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Progressives have a problem. When it comes to their message, its all noise and no signal. For instance, in a recent Washington Post poll, only 37 percent of respondents said that the Democratic Party had a clear policy and stood for something. To remedy this, late last month the leaders of the Democratic Party unveiled their new platform under a new slogan, A Better Deal.

On the surface this rebranding, as such, seems a good idea. It promises to (1) make it easier for the base to identify what the party represents, and (2) furnish daylight between the progressive program and the Trump-led GOP. The new message is geared to win working-class whites through a razor-sharp focus on economic policy. But this strategy will not only fail to win additional votes, it will risk alienating almost half of the partys base by ignoring race and issues associated with racism.

A Better Deal proposes the following solution: pursuit of a clear economic agenda, one that will compete for the working-class white voters whom Trump carried by wide margins. To do so, Democrats plan to fix a broken economy by addressing issues such as spiraling drug prices and business monopolies. The business monopoly piece is important insofar as monopolies limit competition, which in turn increases prices even as it depresses wages. The partys platform also proposes investment in infrastructure as a means of creating jobs. Ultimately, this new progressive strategy is essentially a paean to working-class politics, specifically the white working class, to the exclusion of everything else especially issues of race.

This approach suggests that Democrats refuse to cede the mantle of populism to Trump and the Republicans. After all, classical populism is about economic justice, a conflict pitting corrupt elites against the virtuous, exploited people. Leaders of the Democratic Party insist upon appealing to the economic anxiety of white voters. If were keeping it real, theyre trying to peel off some of Trumps voters. If progressives hope to make gains in 2018 and win the White House in 2020, however, this is a flawed strategy for at least two reasons.

First, if Trump is a populist, then it is assumed that his supporters were driven by economic anxiety. Populism originated with the Farmers Alliance of the 1870s, but it was initially racially tolerant. Black farmers were included in the populist coalition, at least until political pressure from Democrats then the segregationist party that dominated the white South forced Populists to purge blacks, leading the movementto assume a more racially militant posture.

Todays populists are no different. Recent studies indicate that economic anxiety failed to have any tangible impact on whether or not people voted for Trump. What did? More than anything else, it was racism.

But wait: What about those who voted for Barack Obama in 2016 but flipped to vote for the GOP candidate in 2016? Approximately 13 percent of Trump supporters 8 million people or so voted for the 44th presidentagainst Mitt Romney in 2012. Clearly, if they voted for Obama over a white Republican, they were motivated to support Trump more out of economic anxiety than racism, right? Wrong. In a recent paper authored by Loren Collingwood and colleagues, the results suggest that those who flipped to Trump were more motivated by anti-Latino and anti-immigrant sentiment than by economic issues.

If Democrats insist upon the integrity of A Better Deal, it poses the following problems. For starters, people of color constitute nearly half the Democratic base, about 46 percent. It stands to reason that people of color will be reluctant to forge an alliance with working-class whites who are far more likely, relative to other white people, to harbor racist sentiments. It seems to be the case that many white working-class folks dont believe people of color share their values.If that isnt alarming enough, the fact that the political behavior of people of color is always more influenced by race than by class suggests that focusing so intently on appeals to the white working class is a losing strategy; people of color will refuse to turn out.

Second, and just as important, its not even clear that working-class whites are the problem in the first place. If Trumps support had really been driven by populist appeals for economic justice, i.e., bringing back well-paid manufacturing jobs and so on, he should have cleaned up among those in the bottom half of the income distribution. He didnt. Trump won only 35 percent of that group. In other words, Democrats already won the working-class white vote, by any reasonable definition. So a hardcore economic strategy is unlikely to win them any additional votes.

Surely Democrats can come up with a better deal than the Better Deal. If they dont fix this problem now, theyll remain in the minority, and wonder why.

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Democrats' Better Deal is a bum deal for progressives and won't win elections - Salon

ATLANTA The aftermath of the weekends white nationalist rallies in Charlottesville, and the resulting violence, reverberated in the last hours of the annual Netroots Nation conference. On Saturday afternoon, attendees of the progressive gathering quietly shared the latest news from Virginia. Some began organizing a response.

One of the first responses came from Mikey Franklin, a digital director of the labor-backed Good Jobs Nation campaign, who had found a print shop that could quickly make T-shirts. Franklin made a black-and-white shirt reading Punch More Nazis, then was dogged by questions about them, then printed 30 more.

Theyre all spoken for, Franklin said as he distributed the last shirt. Im not making a profit there should be no financial profit in punching Nazis.

At 7 p.m., hundreds of Netroots attendees gathered in a park across from the Hyatt Regency where the conference had been held. They held signs with slogans ranging from the optimistic (United against hate) to the profane (F white supremacy) to the ultra-specific (This Palestinian supports Black Intifada). After forming into a long, winding line, they marched to the state Capitol, where labor organizer Dolores Huerta led them in prayer.

Lets pray for the people who have been killed and injured, she said. Lets pray for the haters, that the hate comes out of their hearts.

As the sun set, the protesters stood in a circle, listening to loping speeches that tied the events in Charlottesville to everything from the disability rights movement to white identity in America. The protest broke up with a chant: It is our duty to win. We must love each other and respect each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains.

By that time, many of the groups involved in the conference MoveOn, Indivisible, Greenpeace, Our Revolution and more had compiled and shared a list of vigils taking place over the rest of the weekend. Some, like a protest at Delawares state fair, would demand the banishment of Confederate memorabilia one of the ostensible flash points of the racist march in Charlottesville.

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Progressives quickly organize responses to Charlottesville - Washington Post

Im as left-wing as the next guy. When it comes to single-payer, sign me up. Among my progressive brothers and sisters, it is fast becoming an article of faith that single-payer is the goal. ObamaCare, at best, is a way station on the way to something like Medicare for all. I try to maintain a data driven, evidence based approach to public policy, and when I look at the top healthcare systems, I see a hodgepodge.

Single-payer is not universal among universal healthcare systems.

For that expenditure, according to the Commonwealth Fund, The U.S. ranks last overall with poor scores on all three indicators of healthy lives mortality amenable to medical care, infant mortality, and healthy life expectancy at age 60. In second most expensive Switzerland, at least you get what you pay for. Its ranked number three on the healthy lives scale. France, which spends a relative pittance of $4,000 per capita, ranks number one.

But even though all of our peer nations have universal coverage, single payer is far from universal. Among the countries in the Commonwealth comparison, only three of the eleven have a single payer system Canada, Australia, and the UK.

The others are a mixed bag.

Norway is a hybrid system, with national funds being administered through regional authorities. France is a multi-payer systems, with several rather than one tax funded payer funding care. In Germany, two-hundred non-profit insurers cover 90 percent of the population, although 10 percent of people above a certain income level can opt for private for-profit coverage. The Netherlands has private insurers competing for premium dollars (with public insurance covering long-term nursing home care), but signing up for insurance is mandatory, and the insurers have to provide an essential benefit for all at the same price.

The common thread is mandatory coverage whether by taxation or individual mandate. Implement mandatory coverage and the universal outcome is lower costs and better outcomes. (Most, although not all, are also run on a not for profit basis).

American exceptionalism aside, there is a virtually universal acceptance that healthcare is not a commodity that can be efficiently peddled in a market based system.

If theres only one drug that will cure you, where is the competitive market? Maybe there will be competition down the road after the patent expires, and you are, unfortunately, dead. And if you live in a rural community with one doctor or hospital, wheres the competition for your healthcare dollar? Not in the hospital a couple of hundred miles up the road.

Which brings us to the Swiss system, which I like to call ObamaCare the way its supposed to be.

The Swiss have a rigorously enforced individual mandate. If you dont sign up for insurance, the government can impose penalties of 30 to 50 percent above the premium and garnish your paycheck to cover any arrears. In the U.S., in 2016, the 7.1 million people who opt to pay the ACA non-enrollment penalty will fork over a paltry $969 per household, according to estimates by the the Kaiser Family Foundation.

In Switzerland, there is nothing like single payer or socialized medicine. Its all paid for by private insurers, who, as is the requirement with the ACA, have to provide an essential healthcare benefit. But the big difference is that the essential benefit has to be provided on a non-profit basis. Insurers still can make money.

They can sell you coverage for benefits such as private room, orthodonture, or alternative medicine. In effect, the essential benefit, non-profit plan is a loss leader that cheap gallon of milk in the back of the supermarket that gets you to walk past the steaks. And that gallon of milk is indeed very affordable. For an adult, premiums average around $465 a month, with low-income people receiving a subsidized premium reduction.

The conclusions of this brief comparative analysis are obvious.

To my friends on the left, single-payer is fine, but not necessary. What is key is that everyone jumps in the pool. As conservative economist, Stuart Butler, put it, in unveiling the Heritage Foundation plan in 1989 (before the Heritage Foundation forgot about it), each household has the obligation, to the extent it is able, to avoid placing demands on society by protecting itself.

Its easy to reform ObamaCare if we have the will: Enforce the individual mandate with the penalty being the cost of the lowest priced Bronze Plan. If theres no advantage to paying the penalty, everyone will sign up, and the rest of the problems will work themselves out.

To my adversaries, on the right. I can respect your intellectual honesty if you dont believe in universal healthcare, just dont pretend that access equals coverage. To say that I have the freedom to buy a policy I cant afford is like saying I have the freedom to buy a Rolls Silver Phantom.

Thats a phantom, too.

Ira Rosofsky is a psychologist who has worked for years providing services in eldercare facilities. He is the author of Nasty, Brutish, and Long: Adventures in Eldercare, a memoir of his professional life, and the story of caregiving to his own frail, elderly parents. His writing on healthcare policy has appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and Salon, among other outlets. He holds a PhD from the University of Chicago.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the views of The Hill.

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To my fellow progressives: Single payer is good, but unnecessary - The Hill (blog)

Al Sharpton Published 4:25 p.m. ET Aug. 11, 2017

Al Sharpton(Photo: Patrick Semansky/AP)

When Jesse Jackson ran for president during the 1980s, as when I ran in 2004, there were progressives in America. Those progressives were well-meaning individuals and politicians who believed in what we believed in.

Despite this progressive political presence, our presidential campaigns were necessary because the voices of black, brown and poorer white voters were not heard by the elites in politics and government. There was a great deal of talk back then, but no real action. That same dynamic holds true today.

Its a supposed fact that the Democratic base is riled up and activated by the state of play in America. This assessment ignores the most important segment of that base: the African-American voter. We are not motivated by anyone right now.

While Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., did a remarkable job in the 2016 primaries and went further than anyone thought possible, he did so without the African-American vote, losing among blacks by more than 50 percentage points.

While that progressive coalition purported to speak for the African-American voter, it did not talk to African Americans. The Hillary Clinton base, while crushing Sanders, attracted fewer black voters to turn out than in recent primaries. And in the general election, with Clinton running against a novice, the black voter turnout rate declined for the first time in 20 years in a presidential election, falling 7 percentage points compared with 2012.

Arguably, that disinterested black vote cost Clinton the presidency.

It would be unfair to claim that leaders like Clinton and Sanders do not care about issues important to people of color. They do. However, it is equally inaccurate to claim that the progressive movement is fueling African-American participation or interest in our political process. It is not.

Blacks largely sit on the sidelines while the game of politics is being played around us. In the post-Obama era, there is the sense Democrats feel that people of color African Americans in particular have had their chance, and that we should now take a back seat to new leadership. Such sentiment is foolhardy and wrong.

The 21st century version of the rainbow coalition lacks vision and color. Remarkably, blacks still need to fight for a seat at the table and are too often simply stage props for allied elected leaders to make their points.

Consider this: In 2016, when Sanders ran as a Democrat, there was one black chief of staff in the Senate working for a Republican, and none for Sanders or the Democrats.

Perhaps it is time for another African-American presidential campaign to fuel black voter interest. Perhaps its time to remind people that progressive politics cannot be advanced without results and a fully vibrant rainbow of colors working to make that difference.

Two things are certain: African Americans will not be taken for granted again, and progressives invite failure yet again if they try.

The Rev. Al Sharpton is president of National Action Network.

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Progressives will fail if they sideline black voters - NorthJersey.com

ATLANTA Organizing for Action, the successor to Barack Obamas presidential campaign that has been rebuilding itself as a Trump-era resistance machine, is launching a new effort to train more activists by connecting progressive groups with newly-trained organizers.

Aftertraining1,000 fellowssince the start of the year, OFA will work with the Wellstone institute, the woman-focused Emerge America, Run for Something, the African American-focused Collective PAC and the millennial-focused New Leaders Council to place fellows with the relevant causes.

OFA couldnt be more excited to launch this partnership program and work with these influential organizations to help elevate the next generation of progressive leaders leaders who reflect the youthful, diverse population at the heart of progressive movement, said OFA spokesman Jesse Lehrich. Now is the time to invest in the future, to encourage talented young activists to take the next step and run for office, and to provide them with the training and support necessary to be successful.

[Liberals gather in Atlanta to plan Trump resistance strategy]

The progressive groups six-week fellowship program, created by veterans of the Obama campaigns,has become an under-the-radar asset for activists who plunged into politics after the 2016 election.The free program has been turning out organizers for special elections, voter registration and protest campaigns especially the sustained protests against the Republican effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

The surge of interest in such protests, and the parade of resistance groups launched after the election, has turned OFA into one of the lefts more senior, mainstream political outfits.Viewed suspiciously by Democrats during the Obama years,OFAloomed during this years race to chairtheDemocratic National Committee as an example of how Obama hadfailed toresolve divisions within the Democratic Party.

Six months later, OFAhas settled into the firmament of the progressive movement and byconnecting other groups to fellows, its trying to build a farm team that the Obama-era DNC never could.

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Obama campaign successor teams up with progressives to train full-time activists - Washington Post