The Democratic Leader You Did Not Know We Had

Rising progressive star Representative Lateefah Simon, who succeeded icon Barbara Lee to represent Oakland this year, wrestled with whether to attend Donald Trump’s Tuesday address to Congress even after I talked to her on Monday. The first member of Congress who was born legally blind, and the first Muslim representative from California, Simon had been tapped by the Working Families Party to do a “prebuttal” before Trump’s speech.

“I think it’s my duty to be in this building,” Simon told me. “But I surely don’t want to hear his racist, misogynist rhetoric. I surely don’t want to hear the lies that malign folks in this country who work the hardest. But I believe I need to be there. This is our house. The president is a guest.”

Then she switched tack. “I’m deeply struggling with that. We’ll see. I don’t want to turn my back on my duty.”

In the end, Simon decided her duty meant attending, while other progressives did not—and some, like Representatives Al Green and Maxwell Frost, walked out early. But Simon’s “prebuttal” underscored her belief that no matter the fireworks, she knew Trump wouldn’t say anything at his pathetic speech that she couldn’t predict. She was right.

Trump’s horror show went as we expected. “America is woke no more,” he declared, as though it’s better to be asleep. He bragged about tragedies he’d caused and tragedies to come. He told us “the days of unelected bureaucrats are over,” as he hailed unelected DOGE boy Elon Musk.

He brought a sad array of “guests” whom he introduced as victims, including the family of poor Corey Comperatore, killed in the assassination attempt Trump survived in Butler, Pennsylvania, last summer. To be honest, the family did not look at all happy to be there, but I feel for them. It’s hard to be happy after your husband and father dies, kind of inexplicably. And Trump hailed a young cancer survivor who would not survive under his administration’s healthcare and research cuts, and who also did not seem happy to be there. It was awful.

Simon’s response highlighted her difference from other congresspeople.

She is the most effective national progressive activist you might not know: She’s run California social-justice nonprofits since the age of 17. She’s the daughter of a single mother from the Jim Crow South. Simon, who is a single mother herself, is a community activist, a widow, and a criminal justice reformer. Mentored by then–San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris, she moved into the DA’s office working for the Young Woman’s Freedom Center. Mentored by Barbara Lee, she wound up in her seat.

I’m sorry some on the left don’t like what they call “identity politics.” Simon’s identities make her extraordinarily equipped to understand the needs of Americans targeted by the current administration. She is also a working-class warrior.

She talked Tuesday night of her life as a single mother, and also as a widow. “You cannot fight cancer on a budget…. I know what it was like to rely on a death benefit after my husband died in his early 40s…[and] to rely on SNAP benefits.… Donald Trump and Elon Musk and others have never had to put groceries back on the shelf.”

Simon looked ahead to Trump’s ideal America, which comes at the expense of everyone but the rich, where “they’re cheating Americans out of a functioning budget…willing to cut cancer research…school classrooms with 60 kindergarteners. Working people into their 70s and 80s without a hope of retirement that they paid into their whole lives…. [It’s a] sicker and poorer America.”

Dystopia, unless you’re Trump and Musk. That’s the Tech Bro Network State utopia.

Trump introduced Musk at the address with more warmth than he introduced his wife, Melania. This bromance isn’t going anywhere, even though Trump is being diminished by it.

Eventually, Simon did walk out on Trump, about halfway through his tedious speech. I’m sure Melania envied her freedom.

I’d asked Simon ahead of the address how she felt about House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries urging decorum on his members, and seeming to discourage either a boycott or a walkout.

“I have a different job than leader Jeffries. His job is to drive us through this chaos. Trump has flooded the space with ridiculous antics. We all have different vocations here.

“As leader, [Jeffries] is hardcore negotiating with Speaker [Mike] Johnson’s office. He is being extremely disciplined with their talking points. In conversations with me, even about whether I should be in or outside of the chamber, he’s been extremely supportive that I need to lead in the way that I need to lead, and that every district is going to require the deep respect of our constituents and what they need from us.”

She hinted at a battle many progressives are agitating for: Resisting pressure from the fractured GOP congressional leadership to help them avert a government shutdown in the next 10 days.

“What leader Jeffries has told me is: We will get to March 14 and we will fight.” Meanwhile, she added: “I walk with my bullhorn, and my Bible and my Koran, and my briefings, every day.”