The Growing Progressive Movement
- Don Juice
- Jul 30, 2018
- 2 min read
This is an article I've been meaning to write for some time now and it is about the win by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the wider progressive wing of the Democratic Party. Now, I personally knew about her before she gained stardom and wrote about the Justice Democrats as a whole last year which she is a part of. Like I said in my article last year, this is our best shot at getting the country on the right track and it starts with the Democratic Party establishment who should be echoing the platform. Cortez proved this by upsetting Joe Crowley in New York who was a top Democratic leader and one of the contenders to take over from Pelosi. Since her victory, she has traveled to other states to campaign for her fellow justice democrats like Cori Bush in Missouri or more infamously Brent Welder in Kansas alongside Bernie Sanders. Also since her win, the Right has been in a frenzy as they‘ve been unable to deal with debating her policies so instead, mischaracterizing her position and making it seem like she is a doofus even though her proposals are popular among the American people. Brent Welder who has a similar platform is leading his Republican opponent by 7 points in the last poll done in February and he hasn’t even won his primary yet. The right understands that progressives like these are a threat because they are not run of the mill democrats. Instead, they are left-wing populist whose message carries weight in flyover country which is the Midwest contrary to conventional wisdom. One of the things I do wish Ocasio Cortez and Bernie Sanders would stop doing is calling themselves Democratic Socialist. Not because I think they will turn people off but because it’s incorrect. They are Social Democrats which is what you see in Europe. Neither Bernie nor Cortez advocates for socially owning the means of production which is post-capitalist. At the same time, I feel that that discussion is mute because Democratic Socialism and Social Democracy have become interchangeable in the United States. The DNC is also having a hard time processing Cortez’s win by dismissing it as a one-off but I think they are making a big mistake by dismissing it as an outlier and I believe the other Justice Democrats will showcase this in their primaries. Right now there is a civil war between the Progressive and Establishment wing of the party and I believe people are sick of centrism and are ready for left-wing populism once championed by FDR that looks out for the working class which is the only antidote to the right-wing populism of hidden corporatism and open demagoguery. So I look forward to the midterm elections and I'm interested in the races with progressives.
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