(C) Common Dreams
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Wheeling Resident John Russell Takes Stage at Democratic National Convention [1]
['Derek Redd']
Date: 2024-08
WHEELING — A Wheeling resident with a significant social media following addressed the audience of the Democratic National Convention on its final night Thursday, advocating for working class voters and decrying “dirty energy.”
John Russell — previously a central Ohio farmer and former Ohio congressional candidate — now calls Wheeling home. He is a self-professed “dirtbag journalist” who runs “The Holler,” a Substack newsletter that he labels “class politics for rednecks and hippies.” Several of The Holler’s entries are about the East Palestine train derailment disaster.
Russell also works with nonprofit newsroom More Perfect Union. One of Russell’s videos in conjunction with More Perfect Union ran before he took the stage in Chicago. The video talked about a rally held by former president Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for president, for auto workers. Yet, he said in the video, he had trouble finding any United Auto Worker members at that rally.
Conversely, he said, the Democrats have invested trillions in clean energy over the last four years, bringing back manufacturing and rebuilding infrastructure.
When he took the stage, Russell said that working class people were looking for a political home “after years of both parties putting profit above people.”
“Now Trump, a billionaire, says that he’ll take on the elites,” Russell said, “but then he promises handouts to big oil and he punches down at anyone with the guts to be different.”
He then hearkened back to West Virginians in the 1920s who were labeled “rednecks” because striking workers all wore red bandanas around their necks “as they fought and died for respect and a living wage.”
The fight of the workers then, he continued, was still the fight right now.
“It is our choice to build on this progress and to create a political home for the mass of working Americans fighting for control over their government, their workplaces and their planet,” he said, “and it is our moment to live up to.”
Russell’s inclusion in Thursday’s speeches was, according to published reports, part of the Democrats’ effort to include social media content creators in the convention mix. Younger people are now more apt to get their news from social media, and the Democrats wanted to tap into that movement.
Russell has 182,000 TikTok followers, almost 14,000 Instagram followers and more than 9,000 subscribers to The Holler. One of his videos with More Perfect Union, where he visited a Trump rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, and talked to rally-goers about working-class issues and concerns, has amassed more than 3.2 million views.
Four other influencers given time on the DNC stage were Carlos Eduardo Espina, Deja Foxx, Olivia Julianna and Nabela Noor.
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https://www.theintelligencer.net/news/top-headlines/2024/08/wheeling-resident-john-russell-takes-stage-at-democratic-national-convention/
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