We've Got People

1. The Democratic Party's pivot to corporate cash in the 1980s hollowed out its populist soul.

The perceived need for corporate cash was a direct response to the exodus of a pillar of the 20th Century Democratic coalition: the white working class, particularly in the South.

A shift in strategy. Following devastating losses to Ronald Reagan in 1980, Democratic Party leaders made a conscious decision to abandon traditional grassroots organizing. Instead of building a new, diverse coalition, figures like Tony Coelho steered the party toward corporate PACs and Wall Street donors to match Republican fundraising.

The cost of capital. This financial pivot gradually transformed the party's legislative priorities and diluted its economic message. By relying on business-friendly contributions, Democrats could no longer champion robust populist policies without alienating their new donor base. Key consequences of this shift included:

• The rise of the corporate-friendly New Democrat Coalition.
• The systematic hollowing out of organized labor's political influence.
• An embrace of deregulation and fiscal austerity.

A legacy of compromise. This transformation created a generation of party leaders, including Nancy Pelosi and Rahm Emanuel, who viewed big money as an unavoidable reality of politics. They came to believe that the only way to protect vulnerable incumbents was to maintain a business-friendly posture. Consequently, the party's ability to deliver transformative economic relief to working-class Americans was severely compromised.

2. Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition pioneered the modern diverse, grassroots electoral strategy.

In some significant ways, the Jackson campaign was an answer to the question of what an alternative strategy for the party, one rooted in people rather than money, might have looked like.

The populist alternative. Jesse Jackson’s 1984 and 1988 presidential campaigns demonstrated that a diverse coalition of working-class whites, blacks, Latinos, and progressives could challenge the party establishment. By registering millions of new voters and winning key primaries like Michigan, Jackson proved that grassroots enthusiasm could rival corporate-backed campaigns.

A lasting legacy. Although the party establishment ultimately united behind Michael Dukakis in 1988, Jackson's campaigns laid the groundwork for future progressive victories. He forced critical rules changes, such as proportional delegate allocation, that democratized the primary process. This structural shift directly enabled:

• The rise of a new generation of minority leaders like Donna Brazile and Ron Brown.
• The eventual presidential nomination of Barack Obama in 2008.
• The election of progressive champions like Paul Wellstone and Bernie Sanders.

Suppression of the base. Despite these successes, the centrist wing of the party, led by Bill Clinton, worked systematically to marginalize Jackson's coalition. Clinton's famous "Sister Souljah" moment was a calculated effort to reassure white moderate voters by distancing the party from its progressive black base. This strategy locked the party into a centrist, corporate-friendly trajectory for the next two decades.

3. The internet and small-dollar "money bombs" decentralized political fundraising power.

The grassroots and the netroots are really one and the same. I think too many people fail to understand that about the internet. And if you don’t, you are going to find it tough to successfully use the internet for campaigns. The internet is about community building and the fundraising has to be secondary.

A digital revolution. Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential campaign revolutionized political organizing by using the internet to build community and raise money from regular people. The invention of the "Dean Bat" visual tracker proved that campaigns could raise millions of dollars in small increments, bypassing traditional high-dollar donors.

Empowering the netroots. This new digital infrastructure, championed by organizations like MoveOn, allowed progressives to bypass the party's gatekeepers and coordinate national campaigns. It transformed passive observers into active participants who could lobby their representatives and fund insurgent candidates. Key milestones of this digital awakening included:

• The rapid mobilization of anti-war protests before the Iraq invasion.
• The creation of ActBlue to facilitate small-dollar donations.
• The rise of the progressive blogosphere to challenge establishment narratives.

Shifting the power balance. By proving that candidates could run viable national campaigns without Wall Street backing, the netroots threatened the business-friendly consensus of the Democratic leadership. It forced leaders like Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid to pay attention to the progressive base. This digital organizing model eventually became the foundation for the populist campaigns of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

4. Rahm Emanuel's 2006 "Thumpin'" strategy created a fragile, conservative Democratic majority.

The centrist and conservative candidates were nominated not because they were best for the district, but because Rahm liked them the best, particularly for their ability to raise and spend their own money, but also because they aligned with him ideologically.

The illusion of genius. Rahm Emanuel’s strategy for the 2006 midterms focused on recruiting wealthy, conservative, and military-veteran Democrats to run in Republican-leaning districts. While this approach successfully recaptured the House majority, it did so by bringing in a large bloc of "Blue Dog" Democrats who opposed progressive policies.

A compromised caucus. This conservative recruitment strategy severely limited what the Democratic majority could accomplish once in power. The newly elected Blue Dogs consistently watered down key legislation, from climate change bills to financial reform, to protect their own moderate branding. This internal opposition resulted in:

• The elimination of the public option from the Affordable Care Act.
• The dilution of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform bill.
• A persistent party-wide reluctance to embrace economic populism.

The electoral backlash. By prioritizing self-funding, business-friendly candidates over grassroots progressives, Emanuel built a highly vulnerable majority. When the tea party wave struck in 2010, these conservative Democrats were wiped out, proving that moderation could not protect them from partisan polarization. The party lost nearly a thousand seats nationwide over the next decade, leaving it powerless to stop the rise of Donald Trump.

5. The Obama administration prioritized Wall Street interests and deficit fears over working-class relief.

And the stimulus passed by the Democratic Congress, signed by Obama, was known at the time by his own advisers to be too little to fill the hole blown open by the financial crisis.

A cautious response. In the wake of the 2008 financial collapse, the Obama administration, led by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and economic adviser Larry Summers, chose a conservative path to recovery. They rejected proposals to nationalize failing banks like Citigroup, opting instead to prop them up with taxpayer funds while letting millions of homeowners face foreclosure.

The austerity trap. Anxious about political blowback and deficit spending, the administration kept the 2009 stimulus package artificially small, despite knowing it was insufficient to fill the economic hole. This decision, combined with a subsequent pivot toward fiscal austerity, slowed the recovery and left working-class Americans feeling abandoned. Key policy failures of this era included:

• The refusal to implement robust foreclosure relief for underwater homeowners.
• An across-the-board spending freeze proposed during the 2010 State of the Union.
• A futile obsession with striking a "Grand Bargain" to cut social safety net programs.

Sowing the seeds of populism. By failing to hold Wall Street executives accountable and prioritizing deficit reduction over job creation, the administration created deep public resentment. This frustration fueled both the right-wing tea party movement and the left-wing Occupy Wall Street uprising. Ultimately, this economic malaise laid the groundwork for Donald Trump's populist appeal in 2016.

6. Grassroots social movements succeed by forcing political leaders to choose sides.

The people, ultimately, are the genesis of all movements toward freedom, something President Obama captured on June 26, 2015, the day the Supreme Court finally struck down marriage bans nationwide. The court’s action was, he said, “a consequence of the countless small acts of courage of millions of people across decades who stood up, who came out, who talked to parents — parents who loved their children no matter what.”

Power from below. Major policy shifts during the Obama presidency, such as the repeal of "don’t ask, don’t tell" and the embrace of marriage equality, were not initiated by party leaders. Instead, they were forced onto the agenda by relentless, confrontational grassroots activism that disrupted the administration's preferred timeline of incremental change.

Confronting the establishment. Groups like GetEQUAL and United We Dream rejected the advice of Washington insiders who urged patience and caution. By staging high-profile protests, interrupting presidential speeches, and getting arrested, these activists forced Democratic leaders to choose between their loyal base and political expediency. This pressure campaign successfully achieved:

• The legislative repeal of the military's gay ban in a lame-duck Senate session.
• The Department of Justice's decision to stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act.
• The implementation of DACA to protect undocumented youth from deportation.

A lesson in leverage. These victories proved that progress is made when movements refuse to be pacified by the "veal pen" of Washington access. By creating a political crisis for the administration, activists showed that the cost of inaction was higher than the cost of progress. This confrontational model would later inspire the Sunrise Movement and the fight for a Green New Deal.

7. Elizabeth Warren proved that populist policy can build independent political power.

“If there had been an agency, like the Financial Product Safety Commission, that had said, You just don’t get to fool people on pricing, then what would have happened is there would have been millions of families who got tangled in predatory mortgages who never would have gotten them.”

The consumer champion. Elizabeth Warren rose to national prominence by translating complex financial concepts into plain English and championing the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. As chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel, she used her platform to hold Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner accountable, earning the devotion of the progressive base.

Building the CFPB. Despite fierce opposition from Wall Street lobbyists and moderate Democrats, Warren successfully fought to include a strong, independent consumer watchdog in the Dodd-Frank bill. She did this by mobilizing public outrage and refusing to accept compromises that would weaken the agency's authority. Her strategic victories included:

• Securing a sole director structure for the CFPB rather than a weak commission.
• Bypassing Senate confirmation to serve as the agency's initial organizer.
• Establishing a precedent that the financial system must protect regular consumers.

A new political force. Warren's battle for the CFPB proved that a populist economic message could defeat the lobbying power of the biggest banks. When the Obama administration declined to nominate her as the permanent director due to Senate opposition, she parlayed her popularity into a successful Senate run in Massachusetts. Her presence in the Senate gave progressives a powerful, independent voice capable of blocking Wall Street-friendly appointments.

8. The "veal pen" of Washington insiders routinely pacifies and neutralizes progressive pressure.

The meeting was disorienting because political tactics and style are an expression of values. Obama was thought by progressives to be one of them, to be of the people. But here he was acting like a top-down royalist, uncomfortably with even sympathetic dissent. ... “We’re allies, not footsoldiers,” Hickey insisted.

The co-optation of advocacy. During the health care and financial reform debates, the Obama White House established "Common Purpose," a weekly meeting with progressive groups that critics dubbed the "veal pen." This structure was designed to deliver marching orders to outside organizations and stroke their leaders' egos, rather than to collaborate on progressive policy.

Silencing dissent. In exchange for access to the administration and donor networks, progressive leaders were pressured to call off campaigns targeting conservative Democrats. This co-optation neutralized the grassroots pressure that could have forced Blue Dogs to support stronger legislation. The consequences of this pacification included:

• The abandonment of the fight for a robust public option in the health care bill.
• The silencing of groups like Campaign for America's Future when they tried to "bird-dog" conservative Democrats.
• A top-down, administration-driven organizing model that put the grassroots on ice.

The cost of access. By prioritizing access over activism, established progressive groups became complicit in the watering down of their own priorities. This failure to apply outside pressure left the administration free to negotiate compromises with corporate interests. It would take a new generation of independent, small-donor-funded groups to break out of the veal pen and challenge the party establishment.

9. The insurgent wave of 2018 proved that organized people can defeat organized money.

“This race is about people versus money. We’ve got people; they’ve got money. It’s time we acknowledge that not all Democrats are the same, that a Democrat who takes corporate money, profits off foreclosure, doesn’t live here, doesn’t send his kids to our schools, doesn’t drink our water or breathe our air, cannot possibly represent us,” she said in the ad...

The giant killer. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s stunning primary victory over Joe Crowley, the King of Queens, shattered the myth of the invincibility of the party machine. Running a low-budget, volunteer-driven campaign, she proved that a bold, progressive message could mobilize a diverse, working-class electorate that had long been ignored by the establishment.

A national movement. Ocasio-Cortez's win was not an isolated event, but part of a broader insurgent wave that brought women of color like Ayanna Pressley, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib to Congress. These candidates rejected corporate PAC money and ran on unapologetic platforms of Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, and abolishing ICE. Their campaigns succeeded by:

• Flipping non-voters and young "drop-off" voters into active participants.
• Using sophisticated, in-house digital organizing to bypass traditional consultants.
• Challenging the party's gatekeepers in safe, diverse Democratic districts.

The battle for the future. This insurgent wave has fundamentally shifted the balance of power within the Democratic Party, forcing leaders to grapple with a resurgent left. By demonstrating that organized people can defeat organized money, these new representatives have shown that the party's future lies in its grassroots base. The struggle between the corporate establishment and the populist movement will continue to define American politics for generations to come.