How Morales Can Widen The Movement

Bill Bartholomew reads from Lula da Silva’s 2002 Letter to the Brazilian People, then connects its message—an ambitious agenda paired with an open invitation to allies—to Providence’s current political moment.

He argues that David Morales can stay committed to affordability and rent stabilization while building productive relationships with skeptics and institutional partners. The episode explores the practical challenges of governing, including existing agreements and policing, and looks to New York and Boston for examples of broad coalition-building without abandoning core goals.

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Bill Bartholomew 0:00

I want to go back to June of 2002 to Brazil, where Lula, on the verge of his first election to the Brazilian presidency on his fourth run, major moment for the working party in Brazil. And Lula writes the letter to the Brazilian people to reassure markets and moderates before he's even elected. I think there's a strong tie-in right now to what's happening here in Providence, Rhode Island. Welcome into Bartholomew Town. I'm Bill Bartholomew. I'll read from you this letter in its entirety, and then I want to offer some insight or thoughts at least on how this connects in. This is June 22nd, 2002. Lula. He writes, Brazil wants to change. The current government's economic model has run its course. It has brought the country to financial stagnation, record unemployment, and widespread social instability. Everyone knows that the path we are on is unsustainable. For the past several years, our political opposition has warned that relying solely on financial speculation and runaway external debt would eventually break the economy. Today that risk is a reality. The market is nervous, our currency is volatile, and the fear of inflation has returned. But Brazil is a great country and our crisis is political, not a structural failure of our people's capacity to produce. We possessed an enormous internal market, a diversified industrial base, and a population eager to work. What we lack is leadership that can inspire confidence and govern for the majority rather than the few. I'm writing this letter to speak directly to all sectors of Brazilian society, to workers, business leaders, international investors, and everyday families. Our victory in the upcoming election will mean the choice for an alternative project. However, let me be entirely clear, change will not happen through magic, nor will it happen through the rupture of legal frameworks. A government led by the workers' party will behave with total fiscal responsibility. We will honor all of Brazil's national and international contracts, institutional deals, and financial obligations. We will maintain a strong primary surplus to keep public debt under control, and we will do everything necessary to safeguard the stability of our currency and keep inflation down. True stability, however, cannot rely on economic austerity alone. Financial responsibility must walk hand in hand with social responsibility. We cannot have economic growth without social inclusion. Our primary goal will be a macroeconomic policy aimed at structural reforms, a fair tax system, a renewed social security structure, and robust agrarian reform. We must break the cycle of low growth by stimulating the productive sector, investing in infrastructure, supporting national industries, and opening up credit to small businesses. Our commitment is to a social pact for development. Brazil needs an emergency program to eradicate hunger, fight poverty, and guarantee that every citizen can live with dignity. We know the path ahead will be difficult, and the legacy left by the current administration will require immense effort to overcome. It will require a broad national alliance of all democratic forces, social movements, and productive sectors. We do not fear the challenges ahead. We are ready to govern with transparency, honesty, and a profound respect for democracy. Brazil will change, and it will change for the better. That's Alula, June 20, I'm sorry, for June 2002. On the verge of that workers' party victory and major transformations. That sounds in many ways, obviously, in in a on a micro level, that sounds a lot like what's happening in Providence right now, doesn't it? What Lula described there. And to me, right now, I think David Morales, and this to a lesser extent, the city council, but specifically Morales, is facing this problem that everyone's going to say, well, he's got to soften his agenda. He's going to have to moderate, he's going to have to move to the right, or else he's not going to be able to get anything done. There's going to be, you know, no real-world scenario where anything can happen if he doesn't pivot, right? And that's just a completely false choice. That is actually not what is the great challenge for Morales and the council right now. The challenge is to widen the circle of allies around that existing agenda, which got them elected, or presumptively elected. Of course, Morales has to get by Dave Talon in the Republican. He'll probably win that 80-20 or something like that. When you look or listen to what I just read there from Lula, it's a it's a moment of outreach. It's a moment to of of invitation to say, hey, we have a world, we have a vision. What is happening on the ground simply doesn't work. People are hurting. We know it. But by the way, those people I just named, they're great. We believe in what's in front of us and who we are. That's not the issue. This isn't good versus evil. This is a simple direction, an alternative project, as Lula put it. And that's exactly where David Morales, I think, should be operating from. It's an invitation. There's not, there isn't or ought not be this moment of, okay, you know. And you hear it out there. You hear it some people saying, look, I heard Joe Paolino say praise Morales' campaign, former Providence mayor, ambassador to Malta, uh, one of the bigger developers in the city, now uh part owner of the Providence Place Small. Joe Paellino said, Look, he praised Morales' campaign. He said it was perfect. But he said, look, you got to govern your campaign in poetry and you govern in prose. And and and that is actually in truth, um, or coming from a place of truth, it's just a matter, well, well, but who's truth? And and who's prose, right? I wrote on X last night, X at Bill Bartholomew, if you want to uh see this or follow along, check out the comments. It's interesting. There's some interesting comments here. But I wrote, at this point in Providence, taking a neoliberal approach to housing, i.e., anti-red stabilization, period, should be viewed as going against the grain and the will of the people. Residents spoke loud and clear about this VMA oral in council elections. It's democracy. And I stand by that. In other words, there's this is not a moment where, you know, okay, now, and you hear this out there. Now things were reality's gonna come to fruition. Yeah. In that letter to the Brazilian people that Lula wrote, he noted that there will be the obligations of the city will be or of the of the country would be honored. Existing contracts, there's a pilot agreement with Brown and and other institutions. Will those be honored? There's clauses in those agreements that make it essentially impossible to renegotiate. So if we're talking about getting more money from Brown, what does that actually look like? Right? So there's spaces to navigate there. But on a broad-based agenda, this is a moment for providence and kind of the new, not I don't know how to put it, the new providence, new face of providence. I'm not sure. This providence looks a lot like the providence I've been living in for years. When I think about Morales or when I think about uh the council or who the people that I've seen out and about and energized about this, this feels like, oh yeah, it's not uncommon that people are struggling with rent, they're struggling with other affordability issues, they're struggling to buy a home. This is the reality. So it's not like, oh, really? Yeah, I didn't know that. I mean, I I've heard a couple of people are struggling, but this is Providence. So it's not the new Providence, it's just the the spotlight or the orientation just kind of went, okay, now now we're focused on on a wider will of the people. You know, look, he's gonna have to Morales is gonna have to negotiate things with the police. Mike Amondi's, you know, he was on Channel 10. They put that, first of all, the Mike Amandi's the head of Fraternal Order Police in Providence, Lodge 3. And they put that mailer out. Remember that one? They they had like an AI version of Dave Morales, darkened his skin that looked black. I can't even remember, it just looks stupid. It was like, you know, Dave Morales is gonna be mayor and crime is gonna go through the roof and everything's gonna be horrible. All right. Then that whole tactic failed. I I that was just a bad, bad approach. But but no doubt, um, you know, Morales said, uh I heard, I heard uh Amandi on channel 10 say, well, you know, we gotta see how it goes. We don't want a reduction in police, we don't want this, we don't want that. And Morales then said, Yeah, we're gonna meet. Hasn't met yet, but he'll meet. And Morales told me in the debate that I that I did with with him and Smiley that both he and Smiley said they're not gonna seek to cut. Actually, the question was, how many, about how many Providence police officers should we have? And they both answered in that 450 range, which is where we're at. So it's like you have that meaning, I don't know. At some point, can you bring in Mike Amandi into the Morales Coalition fully? I don't know. Certainly hard to imagine. But we look to New York City. Zoran Mandani keeping Jess Tish from the Adams administration on as police commissioner. Now, there are downside stats. If you look at the actual arrest statistics right now in New York, especially in minority communities, they are up. Now, you can't necessarily that's a tough stat to break down on an anecdotal basis, but there is that. You go, okay, it's not like the the agenda of uh diversion was widely installed enough that it's showing up in data. But what it did do in the moment was reassure, right, Lula's invitation. Mam Dani invited skeptics, invited the police department, the existing police infrastructure, the portions of the Adams administration that maybe were deemed relatively competent to come in. Hey, you you we want we want you here. It's it's our party, but you're you're welcome. It's our show, but we'd love to have you on it. We'd love to bring it into the fold. And that softened a lot. And you've seen how over time Mamdani has been able to constantly invite more and more people into his coalition. Whether it be, you know, Curtis Slewa and what does that really mean? But it means something. Um, but I'm saying in the early days of the campaign, if you will. Not the early days of the campaign, the early days of Mamdani kind of being very clearly the guy who is going to be the next mayor of the city. And it's also reflected from the standpoint of his work with Kathy Hokel. Who could they co-endorse each other? Yeah, Hokel goes after him on budgetary stuff. He's still going to try to tax the second homes over 25 million, whatever it is, 25 million. I don't even they'll go back and forth, but broadly, they are demonstrating, even actually have said as much, the power of a wide democratic tent, the power of multidimensional uh assessment of problems. But also, hey, Zoran Mamdani is a mayor of New York City, and that agenda is moving forward. That energy is moving forward, that vibe is moving forward, that compassion is moving forward. The invitation remains open. We can also look to Mass or Boston, Michelle Wu, who I think is probably the best moderate progressive in this country. She not she and Moore Healy not endorsing each other, yet a lot of cooperation, a lot of pragmatic solutions. Okay, there's just there's different ways of doing it, but that invitation is out there and those organic alliances can be built. Sometimes they're unlikely. Remember that whole Trump Mamdani thing, the bromance or whatever it was? I mean, that's obviously just Trump being obsessed with stars and wanting to be associated with a star in a moment. But nonetheless, it effectively showed, hey, there's an arena of agreement here. You may have a guy on in Zora Mamdani and a guy in Donald Trump who are absolutely polar opposites on just about every major issue, character, understanding, whatever it may be. But yet, when it comes to developing new housing in New York City, guess what? They are on the same page, maybe not exactly in terms of tactic, but for sure in terms of goal. So the coalition widens to unlikely places. That softens also some of the people who are just blanketly either racist, Islamophobic, or somehow duped into thinking that we're under attack from communism or something. To see Zoran Mamdani in the Oval Office with, you know, kind of getting slapped in the back by Trump and the ha-ha's and this, that, and the other. There's something to that. Now, I'm not saying David Morales has to go down to uh stand Armadama with Trump, but the point is that that's the coalition widening. Zoran did not compromise on his agenda and grovel to the president. We saw that from uh the mayor of D.C. a little bit, where she took that mural, where she took that pathway of, well, let's just kind of go roll the punches and see if we can sort of stave off some of the blows. No, there's a way to hold your position while still being open. When Lula wrote that letter, it was specific. It named the problems that were happening in real time, that campaign and and and even the resonation of it to this day. And I note it because outside of the United States have spent more time in Brazil than any other country, okay? And the political moment right now mirrors very much the US, but it also is very different because unlike the US the turn of the century saw a real working class movement start to gain power. Whereas in in our case it was a corporate rise that obviously was exponential. But the fundamental concept of building a coalition from your position and bring people into your world, that's the moment right now. My neighbors. Let's get down to business. But we're not here to compromise on fundamental specifically named in the campaign problems that we want to solve. And people who are on the outside of this, if you're totally anti-rent control, totally anti-rent stabilization, whatever your position, not you know, look, the racist, the immigrant, the anti-um, you know, just the hateful garbage. Okay, you guys have fun. Have fun. Do your thing. You know, it's it's a minor sliver of uh relative population, if you will. But for most people, especially smiley voters, right, I think the invitation has to be there too. Whatever your concerns were about Dave Morales, whatever when you heard a more affordable Providence, a better Providence, whatever, when those words came and you reacted with skepticism or you voted for Bret Smiley, other than just loyalty to Smiley or rewarding smiley. Because by the way, Smiley, you know, the the thing about Morales, Morales was not running against a weak candidate. There's this notion in some in some places that, you know, oh, Smiley's terrible, he was gonna get beat. No, Smiley was that that's not the case on. This was a movement that, in spite of the fact that you had a mayor that was look, Brett Smiley got, again, it was a two-way race, not a three-way, but Brett Smiley got more votes this time than he did last. And in my neighborhood, he dominated. And in in South Providence, Elmwood. So that's a part of this as well. But what's not a part of it is you turn on the radio, you hear, oh, well, you know, he's gonna get into power, he's gonna have to pivot. You know, he's gonna pivot to the right, he's gonna he'll be a capitalist before this whole thing is over. Yeah, okay, maybe, but not if not in terms of the agenda that was specifically named. And the invitation's there. Or at least it should be there. For different perspectives to get down to business. This election was decided on the rent stabilization issue. You wanna I can't prove it to you. I can't go around and interview everybody who voted. But look at the results in the council races, look at Ward 1 John Gonzalves, and just look at this disuse your head. I said it on television this past week on PBS. My rent since I moved into my law space here in South Providence has gone up year over year, 68%. Again, 6'8, 68%. I haven't been complaining about it, I haven't doing that kind of business. I've been just trying to, you know what? Do more. Keep moving. But it's a joke. And the question really comes down to what kind of providence do you want? Like, what does this city mean to you? And the articulated vision that comes from that Morales campaign and how it resonated with people, it looks a lot like the providence that I know and the providence I know people want to have. And that should not be compromised on. It'd be interesting to see what the Morales folks relationship looks like. Hey, don't count Ken Block out of it either. Don't count Ken Block out of it either. I mean, Morales has already demonstrated this in the campaign. Jorge Alorza is a perfect example of somebody who would be vo would definitely not be a democratic socialist. Not that Morales himself was, that's a different story for a different day, but a an endorsed DSA or reclaim Rhode Island candidate. Jorge Alorza's not that guy. He's a big I told I saw Jorge Alorza on election night, talked to him for a couple of minutes. I said, I think, I don't think you realize what an impact you had. I mean, I don't know if he did, I didn't say, but he's, I hope you realize you had an impact on an anecdotal basis. I get to look at things from the ground level because I live in province, I get to look at things from a higher level of um or a macro perspective from being on doing the radio in the afternoon. You know, people call in and text and email, and this you get a flavor of what's happening in that. And in that space, I mean, there's people who think Alores is terrible because he had Omar with him or he liked to ride his bike or whatever it was. You know, they're gonna always have the morons, right? Discount them. Invite them to come in. Absolutely, that invitation's open, but remember, we're respectful people. This is an inclusive, respectful place. So if you can't live up, if you can't participate in that, then we might have we might have to look at this from a different angle, but you know. But there are people who no doubt saw the the Olorza and said an endorsement and said, okay, maybe this thing is wider than I thought it was. That's a big deal. And that's what's gonna continue to grow this movement for for morality and for providence, right? Convert those skeptics, man. That's what it comes down to. Not that you need to, but you're just better. You're just better off we're better off operating that way. You know why? Because it moves towards peace and harmony. It moves towards peace and harmony. All right. Lots coming up here on Bartholomew Town. I got a lot of a lot of thoughts still on the election. I'm trying to uh I'm gonna give you a breakdown of Lieutenant Governor's Democratic primary. Um we're gonna hear from now general election candidates as we speak right now. Looks like Aaron Gukin will win that Republican primary for governor, defeating Elaine Palino. Maybe we'll get Mr. Gurkeehan on the show later this week to break that down and all the candidates. All the candidates. I'm gonna you'll hear from everybody who had the big wins or trying to I'm just trying to be kind of chill about it. You know what I mean? Send me an email anytime, Bill at RIPodcast.com, Instagram, and X at BillBartholomew. Listen to Bartholomewtown on the radio on WPRO Saturdays at three o'clock. Thanks to our sponsors.