If you despair that a mysterious plague of incurable
political knuckleheadism has swept our country, turning previously progressive
white working-class people into mindless Trump worshippers, check out “The
Promise of a Progressive Populist Movement” (http://PeoplesAction.org/the-promise-of-a-progressive-populist-movement).
This report is the work of People’s Action, a multiracial grassroots coalition.
This year, its volunteers knocked on more than 5,000 doors, had nearly 2,500
phone conversations and visited scores of local events and churches in “Trump
Country” — dozens of rural counties in 10 swing states including Iowa, North
Carolina and Wisconsin that went for the yellow-haired corporatist in 2016. The
door-knockers simply had open conversations asking folks in economically
distressed rural communities what mattered to them politically. The most common
initial response was, “No one’s ever asked me before.”
While Trump voters are predominantly white, the
working-class families visited by People’s Action included black, Latinx,
Native American and other residents living in these economically distressed
rural communities. They were not impressed by the inflammatory bugaboos that
idolatrous Trumpsters cite: hordes of invading aliens, mooching poor people,
fake media, etc. Rather, what they most cared about was being told by word and
deed that they — America’s hard-hit
and hard-working families — don’t matter. Far from converting to the
Narcissistic Church of the Donald, these voters saw Trump as merely a handy,
blunt-force club to whack a two-party system that no longer speaks to them — much less for them.
And rather than embracing Trump’s elitist ideology and
agenda, they told People’s Action that they want populist reforms like health
care for all, fair wages, free access to education, clean water and a
government uncorrupted by big money. As a North Carolina door-knocker said of
all the front-porch conversations she had: “No one ever asked me to deny
(workers) a living wage. No one ever asked me to give tax breaks to
billionaires and multinational corporations. No one ever asked me to transfer
wealth off the backs of working people, or allow big money to influence an
election.”
One way to enact public policies that benefit common people
over moneyed interests is to bypass corporate-purchased lawmakers and write the
laws ourselves. In 26 states plus Washington, D.C., and numerous cities, We the
People can put DIY statutes and/or constitutional amendments on the ballot — a
citizens’ initiative process that in this era of plutocratic rule has become a
major avenue for achieving progressive change. Here is a sampler of the scores
of state and local measures voters will see on their ballots this fall.
ECONOMIC FAIRNESS: In 2016, all four of the state
initiatives to raise the minimum wage passed, and this year worker advocates in
Massachusetts, Michigan and Missouri will try to add their states to this win
column. Also, Michiganders will vote on letting workers there earn paid sick
leave.
DEMOCRACY: Voters in Albuquerque, New Mexico; Baltimore,
Maryland; and Denver, Colorado will be offered new forms of small-dollar,
public financing of elections to counter the crushing power of secret,
unlimited donations by corporations. A South Dakota measure would ban corporate
donations to candidates and political parties and bar “gifts” from lobbyists to
elected officials. To stop incumbents from hand-picking their voters by
gerrymandering their districts, people in Colorado, Michigan, Missouri and Utah
will have a chance to turn redistricting over to independent, nonpartisan
commissions. Reforms to democratize voting are proposed in Florida (a “second
chances” initiative to let nonviolent felons vote after release); Michigan and
Nevada (automatic voter registration); Maryland (same-day registration); South
Dakota (vote-by-mail); and Massachusetts (ranked-choice voting, recently
implemented in Maine).
HEALTH CARE: Trump and his cadre of far-out ideologues
in Congress remain obsessed with killing Obamacare, Medicaid and other health
programs that benefit workaday people, but several populist state initiatives
are popping up to put some care back into health care: If proposals in Idaho
and Utah pass, they would join 24 states in expanding Medicaid access. A ballot
measure in California would limit the price of dialysis and one in
Massachusetts would require hospitals to maintain a safe level of nurses.
Ballot measures have proven so successful that
corporate front groups have begun proposing deceptively worded initiatives that
would forestall citizens from putting initiatives on the ballot. So far this
year, initiatives to stop or restrict initiatives have been filed in Maine and
South Dakota to curtail people’s access to this process of direct democracy.
Also, the American Legislative Exchange Council, the secretive, Koch-funded
anti-democracy group, has generated bills in six state legislatures,
essentially to keep citizen initiatives off the ballot.
The true political spectrum in America is not right to
left; it’s top to bottom. A bright progressive future awaits us if we join hands
with the great progressive and racially inclusive majority of workaday people
who’re no longer in shouting distance of the economic and political elites at
the top.
This article appears in Oct 25-31, 2018.
