Steve Ongerth is a public transportation worker in Richmond, California. He has been a radical labor/eco organizer for over a quarter century and is cofounder of the IWW Environmental Union Caucus (https://ecology.iww.org).
The first round of the local elections took place against a backdrop of widespread creeping fascism in France and comes after a brutal offensive by the far right, during which the traditional ‘Republican’ right has decisively broken from much of its historical framework and values.