Historical source: 2020 report. References to past elections, people, programs, and contact details reflect the original period.
The Battle for the Soul of the Democratic Party
In our two-party system, the Democratic Party is an essential vehicle for progressive change; it’s often an obstacle as well. Fortunately, the Democratic Party is not an unchanging, monolithic structure. Political parties are shaped by constant internal conflict between, and amongst, the elected officials, affiliated organizations, donors, and media figures who make up their respective coalitions.
The Democratic Party is a diverse coalition of many interests and groups, each with their own (sometimes conflicting) priorities — climate change, LGBTQ rights, women’s rights, economic justice, racial justice, and so on. It’s also a coalition of constituencies — each of which is very diverse — including African Americans, Latinx communities, Asian Americans, college educated women, union households, and many more.
However, none of these interest groups or constituencies has enough power to shift the direction of the party on its own, which is why they often join together to form “parties within the party,” also known as wings or factions of the party. Factions build power and push the party toward their shared agenda.
In our two-party system, factions have been the main engines of political change by contesting the meaning of “Democrat” and “Republican” over time. While politics in America is often characterized as the conflict between parties, the major historical shifts in American politics since the Civil War — from the New Deal to the civil rights movement — often originate from contests within the major parties.
Today, the main conflict within the Democratic Party is between a wing that is “socially liberal and fiscally conservative,” on the one hand, and a wing that emphasizes the role of government in redistributing wealth, on the other. We will call the first category “neoliberal” and the latter “progressive.” Neoliberalism is a political ideology that believes markets can be used to solve any social problem, so the role of government is to set up markets and defend their functioning. While most neoliberal Democrats believe in some government intervention in markets, they oppose universal social programs (like Medicare for All) and tax increases on the wealthy and big business, prefer means-tested social programs and limited regulations, and defend the privatization of public goods like education and health care.
“Progressives,” on the other hand, believe in universal social programs to provide all Americans with health care, education, housing, income, and retirement. Progressives oppose the concentration of wealth and power through aggressive government regulations, strong labor unions and worker power, and taxation of the wealthy and big business. In many other countries, in particular places like Sweden, Norway, Germany, and Denmark, what we refer to as “progressive” is called social democracy. It’s the most successful system in history in terms of providing material and subjective well-being. In the 2020 Democratic Party, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are leading spokespeople in the progressive wing of the party.
There is a long history of American progressivism. The progressive movement of the early 20th century sought to break the alliance between business and politics. The Progressive Party’s platform included campaign finance reform, women’s suffrage, social insurance, and an eight-hour workday. Martin Luther King, Jr. also articulated a progressive vision, holding that everyone is worthy of dignity, no matter where they come from, the color of their skin, who they love, or how much money they have. Like many other civil rights leaders of his era, he called for universal social programs to combat racial, economic, and political inequality.
The two wings within the Democratic Party identify different goals and strategies, and represent different interests. Today, the neoliberal tendency sees Trump and the Far Right as the main problem in the United States, and holds that things were largely fine before the 2016 election. They tend to align with the party’s corporate donors and established leadership. Meanwhile, the progressive wing sees rising inequality over the past 40 years as the main challenge and points to the continued deportations and mass incarceration, even under Obama’s presidency, as problems with the current leadership of the Democratic Party. This wing wants deeper structural transformation, including government playing a more active role — a countervailing force, as President Franklin D. Roosevelt called it — to restrain big corporations. They are fighting to win power for the poor and working class, who make up the majority of Democratic voters, but whose lives have not improved in decades. They tend to be aligned with young people, especially young women and people of color.
If America were a parliamentary system, it’s likely these two wings of the Democratic Party would exist as separate parties. This paper is written from the perspective of progressives, who would like to see the progressive perspective prevail.
The task of turning the Democratic Party into a progressive party is distinct from the task of winning a Democratic majority — but both are, of course, essential. If the Democratic Party were progressive, but didn’t have a majority, it would have no power. If the Democratic Party continues to be governed by neoliberals, but achieves a lasting majority, it would not be just.
The Progressive Policy Agenda
The Progressive Movement is made up of many perspectives. But the principles that define that agenda are clear. These include:
- Expanding democracy and making the levers of political power more accessible
- Expanding public goods so that all residents can meet their basic needs
- Reducing the concentration of corporate power and increasing worker power
- Freedom, equality, and respect across lines of race, gender, sexual orientation, immigration status, and religion
In the past decade, these principles have come into focus as an increasingly accepted platform of policy goals.
Universal Economic Rights
- Universal health care
- Eliminate student debt and make public colleges free
- Public Childcare + Pre-K for All
- Housing for all
- A living wage
Climate Justice
- Reducing carbon emissions
- A just transition to a green economy
- Local and public control of energy
Racial
Justice
- Ending mass incarceration and the disproportionate targeting of communities of color
- Ending mass deportation and creating a roadmap to citizenship
- Ending the drug war which has targeted Black and Brown communities and legalizing cannabis
- Closing the racial wealth gap
Gender
Justice
- Equal pay
- Equal access to reproductive health, contraception, and abortion
- Paid family leave
- Eliminating the pink tax (a tax on women’s products)
Increased Taxes on the Wealthy
- Wealth tax
- Financial transaction taxes
- Increased corporate taxes and closing of loopholes
Democratizing the Economy
- Co-determination (worker representation on boards)
- Breaking up corporate monopolies
- Limiting the ratio of CEO-worker pay
- Rights for workers to organize
- Sectoral bargaining
Political Reforms
- Universal access to Vote by Mail
- Free and fair elections → publicly funded elections and no corporate money
- Statehood for DC and Guam
- Reforming or abolishing the Electoral College and Senate filibuster
Winning on this platform would materially improve the lives of all Americans, strengthen American democracy, and weaken right-wing movements driven by fear, anger, and hatred. In the time of COVID-19 and #BlackLivesMatter, more than ever, we can see why so many of these policies would be life-saving. And while we haven’t accomplished these yet, it should be clear that they are the crucial agenda for 2021.
The Popularity of a Progressive Agenda
The base of the Democratic Party is firmly behind all of these issues, and many command super-majority support in the public at large — even in marginal and competitive districts (see the Future of the Party report for much more detail).
In a 2020 survey, Data for Progress polled seven progressive policies that are gaining attention from the Democratic base: Medicare for All, Green New Deal, a homes guarantee, free college, ending patents on high-cost drugs, paid family leave, 100% clean energy, and stopping Wall Street looting. On every issue, they found strong support for the policy in question. As the chart below shows, most of these policies have net positive support (meaning the percent in support minus the percent opposed), and in a few cases, support is more than 60 percent.
In some cases, these policies have bipartisan support. The chart below shows net support for each of five policies with bipartisan support. These data suggest that far from moving to the center, Democrats could win over Republicans and independents with policies that use government intervention to improve people’s lives.
The media narrative suggests that progressive policies are unpopular, particularly in swing districts. However, there is little evidence for this narrative. As part of their live-polling project, the New York Times Upshot/Siena polling included several policy items. On five of six questions covering five major issues (guns, health care, taxes, race, and immigration), a majority of swing-district voters favor the progressive position. The only exception is the Trump tax cuts, where swing-district voters very narrowly favor the conservative position. Swing voters also oppose the border wall and support a ban on assault weapons. Far from being favorable toward Trump’s white-supremacist rhetoric, voters overwhelmingly reject the idea that immigrants commit more crimes.
Moreover, swing district independents favor the progressive position on all six questions. Once again, the closest issue is the Trump tax cut, where independents are barely split in their support.
Despite the popular appeal of our ideas, our politics does not reflect the will of the progressive majority. In the next section, we will explore why.
Why the Progressive Wing of the Party Doesn’t Govern
In 2018, progressive Democrats had a wave election at the local level, however, those gains have yet to produce consolidation of policy-making power at the federal level. Despite the fact that the majority of Americans support the progressive policies such as those listed above, there are a number of obstacles that have made it challenging for a progressive majority to govern and achieve its agenda. In short, the Democratic Party is still controlled by the neoliberal wing, even though its voters increasingly demand a progressive agenda. While daunting, each of these challenges can be directly addressed if our organizations, donors, and elected officials can align around a strategy of building the progressive wing of the Democratic Party together.
The Progressive Movement is Underrepresented in the Democratic Party
The progressive movement is much more popular than it is politically powerful. Take the fact that a majority of adults supported the Black Lives Matter protests, despite how hard it has been to win police reform at the policy level. While the majority of Democratic voters already support the progressive agenda represented above, the majority of Democratic politicians do not (at this moment).
Part of the problem is that Democratic Party elected officials are not representative of Democratic voters — either along the lines of class, race, gender, or ideology. Only 41% of Democratic members of the House in 2018 were women. Until 2016, the majority of the Democratic Party in Congress was composed of White Men. And to this day, 22 states have never elected an African American to Congress and the Democratic Party hasn’t elected a Native American to the Senate since 1925, just a year after Native Americans were granted citizenship. All of which exemplify in varying degrees how the costs of running for office mean that doing so is generally only available to wealthy individuals or people with access to wealth.
Furthermore, as is commonly understood, monied interests have overrun our political institutions. The relationships between candidates, lobbyists, and donors have led to a context where the wealthy have outsized voice and power. While this is not new, it is a detriment to a real democracy, and it has been worsened by Supreme Court decisions such as Buckley v. Valeo, which designated money as speech, and Citizens United, which gave corporations the right to make unlimited political contributions.
As a result, progressives cannot rely on the existing leadership of the party as a source of their power, but instead must understand their mission is to achieve a majority within the party and help it become a voice for the working class and poor, the marginalized and dispossessed. A focus on electing more women and people of color, however, is not enough. As Dorian Warren of Community Change has said, “We are not fighting for a multiracial oligarchy.” It is crucial that we emphasize both who is leading, and the goals toward which they are working.
The Progressive Majority Has Been Suppressed
The Republican Party has used voter suppression to directly undermine the progressive base’s ability to vote. For example, in Georgia, where Stacey Abrams ran a powerful campaign for governor in 2018, we saw rampant disenfranchisement. Abrams’ opponent, Brian Kemp, was both her challenger and the Secretary of State of Georgia, with control over the state’s electoral process — already a conflict of interest. As in many other states, polling places were closed or closed early; ballots never arrived or were thrown out for small errors; long lines made it impossible for people with jobs to miss work. A variety of subtle and not-so-subtle actions undermined the ability of people with progressive leanings to have their vote count. These voter suppression tactics have continued even today.
The context of COVID-19 will make 2020 an even greater challenge, as the Right is unwilling to pursue measures that enable safer voting, forcing people to choose between their right to vote and their health.
Lack of Accountability from Independent Institutions
The most powerful institutions in the Democratic Party coalition are not engaged in conflict around the ideological direction of the party. Instead, they often support the party, in exchange for progress on their unique issue. While this issue-based arrangement has proven successful in a handful of arenas, it has been a significant limiting factor in efforts to realign the Democratic Party toward a comprehensive progressive agenda.
Independent institutions — political organizations that operate within the party coalition, but outside the formal party structures — are important because they are the primary vehicles to push the party coalition in a particular direction. On the Right, examples include think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation, and grassroots networks like Americans for Prosperity. These institutions set the direction of the Republican Party. They are primarily Republicans who stray from their mandate, and organize the party around a comprehensive vision.
On the Democratic side, the biggest “independent institutions” are supportive of the party’s current direction or they have a transactional relationship with the party leadership, rather than seeking to transform the party. Examples include the Center for American Progress, Media Matters, and parts of the labor movement. These organizations adopt the party’s agenda rather than push the party to be more progressive.
Progressives should seek to move these institutions in a positive direction, support existing organizations that are pushing on the party, and build new institutions that will take stronger stands to influence the party’s direction.
While this kind of accountability and pressure may seem confrontational, this work is crucial because elected officials are responding to an array of inputs. The Right, and corporate interests, spend far more on lobbying than the Left. The Chamber of Commerce alone spends $95M per year, with the National Association of Realtors and the pharmaceutical industry close behind. Progressives must be able to push with greater or equal might in the opposite direction.
When independent organizations push on Democrats, such actions should not be seen as in opposition to the party; rather, their aim is to make the party as effective as possible by making it more responsive to the needs of its voters. Intra-party conflict amongst wings of the party, in this sense — far from “infighting” — is a crucial component of democracy. We will discuss this topic more below.
The Role of Political Donors
There are a number of habits in political giving on the Democratic side that prevent the party from becoming more progressive. Essentially, Democratic donors see their role as ensuring that the Democratic Party wins in electoral contests, but without requirements of the party. They do not tend to see their role as holding the party accountable to a specific agenda.
Democratic donors tend to follow the directions of the party, which often guide them to focus on the Presidential contests. This often means concentrating money in a handful of swing states, rather than building up infrastructure in all 50 states. They tend to focus on candidates and party committees, rather than any independent infrastructure that might hold the party accountable after the election. It also means there is a boom and bust effect, where funding comes right before an election, and disappears for the subsequent two years.
Historically, labor unions have helped fund progressive movements, leaders, and organizations. However, given the ongoing, well-funded assault against unions and workers, organized labor has been put in a historically weak position.