Massachusetts North Shore Democrats
Phillips Beach at Dawn, Swampscott, Massachusetts.
Democratic Town Committees

What are Democratic Town Committees?

Democratic Town Committees (DTCs) and Democratic City Committees (DCCs) are official entities recognized by the Massachusetts Democratic Party and by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Several hundred local, community-based Democratic Committees function in Massachusetts cities and towns. Their responsibilities include organizing local Democrats, working to elect Democrats to public office, and increasing Democratic registration in their respective neighborhoods.

The North Shore region of Massachusetts has no fixed definition. It may be considered as the region north of Boston, extending to the New Hampshire border, encompassing the communities that border the Atlantic Ocean and including several inland communities This portion of the Massachusetts Cities and Towns map shows the North Shore region.

Most of these cities and towns have Democratic City or Town Committees that hold regular meetings, often with guest speakers, and engage in various activities that promote Democratic values. Committee meetings are open to the public. You do not need to be a member to attend meetings, and you are welcome to volunteer to participate in activities that fit your interests.

This Website is a gateway to the North Shore Democratic City and Town Committees. The DTCs section has links to the Democratic Committee Websites and Facebook pages, and we encourage you to contact a local or nearby Committee to learn what is going on in your community. We also include information on current officeholders and we provide links to many national organizations.

News

Trump Is Speaking Like Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini

October 18, 2024
By Anne Applebaum, The Atlantic

The following is an extended excerpt from Anne Applebaum’s article.

Rhetoric has a history. The words democracy and tyranny were debated in ancient Greece; the phrase separation of powers became important in the 17th and 18th centuries. The word vermin, as a political term, dates from the 1930s and ’40s, when both fascists and communists liked to describe their political enemies as vermin, parasites, and blood infections, as well as insects, weeds, dirt, and animals. The term has been revived and reanimated, in an American presidential campaign, with Donald Trump’s description of his opponents as “radical-left thugs” who “live like vermin.”

This language isn’t merely ugly or repellant: These words belong to a particular tradition. Adolf Hitler used these kinds of terms often. In 1938, he praised his compatriots who had helped “cleanse Germany of all those parasites who drank at the well of the despair of the Fatherland and the People.” In occupied Warsaw, a 1941 poster displayed a drawing of a louse with a caricature of a Jewish face. The slogan: “Jews are lice: they cause typhus.”

Stalin used the same kind of language at about the same time. He called his opponents the “enemies of the people,” implying that they were not citizens and that they enjoyed no rights. He portrayed them as vermin, pollution, filth that had to be “subjected to ongoing purification,” and he inspired his fellow communists to employ similar rhetoric.

This kind of language was not limited to Europe. Mao Zedong also described his political opponents as “poisonous weeds.” Pol Pot spoke of “cleansing” hundreds of thousands of his compatriots so that Cambodia would be “purified.”

In each of these very different societies, the purpose of this kind of rhetoric was the same. If you connect your opponents with disease, illness, and poisoned blood, if you dehumanize them as insects or animals, if you speak of squashing them or cleansing them as if they were pests or bacteria, then you can much more easily arrest them, deprive them of rights, exclude them, or even kill them. If they are parasites, they aren’t human. If they are vermin, they don’t get to enjoy freedom of speech, or freedoms of any kind. And if you squash them, you won’t be held accountable.

He [Trump] has said of immigrants, “They’re poisoning the blood of our country” and “They’re destroying the blood of our country.” He has claimed that many have “bad genes.” He has also been more explicit: “They’re not humans; they’re animals”; they are “cold-blooded killers.” He refers more broadly to his opponents—American citizens, some of whom are elected officials—as “the enemy from within … sick people, radical-left lunatics.” Not only do they have no rights; they should be “handled by,” he has said, “if necessary, National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military.”

When he suggests that he would target both legal and illegal immigrants, or use the military arbitrarily against U.S. citizens, he does so knowing that past dictatorships have used public displays of violence to build popular support. By calling for mass violence, he hints at his admiration for these dictatorships but also demonstrates disdain for the rule of law and prepares his followers to accept the idea that his regime could, like its predecessors, break the law with impunity.

Just this week, when Trump was swaying to music at a surreal rally, he did so in front of a huge slogan: Trump Was Right About Everything. This is language borrowed directly from Benito Mussolini, the Italian fascist. Soon after the rally, the scholar Ruth Ben-Ghiat posted a photograph of a building in Mussolini’s Italy displaying his slogan: Mussolini Is Always Right.

The full article by Anne applebaum is available in The Atlantic.
Link

New COVID-19 Vaccines with a 2024–2025 Formula

Now Available
COVID-19 Vaccine

Three new COVID-19 vaccines are now available in the United States. These formulations were updated in August 2024 to target the Omicron variant that has been circulating in the summer of 2024.

Two are mRNA vaccines:

One is an adjuvanted recombinant protein vaccine:

The general recommendation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is vaccination with a 2024-2025 formula COVID-19 vaccine for individuals aged six months or older.

Vaccination is especially recommended for individuals 65 years or older, immunocompromised individuals, and individuals with multiple medical comorbidities, as they are at highest risk of severe outcomes with COVID-19 and are most likely to benefit from vaccination. The new vaccine provides coverage for the Omicron variant that has been circulating, and it also boosts waning immunity that is common in the older age groups.

CDC Reference: Link

Upcoming Events

It Can't Happen Here—Again

October 27
It Can't Happen Here Again

The Newburyport Democratic City Committee and The PEG Center for Art & Activism are partnering with Writers for Democratic Action to Present It Can’t Happen Here–Again! Admission to both performances is free. Details are provided in the Press Releas.

Links:

Now through October/November
Farmers Markets: Lynn, Swampscott, Marblehead
Farmers Markets