This will be a disappointment for the political reporters always looking to gawk at “hot Dem-on-Dem” action or what Rep. Donna Edwards, D-Md., at the Take Back the American Dream conference this week called a “progressive food fight,” but the straw poll taken at that conference shows there's not a lot of daylight between progressive activists and the president on his jobs agenda.
The message to President Obama: When you're boldly leading the fight for the needs of working-class and middle-class people, progressive grassroots activists will have your back.
Sixty-five percent of the people who participated in the straw poll said they “strongly favored” the American Jobs Act that President Obama sent to Congress. That is the case even though a higher percentage, 78 percent, agreed that the plan was “too small.”
There was also broad support for the kind of forceful approach that President Obama took in his news conference today toward Congress and opponents of his jobs plan. Sixty-five percent of participants either strongly or moderately agreed with the statement that with regard to the jobs bill “the President should NOT compromise on his policy positions, even if that means that his jobs proposals will not pass.” And 89 percent said, “I want Washington to focus more on creating jobs even if that means more spending in the short term.”
Likewise, 64 percent said they opposed any changes to Social Security or Medicare.
There is a strong political warning for President Obama and the Democratic Party in these poll results. When asked if they would consider voting for a third-party candidate in the next election, 34 percent said they would. And 42 percent agreed that there is a need “to build an independent movement to challenge the influence of big money and conservative ideas in both parties.”
In their own analysis of the results, pollster Robert Greenberg and Robert Borosage conclude that “these progressives are concerned that the Democrats’ agenda has not been big enough or implemented fast enough to meet the moment. Given the reality of the economy (90 percent give the economy a cool rating), progressives would like to see a stronger, more activist and progressive agenda from Washington.”
This is of course not a scientific poll, but it is reasonable to conclude that the straw poll demonstrates that elected officials and candidates who champion that agenda will find enthusiastic allies among the kind of people who were at the heart of the get-out-the-vote efforts for President Obama and the Democrats in 2008. Compromisers and backroom deal-makers prepared to trade away the basic economic concerns of working- and middle-class people need not apply.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy