The Honeymoon is Over

Editor’s Note: This article is part of an ongoing column called Camden Front and Center, analyzing the city’s politics, development, and power structures. It reflects the author’s examination and perspective on how decisions by political, business, and civic leaders impact the city’s Black and Latino residents.

To the “Blue No Matter Who” crowd of liberals who argue that a Republican in executive office will do (greater) harm to people than a Democrat in a similar position, what do you have to say about what’s happening under Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s watch at Delaney Hall?

The governor may speak softly, but after this past weekend, no one can argue that she carries a big stick that she’s willing to use.

After starting last week by declaring the conditions at Delaney Hall deplorable, Gov. Sherrill deployed the state police at the end of the week to “lower the temperature.” This resulted in rubber bullets, tear-gas, and flash-bang grenades being launched at protestors who stood in solidarity with the kidnapped detainees on a hunger strike against the poor conditions of the detention center due to ICE, including journalists covering the protests. 

Needless to say, the honeymoon is over. But what’s shocking is how it ended. Not with an ill-advised quip or a fiscal policy disagreement. Rather, it ended with sanctioning state violence and defending it, saying that public safety trumps the First Amendment. The Trump administration is pleased, however, with DHS giving her a shout-out on social media. 

The governor’s actions have left many of her supporters wondering if she is the same politician they voted for in November. In an opinion piece in NJ.com, Tony Dearing said, “Never did those voters expect to see their governor turn around and use strong-arm tactics to stifle protest and shift public attention away from ICE and its treatment of detainees.”

To that point, I ask… really? Apparently, yes, really. 

For example, a nurse who was abused by ICE agents said, “I thought [the state police presence] was going to be a good thing… I was trusting Mikie Sherrill to think about the security of us New Jerseyans. But as you can see, it’s actually escalated the situation.”

Here is the medicine for liberals, particularly white liberals, to swallow—however reluctantly. What’s happening at Delaney Hall under Mikie Sherrill’s watch—the use of state violence on behalf of a fascist administration while appearing neutered from, if not reluctant to, address the chaos happening inside Delaney Hall—is no different than if Jack Ciattarelli were in the governor’s mansion. 

I know, I know… liberals don’t like it when folks call Democrats and Republicans one and the same. I’m sorry, I guess Sherrill’s handling this better than a Republican because no one has been murdered. My mistake. Getting tear-gassed, shot with rubber bullets, or having your leg intentionally run over isn’t as bad as that. 

The most recent and common rationale to explain how Democrats are different than Republicans, particularly as a mechanism to chastise liberal-leaning non-voters, is that the manufactured disarray, disorder, and chaos under the Trump Administration wouldn’t have happened under Kamala Harris. I cannot deny that Kamala Harris’ style or approach to governance is different from that of her 2024 opponent.

However, both parties move in similarly harmful ways. Democrats just aren’t as blatantly unapologetic as Republicans are about exerting violence on behalf of the state and capitalist class. 

Consider: both parties support Israel and Ukraine, fund them billions of dollars and providing them with military arms, support use of the petrodollar to exert power over other nations to achieve said domination, desire hegemonic domination while in competition for it with Russia and China, demand peaceful protests only as they use state force to crush protests, sanction police training in Israel with the IDF, primarily seek out Black votes during election time, refuse to secure voting rights in the name of process…

Need I go on? 

Kwame Ture puts it another way, in “The Pitfalls of Liberalism,” saying that the primary task of the liberal is to stop confrontation between the oppressor and the oppressed. So much so that “he usually finds himself defending and calling for law and order, the law and order of the oppressor.”  

“The reason the liberal seeks to stop confrontation—and this is the second pitfall of liberalism—is that his role, regardless of what he says, is really to maintain the status quo, rather than to change it,” Ture wrote.

This is true for the white-adjacent liberal as much as for the white liberal. Therefore, grievances by non-voters, who may be liberal or progressive leaning, with elected officials of the Democratic Party or candidates, even amidst a fascist takeover of government, are valid. However, those folks are told to vote out of necessity because it is the politically savvy move. It’s the same call to voters since the turn of the century, because each election is labeled the most consequential for life as we know it. 

There’s some truth to that, particularly on the local level, where, particularly for Black voters, the difference between a Democrat and a Republican is either being with or without vital community resources. 

But political savviness, out of necessity, isn’t enough to change the status quo of liberalism, which is, at best, moderate. Status quo liberalism has provided people of color with deliberate representation, women with the illusion of independence, all genders with the opportunity of choice, and the working classes with the illusion of upward mobility, with no intention of ridding our society of capitalism, racism, imperialism, misogyny, neo-colonialism, or settler colonialism. 

The only intention of the liberal is neo-liberal hegemony, which is global dominance of other nations and peoples via free-market capitalism to protect the capitalist class and support government domination. Consider the governor, and any chief executive within elected office, as the commissioner of a sports league, being the state in this example, and the capitalist class serving as the team owners. Her responsibility is to the league and its owners. The labor, being the rest of us, is replaceable. 

Sure, Sherrill is replaceable like any politician. But the people continue choosing a liberal in progressive attire. 

The governor talks a good game. She certainly did at election time, and she did outside of Delaney Hall. But make no mistake, that Sherrill is so preoccupied with stopping confrontation—in the name of public safety—that she finds herself defending and calling for law and order, the law and order of the oppressor.

So, I ask liberals, is it still “Blue No Matter Who?” Or is it time to be more than just “politically savvy” out of necessity?