What Progressives Can Do To Gain Power In The Democratic Party:

How Progressives Can Remake The Democratic Party in 2026 With The Anti-Establishment & Youth Energy Out There

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!).

Hands-Off via wabe.org

Before I begin, I just want to highlight more cuts at DOGE to carbon capture programs, electric vehicle batteries, and the World Trade Center Health Program.

Also, be sure to check out my older brother’s Salzillo’s Two Cents page if you like my work.

In 2016, Bernie Sanders fans, Elizabeth Warren followers, and others in the movement-like myself-calling for reform or even a “political revolution,” were shocked and dismayed, not even by Hillary Clinton’s 2016 primary victory, but over the fact that she won with the help and consent of the DNC.

The Democratic National Committee is one just one example of the mechanisms progressives and real Democrats (not the Joe Manchin-Kyrsten Sinema or Clinton-wing establishment types) need to utilize to remake the Democratic Party back towards the active, aggressive posture of helping working families and the middle class, and reigning in bad actors in the corporate sector. As we did with FDR and LBJ.

Progressives need to learn how to utilize those mechanisms to their advantage. We know that despite the hard lessons of 2016 and 2024, the addiction to dark money and special interests still exist within the Democratic Party establishment. While more people are calling it out, the fact is you cannot change the policies we stand for until you change the leadership. That is why progressives have to push the old ideas and the people who stand for them into the history books. A new way is needed.

So what does it look like to take over the Democratic Party for it to be more of a primarily working class party that is multiracial, multigenerational, multi geographical, and multicultural? Here are some ideas:

1. The courting of rural voters is essential. We know there is a rural appeal to progressive populism from Bernie Sanders’s 2016 presidential campaign, especially on trade. It is more important than ever now to court rural Democratic Party organizers and rural voters at large who have been neglected by the party establishment for far too long

2. Compete for Democratic National Committee offices. The way to reign in the consultant and donor classes best is to run for offices that are most responsible, and hold those in office accountable on their promises. Right now, DNC Chair Ken Martin will be tested in ensuring Democrats embrace reforms like organizing in all 50 states and the US territories, courting blue-collar working class voters, fighting gerrymandered maps & voter suppression election laws, and canceling bad deals with consultants and vendors who don’t do their jobs wisely. Nothing succeeds like regular popular pressure on leaders.

3. Organize on the state level to run the crucial state parties that are hostile to progressive activists, organizers, and lawmakers. Some are historically notorious like Vermont, New York, and New Jersey, while others have become ineffective electorally as they alienated the base further, which is the case, at least up to now, in Iowa and Kentucky. Others have badly courted rural voters in the past, which Ohio and Indiana are examples of. State parties often look to boost candidates more corporate-friendly, big business, pro-Silicon Valley, or more open generally to special interests, while also being less electable. New blood can be a boon to better and more efficient organization, something we see already with Anderson Clayton in North Carolina and Ben Wikler in Wisconsin.

4. Build our own media ecosystems that serve to counter the usual talk of the corporate media and the issues it neglects to cover in the country, like income inequality, the rise of an oligarchical society, the decline of manufacturing from globalization, and consolidation in the agriculture sector among other issues. It is not impossible. There are foundations already set with news sites ranging from The Intercept, American Prospect, The Nation, Slate, HuffPost, and Salon, to uniquely capable podcasts and podcasters such as Hasan Piker, Brian Tyler Cohen, Sam Seder, Kyle Kulinski, Robby Soave, Bartholomewtown, Chuck Rocha, and MeidasTouch.

5. Learn about the structures of entities like the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the Democratic Governors Association, and the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee amongst other political action committees (which are the main recruiters of congressional and statewide candidates). These are the organizations that often shape the map layout of down ballot elections, with the upcoming 2026 midterms no exception.

6. Form joint progressive coalition groups to counter the flow of anti-reformist and status quo preserver dark money entities. Reject AIPAC, for example, is a starters’ point for organization coalition-building in the pursuit of bold, ambitious changemaking federal government policy. Progressives need to form more of those countermeasures to the influx of conservative and neoliberal dark money coming from the DC special interests, and to protect each other from blacklisting by the DC establishment

7. Use agenda templates from intellectual writers and thinkers like Matt Stoller, Corbin Trent, and Michael Moore (or if the work is that good, myself and my older brother). The agenda template being offered is a form of Progressive Economic Patriotism rooted in New Deal/Great Society values with a focus on leveling the playing field and giving the working and middle classes a fair shot. The message progressives should encapsulate in a nutshell is an economic one that emphasizes the need for a government that serves the people and not one that is rigged for the oligarchic class and the special interests.

8. Make the platform short and sweet in simple language: universal healthcare, public education for all, public tuition-free college & vocational training workforce development, tackling the climate crisis, building a renewable energy economy, a federal jobs guarantee, making childcare and eldercare more affordable, renegotiating and ripping up bad trade deals, reversing agricultural consolidation, reigning in Wall Street with consumer antitrust & safety, expanding labor rights and workers’ rights, raising taxes on the wealthy, supporting small businesses, expanding affordable housing, rebuilding our infrastructure & transportation systems, and the rest from leaders like Sanders & Warren.

9. Be open to cultural differences not just amongst voters, but among potential candidates and officeholders-especially on the local level. In some places, to elect economically old-school Democrats, Midwestern progressives, and prairie populists, some Democrats may have to embrace more traditional views on religious faith, on marriage, and on guns. House Majority Whip David Bonior, a democratic socialist and progressive ally in House Democratic leadership in the 1990s, was a very Catholic, pro-life Democrat in Congress. Governor Tim Walz comes from a guns-based sportsman culture in Southern Minnesota. Congressman David Obey worked within the system, even as he aspired for bolder dreams outside the system.

10. Call out the “villains” who have been an obstacle to the needed change within the Democratic Party: Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema, Josh Gottheimer, Henry Cuellar, Hillary Clinton, Andrew Cuomo, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Gina Raimondo, Michael Bloomberg, Rahm Emanuel, Arne Duncan, Timothy Geithner, Erskine Bowles, Robert Rubin, Mickey Kantor, Sean Patrick Maloney, and other corporate mouthpieces.

11. As a tip for the Congressional Progressive Caucus, build alliances with like-minded populists in the Democratic Conference such as Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia, Congresswoman Sharice Davids of Kansas, Congressman Greg Landsman of Ohio, and Congresswoman Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington

12. Find organizations of like-minded causes to work with (I’ll include some lists I found at StartGuide and Wikipedia). Find their local chapters. Attend local rallies and protests; trust me, there are plenty to check out these days

And those on the sidelines: run for office…especially on the local level.

This is how progressives can lead the Democratic Party and complete the work started by leaders from Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, to Pramila Jayapal, and Greg Casar.