Yesterday, January 6th, I found myself in the center of a small, very online controversy circling around a Philadelphia area ‘activist’ and politico, Lindy Li. Ms. Li posted a Tweet quoting union buster, murderer, and ultra-conservative UK PM Margaret Thatcher, towards the goal of left punching and red-baiting AOC and consequently the new left-wing movement. She included in the Tweet, the aforementioned quote, “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.” This Thatcher quote should be strange, with its ‘mask-off’ quality, coming from a surrogate (and perhaps paid) member of the Joe Biden for President Campaign. Stranger still, Ms. Li, until recently was, openly and unabashedly, left-wing. As the saying goes, “The problem with grifting is that you eventually run out of other people’s money (and time).”
In the haughty days of 2017, when the fallout of the Trump presidency was still becoming clear, Ms. Li ran for congress in the Pennsylvania House District 5 race, which eventually nominated Mary Gay Scanlon as the preferred candidate, and for the newly created District 1. She also ran in 2015 for the 7th Congressional district and the 6th (this is before the 2018 redistricting in Pennsylvania). Who is Lindy Li? I have no clue, but strangely enough, I donated to her 2016 campaign for the 7th Congressional District. She wrote me a gracious thank you note, which I appreciated. I had no indication of what her political trajectory was.
When I first encountered the Thatcher tweet I was confused. I was sure Ms. Li asked for Philadelphia DSA’s endorsement in 2018. I also was sure that she attended our Medicare for All town hall, where she was affirmative in her support of the program. This is decisively different from how she was conducting herself online in 2020. I tweet responded saying it was odd that she asked for a DSA endorsement and supported Medicare for All, but was now engaging in McCarthyism. She told me I was a liar for saying that she requested DSA’s endorsement. I could not immediately find proof of my memory, so I apologized and redoubled my question about her support of Medicare for All. She ignored me and went on to retweet many Biden supporters who were, in some cases, tweeting borderline antisemitic things about Bernie Sanders.
Left twitter began to notice and soon there was a fair amount of piling-on. A picture of Lindy and Bernie Sanders was found with her positive Feeling The Bern caption.
A few hours later, someone found the Philly DSA Medium post confirming that she wanted an endorsement and that she had borderline socialist political views! Odd! She quickly deleted the tweet calling me a liar, but refused to engage with my questions about Medicare for All and the antisemitic tweets she was retweeting. She portrays herself as a Biden surrogate or campaign staff, so I would expect a more controlled feed on her part. It makes Biden Bros look bad.
What did I learn from this experience? Not sure! Perhaps Lindy has had a massive change of heart and now is truly a Biden stan, or, which I think is more possible, she is a full-on grifter who goes where the wind blows. Biden campaign, I would be remiss to warn you that Lindy probably doesn’t have your best interests in her heart. Hopefully, she will stop accusing people of lying (lying herself in the process) and stops retweeting antisemitism!
As an end note, I think this is a good warning to DSA chapters and other left organizations to make sure your endorsed and supported candidates are the real deal! Imagine if Philly DSA endorsed Lindy and she went on to do this. It would be embarrassing.
Please take note.
