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Home > A New National Progressive Movement Is Emerging in the Shadows of the
Sanders Campaign
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A New National Progressive Movement Is Emerging in the Shadows of the
Sanders Campaign
By Steven Rosenfeld [1] / AlterNet [2]
May 20, 2016
The sun was hot. The shade was sparse. Yet they kept coming. For three-plus
hours on Wednesday morning, several thousand Bernie Sanders believers of
every stripe-college students cutting class, older retirees and labor
activists, parents with teenage kids-wearing every imaginable Bernie pin,
T-shirt and baseball cap packed the dusty field at the Santa Clara
fairground near San Jose, Calif.
"He's the best candidate ever," one man blurted out. "Feel the Bern! Feel
the Bern!" people spontaneously chanted. The sound system played Bob Marley,
Neil Young, John Lennon and Steve Earle, who growled "The revolution starts
now." As they waited, 1960s folk superstar Joan Baez took the stage and
sang, "The opposition candidate is stirring up a fuss. She's got the
billionaires, he's got us."
Behind the bleachers stood a young man from nearby Santa Cruz, Jonathon
Lachlan-Hache, handing out postcard-size flyers. "This is a new tool for
local organizing," he said. The postcards publicized a website he created,
Bernforce.com [3], which lets activists put in locations and find and post
campaign-related events, discussions, and organizing, including for other
progressive candidates. "I am absolutely determined" to keep the campaign's
energy going, he said. "The nomination happens at the convention. This is a
close race still."
Lachlan-Hache handed out 1,200 postcards. As he pulled out his smartphone to
show some Sanders volunteers how to use his website, the campaign's advance
men were handing out orange wristbands to the most exuberant supporters so
they could fill the bleachers behind the podium. Nobody associated with the
campaign wanted to talk about anything other than the necessary steps to win
big in California on June 7, where 475 delegates are at stake.
But at every Sanders event large and small-such as voter registration drives
on university campuses-there are people looking past the 2016 primaries and
focusing on building a progressive movement. In some ways it's an awkward
moment for them, because Sanders and his disciplined team are telling
supporters they can win, even if media, academics, Democratic loyalists and
others all say the odds are not there. He told the San Jose crowd he's
beaten expectations all along, he's the best candidate to take on Trump, and
he can take California, "the most important primary in the whole nominating
process."
But that hasn't stopped many people from not asking the obvious
question-where does the progressive movement go from here?-and taking new
steps and actions even while the presidential drama unfolds. At every
California Sanders event attended by AlterNet, there have been people like
Lachlan-Hache who are doing what they believe is needed to build a new and
sustainable movement, as they continue to support the ongoing Sanders
campaign.
Some are acting on their own, while others are part of online networks with
dozens of volunteers and thousands of followers. Some are recently laid off
Sanders campaign staffers who are trying to create national stages and tools
for progressives to take back Congress. Some are planting the seeds for what
they hope will be a new political party that will quickly become bigger than
the Green Party. These are not the well-known public intellectuals of the
progressive firmament who also are convening a People's Summit [4] in
mid-June to discuss what's next.
"We're basically proposing a way to fix Congress in one fell swoop," said
Saikat Chakrabarti, a former Sanders staffer and Brand New Congress [5]
co-founder. "A big reason people don't vote in midterms is that it currently
feels very futile-at best, you get one or two progressive candidates to win,
but those people won't be able to do much in a Congress that is largely run
by the current establishment. We are instead presenting a plan to put in a
whole slate of progressive candidates at once, so voters will have a real
option for big change."
"We think for the first time in 100 years, and not because we're special or
smarter, but because of the situation with the Bernie movement, the United
Progressive Party [6] could be the first third party going from minor party
status to major party status," said UPP founder Justin Renquist. "We could
see 30 to 50 percent of the Democratic Party, progressives, be so disgusted
with this whole process and just leave. We are a populist leftist reformist
movement that needs to come together. Let's be the big-tent party that the
Democrats said they were, but are not."
From the Bottom Up
Sanders and his most ardent followers have repeatedly said that change only
comes when the people demand it. Ironically, the campaign itself is a
traditional top-down institution, with the messaging tightly scripted and
the millions raised tightly held. The campaign has not endorsed many
candidates running for federal office and has mostly told volunteers to
cover the costs of creating their campaign materials. On one hand, they are
very disciplined-almost no one affiliated with the campaign or volunteering
says they are free to talk to reporters. But their fiscal stinginess has
also unleashed a remarkable army of self-starters whose efforts are creating
a new foundation for an emerging and growing progressive movement.
The campaign, of course, believes that anyone under age 30 they register to
vote will likely support them. So late last week, they set up a San
Francisco Bay Area voter registration tour of surrogate speakers led by
young hip Hollywood actors that stopped at the major campuses. Like many
campaign events, the first to appear were not these insiders, but the
outside activists. That was the case at Stanford University, where Jay Blas
Jacob Cabrera [7], who is also running for state assembly, appeared with a
variety of handouts: cards telling people how to register, voting options
and endorsements of other local progressive candidates.
"I am working every day to build the movement," he said. "It is a movement.
It is a thing in and of itself. If you listen to the people and listen to
Bernie, it is getting government back to the people. The Bernie campaign is
a subset of the people's movement. It has been going on for decades. It is
Occupy. It is Black Lives Matter. It is getting greedy corporations and
oppressive systems out of people's lives. We're calling it the Bernie
movement and trying to build a Bernie party."
Cabrera is energetic, deeply committed and typical of the people often drawn
to campaigns-very single-minded. But the resources he has marshaled are
remarkable. He described himself as a builder of networks. Beyond the
website he created calling for a new political party in Sanders' name,
BernieParty.net [8], or being endorsed in his long-shot legislative race by
other like-minded groups not officially affiliated with the campaign, he has
assembled [9] online lists of progressives running for office across the
country that rival what's on established websites like Democracy for America
or Bold Progressives, both nationally known campaign organizations.
It can be dizzying to hear him reel off [10] websites, Facebook pages and
other resources that he is working with and tapping to nurture a larger
network. There are BernieThinkers [11], Berniecrats [12], SandersDemocrats
[13], Expats for Bernie [14], SandersForPresident [15] on Reddit (which
Lachlan-Hache is part of), an offshoot called Grassroots Select [16] that's
trying to help 2016 candidates, and more. These groups and others are all
doing what they think is needed to create a lasting movement, even if their
efforts can be similar, overlap or exist in small bubbles.
Cabrera's optimism is punctuated by fears that people might give up if
Sanders doesn't get the nomination. He's discovered it can be lonely on the
campaign trail as he runs for the Assembly. And he is a bit frustrated that
the movement and networks he deeply wants to see emerge are sidelined as
Sanders keeps pushing for a big California win on June 7. "The only reason I
am involved in this is [because] Bernie talked about a movement. No other
mainstream candidate has said that," he said, saying that he ran as an
Occupy candidate for Congress in 2014. "But now he is not supporting a
movement. He is supporting his campaign."
Bigger Circles
But unlike past presidential years, social media and the internet have drawn
people like Cabrera into larger virtual communities. One such effort is
called Grassroots Select [17] and began through Reddit. Ian Boyd, its
executive director, who lives in Kansas City, said his group has 21,000
followers and a core of several dozen to 100 active volunteers. The niche
they wanted to fill was helping down-ballot candidates. Others groups, such
as SandersDemocrats.org [18], asked for help in grading and assessing
progressive candidates, he said, to ensure they were adhering to Sanders'
agenda and values and not inauthentically riding on his coattails. "That is
why we like them a lot," Boyd said. That led to creating teams for research,
writing, outreach and more. Where they are now is focusing on a handful of
ongoing 2016 congressional primaries.
"There are these wonderful candidates that still need all this help," he
said, pointing to Alex Law [19], a 25-year-old running for New Jersey's
first House district with a June 7 primary, and Tim Canova [20], running
against Democratic National Committee chairwoman and Rep. Debbie Wasserman
Schultz in Florida's August primary. "Alex, who is 25 years old, is running
an amazing campaign," he said. "We're trying to get donations, awareness,
volunteers. We are trying to use Alex Law as this pure grassroots candidate
that can stop corruption. There also is so much excitement about getting
Debbie Wasserman Schultz out."
Boyd said the progressive movement-building front is a bit splintered right
now. He cited his co-director who was running VoteforBernie.org [21] and was
"very busy" with Oregon and California. The movement-building role of the
online community "has been filling out the narrative of what the Bernie
campaign is," he said, but added that many activists are waiting to see what
unfolds with the nomination. "A lot of groups are trying to plan based on
the results that happen. That narrative will change based on what will
happen in Philadelphia."
Grassroots Select didn't want to do that, Boyd said. "We didn't attach
ourselves to Bernie's campaign because we didn't want to get hung up by the
waiting that a lot of people are doing. We recognize Bernie's
accomplishments. We are not officially a Bernie group, but all of us are
huge Bernie supporters."
Brand New Congress?
Many of the activists now shifting their focus to building an enduring
progressive movement were buried in the day-to-day, week-to-week,
state-to-state Bernie campaign. That changed abruptly in late April when,
after losing the New York primary, the campaign laid off scores of paid
staffers, who in turn had to decide what they could do to keep working on a
cause they deeply believe in. One of the first and most impressive efforts
to arise is Brand New Congress [5], a new federal political action committee
created just weeks ago that raised more than $40,000 from nearly 3,500
donors. Their goal is to garner support for hundeds of progressives running
for the U.S. House and Senate in 2018 in a campaign that feels like Sanders'
campaign, co-founder Saikat Chakrabarti said.
"Our plan is to actually recruit these candidates (who will largely not
already be politicians) and have them run under one plan and as a single
unified campaign that looks a lot like a presidential campaign," he
explained by email. "So we're talking here about recruiting and running over
400 candidates, creating a campaign infrastructure of probably at least a
thousand volunteers and staff, building out a platform, creating grassroots
offices in every congressional district, and creating a massive voter
contact program (much like the one we saw on Bernie's campaign) to try to
contact every voter in every district that we are primarying."
"It's a fairly large undertaking," Chakrabarti said. "It's too late to do
something this big for 2016 (many of the primaries for 2016 are already done
and we don't have enough time to build up such a large organization). In
fact, we are already working quite a bit to get things set up for 2018 and
recruit our candidates by early 2017. However, a lot of us will be working
with existing groups focused on 2016 and we totally support efforts to back
progressive candidates running this year."
In an approach that's not dissimilar from Grassroots Select, he said the
project will not just rely on small donors, but that they hope to provide
campaign infrastructure elements so "our candidates will actually be able to
spend all their time on the campaign talking to people and about the issues.
Also, once elected, they won't have to spend half their time fundraising
like congresspeople do currently since they will have been funded entirely
by small dollar contributions on the web, just like Bernie Sanders."
United Progressive Party
All of these movement-focused activists that AlterNet met, spoke to or
emailed in the past week after attending several of Sanders' events were in
their 20s or 30s. It is remarkable that the Sanders campaign has become an
epicenter for so many people who are dedicated to recasting the structures
that underlie the political system. It may well be that Sanders will win
California on the same day that Hillary Clinton wins in New Jersey and
declares herself the nominee. But even if that happens, Sanders will head to
the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia with many more delegates
than any Democratic challenger in a generation-far more than Jerry Brown in
1992 and Jesse Jackson in 1986.
In contrast to these youthful enterprises on the campaign trail, the
steering committee of the United Progressive Party [6] and its 12,000
members nationwide have been working for years on various progressive
campaigns. They say they are quietly laying the legal and organizational
foundation to launch a new national party that can be a non-dogmatic big
tent that can quickly emerge after Philadelphia. Founder Justin Renquist,
50, said it appears that Sanders' bid to reshape the Democratic Party from
the inside doesn't look like it is going to work, as evidenced by the
growing demands from party stalwarts backing Hillary Clinton to stop
campaigning now.
Renquist said UPP has to respect the voters who haven't cast ballots in
primaries yet and the Sanders campaign's effort to finish the nominating
season, which means waiting until after Philadelphia to step forward. He
says they have hundreds and hundreds of volunteers ready to create chapters
in many states. But beyond those nuts and bolts, he paints an intriguing
picture of the need for a broad and inclusive new progressive party to
emerge. In sum, he believes the Democrats would never let Sanders and his
wing take over the party.
That tension was behind the brusque treatment of Sanders delegates in
Nevada's ongoing nominating process last weekend. Even Sanders, in his
speech in San Jose on Wednesday, when listing the establishment structures
his campaign had taken on, said, "In every state that we have run in, we
have taken on the Democratic establishment. And in state after state, the
people have stayed up and helped defeat the establishment."
So where will Sanders' voters go? In 2014, Renquist said the nation had 190
million registered voters: roughly 47 percent were independents, 30 percent
Democrats, 23 percent Republicans. He said the leading progressive
alternative to the Democrats, the Green Party, is far too uncompromising,
while other third parties like the Justice Party are too narrowly focused.
"The idea is to get the fractured left onto one big umbrella and get people
to set aside arguments that you are not purist enough," he said. "That
independent portion of the 190 million could become larger than the
Republican and Democratic voters put together. That creates a compelling
case for a viable third party."
A Growing Progressive Movement
Renquist's reading of Sanders' achievements, a shifting electorate, the
Democratic Party's internal dynamics and shortcomings of other third-party
efforts could prove to be true, no matter which progressive organization
grabs the mantle of creating a new party. Even the Green Party this week
sent out a release saying they would welcome Sanders' supporters.
But back on the ground at Sanders events, it seems that the people who had
the clearest view of the future of building a sustainable progressive
movement were the young and accomplished activists who have been deeply
involved in the campaign for the past year. They weren't following the older
templates and models for running campaigns, waiting for permission,
endorsements and directions. They were creating new tools, new networks, new
fundraising models and forging ahead fortified by their experience and
knowledge from the campaign.
As Bernforce.com [22] creator Jonathon Lachlan-Hache said while handing out
his flyers, the quick launch of Brand New Congress was "really impressive."
He especially liked their "one campaign, one plan, 535 candidates" focus.
"The simplicity of their message is fabulous," he said. "They have done a
really good job of doing that, running a whole collection of local campaigns
but having a presidential feel to it. And that's how they explained it to
me."
His determination, like the passion of many others-individual networkers
like Jay Cabrera, new group leaders like Grassroots Select's Ian Boyd and
Brand New Congress' Saikat Chakrabarti, or would-be political party founders
like Justin Renquist-all suggest a historic new progressive movement is
emerging. "Waiting to be born-that's a very good way to put it," said
Renquist.
Steven Rosenfeld covers national political issues for AlterNet, including
America's retirement crisis, democracy and voting rights, and campaigns and
elections. He is the author of "Count My Vote: A Citizen's Guide to Voting"
(AlterNet Books, 2008).
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Source URL:
http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/new-national-progressive-movement-emer
ging-shadows-sanders-campaign
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/steven-rosenfeld
[2] http://alternet.org
[3] http://Bernforce.com
[4] http://www.thepeoplessummit.org/#schedule
[5] https://brandnewcongress.org/
[6] http://www.unitedprogressiveparty.org/
[7] https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=jay%20blas%20jacob%20cabrera
[8] http://bernieparty.net
[9]
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MR8KRvyE5cwpcAfAmu3dQI8NgPrDMzQIV9WX
V5OLPVI/pubhtml
[10] http://berniemovement.net/updates/
[11] http://berniethinkers.org/
[12] http://berniecrats.net/
[13] http://sandersdemocrats.com/
[14] https://www.facebook.com/ExpatsForBernie
[15] https://www.reddit.com/r/SandersForPresident
[16] http://grassrootsselect.org/
[17] https://www.reddit.com/r/grassrootsselect
[18] http://sandersdemocrats.org
[19] http://www.alexlawforcongress.com/#!home/mainPage
[20] https://timcanova.com/
[21] http://voteforbernie.org
[22] http://bernforce.com
[23] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on A New National
Progressive Movement Is Emerging in the Shadows of the Sanders Campaign
[24] http://www.alternet.org/
[25] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
Home > A New National Progressive Movement Is Emerging in the Shadows of the
Sanders Campaign
A New National Progressive Movement Is Emerging in the Shadows of the
Sanders Campaign
By Steven Rosenfeld [1] / AlterNet [2]
May 20, 2016
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The sun was hot. The shade was sparse. Yet they kept coming. For three-plus
hours on Wednesday morning, several thousand Bernie Sanders believers of
every stripe-college students cutting class, older retirees and labor
activists, parents with teenage kids-wearing every imaginable Bernie pin,
T-shirt and baseball cap packed the dusty field at the Santa Clara
fairground near San Jose, Calif.
"He's the best candidate ever," one man blurted out. "Feel the Bern! Feel
the Bern!" people spontaneously chanted. The sound system played Bob Marley,
Neil Young, John Lennon and Steve Earle, who growled "The revolution starts
now." As they waited, 1960s folk superstar Joan Baez took the stage and
sang, "The opposition candidate is stirring up a fuss. She's got the
billionaires, he's got us."
Behind the bleachers stood a young man from nearby Santa Cruz, Jonathon
Lachlan-Hache, handing out postcard-size flyers. "This is a new tool for
local organizing," he said. The postcards publicized a website he created,
Bernforce.com [3], which lets activists put in locations and find and post
campaign-related events, discussions, and organizing, including for other
progressive candidates. "I am absolutely determined" to keep the campaign's
energy going, he said. "The nomination happens at the convention. This is a
close race still."
Lachlan-Hache handed out 1,200 postcards. As he pulled out his smartphone to
show some Sanders volunteers how to use his website, the campaign's advance
men were handing out orange wristbands to the most exuberant supporters so
they could fill the bleachers behind the podium. Nobody associated with the
campaign wanted to talk about anything other than the necessary steps to win
big in California on June 7, where 475 delegates are at stake.
But at every Sanders event large and small-such as voter registration drives
on university campuses-there are people looking past the 2016 primaries and
focusing on building a progressive movement. In some ways it's an awkward
moment for them, because Sanders and his disciplined team are telling
supporters they can win, even if media, academics, Democratic loyalists and
others all say the odds are not there. He told the San Jose crowd he's
beaten expectations all along, he's the best candidate to take on Trump, and
he can take California, "the most important primary in the whole nominating
process."
But that hasn't stopped many people from not asking the obvious
question-where does the progressive movement go from here?-and taking new
steps and actions even while the presidential drama unfolds. At every
California Sanders event attended by AlterNet, there have been people like
Lachlan-Hache who are doing what they believe is needed to build a new and
sustainable movement, as they continue to support the ongoing Sanders
campaign.
Some are acting on their own, while others are part of online networks with
dozens of volunteers and thousands of followers. Some are recently laid off
Sanders campaign staffers who are trying to create national stages and tools
for progressives to take back Congress. Some are planting the seeds for what
they hope will be a new political party that will quickly become bigger than
the Green Party. These are not the well-known public intellectuals of the
progressive firmament who also are convening a People's Summit [4] in
mid-June to discuss what's next.
"We're basically proposing a way to fix Congress in one fell swoop," said
Saikat Chakrabarti, a former Sanders staffer and Brand New Congress [5]
co-founder. "A big reason people don't vote in midterms is that it currently
feels very futile-at best, you get one or two progressive candidates to win,
but those people won't be able to do much in a Congress that is largely run
by the current establishment. We are instead presenting a plan to put in a
whole slate of progressive candidates at once, so voters will have a real
option for big change."
"We think for the first time in 100 years, and not because we're special or
smarter, but because of the situation with the Bernie movement, the United
Progressive Party [6] could be the first third party going from minor party
status to major party status," said UPP founder Justin Renquist. "We could
see 30 to 50 percent of the Democratic Party, progressives, be so disgusted
with this whole process and just leave. We are a populist leftist reformist
movement that needs to come together. Let's be the big-tent party that the
Democrats said they were, but are not."
From the Bottom Up
Sanders and his most ardent followers have repeatedly said that change only
comes when the people demand it. Ironically, the campaign itself is a
traditional top-down institution, with the messaging tightly scripted and
the millions raised tightly held. The campaign has not endorsed many
candidates running for federal office and has mostly told volunteers to
cover the costs of creating their campaign materials. On one hand, they are
very disciplined-almost no one affiliated with the campaign or volunteering
says they are free to talk to reporters. But their fiscal stinginess has
also unleashed a remarkable army of self-starters whose efforts are creating
a new foundation for an emerging and growing progressive movement.
The campaign, of course, believes that anyone under age 30 they register to
vote will likely support them. So late last week, they set up a San
Francisco Bay Area voter registration tour of surrogate speakers led by
young hip Hollywood actors that stopped at the major campuses. Like many
campaign events, the first to appear were not these insiders, but the
outside activists. That was the case at Stanford University, where Jay Blas
Jacob Cabrera [7], who is also running for state assembly, appeared with a
variety of handouts: cards telling people how to register, voting options
and endorsements of other local progressive candidates.
"I am working every day to build the movement," he said. "It is a movement.
It is a thing in and of itself. If you listen to the people and listen to
Bernie, it is getting government back to the people. The Bernie campaign is
a subset of the people's movement. It has been going on for decades. It is
Occupy. It is Black Lives Matter. It is getting greedy corporations and
oppressive systems out of people's lives. We're calling it the Bernie
movement and trying to build a Bernie party."
Cabrera is energetic, deeply committed and typical of the people often drawn
to campaigns-very single-minded. But the resources he has marshaled are
remarkable. He described himself as a builder of networks. Beyond the
website he created calling for a new political party in Sanders' name,
BernieParty.net [8], or being endorsed in his long-shot legislative race by
other like-minded groups not officially affiliated with the campaign, he has
assembled [9] online lists of progressives running for office across the
country that rival what's on established websites like Democracy for America
or Bold Progressives, both nationally known campaign organizations.
It can be dizzying to hear him reel off [10] websites, Facebook pages and
other resources that he is working with and tapping to nurture a larger
network. There are BernieThinkers [11], Berniecrats [12], SandersDemocrats
[13], Expats for Bernie [14], SandersForPresident [15] on Reddit (which
Lachlan-Hache is part of), an offshoot called Grassroots Select [16] that's
trying to help 2016 candidates, and more. These groups and others are all
doing what they think is needed to create a lasting movement, even if their
efforts can be similar, overlap or exist in small bubbles.
Cabrera's optimism is punctuated by fears that people might give up if
Sanders doesn't get the nomination. He's discovered it can be lonely on the
campaign trail as he runs for the Assembly. And he is a bit frustrated that
the movement and networks he deeply wants to see emerge are sidelined as
Sanders keeps pushing for a big California win on June 7. "The only reason I
am involved in this is [because] Bernie talked about a movement. No other
mainstream candidate has said that," he said, saying that he ran as an
Occupy candidate for Congress in 2014. "But now he is not supporting a
movement. He is supporting his campaign."
Bigger Circles
But unlike past presidential years, social media and the internet have drawn
people like Cabrera into larger virtual communities. One such effort is
called Grassroots Select [17] and began through Reddit. Ian Boyd, its
executive director, who lives in Kansas City, said his group has 21,000
followers and a core of several dozen to 100 active volunteers. The niche
they wanted to fill was helping down-ballot candidates. Others groups, such
as SandersDemocrats.org [18], asked for help in grading and assessing
progressive candidates, he said, to ensure they were adhering to Sanders'
agenda and values and not inauthentically riding on his coattails. "That is
why we like them a lot," Boyd said. That led to creating teams for research,
writing, outreach and more. Where they are now is focusing on a handful of
ongoing 2016 congressional primaries.
"There are these wonderful candidates that still need all this help," he
said, pointing to Alex Law [19], a 25-year-old running for New Jersey's
first House district with a June 7 primary, and Tim Canova [20], running
against Democratic National Committee chairwoman and Rep. Debbie Wasserman
Schultz in Florida's August primary. "Alex, who is 25 years old, is running
an amazing campaign," he said. "We're trying to get donations, awareness,
volunteers. We are trying to use Alex Law as this pure grassroots candidate
that can stop corruption. There also is so much excitement about getting
Debbie Wasserman Schultz out."
Boyd said the progressive movement-building front is a bit splintered right
now. He cited his co-director who was running VoteforBernie.org [21] and was
"very busy" with Oregon and California. The movement-building role of the
online community "has been filling out the narrative of what the Bernie
campaign is," he said, but added that many activists are waiting to see what
unfolds with the nomination. "A lot of groups are trying to plan based on
the results that happen. That narrative will change based on what will
happen in Philadelphia."
Grassroots Select didn't want to do that, Boyd said. "We didn't attach
ourselves to Bernie's campaign because we didn't want to get hung up by the
waiting that a lot of people are doing. We recognize Bernie's
accomplishments. We are not officially a Bernie group, but all of us are
huge Bernie supporters."
Brand New Congress?
Many of the activists now shifting their focus to building an enduring
progressive movement were buried in the day-to-day, week-to-week,
state-to-state Bernie campaign. That changed abruptly in late April when,
after losing the New York primary, the campaign laid off scores of paid
staffers, who in turn had to decide what they could do to keep working on a
cause they deeply believe in. One of the first and most impressive efforts
to arise is Brand New Congress [5], a new federal political action committee
created just weeks ago that raised more than $40,000 from nearly 3,500
donors. Their goal is to garner support for hundeds of progressives running
for the U.S. House and Senate in 2018 in a campaign that feels like Sanders'
campaign, co-founder Saikat Chakrabarti said.
"Our plan is to actually recruit these candidates (who will largely not
already be politicians) and have them run under one plan and as a single
unified campaign that looks a lot like a presidential campaign," he
explained by email. "So we're talking here about recruiting and running over
400 candidates, creating a campaign infrastructure of probably at least a
thousand volunteers and staff, building out a platform, creating grassroots
offices in every congressional district, and creating a massive voter
contact program (much like the one we saw on Bernie's campaign) to try to
contact every voter in every district that we are primarying."
"It's a fairly large undertaking," Chakrabarti said. "It's too late to do
something this big for 2016 (many of the primaries for 2016 are already done
and we don't have enough time to build up such a large organization). In
fact, we are already working quite a bit to get things set up for 2018 and
recruit our candidates by early 2017. However, a lot of us will be working
with existing groups focused on 2016 and we totally support efforts to back
progressive candidates running this year."
In an approach that's not dissimilar from Grassroots Select, he said the
project will not just rely on small donors, but that they hope to provide
campaign infrastructure elements so "our candidates will actually be able to
spend all their time on the campaign talking to people and about the issues.
Also, once elected, they won't have to spend half their time fundraising
like congresspeople do currently since they will have been funded entirely
by small dollar contributions on the web, just like Bernie Sanders."
United Progressive Party
All of these movement-focused activists that AlterNet met, spoke to or
emailed in the past week after attending several of Sanders' events were in
their 20s or 30s. It is remarkable that the Sanders campaign has become an
epicenter for so many people who are dedicated to recasting the structures
that underlie the political system. It may well be that Sanders will win
California on the same day that Hillary Clinton wins in New Jersey and
declares herself the nominee. But even if that happens, Sanders will head to
the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia with many more delegates
than any Democratic challenger in a generation-far more than Jerry Brown in
1992 and Jesse Jackson in 1986.
In contrast to these youthful enterprises on the campaign trail, the
steering committee of the United Progressive Party [6] and its 12,000
members nationwide have been working for years on various progressive
campaigns. They say they are quietly laying the legal and organizational
foundation to launch a new national party that can be a non-dogmatic big
tent that can quickly emerge after Philadelphia. Founder Justin Renquist,
50, said it appears that Sanders' bid to reshape the Democratic Party from
the inside doesn't look like it is going to work, as evidenced by the
growing demands from party stalwarts backing Hillary Clinton to stop
campaigning now.
Renquist said UPP has to respect the voters who haven't cast ballots in
primaries yet and the Sanders campaign's effort to finish the nominating
season, which means waiting until after Philadelphia to step forward. He
says they have hundreds and hundreds of volunteers ready to create chapters
in many states. But beyond those nuts and bolts, he paints an intriguing
picture of the need for a broad and inclusive new progressive party to
emerge. In sum, he believes the Democrats would never let Sanders and his
wing take over the party.
That tension was behind the brusque treatment of Sanders delegates in
Nevada's ongoing nominating process last weekend. Even Sanders, in his
speech in San Jose on Wednesday, when listing the establishment structures
his campaign had taken on, said, "In every state that we have run in, we
have taken on the Democratic establishment. And in state after state, the
people have stayed up and helped defeat the establishment."
So where will Sanders' voters go? In 2014, Renquist said the nation had 190
million registered voters: roughly 47 percent were independents, 30 percent
Democrats, 23 percent Republicans. He said the leading progressive
alternative to the Democrats, the Green Party, is far too uncompromising,
while other third parties like the Justice Party are too narrowly focused.
"The idea is to get the fractured left onto one big umbrella and get people
to set aside arguments that you are not purist enough," he said. "That
independent portion of the 190 million could become larger than the
Republican and Democratic voters put together. That creates a compelling
case for a viable third party."
A Growing Progressive Movement
Renquist's reading of Sanders' achievements, a shifting electorate, the
Democratic Party's internal dynamics and shortcomings of other third-party
efforts could prove to be true, no matter which progressive organization
grabs the mantle of creating a new party. Even the Green Party this week
sent out a release saying they would welcome Sanders' supporters.
But back on the ground at Sanders events, it seems that the people who had
the clearest view of the future of building a sustainable progressive
movement were the young and accomplished activists who have been deeply
involved in the campaign for the past year. They weren't following the older
templates and models for running campaigns, waiting for permission,
endorsements and directions. They were creating new tools, new networks, new
fundraising models and forging ahead fortified by their experience and
knowledge from the campaign.
As Bernforce.com [22] creator Jonathon Lachlan-Hache said while handing out
his flyers, the quick launch of Brand New Congress was "really impressive."
He especially liked their "one campaign, one plan, 535 candidates" focus.
"The simplicity of their message is fabulous," he said. "They have done a
really good job of doing that, running a whole collection of local campaigns
but having a presidential feel to it. And that's how they explained it to
me."
His determination, like the passion of many others-individual networkers
like Jay Cabrera, new group leaders like Grassroots Select's Ian Boyd and
Brand New Congress' Saikat Chakrabarti, or would-be political party founders
like Justin Renquist-all suggest a historic new progressive movement is
emerging. "Waiting to be born-that's a very good way to put it," said
Renquist.
Steven Rosenfeld covers national political issues for AlterNet, including
America's retirement crisis, democracy and voting rights, and campaigns and
elections. He is the author of "Count My Vote: A Citizen's Guide to Voting"
(AlterNet Books, 2008).
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx'. [23]
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.[24]
Source URL:
http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/new-national-progressive-movement-emer
ging-shadows-sanders-campaign
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/steven-rosenfeld
[2] http://alternet.org
[3] http://Bernforce.com
[4] http://www.thepeoplessummit.org/#schedule
[5] https://brandnewcongress.org/
[6] http://www.unitedprogressiveparty.org/
[7] https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=jay%20blas%20jacob%20cabrera
[8] http://bernieparty.net
[9]
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MR8KRvyE5cwpcAfAmu3dQI8NgPrDMzQIV9WX
V5OLPVI/pubhtml
[10] http://berniemovement.net/updates/
[11] http://berniethinkers.org/
[12] http://berniecrats.net/
[13] http://sandersdemocrats.com/
[14] https://www.facebook.com/ExpatsForBernie
[15] https://www.reddit.com/r/SandersForPresident
[16] http://grassrootsselect.org/
[17] https://www.reddit.com/r/grassrootsselect
[18] http://sandersdemocrats.org
[19] http://www.alexlawforcongress.com/#!home/mainPage
[20] https://timcanova.com/
[21] http://voteforbernie.org
[22] http://bernforce.com
[23] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on A New National
Progressive Movement Is Emerging in the Shadows of the Sanders Campaign
[24] http://www.alternet.org/
[25] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
