‘When you look at the numbers, we win’: the prophetic Texas pastor poised to take Jasmine Crockett’s House seat

David Smith, The Guardian

It was that point in the evening: dinner plates were cleared; speeches had run long; people were chatting, milling or eyeing the exit. But then the Rev Dr Frederick Douglass Haynes III took the stage. Bald, bearded, bespectacled and dressed in black, he delivered a mix of fiery sermon and performance poetry. Soon the guests were back in their seats – rapt, listening, clapping and whooping.

Haynes’s rolling cadence was evocative of the pulpit but the political message was far from kumbaya. Aiming to succeed Democratic star Jasmine Crockett in Texas’s 30th congressional district, he danced like a butterfly with references to the boxer Muhammad Ali and rapper Tupac Shakur. But he also stung like a bee, branding Donald Trump as “President Pickpocket” and Republicans as the authors of racist gerrymandering and voter suppression.

“It’s not enough for us Democrats to diagnose the demolition,” Haynes, 65, thundered at last month’s Opal Lee empowerment gala, a Democratic fundraiser in Fort Worth, Texas. “We have to have the vision for a new reconstruction. You see, it’s one thing to talk about how sorry, trifling, cheating and tacky the Republicans are. That’s well known. It’s another thing to have our own vision of reconstructing what this nation should look like.”

The speech reflected a growing trend of religious left candidates aiming to reclaim a faith-based politics they believe has been hijacked by white evangelicals allied with Trump. Haynes, who is African American, is unabashedly progressive, advocating for equitable urban planning, a living wage, laws to dismantle environmental racism, universal healthcare, and the abolition of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

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