Grim and Ball both neglect to mention the fact that the district itself is completely changing in  very important ways for the next election.  The 19th is becoming more rural and Ryan’s new district the 18th is more Urban.  And this is important to understand  as we gone on in this article.

What Pat Ryan has won is a four month trip to Washington DC to do nothing. Ryan cannot possible make any name in Congress by the time he gets to Washington at the end of September due to the fact most of the House of Representatives will be out campaigning for their own seats. This  means they aren’t going to put any bills up to vote during the period of time Ryan is in congress in this district. So he cannot actually achieve anything but win a slot. And why would you want to win a slot if the DCCC decides that the new NYS-18 is un-winnable what does that mean for Ryan? Well, it means he becomes expendable. The fact is that I cannot fathom why Ryan wanted to stay in this race after the redrawing of the district other than he knows how craven it would look to step down at this point after doing this campaign for nearly 12 months.

This is of course a non-issue for Grim and Ball since the story they want to tell is that Ryan is a rebuttal of the status quo in the Democratic Party which at the end of the day let’s face it Grim and Ball are still clearly members of.  They like to talk tough about certain issues, but of course they fail to talk about the real issues that face middle America.  For example if Grim and Ball had been honest about Ryan they would have been asking what happens to Ryan when he has to run in Orange County now????

Orange County well for most is the home of the horribly obnoxious tv show “Orange County Choppers” from the heyday of Discovery Channels capitulation to becoming a trendy network centered around reality tv.  Orange County is the home of Goshen NY (Where my Pop’s was born) and Newburgh NY.   Newburgh was once the home of Stewart Air Force Base now downgraded to an Air National Guard and Reservist Center for the USMC and Navy and a small international Airport.  Most recently Newburgh and Goshen have become locations for the disaffected to leave NYC and move into the surrounding areas to perform the magic of gentrification.  But, for the most part Newburgh has been a tough nut to crack.  It’s a city that hasn’t really been able to grow in decades.  It lacks the rich growth of gentrification that has driven much of the revitalization of Kingston that started before Ryan’s term as County Executive but certainly has continued into his present term.  Newburgh was a town built on tile namely tiles made from asbestos in companies like Mastic Tile Company. Mastic at one point was one of the largest employers of the city when my Mother went to High School in Newburgh at  Mount Saint Mary’s now a College in downtown Newburgh in the mid-1960’s. My maternal grandfather worked in the Mastic Tile plant  as the head of the Maintenance department. The city was a live and thriving—but, by the time my mother graduate college from SUNY New Platz and returned to New Jersey— Newburgh was already in decline. A decline that it has never fully recovered from in many ways.  The white flight from the cities into the Suburbs that started in the 1950’s continued and as the cities became more and more unlivable even the urban poor were driven to other cities in the hopes of greater economic prosperity.  It didn’t last for long.

And today— Newburgh is a city of 28,800 or so people with pockets of massive poverty.  The main street that was once the heart of the city is complete decimated by years of neglect and slum lords that took over exploiting the poverty of their renters.  The river area has some high end apartments but not many and a few nicer are neighborhoods exist as well. In short Newburgh is struggling and a normal democratic candidate has been tried for decades to solve the problems of Newburgh to no avail.

However, the really striking issue for Newburgh is that just a short car ride over the Governor Clinton Bridge (aka The Newburgh Beacon Bridge) lies the city of Beacon, NY on the East-Bank of the Hudson River.  Beacon 20 years ago was a city much like Newburgh—a city whose best days seemed to be in the past and just barely holding on.  Then something odd started to happen little stores opened up on the main street. What was once dominated by decay turned into a gentrification success story in the papers. In fact in 2009 the NY Times did a story on how Beacon a once dead city was coming back to life thanks to art galleries (NY Times).   The change was a miracle in the eyes of neoliberal democrats from NYC. Beacon pulled off what Newburgh couldn’t do-they managed to transplant the correct people known as entrepreneurs and the magic of gentrification had taken hold in the fertile soil of Beacon.  Where decay was now restaurants, art-galleries, store fronts, and even a boutique hotel and event site opened up. Mean while Newburgh was then and is still mostly languishing in false starts and failures of gentrification.

And what does this have to do with Pat Ryan you might ask?  It has to do with the fact that Pat Ryan and his past paint the picture of a person that is ensconced in the mediocrity of being a normal corporate democrat. After high-school Ryan accepted an appointment to West Point Army Academy in West Point, NY. Then Ryan got a MA in Security Studies from Georgetown University/ After that he spent 9 years in the military as some type of combat-intelligence officer doing two tours in Iraq he left the service. After leaving the army Ryan first end up in a small defense contractor named Berico Technologies (founded by veterans in 2006)—they specialize in Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance. Berico’s big claim to fame are Fusion Centers where data and intelligence is gathered and disseminated to all branches of the Homeland Security Network including local and Federal law enforcement.  In 2007 the ACLU reported that they were concerned the broad spectrum of the intelligence that Fusion Centers were collecting; specifically how they were ineffective in counterterrorism their intended purpose, but more suited to surveilling internal threats like the Occupy Wall St. Movement or BLM (ACLU Report).

After his time at Berico Technologies Ryan moved on to co-found Parescient Analytics (2011), with Kathy Coote also an employee of Berico Technologies. In fact Berico Technologies co-founders completely bank rolled this entire project according to the Washington Business Journal (WBJ ).  This company too according to its latest website is neck deep in the “Deep State” operating with the likes of the CIA, NSA and so on to create new and interesting analytic software for spying on not only foreign nations but also they like to include business analytics as well.  In 2015 to 2017 Ryan was once again back in the loving embrace of the Empire State’s jewel-NYC working with Dataminir.  Dataminir is an artificial intelligence company that specializes in the real time crisis analysis in 2014 Dataminir had a partnership with Twitter and CNN to give real time updates on news stories in an attempt to scoop other networks. It has since been used by the FBI to search social media for troubling data points a contract that was ended in 2020.   In 2020  The Intercept released a report that Dataminir was used to actively track George Floyd Protests on social media(Intercept ).

And finally in 2018 Ryan got the political bug and started to run for Ulster County Executive.  Here is how the New Politics website described him 2018:

Pat Ryan

Army, Military Intelligence
Ulster County Executive / Entrepreneur
Gardiner, New York

Patrick Ryan recently ran for U.S. Congress to represent New York's 19th District (NY-19). As an Army officer and technology entrepreneur, Pat's career has been driven by service to our nation. Born and raised in Kingston, NY, he attended West Point and then served two combat tours in Iraq. After leaving the military, he co-founded and led two successful technology firms that worked to save lives by equipping troops with better tools to understand the combat landscape and protect from cyber threats. Pat was a Distinguished Graduate from the United States Military Academy at West Point and holds an M.A. in Security Studies from Georgetown's Security Studies Program. He is a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of the Truman National Security Project. (Pat Ryan New Politics)

As a term member of the Council of Foreign Relations Pat Ryan was connecting with some of the most important people in the Geo-Political and Economic worlds concerning the creation of policy making.  While the CFR pretends to be policy neutral.  It is hard to believe a think-tank can be neutral on any policy—the members all view the world through specific lens and that shades the type analysis they feel is important and the answers they develop.  Not to mention the basic fact that this is a think-tank for the well to do to create the connections so they can get their pet theories into the mainstream political spectrum.  And the same is true for the Truman National Security Project—these think tanks are major players in the US policy building apparatus.

So another nail in the coffin that non-conventional Democrats are winning.  In fact during 2018 when Pat Ryan was running as an endorsed candidate for NY-19— New Politics according to opensecrets.org took a donation of $100,000 from the Walton Family Trust (New Politics Donors).  For the 2022 cycle they haven’t published any data yet. It’s clear that Pat Ryan isn’t running a people’s campaign.

Of course I can read it now that Trump didn’t run a people’s campaign he just campaigned on Popular Outrage! And that is true.  But does that make you a Populist candidate or just an astute opportunistic candidate? I would say it is the later and not the former. And I would also say this describes Ryan’s candidacy as was well.   So, remember the plight of old Newburgh? The city that was once a jewel in the mid-hudson region producing products and selling all round the world? Well, what do you think the poverty stricken members of Newburgh might want to hear about? Did you guess a UBI or even better a jobs guarantee? Wouldn’t that be what a true populist talks about? Not a candidate pretending that sending a letter to the New York State Public Services Commissions is actually fighting for to take public utilities to task for improper service.  While a letter to the commissioner of Public Services is necessary—its is far from being a victory.  In fact this case is still apparently open as of the research I can find on it.  And this brings us back to the fact that Newburgh isn’t going to be fixed by normal democratic policies.

Newburgh unlike Beacon isn’t doing well. It hasn’t been able to offer itself up successfully to the gods and goddesses of gentrification and find its place in the new economics of the exploited urban space for upwardly mobile Gen-Zers and Millennials. It is instead still essentially a working class community that is slipping further and further into oblivion due to the polices like Ryan’s Ulster 2040 committee[Ulster 2040 PDF].

The Ulster 2040 report reads like a FWD Party [Forward Party] document complete with the “people-centered-economy” from Ryan’s official statement that sets the tone of the report. Its a self-congratulatory report that declares it is methodology is one of “design-thinking” and “rapid-prototyping” to save costs on the development of these wondrous ideas.  The document reads like nonspecific set of fantasies put forth by Andrew Yang— the development of equity from nonspecific sources like better working relationships between employees and employer.  It all sounds a like report written by McKinsey or any other consultant firms and why shouldn’t it?

The committee is made up of the who’s who of the Hudson Valley elites:  from Roundout Savings Bank President/CEO Cheryl Bowers , from local Businesses CEO, Nels Leader of Bread Alone (who recently was invited to congress to speak about sustainability) ,  Arif Khan owner of Hoot Owl Restaurant who also is Leon Fellow that just happened to coordinated humanitarian aid and design refugee camps in places like Somalia and Chad,  and then you have technology  represents in the form of Kale Kaposhilin CCO of Moonfarmer a company specializing in and I quote “handmade websites, applications and art” whose also connected to fortune 500’s like AT&T and United Health Group. No group would be complete without an expert in marketing Arnaldo Sehwerert  of Mid-Hudson Small Business Development Center — another pipeline resource for business consultants. Sehwerert is also on the advisory board of SUNY New Platz’s business school. Finally they found themselves an economist in the form of Evelyn Wright. Wright is an ecological economist that just happens to spend her days counseling government and environmental organizations on creating sustainable equitable economic solutions. Wright founded the Commonwealth Hudson Valley organization in an attempt to further these pursuits. When I searched the website for it all I found was nonfunctioning link on a Facebook page that hasn’t been updated since 2019.

My point here is simple one again Ryan shows himself to be exactly what normal democratic would do when faced with a new challenge in the economy—find a group of consultants that mimic something like McKinsey or CTG and employee them to create a report that says little about the real problems in the economy. The problems stem from the fact that our local business economies cannot support themselves on gentrification models.  Which in the end was never addressed in this document. Nor is it actually addressed in Ryan’s campaign.

The one bright and shining point of light that Ryan has going for him is his experience with UBI in Ulster County— and the candidate is too afraid to run on it because he knows where that will catch on is Newburgh. And Newburgh has a higher population of people of color than many of the other areas in poverty.  This will look to the more conservative and prosperous members of the district as pandering to the poor. If there is one great sin in American Politics, it is pandering to the poor.  You can pander to the rich, the middle class, the religious, and even the self-righteous but you can never pander to the poor.  That is just not allowed in American Politics; because to do so is too admit that poverty is not a moral and intellectual failing but a systemic failure of the society.   And that would mean actually doing populist things.

It’s clear that Ryan is just the same brand of normal democratic candidates. Ryan ticks all the boxes on messaging for wealthy NY city transplants in these regions. He’s pro-choice and anti-assault rifles, he’s  about sustainable economics which translates into business as usual for the economy.  He talks about equalling the playing field but never about fundamentally changing it. So don’t worry the Paris Commune isn’t coming for your new hometown of  Woodstock.   In short he is a better Joe Biden backed by corporate cash and with a backstory we can all love about war veteran that has come home to do his part in civil society now. Of course it doesn’t hurt that he spent about decade in the CIA Consultant world creating intelligence analysts tools for them to Spy on us.

If is this Populism to Ryan Grim— I wonder what he thinks a normal democratic candidate is these days?