Identifying The Weak Points of Progressives:
Progressives Have A Popular Economic Agenda. So What May Be Limiting Further Inroads, And How Do We Overcome Them? Feedback Is Welcomed
Feel free to check the past Biden Era archives and follow the editions to come in the Trump Era on Substack, Medium, and LinkedIn, including those on the 2024 Autopsy, Bench-Building, DOGE News, Project 2025 Authoritarianism, Progressive Populism, and more (First Come, First Serve!).
So a little ground to cover first:
Donald Trump is afraid of being implicated in the Epstein Files.
Robert Reich wonderfully outlines how deregulation as we know it in the Trump Administration serves the interests of the wealthy. Which makes me genuinely curious about what the abundance agenda is about. Is there more to abundance than just deregulation? And how much does it rely on the private sector to create “credit growth,” something Martijn Konings writes about?
The Washington Post’s E.J Dionne covers the dilemma very well.
Governor Andy Beshear makes his case for how the Trump megabill will hurt Rural America.
Massive ICE raids on agricultural workers recently occurred on the fields of Ventura County, California.
We cannot treat the deployment of masked agents into American cities under ICE as normal. That is what takes place in Russia, China, North Korea, and other autocratic regimes.
The feds are withholding $30 million in Rhode Island K-12 funding.
Texas GOP lawmakers are going to use the excuse of the devastating floods to ram a new redistricting map down the throats of Texans in a special session.
Trump really was slurring in Kerrville, Texas. Jake Tapper, where are you? Or are you too busy writing another book on Biden?
The regime purges the State Department of refugee resettlement and human rights monitoring positions. Thank you John Roberts.
Small businesses report a decline in confidence for the month of June.
The VA scales back layoffs of 76,000 workers.
The first bubonic plague death since 2007 is confirmed in northern Arizona, amid a prairie dog die off.
Could the Trump megabill have been stalled by Democrats if not for recent congressional deaths? It very well could have. Our party needs new blood and more young people in it.
Elon Musk’s AI props up Adolf Hitler. Enough said!
And check out my new 2026 MoveOn petitions, including those for potential senatorial candidates James Talarico, Carlos Guillermo Smith, and Justin Bamberg.
As a former Bernie Sanders supporter and a supporter of his causes (same thing can be said about Elizabeth Warren and her work), I have been wondering why progressives have not been more successful making inroads into the Democratic Party and the country as a whole.
I strongly believe, and an abundance of polling out there from left-wing and mainstream polling outlets shows, there is immense popularity for a variety of kitchen table causes. Raising the minimum wage. Enacting paid family leave. Universal healthcare for all people. Fully funding public education. Making public colleges and universities tuition free. Bolstering national apprenticeship programs and vocational training for the workforce.
Expanding the pool of organized labor. Combatting monopolies and bad actors with antitrust action. Making the wealthy pay their fair share in taxes. Bold climate action and renewable energy job creation. Having the government take more aggressive action to address the affordable housing crisis, and the food insecurity crisis. Protecting and strengthening social safety net programs. Fighting for fair trade and comprehensive industrial and agricultural policies. Rebuilding our infrastructure and transportation systems. Supporting our veterans. Staying strong for campaign finance reform.
Not to mention weaning the Democratic Party off of its own addiction to Big Money.
Indeed, progressive is a word that is partly built from the visualization of “progress” on behalf of working families and the middle class.
On and on we can go. So what is limiting progressive Democrats from starting a Tea Party makeover of their own?
There are a few things I have noticed that I thought might be worth digesting.
“Defund the Police” and Law Enforcement: The mass incarceration in our criminal justice system is a legitimate and serious issue, and walking away from reforming that would be a mistake. At the same time, it seems apparent at least to me that the emotional rhetoric that came out of the George Floyd protests came to be misunderstood.
“Defund the Police” was a slogan, with all the problems that come from slogans. For some, it was a well-intentioned way of saying more social workers and wraparound services were needed instead of relying solely on policing to deter crime. Yet to many people, including many black and brown people, it was taken to literally mean “defund the police,” and get rid of that law enforcement presence with nothing to replace it.
What should take place now is a show of force highlighting the progressives’ commitment to responsible community policing and public safety that places policing in one of the tools in the toolbox to deter crime and ensure justice under the law. That should be paired up with investing in social workers, mental health counselors, private prison accountability, rehabilitation programs, extracurricular community activities (similar to AmeriCorps or City Year), and various government services that address the root causes of crime, poverty, and homelessness.
And for that matter, progressives can also show themselves to be better supporters of law enforcement and first responders than Republicans. Republicans, after all, are the Pardon Party for January 6 rioters who assaulted and caused the deaths and major injuries of law enforcement on that day.
How can progressive show this type of support? Like, for example, by opposing actually defunding law enforcement and first responder departments as Congressional Republicans have proposed, and by supporting the collective bargaining efforts of law enforcement and first responder workers.
Immigration & “Abolish ICE”: Again, a legitimate concern that comes from the treatment of immigrants. And certainly, there needs to be a conversation about prohibiting what are essentially state kidnappings through law and capping ICE funding should Democrats take control of Congress in 2026. However, the solution is not to abolish ICE; the appetite is simply not there to abolish ICE and there are border security needs that require the agency’s functions.
Nonetheless, ICE does need to be restructured in a way that focuses on serious criminals and is curtailed in its ability to go after law-abiding undocumented immigrants and citizens as some kind of personal secret police force. The types of tactics being used by ICE today should be made illegal under a Democratic, progressive-minded Congress, especially as we move towards comprehensive border security and a pathway to citizenship policy that Republicans have blocked for years and decades.
For Small Businesses: Pro-business shouldn’t be a bad word, though it is because of people like Gina Raimondo, a venture capitalist, and Andrew Cuomo, a miniature political despot. They care about Big Business. They’re Corporate Democrats.
Progressives need to care about small businesses. Small mom-and-pop businesses and entrepreneurs. That’s an opening progressives need to take advantage of.
I do believe there are stands progressives make and have made on behalf of small businesses, from government programs that assist small businesses in getting access to capital and resources, to streamlining certain regulations and permitting processes, and promoting competition through antitrust action. This is especially important for Latino voters, many of whom are not just workers anymore, but are starting up their own small businesses, as strategists Chuck Rocha and Mike Madrid have frequently discussed on their podcasts. Building more out on small business policy will help long term.
But so much of it is branding too. Progressives must know how to market their pro-small business policy, and they must know how to put it at the forefront of their agenda.
Cultural Issues: LGBTQ+ rights, gun safety, abortion access, immigration. These are what I would put in as cultural issues.
To take an example, as a Catholic, I am personally opposed to abortion in my personal life. That personal conviction does not mean I have to enforce my religious beliefs on everyone else, including non-Catholics and non-Christians. Mario Cuomo, the late liberal lion, articulated this very well from a religious standpoint in many, many interviews. The truth is medical access to reproductive care is necessary for many people and criminalizing abortion can jeopardize the lives of mothers and children alike.
The point is progressives can still stand in support of social justice and racial justice under the law without changing policy positions. But it is possible to not have the rhetoric overshadow economic issues that most people remain concerned about, like rising prices, housing affordability, student loan debt, tax cuts for the wealthy at the expense of Medicaid and healthcare cuts, along with food programs cuts, to the working and middle classes.
Our language matters, including on issues around the Middle East. We can make substantive points on the butchering and carnage in Gaza without saying “from the river to the sea” or “globalize the intifada.” These slogans actually sometimes make it much harder for people to get their point across. Instead of actually explaining what is wrong with something, you end up spending half your time talking with someone trying to define your terms.
In other words, slogans are not policy solutions.
And yes, make almost everything related to the economy and finances. Combating the climate crisis with renewable energy jobs isn’t just morally right. It helps with job creation, economic development, and making energy costs more affordable. Same thing with universal childcare, etc.
Address these issues, stay focused on the economics, and perhaps we will see a more emboldened progressive resurgence in the Democratic Party like never before in 2026 and 2028.
One more point: Democrats, please do not join the Elon Musk third party bandwagon. If you think he is the solution, you haven’t taken a hard look at the problem. The problem is money in our politics, and billionaires raiding the cookie jar by stirring anger and division among those below them. If only Dean Phillips knew.
Supporting the guy that has starved and will likely kill millions of children abroad will not solve that problem. Supporting an ambitious populist progressive agenda will.
Great post, Mike!