8 Ways on How Progressives Win
I want to tell you a story. The time was March of 2017, and I had started a Progressive Action Group focused on electing Progressive candidates locally. This particular event was publicized as an activism meeting where we would be learning phone banking, and practice what we learned in phone banking for a local progressive school board candidate.
About 6 people showed up to the event, but when it came time to actually phone bank, and do the work that would have helped that candidate get elected, all 6 people said they didn’t want to do the work. One person said they just came to meet other Bernie Sanders supporters, and had no intention of doing any volunteering.
That progressive candidate lost.
Progressives took a pretty bad lashing in 2020. The moderate Joe Biden not only won the nomination, he won the Presidency by flipping traditionally red states like Georgia and Arizona, and received more votes for President than any other Presidential candidate in history. Progressive candidates, endorsed by Bernie Sanders’ OUR REVOLUTION website, failed to win elected office in Arizona, Texas, and Wisconsin, and the only progressive candidates who did win, were mainly Progressive incumbents serving in already Blue States like California, Connecticut, and other liberal safe havens.
Progressives didn’t lose to moderate Democrats, they lost to Republicans.
Meanwhile, Leftist and Progressive twitter accounts publish statements that “#BernieWonBidensElection and #BernieWouldHaveWon in a landslide” with no actual evidence or proof to back that up. Now, this may or may not be true, but given the context, it diminishes the credibility of the Progressive movement.
#BernieWouldHaveWon more electoral collage votes than Joe Biden!#BernieWouldHaveWon more seats in the Senate than Joe Biden!#BernieWouldHaveWon more seats in the House than Joe Biden!
— Kill The Corporatocracy △ #TaxTheRich (@KillTheCorpora) November 9, 2020
Bernie Sanders is my POTUS!pic.twitter.com/HNHIYNHV3N
We Leftists and Progressives need to realize that Politics is implemented at the local level. The majority of laws that we follow are implemented at the state and local level.
Progressives win at the state and local level when those states are reliably Blue.
So, in order for Progressives to win, we need to expand the Progressive pool of voters in our respective states. That’s the only way we’re going to win.
Lobby Your Elected Officials
A small vocal minority of leftists and progressives online argue that elected officials are bought and sold to the highest bidder. As a result, online leftists take the extremely jaded and cynical view that our elected officials will not listen to us. That is false!
Elected officials are elected by us, the voters. They work for us, they have to listen to us. That means if we show up in their offices, or deliver a petition, they have to listen to us, whether they like it or not.
And I’ll tell you a secret; I’ve known a few political consultants in my time, and they’ve given me some pretty good advice:
- There are two things politicians love more than financial contributions: good publicity, and hearing themselves talk.
- As a result, if you can get a concerned citizens group to show up at their office for a photo op of maybe you and 6 to 12 of your friends, you can have some significant impact.
- On top of that, if you can organize a group of 40 people or more, you can get almost any elected official to show up, speak, and listen.
Don’t take my word for it! Use the proven tactics that were used by the conservative Tea Party movement in 2009, and the Progressive Indivisible movement in 2017.
You can use these tactics to move your elected officials to the Left. The future of America depends on it. Just listen to one transgender political activist talk about the importance of Voting and political participation.
Make Election Day A Holiday
Millions of people don’t vote, and one of the reasons is that it’s not readily accessible to the people who are most affected by Government, the poor.
CBS news has stated:
The U.S. lags scores of other countries in election participation, ranking 26th out of 32 nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), according to the Pew Research Center. Countries outpacing the U.S. include the U.K, Mexico and Canada. In some of these countries, voting is compulsory, and in most of them, Election Day is a holiday.
Declaring Election Day a holiday has been proposed various times in Congress; it’s a popular idea. In 2018, a Pew study found that 65% of Americans favored making Election Day a national holiday. But Gupta said that there’s been a “lack of political will” to give the initiative some momentum.
That political will is overwhelmingly from Republicans. Just take a look at this John Oliver segment to see why Republicans benefit from lower voter turnout.
Switch to Mail-In Ballots
Along with this, mandate a minimum of drop boxes available per registered voters, per square mile. Also, allow ballots to begin counting before election day, to avoid red-mirages or blue-mirages.
Another large part of this is earmarking funding for voter education.
Expand In Person Early Voting
Along with this, establish Chain of custody rules for all ballots and voting assets, including universal paper ballot backups. Think about what info the Trump Administration was attempting to elicit from PA Republican voting officials.
Automatic Voter Registration at 18
An important part of this is allowing for same day voter registration in extenuating circumstances.
Independent Redistricting Commissions
Outlaw Voter ID’s
Campaign Finance Disclosure Requirements
Campaign finance disclosure requirements that reduced dark money.
End Homelessness & Poverty
Evidence-based models to address homelessness and poverty.
Expand the Right to Vote to the Formerly Incarcerated
The Poor People’s Campaign, inspired by the works of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, has called out the need for expanding the right to vote, including expanding it to those previously incarcerated.