When you think of big names in the Democratic Party, you may think of President Biden, Hillary Clinton, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Chuck Schumer, Rep. Ocasio Cortez or Rep. Ilhan Omar. However, it’s important to distinguish between the two types of figures in the Democratic Party: the establishment types (the back-slappers, they go along to get along like Pelosi and Schumer,) and the progressive wing (those calling for institutional change like Ocasio-Cortez and Omar). Currently, the establishment Democrats are the party leaders: Schumer is the Senate Majority Leader, while the House Minority Leader is Jeffries. They believe in moderate, center-left policies and are incrementalists. They want to build upon the Affordable Care Act, a system that keeps for-profit health insurance companies in charge, has close ties with corporate donors and largely does not support the Green New Deal.
This way of thinking has to go. In 2024, you need a strong progressive agenda to get the American people to come out to vote, not just fiddle around the edges of policy. Let’s look at what happened on the Republican side in 2016. Trump railed against the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership and slammed Hillary Clinton for being corrupt, bought by corporate donors, and for voting to go into Iraq. He won the Republican primary because he stood out from the crowd, said whatever came to mind and seemed authentic, and voters rewarded him. He was willing to metaphorically throw down: he said to Jeb Bush’s face, “The World Trade Center came down during your brother’s reign. Remember that.” In 2010, Republicans swept the midterm elections with the rise of the Tea Party, a further right faction of the party that called for limited government and fiscal responsibility. The Republicans of today seem to be staking their position further and further right every day. Why hasn’t this happened on the Democratic side?
It hasn’t happened because establishment Democrats have blocked progressive change at every turn. In 2016, Wikileaks published documents that showed that the Democratic National Committee was acting in conjunction with the Clinton campaign. Clinton would have the final say on all communications releases and control the party’s finances, and the DNC had to consult with her on other logistics. And what did that get her? F*cking zip. She lost the general election to a racist xenophobe, who was probably the easiest candidate to beat. The establishment would rather lose to a Republican than have a progressive win.
Let’s analyze another case study: Marianne Williamson’s presidential bid for 2024 (as of this writing, she has dropped out). Williamson, an author and presidential candidate in 2020, ran on reviving Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Second Bill of Rights, which included “the right to a job that pays a living wage, the right to a voice in the workplace through a union and collective bargaining, and the right to universal quality healthcare” among other provisions. However, it was even more difficult for her to garner support than Bernie Sanders because of meddling by the Democratic establishment: Corporate media didn’t mention her as Biden’s challenger, blocked her from speaking to high schoolers and the DNC did not plan any debates between the Democratic candidates.
The American people already agree with the progressive agenda. A poll by the McCourtney Institute for Democracy noted that over 90% of Democrats support universal background checks and gun licensing, while 80% and 54% of Republicans support the measures, respectively. On raising the minimum wage, Democrats support raising the federal minimum wage from $7.25/hour to $12 by 95%, $17 by 94$ and $20 by 89%. Republicans support the measures by 82%, 60% and 60%, respectively. On legalizing cannabis, Gallup found that Republicans support the measure with 55% and Democrats with 87%. On raising taxes on the rich, 74% of surveyed Republicans supported it versus 92% of Democrats.
The establishment makes every election a nail-biter because the Democrats they support are barely better than the Republican challengers. But if they ran a true progressive, the election wouldn’t even be close. The progressive challenger would sweep their Republican opponent. Just like the Tea Party did to the Republicans by doing a hostile takeover of the party, the Justice Democrats are the answer on the left. The Justice Democrats take no corporate PAC money and only raise funds from individual donations, so they are representative of the people, not the special interests. That is the answer in a world of no-holds-barred politics. People who will use their weight in Congress and the power of the people to fight for legislative change, even if that means drawing the ire of the media and having no friends in Congress. In the midst of mounting challenges in the years ahead, not just from the Republicans but from the world in general, America needs a strong, united left party to put the country on the right path.