From their manifesto:
Convince voters that we share their priorities by focusing more on issues voters do not think our party prioritizes highly enough (the economy, the cost of living, health care, border security, public safety), and focusing less on issues voters think we place too much emphasis on (climate change, democracy, abortion, identity and cultural issues).
Moderate our positions where our agenda is unpopular, including on issues like immigration, public safety, energy production, and some identity and cultural issues.
Embrace a substantive and rhetorical critique of the outsized political and economic influence of lobbyists, corporations, and the ultra-wealthy, while keeping two considerations in mind: First, voters' frustrations with the status quo are not the same as a desire for socialism. And second, criticizing the status quo is a complement to advocating for popular policies on the issues that matter most to the American people, not a substitute.
Taken together, we can think of these five changes as representing, roughly speaking, the approach of Barack Obama in 2012, the approach of Bernie Sanders (prior to 2020), and the approach of candidates like Dan Osborn, Ruben Gallego, Jared Golden, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, Mary Peltola, Adam Gray, Kristen McDonald Rivet, Tom Suozzi, Marcy Kaptur, and Vicente Gonzalez in 2024. What these candidates teach us is that we must avoid both a pivot to corporate centrism and the pursuit of progressive ideological purity. These candidates demonstrate that we must instead maintain an unwavering focus on the economic issues that are the top priorities of working-class Americans while meeting voters where they are on issues like immigration and public safety.
This is the status quo’s panicked reaction to Mamdani’s populism. Foregrounding “kitchen table” issues (that don’t appear to include raising the minimum wage or union rights), while abandoning climate change, court expansion, Ukraine, reproductive rights, and “identity politics” (meaning human rights for everyone who is not a straight white Christian male).
This is what spending $20 million on “how to listen to men” (as the DNC did) gets you.
They admit their approach is driven by polls, focus groups and the “common sense” of the consultant class.
The list of candidates they hold up as role models for “winning” are some of the least progressive Dems in congress- Problem Solvers who sabotaged Biden’s agenda, reps and senators who took millions from tech and crypto lobbyists, and others who, rather than work for substantive change, supported the status quo and go slow pragmatic incrementalism.
The list of endorsers on the site is a Who’s Who of Democratic Party insiders and Republican Never Trumpers.
We can win without them- and that is what
terrifies them.
= new reply since forum marked as read