The forum was over, and I still couldn’t believe what I was seeing. A room full of Democratic candidates, all fighting for the same congressional seat, and the one person who should have been at the center of it all wasn’t even there. Uncle Luke. Luther Campbell.
The rapper from 2 Live Crew, one of Donald Trump’s loudest critics, had decided to run for Congress in Florida’s District 20, and now, at the first big debate of the primary season, he was a no-show. I kept scanning the room, waiting for him to walk in late with that big personality of his, but nothing. Just empty chairsand the other five candidates trading barbs on stage. I’ve supported the Democratic Party my whole life.
I’ve voted blue in every election I can remember. I believed them when they said they were the party of the people, the party of fairness. But watching this race unfold, I started to question everything I thought I knew. It started when Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a white congresswoman whose own district got wiped out by redistricting, decided she was going to run in District 20 instead of stepping aside.
District 20, the historically black district. The seat that had just been vacated by Sheila Cherfilus McCormick, who was under federal indictment for allegedly stealing five million dollars from the government. Instead of letting the community choose one of their own to represent them, Debbie swooped in like she owned the place, and the black political establishment was furious. But here’s the part that really got to me.
Uncle Luke, of all people—the man who spent years calling Trump a liar, a cheat, a fraud—started changing his tune. He said he could see what Trump was talking about. He said the system was rigged. And watching what was happening in this race, I started to see it too.
Because these career politicians, the ones I’d always supported, were doing exactly what they accused Trump of doing. They were cheating. One of the candidates had people knocking on seniors’ doors, telling them they’d take their ballots to the polling box for them. They’d open up the ballot, change the vote, and drop it in.
They called themselves ballot harvesters. I didn’t even know that existed until now. They were targeting seniors who didn’t have the resources to get out and vote on their own, going right to their front doors and stealing their votes right in front of them. And the data machines told them exactly who had voted and who hadn’t.
So they knew exactly which doors to knock on. They had the money to pay for it. They had the organization to pull it off. And they called it helping.
I couldn’t believe it. These were Democrats. My party. The people I’d defended against Trump’s lies for years.
And here they were, proving him right. You got to win by cheating. Unbelievable. You should be ashamed of yourself.
You’re a liar and you’re a cheater. I said it out loud to myself in the car, and I felt sick to my stomach. So when Uncle Luke said he could sympathize with Trump’s complaints about rigged elections, I hated to admit it, but I understood. I hated to agree with Donald Trump.
But on this one, I had to agree with him. The career politicians, Democrats, they were really cheating. And it didn’t stop there. At the debate, the other candidates went after Debbie hard.
They said she didn’t represent the community. They said she was forum shopping—coming into a district she didn’t live in, had never represented, just because her old seat was gone. Elijah Manley, one of the black candidates in the race, stood in front of the crowd and said there was an attack on black people in this country, and we had to stand up against it. Everyone talked about how this district was a black access district, how erasing that remedy would erase the past and lead to a future that would destroy them.
They talked about investing in communities left behind, about everyone having a seat at the table. And Debbie stood there, defending her record, talking about how she’d fought for minorities, for immigrants, for consumers her whole career. But none of them addressed what I kept thinking about. Why was she even here?
Why was a white woman from another district running in one of the only historically black districts left in Florida? The party that preached diversity, equity, and inclusion was letting her walk in and take this seat from a community that had fought for decades to have a voice in Congress. And the only person who seemed willing to call it out loudly was Uncle Luke—and even he was missing when it mattered most. After the forum wrapped up, a reporter asked why Luke wasn’t there.
Turns out he said he never confirmed the event. He said nobody on his team confirmed an invitation, so he just didn’t show up. I love a good fight, but I never confirmed an event, he posted on Facebook afterward. So the debate went on for two hours without him, and the other candidates tore each other apart over who was the real representative of the community.
But the only voice that might have actually shaken things up was sitting at home, posting about it afterward. I kept waiting for someone—anyone—in the Democratic leadership to stand up and say this wasn’t right. To say Debbie should step aside and let the district choose its own voice. But it never happened.
Even Hakeem Jeffries, who’d worked with Debbie for decades, wouldn’t commit to endorsing her. He said everybody had a right to run where they saw fit. He said she had a strong track record. But he also said they all needed to be sensitive to the moment, given the assault on black political representation that was happening across the country.
He didn’t say she should drop out. He didn’t say she was wrong to run. He just said he hadn’t made a decision. And that was the closest thing to leadership anyone in the party was willing to show.
So here we are, y’all. The polls had Debbie Wasserman Schultz as the frontrunner. Elijah Manley had an outside shot. And Uncle Luke, the one guy who might have actually shaken things up, couldn’t even be bothered to show up to the debate.
The machine was going to roll right over this district, and nobody was going to stop it. And I kept thinking about those seniors, opening their doors to smiling people who told them they were there to help. They handed over their ballots, trusting that their votes would be cast the way they intended. And instead, someone opened up that envelope, changed their vote, and dropped it in the box like their choice didn’t matter at all.
That wasn’t helping. That was stealing. And the people doing it called themselves Democrats. The same party I’d defended my whole life.
The same party I’d believed in. And for the first time, I understood why people like Uncle Luke were starting to say they saw what Trump was talking about. Because I saw it too now. And I didn’t know what to do with that.
I didn’t know who to trust anymore. All I knew was that the system I’d believed in my whole life had a rot in it that I’d refused to see. And now that I saw it, I couldn’t unsee it.
And I couldn’t stop wondering who else was going to get hurt by it before it was over.
