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For now, at least, the attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act appears dead. Sabotage by a spiteful Trump administration is still a risk, but there is gasp! a bipartisan push to limit the damage, with Democrats who want to preserve recent gains allying with Republicans who fear that the public will blame them for declining coverage and rising premiums.

This represents a huge victory for progressives, who did a startlingly good job of marshaling facts, mobilizing public opinion and pressuring politicians to stand their ground. But where do they go from here? If Democrats regain control of Congress and the White House, what will they do with the opportunity?

Paul Krugman writes for The New York Times.

Well, some progressives by and large people who supported Bernie Sanders in the primaries are already trying to revive one of his signature proposals: expanding Medicare to cover everyone. Some even want to make support for single-payer a litmus test for Democratic candidates.

So it's time for a little pushback. A commitment to universal health coverage bringing in the people currently falling through Obamacare's cracks should definitely be a litmus test. But single-payer, while it has many virtues, isn't the only way to get there; it would be much harder politically than its advocates acknowledge; and there are more important priorities.

The key point to understand about universal coverage is that we know a lot about what it takes, because every other wealthy country has it. How do they do it? Actually, lots of different ways.

Look at the latest report by the nonpartisan Commonwealth Fund, comparing health care performance among advanced nations. America is at the bottom; the top three performers are Britain, Australia and the Netherlands. And the thing is, these three leaders have very different systems.

Britain has true socialized medicine: The government provides health care directly through the National Health Service. Australia has a single-payer system, basically Medicare for All it's even called Medicare. But the Dutch have what we might call Obamacare done right: individuals are required to buy coverage from regulated private insurers, with subsidies to help them afford the premiums.

And the Dutch system works, which suggests that a lot could be accomplished via incremental improvements in the ACA, rather than radical change. Further evidence for this view is how relatively well Obamacare, imperfect as it is, already works in states that try to make it work did you know that only 5.4 percent of New Yorkers are uninsured?

Meanwhile, the political logic that led to Obamacare rather than Medicare for all still applies. It's not just about paying off the insurance industry, although getting insurers to buy in to health reform wasn't foolish, and arguably helped save the ACA: At a crucial moment America's Health Insurance Plans, the industry lobbying organization, and Blue Cross Blue Shield intervened to denounce Republican plans.

A far more important consideration is minimizing disruption to the 156 million people who get insurance through their employers, and are largely satisfied with their coverage. Moving to single-payer would mean taking away this coverage and imposing new taxes; to make it fly politically; you'd have to convince most of these people both that they would save more in premiums than they pay in additional taxes, and that their new coverage would be just as good as the old.

This might in fact be true, but it would be one heck of a hard sell. Is this really where progressives want to spend their political capital?

What would I do instead? I'd enhance the ACA, not replace it, although I would strongly support reintroducing some form of public option a way for people to buy into public insurance that could eventually lead to single-payer.

Meanwhile, progressives should move beyond health care and focus on other holes in the U.S. safety net.

When you compare the U.S. social welfare system with those of other wealthy countries, what really stands out now is our neglect of children. Other countries provide new parents with extensive paid leave, provide high-quality, subsidized day care for children with working parents and make pre-K available to everyone or almost everyone; we do none of these things. Our spending on families is a third of the advanced-country average, putting us down there with Mexico and Turkey.

So if it were up to me, I'd talk about improving the ACA, not ripping it up and starting over, while opening up a new progressive front on child care.

I have nothing against single-payer; it's what I'd support if we were starting fresh. But we aren't: Getting there from here would be very hard, and might not accomplish much more than a more modest, incremental approach. Even idealists need to set priorities, and Medicare-for-all shouldn't be at the top of the list.

Original post:
Enhance Obamacare and move foward from single-payer - Albany Times Union

Black Americans are not to blame for Hillary Clintons defeat last November. However, it is true that many black progressive activists know they made a mistake by not voting for Clinton and/or encouraging others not to, and they regret it, but they wont admit it. Its also true that eight months later we still need to talk about what happened.

Throughout the last presidential election season, many black progressive activists, a group I am labeling as left-of-center, unapologetically black, and disillusioned with electoral politics, were telling Americans about the political system, informing our opinions about black electoral politics and what the black community needs from the next president. Black progressive activists encouraged fellow African Americans to vote for someone other than Hillary Clinton, and in some cases, to not vote at all. They were wrong.

Ive labeled this phenomenon: Post-Civil Rights Era Progressive Activist Privilege. It is the false belief, in electoral politics, that black Americans have the luxury of choosing individual beliefs over whats best for the group as a whole.

My argument to black progressive activists has been simple: we are not in a position as a black community to vote our individual preferences over our group interests. We are definitely not in a position to not vote and then claim to care about our people. If you claim to be about improving black lives over anything else, you cant possibly argue Trumps election helps the cause.

However, there is a movement in black communities on the left that espouses a different position. Many black progressive activists argue that the liberation of black people will only and should only come from the ground up in grassroots spaces devoid of participation in electoral politics, particularly in national elections. Alternatively, others may argue that participation in electoral politics should be strategic so not to become a pawn of the Democratic Party. I argue it is flawed to discourage black participation in electoral politics.

The argument from black progressive activists is persuasive. They proffer neoliberalism, liberal economic philosophy that allegedly views citizens as consumers, has taken over our political imagination. They argue the Democratic Party has adopted a neoliberal philosophy that undermines the marginalized and the have-nots. They cite the devastating statistics in crime, education, poverty, and so on, that in many cases got worse for blacks under Democratic leadership. They believe in a radical conception of democracy that extends beyond electoral politics. Many no longer believe electoral politics is the platform through which the liberation of black people and their universal freedom will be achieved.

As a result, some intellectuals and activists have sought to encourage blacks not to participate in the political process, or have argued for modified versions of a limited black political participation, masked as strategic engagement.

Each of these arguments is worthy, but not at the expense of achieving material-based, quality-of-life improvements for blacks in the short term.

WILLIAM EDWARDS via Getty Images

For example, just days before the election, the Ku Klux Klan endorsed Trump and, surprisingly, many black progressive activists still did not retreat from their ideologically pure ground.

This is why I turn my disdain toward black intellectuals and media pundits who chose to use their platforms to further their individual ideological preferences. When activists in media offer political commentary about topics on which they are not experts, the effort to achieve some progressive opportunities for black communities can be endangered.

The black progressive argument that Clinton would not have represented blacks any better than Trump often came from sources via social media and black activist networks (some of which I also belong to) that simply printed falsehoods or, at best, incomplete information. Consequently, many black American followers allowed selective media sources (and their pundits and contributors) to influence their politics. They allowed Facebook friends and Twitter and Instagram followers to influence them politically even though their life circumstances varied. Perhaps, Russian interference is partially to blame. Even still, Black people should be unconditional in their organizing against the KKK and any candidate they support.

Now, as nearly every day brings another Trump administration goal or action that threatens black lives, many continue to cling to their anti-Clinton posturing even as data is produced that proves the negative impact of their decision not to vote for the Democratic nominee or at all.

The false choice to not engage the system is a decision to not engage in the institutions that, like it or not, govern our lives as Americans. When blacks choose to disengage in electoral politics, they risk irrelevancy and even poorer representation from our elected officials. Engagement by blacks, rather, can impact the outcome of elections and produces better results for black communities.

The entire argument of black progressive activists rested on the assumption of a Clinton victory. The intellectuals assumed the tonality of their anti-Clinton, anti-two-party system, anti-capitalist op-eds and on-air rhetoric would not discourage blacks from voting for Clinton, even in battleground states; they were wrong. Their views, coupled with shared views from celebrities like Colin Kaepernick, Rosario Dawson, and Azealia Banks, I argue, played a huge role in the significantly decreased black male turnout vote in urban cities. With at least a seven percent reduction in black votes, (almost two million black votes cast for Obama in 2012 did not turn out for Clinton), that was arguably the nail in Clintons electoral coffin. While a wave of white working-class voters significantly contributed to Trumps win, the influence of black progressive activists on traditionally Democratic black voters cannot be ignored.

Politics includes electoral politics, grassroots politics, and community politics. I believe it will take all three working in concert to eliminate the centuries-long subjugation of blacks by our institutions of government. Most of the systemic and structural issues facing black communities in the United States will require electoral politics to solve, and black Americans cant afford to be persuaded not to vote.

This past presidential election was the first general election since 1968 to be held without the full protection of the Voting Rights Act. After the record-breaking turnout among black communities during both of Obamas presidential elections, a decline in black voter turnout for a non-Obama ballot was to be expected. The Supreme Courts 2013 Shelby v. Holder decision, coupled with GOP successful efforts to suppress minority voters, made it more difficult for blacks to vote in key electoral battleground states. Yet, black activists had three years to prepare for that expected decline. Black intellectual activists chose to spend much of that time fighting each other.

One such fight during the campaign season centered on whether or not Clinton was as bad as Trump. I reject the framing that Clinton was equally bad for black Americans.

She wasnt endorsed by the KKK!

Thats one clear difference and it really was enough for me. Its shocking to me, still, that the KKK endorsement was not enough for every other person of color in America.

Another difference? Clinton would not have appointed Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, effectively eliminating any chance of substantive black progress in the legal arena for generations. Coupled with Kennedys expected retirement, because Trump won in November, the Supreme Court and hundreds of other judicial lifetime positions could shift far-right.

By not listening to black political experts, many in the black American community failed to understand the difference between black cultural organizing and black political progress. The result? Many black progressive activists inadvertently set black opportunity back several generations.

These black intellectual progressives thought they could lean on the strategic political behavior of black voters at the polls without having done the educating work necessary to ensure that was possible. Too many black progressives thought we could afford abstract articulations of the holistic needs of the black community. The irony of some black people choosing normative ideals over material advancement is astounding. Those black progressive activists were complicit in the election of a Ku Klux Klan endorsed presidential candidate - Im sorry (not sorry), but you lose your black card.

When black Americans allow selective news viewership to dictate how their personal politics impacts their black community membership, we have allowed our activisms to be limited to the news cycle.

For the failure of helping to elect Trump, black progressive activists must re-assess the value of prioritizing ideals if their influence indirectly has a negative impact on black opportunity in electoral politics. Until that moment, for future elections, black Americans must stay committed to electoral politics as the black progressive position will gain even greater momentum in that arena.

By committing to reading thoroughly and checking sources, blacks can be their own political experts. By learning the system, the issues, and the candidates, the African American community can encourage more black left-of-center people to run for office and donate more to candidates that represent the group interests of African Americans. Some in the black American community tried a shortcut last November and erred. We can never make that mistake again.

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How A Group Of Black Progressives Derailed Black Progress - HuffPost

Pacific Standard

The Mass Panic Over Russian Political Interference Threatens Progressives Too Pacific Standard The Mass Panic Over Russian Political Interference Threatens Progressives Too. Armed with potent propaganda, House Republicans are targeting the environmental movement over alleged Kremlin ties. Avatar: Jimmy Tobias; Author: Jimmy Tobias; Publish ...

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The Mass Panic Over Russian Political Interference Threatens Progressives Too - Pacific Standard

When you compare the U.S. social-welfare system with those of other wealthy countries, what really stands out now is our neglect of children.

For now, at least, the attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act appears dead. Sabotage by a spiteful Trump administration is still a risk, but there is gasp! a bipartisan push to limit the damage, with Democrats who want to preserve recent gains allying with Republicans who fear that the public will blame them for declining coverage and rising premiums.

This represents a huge victory for progressives, who did a startlingly good job of marshaling facts, mobilizing public opinion, and pressuring politicians to stand their ground. But where do they go from here? If Democrats regain control of Congress and the White House, what will they do with the opportunity?

Well, some progressives by and large people who supported Bernie Sanders in the primaries are already trying to revive one of his signature proposals: expanding Medicare to cover everyone. Some even want to make support for single-payer a litmus test for Democratic candidates.

So its time for a little pushback. A commitment to universal health coverage bringing in the people currently falling through Obamacares cracks should definitely be a litmus test. But single-payer, while it has many virtues, isnt the only way to get there; it would be much harder politically than its advocates acknowledge; and there are more important priorities.

The key point to understand about universal coverage is that we know a lot about what it takes, because every other wealthy country has it. How do they do it? Actually, lots of different ways.

Look at the latest report by the nonpartisan Commonwealth Fund, comparing health-care performance among advanced nations. America is at the bottom; the top three performers are Britain, Australia and the Netherlands. And the thing is, these three leaders have very different systems.

Britain has true socialized medicine: The government provides health care directly through the National Health Service. Australia has a single-payer system, basically Medicare for All its even called Medicare. But the Dutch have what we might call Obamacare done right: individuals are required to buy coverage from regulated private insurers, with subsidies to help them afford the premiums.

And the Dutch system works, which suggests that a lot could be accomplished via incremental improvements in the ACA, rather than radical change. Further evidence for this view is how relatively well Obamacare, imperfect as it is, already works in states that try to make it work did you know that only 5.4 percent of New Yorkers are now uninsured?

Meanwhile, the political logic that led to Obamacare rather than Medicare for all still applies.

Its not just about paying off the insurance industry, although getting insurers to buy in to health reform wasnt foolish, and arguably helped save the ACA: At a crucial moment Americas Health Insurance Plans, the industry lobbying organization, and Blue Cross Blue Shield intervened to denounce Republican plans.

A far more important consideration is minimizing disruption to the 156 million people who currently get insurance through their employers, and are largely satisfied with their coverage. Moving to single-payer would mean taking away this coverage and imposing new taxes; to make it fly politically youd have to convince most of these people both that they would save more in premiums than they pay in additional taxes, and that their new coverage would be just as good as the old.

This might in fact be true, but it would be one heck of a hard sell. Is this really where progressives want to spend their political capital?

What would I do instead? Id enhance the ACA, not replace it, although I would strongly support reintroducing some form of public option a way for people to buy into public insurance that could eventually lead to single-payer.

Meanwhile, progressives should move beyond health care and focus on other holes in the U.S. safety net.

When you compare the U.S. social-welfare system with those of other wealthy countries, what really stands out now is our neglect of children. Other countries provide new parents with extensive paid leave; provide high-quality, subsidized day care for children with working parents; and make pre-K available to everyone or almost everyone; we do none of these things. Our spending on families is a third of the advanced-country average, putting us down there with Mexico and Turkey.

So if it were up to me, Id talk about improving the ACA, not ripping it up and starting over, while opening up a new progressive front on child care.

I have nothing against single-payer; its what Id support if we were starting fresh. But we arent: Getting there from here would be very hard, and might not accomplish much more than a more modest, incremental approach. Even idealists need to set priorities, and Medicare-for-all shouldnt be at the top of the list.

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Progressives should move beyond health care - Seattle Times

Pizza, beer and an introduction to democratic socialism. At a recent Monday night meeting of the New Orleans chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), a few dozen people gathered in the lobby of a pale yellow building housing WHIV-FM on Orleans Avenue for PowerPoint presentations outlining the history of the organization, understanding intersectionality and how to engage in respectful discussion.

A few weeks before the meeting, the group organized a sit-in with several other local progressive groups at the Metairie office of U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy. It all was part of a national push to combat the attempted repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and to bring attention to the groups' support for single-payer health care under "Medicare for All." (Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office deputies arrested three DSA members sitting in the building's lobby.)

The multipronged national effort was coordinated by DSA chapters and several other progressive organizations, including the pro-Bernie Sanders group Our Revolution, Progressive Democrats of America, Ultraviolet, The People's Consortium for Human and Civil Rights, ResistHere and The Working Families Party.

Last year, the local DSA chapter had a handful of members meeting in a coffee shop. In January, it formed its first-ever organizing committee. Today, there are more than 70 dues-paying members, along with more than 100 regular meeting attendees, hundreds of followers on social media and new faces at every meeting.

Progressives are having some surprising successes elsewhere. Voters in Jackson, Mississippi elected 34-year-old Chokwe Antar Lumumba as mayor in 2016 after he pledged to turn Jackson into "the most progressive city in the country." Lumumba didn't win by a slim majority, but with 93 percent of the vote. Other progressive candidates are beginning to see significant victories across the U.S., from school board seats in St. Louis, Missouri to municipal races in Illinois and Georgia in 2016.

Locally, the DSA and like-minded organizations defer to groups that have carried progressive issues for years, particularly groups led by people of color and those fighting for issues largely affecting people of color.

The 2016 election galvanized both longtime and first-time activists, "#resist" liberals and young people getting their first taste of electoral politics and direct action in the wake of self-described socialist Bernie Sanders contending for the Democratic nomination. Whether motivated by outrage over a Donald Trump presidency, frustration with moderate Democrats, or a sense of needing to do something, newly formed groups now are looking to craft local policies around housing affordability, racial justice, health care and pay equity.

Organizing efforts follow energetic campaigning around Sanders' bid for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, according to Ed Chervenak, director of the University of New Orleans Survey Research Center. "He mobilized so many people to get involved in the presidential campaign," Chernevak says. "There's some spillover from that campaign to what's happening on the local level." Progressive groups hope to place their ideas at the forefront of the Oct. 14 municipal elections. This year, they were the first to host mayoral and City Council town halls for the current election cycle, and some will issue endorsements. They also promise to hold the winners accountable to the pledges they make during thecampaign.

Though town halls and forums are forcing candidates to recognize groups' platforms and presence on local fronts, candidates aren't likely to guarantee their commitment in an election dominated by issues of crime, economic development and affordable housing, Chervenak adds. Still, local organizers want their issues on the candidates' collective radar. "The candidates are showing up for their forums, so that's enhancing the awareness of these groups," hesays.

"Who ordered a shirt?" A few hands dart up inside a large meeting room inside Temple Sinai on St. Charles Avenue, where Joyce Vansean conducts a Sunday general meeting of the activist group Indivisible NOLA. Many of the more than 40 people at the meeting became politically engaged within the last year; others have a long history of activism. Nearly everyone is attending for the first time. There are mothers with sons, a few teenagers mulling a political run and new and experienced activists spanning a range of ages and backgrounds. One woman says she recently changed her voter registration from Republican to Democrat.

A national organization offering a "guide to resisting the Trump agenda," Indivisible has local chapters in Jefferson, St. Bernard and St. Tammany parishes, Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Motivated and empowered after attending the Women's March in Washington, D.C., Vansean founded the New Orleans chapter. Indivisible NOLA now has dozens of regular meeting attendees and more than 3,000 followers in its Facebook groups.

"After the election, just like a lot of people, I was just devastated and horrified and scared and didn't really know what to do," Vansean tells Gambit. She says she was moved to action by the Trump administration's January immigration and travel ban targeting majority-Muslim countries. "It was that moment, for me, that it came into focus," Vansean says. "I knew I wasn't going to be able to sit around and be sad for four years, or however long. I was going to have to do something."

Indivisible members made hundreds of phone calls to the offices of U.S. Sens. Bill Cassidy and John Neely Kennedy in support of the ACA. The group also held several protests outside Cassidy's office, including a last-minute rally with colorful umbrellas urging Cassidy to vote to "keep us covered."

The day after Cassidy's vote supporting the failed "skinny" health care repeal, Vansean says the group didn't necessarily take it as a loss.

"I think the activism is not only geared toward changing elected leaders' minds, it's also about making the public aware making moderates and independents and even Democrats and Republicans aware of what's happening in their government," she says. "If they see on the news an activist saying, 'Yes, 22 million will lose health insurance,' that's something that's hard to ignore if you haven't been paying attention to politics. There's a lot of people who don't think politics is for them, who may have just been informed by our activism. It definitely accomplishes a lot more than just changing that vote. What we can do is have an impact on the rest of the constituency, so at somepoint they may have to listen a little more."

A Black Lives Matter banner stretched across the altar at First Unitarian Universalist Church at Jefferson and Claiborne avenues on June 17, where Indivisible held the first mayoral town hall in advance of New Orleans' fall election nearly a month before qualifying for mayor and City Council. Candidates Michael Bagneris and LaToya Cantrell sat in front of roughly 300 people in a standing-room-only crowd; Desiree Charbonnet, the other invited candidate, had planned to come but cited a scheduling conflict.

Vansean asked the first question: whether the candidates support a platform established by the People's Assembly, part of an international movement to strengthen policies impacting working people. Its New Orleans agenda combines efforts from several groups and roughly 400 activists, centered on a hospitality workers' bill of rights, expanded public transportation efforts and a $15 minimum wage.

Neither Bagneris nor Cantrell expressly supported the People's Assembly platform but the opening question telegraphed the priorities established by progressive groups in town halls and other public forums that followed.

"The candidates can't really address [the platforms], they have to give as good an answer as possible," Chernevak says. "They have to operate within the reality of the budget and the realities of the problems the city faces crime, poverty. We would like to have more money to devote to social welfare programs; we would like to have a $15 minimum wage. There are just barriers there. ... If they can convince Baton Rouge to set their own wage, then of course you'd be confronted by businesses here in New Orleans as well. There are a numberof fronts they'd have to deal with." Vansean says that's the idea.

"We're new to this," she says. "What we try to do whenever we can is defer to organizations led by people of color, people who have been doing activism forever it made a lot of sense for us to say, 'This is what the people want. We are going to advocate for that.' ...

"For us, it's definitely an aspirational agenda. It all seems possible but pretty unlikely a lot of that would get accomplished within a year of a mayor's election. But as an aspirational goal and getting people on the same page, it's very clear to support them. It's to make one united voice across the city with activists."

Indivisible isn't likely to endorse specific candidates, but it is considering submitting candidate "report cards" on the issues the group has discussed in its candidate forums. "It's going to be a deeper dive on the things we care about," Vanseansays.

Last month, Step Up Louisiana released its three-point platform supported by more than 40 groups, from local faith leaders to criminal justice reform organizations. Formed after Fight For $15 efforts in 2016, Step Up Louisiana distributed surveys through the Fight For $15, OUR Walmart, Service Employees International Union and Stand eith Dignity networks. The group used the results to build a platform which Step Up now is asking candidates to adopt: Establish a $15 minimum wage for municipal workers and lobby for local control over adopting a citywide $15 minimum wage; promote and ensure equal pay for equal work; guarantee family and sick leave for city employees and contractors; and "ban the box" on all employment applications to ensure formerly incarcerated people have a fair shot in the workplace.

As the city continues to spend more than $2 billion on repairs and infrastructure projects, local organizers are fighting to ensure local workers are hired for those jobs and earn fair shares of significant federal dollars. The city instituted a $10.55 minimum wage for city contractors; Louisiana has no minimum wage of its own, following the federal minimum wage guideline of $7.25 per hour. (State law prevents New Orleans from setting its own minimum wage hike outside municipal employment.)

Despite political obstacles, voters largely support raising the minimum wage and ensuring sick and family leave time, according to veteran pollster and sociologist Silas Lee. (The 2016 Louisiana Survey, conducted by Louisiana State University's Reilly Center for Media and Public Affairs in the Manship School of Mass Communication, found that 76 percent of those polled supported a raise in the minimum wageto $8.50 per hour, including59 percent of stateRepublicans.)

Step Up packed a town hall at Ashe Cultural Arts Center July 25. More than 20 candidates from nearly every race on this fall's ballot appeared not on the stage, but in a seating area on the floor while members of workers' groups such as Stand with Dignity and union organizers told their stories and gave candidates 30 seconds to give their positions on a wide range of issues. Those issues included raising the municipal minimum wage to $15, expanding New Orleans Regional Transit Authority access, supporting workers' rights to organize and whether they agree that curbing the city's crime rate can be solved with job training and career access among vulnerable residents.

"It's not just the minimum wage, it's closing the income gap, especially in an economy like New Orleans where you have a significant portion of the population in the service sector," Lee says. "Sick leave is a big issue, particularly among hourly wage workers, depending on the job they have, because if they take off sick [for themselves or a family member] ... that impacts their monthly income."

Mayoral candidates Tom Albert, Brandon Dorrington, LaToya Cantrell, Byron Cole, Troy Henry, Matthew Hill, Frank Scurlock and Hashim Walters have signed on to incorporate the platform into their agenda if elected. City Council At-Large candidates who support the platform include Joe Bouie, Jason Coleman, Kenneth Cutno, Helena Moreno, David Gregory Nowak and Jason Williams.

District A candidates who support the platform include Tilman Hardy, Dan Ring and Toiya Washington-Kendrick. In District B, Jay Banks, Eugene Ben-Oluwole, Timothy David Ray and Andre Strumer have signed on. District C candidates Kristin Gisleson Palmer and Nadine Ramsey support the platform, which also has the support of District D candidate Joel Jackson and District E candidates Dawn Hebert and Cyndi Nguyen.

Step Up plans to announce endorsements later this year.

New Orleans' DSA chapter is unlikely to make endorsements in 2017's local elections, but the group hopes to see more progressive candidates on local ballots. The national organization, the largest socialist body in the U.S., supports a broader ideological goal of remedying the systemic impacts of capitalism with a platform rooted in understanding health care and housing as human rights and advocating for a living wage, built on a foundation grounded by feminism and civil rights advocacy.

"New Orleans' Democratic party is pretty all-powerful," says Josh Lewis of DSA New Orleans. "You don't get a lot of candidates for [City] Council who are going to rock the boat because it's so critical for them to have the support of the party. ... Over time, hopefully that will change, and the more political engagement you have in the city, and more people paying attention, the more possibility for different kinds of candidates becoming successful."

The group also is stepping up its local activity. Among its earliest events as a group was supporting Nissan plant workers in Mississippi who rallied to unionize. The chapter's committees currently include locally focused efforts around labor and health care, and on Aug. 10 at Sidney's Saloon, the group hosts a fundraiser to replace car brake lights at no cost. Its goal remains amplifying existing organizations and efforts pressing for pragmatic reforms.

Lee says progressive groups will "without a doubt" play a role in future elections.

"They're able to mobilize people who are voters," he says. "That can have an impact in terms of who turns out and who is supported by those groups. They've gained visibility. In the past, people focused on a lot of the political organizations. Now you are witnessing the emergence of not only neighborhood groups but also groups looking at social, economic and educational equity and inclusion. ... You're looking at groups that have specific interests and are able to build coalitions around those interests."

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The new progressives - bestofneworleans.com