Despite frustrations at the federal level, progressive officials and activists are winning in states and municipalities.
It has been nearly eight years since Bernie Sanders’s 2016 presidential campaign breathed new life into the U.S. progressive movement, and nearly six since Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (AOC) upset primary win provided a roadmap for progressive candidates to advance their politics in the electoral arena. Since then, the modern progressive movement has notched many more victories: Candidates have been elected across the country from the municipal to federal levels, and policies codifying abortion access, decriminalizing marijuana, expanding state-sponsored health care, and taking steps towards ameliorating the housing crisis have passed at the local and state levels.
All this has taken place, though, against a backdrop of surging right-wing energy at the national level. Donald Trump’s blockbuster term of Supreme Court appointments has likely ensured a generation of right-wing judicial capture, and the results are already wreaking havoc on the lives of many. And with Trump easily outpacing the rest of the field of Republican contenders for the 2024 presidential nomination, Joe Biden’s 2020 victory seems less like a resounding defeat of Trumpism and more a temporary outmaneuvering.
Meanwhile, there appears to be real trouble afoot in the world of progressive electoral support organizations that played a critical role in helping candidates win their elections in recent cycles. Most visibly, Justice Democrats, the organization closely associated with AOC and other prominent congressional progressives, laid off nearly 50 percent of its staff in July. The organization’s executive director, Alexandra Rojas, explicitly cited fundraising shortfalls as the driver of the layoffs.
