We need to elect people to Congress in November who will stand up to vested and powerful interests (namely wealthy individuals and large corporations) on behalf of everyday working people and families. We need to do this to rescue our democracy from plutocracy. This will require a high voter turnout, which will happen only if voters are excited and enthusiastic about the candidates they are voting for. It does not happen if voters are just voting against the other candidate or party, or for the lesser of two evils; that is not enough to motivate many voters to get out and vote.
In the last presidential election, despite all the attention it got, less than 56% – barely half – of eligible citizens actually voted. Although Trump and Clinton each excited a relatively small segment of voters, the electorate at large was not excited by either of these two candidates. Senator Sanders in his run for the Democratic nomination excited more voters and had more voters enthusiastically voting for him than either Trump or Clinton. President Obama excited enough voters, particularly Blacks, in his 2008 run for president that 62% of eligible voters went to the polls, which is the highest turnout since 1970, but still well below voter turnout among most of the other relatively wealthy democracies. (I’ll do a subsequent post on low voter participation in the US and reasons for it.).
If Democrats want to win in November, they need to put forward a clear, progressive agenda that will excite and motivate a broad swath of the electorate. Such a strategy has the potential to increase turnout substantially by getting people who vote irregularly or who have never voted excited and wanting to go vote. This is particularly important in non-presidential elections when typically, only 40% of eligible voters go to the polls. Some Democrats think that running against President Trump and the Republicans who are enabling his behavior and policies will lead them to electoral success. This is a risky strategy; it’s much better to be running for something than against something.
Exciting and motivating voters is what Senator Sanders did in his surprisingly successful and almost victorious campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. This is what Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did in winning a shocking upset in her recent primary election victory for a US House seat in New York. This is what Senators Merkley and Warren and others are doing in their re-election bids. And what a wide range of candidates for local, state, and national offices are doing across the country. It is why Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez were in Kansas supporting two candidates for Congress, James Thompson and Brent Wilder. Overflow crowds of thousands enthusiastically rallied for these progressive candidates in Republican Kansas. [1]
An emerging progressive movement is evident in at least four candidates for Governor (in Florida, Maryland, Michigan, and New York), at least 53 congressional candidates, and too-numerous-to-count candidates for state legislatures and local government posts. [ 2] These candidates are listening to the grassroots and to polls that show what Americans want from their government – good jobs with fair pay, good K-12 public education, affordable higher education, support for balancing work and family, a health care system that works (with many specifically supporting a single-payer system or Medicare-for-all), and economic security. Unfortunately, many of the leaders of the Democratic party are resisting this progressive ground swell of energy, fighting against it by supporting centrist and corporate-leaning candidates rather than progressive, grassroots candidates.
Many in the media and some political pundits are describing this progressive movement as “far left.” That may be true in today’s political climate, but it is not true historically. Many of the progressive policies being espoused by the current progressive movement were mainstream Democratic policies in the 1960s and a surprising number of them were supported by Republicans then as well. As a more recent example, believe it or not, the individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) – the requirement that everyone buy health insurance – was a conservative, Republican think tank policy proposal. Despite the vehement Republican attacks on the individual mandate ever since the ACA was proposed – and Democrats’ unwillingness to defend it with any vigor – the individual mandate was proposed by the very conservative and Republican Heritage Foundation as part of its plan for comprehensive national legislation to provide universal “quality, affordable health care.” The plan was introduced in a 1989 book, “A National Health System for America,” by Butler and Haislmaier. [3]
In labeling current progressive policy proposals as “far left,” people are forgetting that President Clinton and other Democrats in the late 1980s and 1990s moved the Democratic Party a long way to the right and toward the political center in their efforts to win the presidency after 12 years of Republican presidents and then to win Clinton’s re-election.
The emerging progressive movement is getting short shrift from our mainstream media. A dramatic example is the lack of media coverage of the Poor People’s Campaign. From late May through June, it sponsored 40 days of action including multiple rallies and civil disobedience actions in Washington, D.C., and 30 state capitals but it got almost no coverage in the mainstream media. Thousands of people demonstrated, and hundreds were arrested for civil disobedience, but coverage was minimal. It was organized to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s original Poor People’s Campaign that linked the issues of civil rights and economic justice for all. [4] [5]
A number of groups have been organized to support progressive, grassroots candidates including Our Revolution (the spinoff from Senator Sanders presidential campaign), the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (which describes itself as the Senator Elizabeth Warren wing of the Democratic Party), the Working Families Party, Indivisible, Justice Democrats, and Brand New Congress. They provide numerous opportunities to support progressive candidates and activities, if you’re so motivated.
These organizations and the candidates they support are putting forth a progressive policy agenda. However, they tend to do so in a piecemeal fashion that makes it hard to grasp or summarize overall goals. In my next posts, I will summarize various proposals for an overall progressive policy agenda for the US that would excite voters by addressing issues that truly matter to working Americans.
[1] Nichols, J., 7/20/18, “Sander and Ocasio-Cortez rally Kansas for a working-class politics that stands up to the Kochs,” The Nation (https://www.thenation.com/article/sanders-ocasio-cortez-rally-kansas-working-class-politics-stands-kochs/)
[2] Burns, A., 7/21/18, “There is a revolution on the left. Democrats are bracing,” The New York Times
[3] Roy, A., 10/20/11, “How the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, promoted the individual mandate,” Forbes (https://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2011/10/20/how-a-conservative-think-tank-invented-the-individual-mandate/#720de15a6187)
[4] Sarkar, S., 5/23/18, “Hundreds of Poor People’s Campaign activists got themselves arrested for racial justice,” Common Dreams (https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/05/23/hundreds-poor-peoples-campaign-activists-got-themselves-arrested-racial-justice)
[5] Corbett, J., 6/21/18, “‘Stop the war! Feed the poor!’: March by Poor People’s Campaign ends with arrests in DC,” Common Dreams (https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/06/21/stop-war-feed-poor-march-poor-peoples-campaign-ends-arrests-dc)
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