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Once people got over the shock of the November election, tens of thousands in Maryland joined groups under such banners as "indivisible" or "resistance" or "progressive." I'll refer to them all as "progressive" here.

Until recently these groups did not know how to effectively collaborate on issues they shared. But this is about to change.

A new player has emerged that will work to bring these movements together and dramatically change the 2018 legislative session and elections. The Maryland Progressive Caucus will be working with all these groups to develop clear communications, hammer out priorities given limited resources and encourage attendance at public events.

The group's first formal meeting was in June in Howard County, with about 95 leaders representing organizations from as far as Western Maryland and the Eastern Shore discussing strategy.

Progressives had already worked together and had some success moving toward shared goals during the 2017 General Assembly session. The fracking ban was a fantastic lesson on the power of broad coalitions to bring about change.

Chase Cook

Angered by President Trump, new groups are forming to resist his agenda

Angered by President Trump, new groups are forming to resist his agenda (Chase Cook)

Kathleen Matthews, the current Maryland Democratic Party chairwoman, created an executive committee position for a progressive representative after meeting with the group in May.

An early goal for the new group is to concentrate progressive power while strengthening connections with public-interest groups like the Sierra Club, faith-based organizations like interfaithchesapeake.org and established groups like the Democrats, the Republicans and the NAACP.

To a certain extent, groups in the Annapolis area have already been doing this informally, Action Annapolis agreed to concentrate on city elections, while Anne Arundel Indivisible focuses more on county and state issues and Annapolis Indivisible works on how to combine our efforts with other groups. WISE Women of Severna Park have shown they can hold effective town halls and focus on garnering more bipartisan support for county, state and national issues.

Our local groups are now more seasoned when it comes to working with the legislature and the political process.

All groups agreed at the June meeting that the most important initial task is to develop and support candidates at all levels of government to change the current nature of politics in the state and, ultimately, the nation. The problem is how to maintain an objective presence without necessarily endorsing candidates. Methods are being developed to do just this.

Another key element will be to build diversity among progressive leadership and to make more connections with different groups. The Maryland Progressive Caucus will be reaching out to bring in new leaders and to share resources, aiming to increase not just racial and ethnic but also political and social diversity. Everyone is needed for the work to come!

As a local indivisible group leader, I have to admit I was skeptical when I first heard of this "all state" meeting. But the beauty of the indivisible movement is that people just step up and say, "Let's do it."

I believe this group will unify progressive and indivisible coalitions into a statewide force both parties will need to reckon with in the future. Among the extremely bright and enthusiastic participants at that meeting, I saw lots of intense interaction between young and old, experienced and new.

"The first meeting was all about making connections, establishing trust and discussing ideas and issues at a high level," said Sheila Ruth, one of the new group's leaders. "The next step is to make concrete plans for how we can work effectively together, while still respecting each group's autonomy."

Based on what I've seen so far, I think this is going to happen. Yes, it is going to take leadership and determination, but these seem to be in abundance these days among these determined new political participants.

J. Nelson Wells and his wife co-founded the Annapolis Traditional Dance Society. Contact him at jnw.wells@gmail.com.

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J. Nelson Wells: Progressives, indivisibles begin to unite - CapitalGazette.com

Common Dreams

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Eight Lessons US Progressives Can Learn From the UK Labour ... - Common Dreams

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Progressives Opposed to Due Process for Men? Wall Street Journal (subscription) Progressives Opposed to Due Process for Men? Maybe those accused of rape on campus should be tried in criminal court where the crime can be adjudicated under the rules of due process. July 26, 2017 5:54 p.m. ET ... Betsy DeVos: Trump's illiberal ally seen as most dangerous education chief everThe Guardian all 55 news articles »

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Democrats please progressives with left-leaning policy agenda McClatchy Washington Bureau The Democratic Party's top leaders talked about reviving Teddy Roosevelt's fights against big corporations, mimicked Bernie Sanders' calls for a massive minimum wage hike, and echoed Franklin Roosevelt's promise to deliver a New Deal to the American ... Help us Bernie Sanders, you're our only hope: Why the beloved progressive should start a labor partySalon Looking Back at President Bernie Sanders, Six Months Into His TenurePatheos (blog) Sanders keeping door open on 2020The Hill all 37 news articles »

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Democrats please progressives with left-leaning policy agenda - McClatchy Washington Bureau

In March, progressive activists in the United Kingdom had reason to feel deeply discouraged. Nine months earlier, a majority had voted for Brexit, setting in motion plans to pull the U.K. out of the European Union. Then Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May decided to call a snap election with the goal of consolidating Tory power in Parliament in the face of weak opposition. The Labour Party, led by progressive Jeremy Corbyn, was polling at a miserable 24 percent and facing the possibility of further marginalization.

But on June 8, Corbyn and the Labour Party experienced a stunning reversal of fortune, almost winning the national election called in to vanquish them. And as of mid-July, Labour is 8 percentage points ahead of the Conservatives.

One key force in this change was a grassroots network called Momentum, formed in 2015 to build participation and engagement in the Labour Party. This election, Momentum mobilized 23,000 members and 150 local chapters through on-the-ground campaigning and social media. Think Our Revolution and MoveOn.org with a powerful electoral field operation.

The results were beautiful, said Deborah Waters, a Momentum co-founder and volunteer. I heard it described as the bitterest of victories for the Conservatives and the sweetest of defeats for Labour. The winners didnt really win and the losers didnt really lose.

How did this reversal happen? And what can those of us deep in this Trump presidency learn from it? What follows are eight lessons from Momentum and Labours remarkable campaign.

What Momentum did best, according to national organizer Emma Rees, was [to] energize and mobilize people. Rees said that at every training session theyve had33 so farhalf the people who attended have been completely new to political organizing and had never knocked on a door.

New recruits were attracted to Momentum through creative social media outreach, campaigns featuring popular artists, and one-on-one connections through personal networks.

Momentum also activated long-time Labour voters who hadnt been enlisted to work for the campaign in decades.

Whether new to the Labour Party or long-time supporters, Momentum recruits were put to work for the campaign: Thousands of members knocked on doors, made phone calls, and performed other volunteer campaign tasks.

With their slogan For the Many, Not the Few, Labour and Momentum put issues of income, wealth, and social inequality at the center of the campaign. According to their website, Momentums goals are to redistribute wealth and power from the few to the many, put people and planet before profit and narrow corporate interests, and build a society free from all types of discrimination.

Waters, a veteran Labour Party organizer, said this focus on inequality made their campaign much more inclusive than in past elections, when her party focused primarily on turning out Labour-identified voters. Focusing on inequality helped the campaign reach across party lines, she said. When it comes down to it, we all have the same worries, the same fears for our families. Basically, its about reducing inequalities.

When Theresa May called a snap election, some Labour leaders wanted to shift into defensive mode. The initial response of some sections of the Labour Party was to run a Stop the Tory landslide campaign, said Rees. That kind of campaign would have been all about damage mitigation, she said.

Instead, Momentum ran a campaign that called for transformative change in the lives of ordinary people. And Rees believes that vision motivated people to participate in the campaign and, ultimately, to vote.

At the heart of Momentum are 150 local, volunteer-run groups. As of June, there was a small national team of six paid organizers and another dozen full-time volunteers, supporting a field of thousands of volunteers for local chapters.

To become an official local Momentum group, there are some basic guidelines. Local groups must have gender parity, a meeting space with disabled access, a Facebook page, and a group email address. But otherwise, local groups can choose to self-organize in any way. The national team provides support but also learns from local chapters and shares ideas among the network.

Local Momentum activists knocked on tens of thousands of doors, set up information tables at markets, and worked to have real, one-on-one connections with people.

Momentum identified 66 swing districts where Labour had in previous elections come within 7,000 votes of winning. Waters said that though many thought this was a waste of resources, Momentum was getting signals from their local chapters that there was tremendous grassroots energy for change.

To help organizers target swing districts, Momentum created a website where volunteers can locate nearby swing districts by entering their postal codes. The website also matched people to carpool to nearby districts so volunteers could support local chapters with more canvassers. In the end, Labour won all but four of the 66 swing districts they targeted and picked up 32 seats.

Corbyn exudes integrity. Hes not a jet-setter. He lives in a modest North London home, grows his own vegetables in a community garden (and makes his own jam), and takes pictures of manhole covers as a hobby.

There is an enthusiasm factor that the polls failed to catch, said Rees, an intensity of support for Corbyn in large part because he is a real bloke. He is authentic. People feel they can trust him. A 1984 picture of Corbyn being arrested for protesting apartheid in South Africa was widely circulated among younger voters, reminding people of his lifelong commitment to racial justice (similar to photos of Bernie Sanders getting arrested for civil rights demonstrations).

Like the Bernie Sanders campaign, the Corbyn campaign mobilized millions of younger voters. They filled the ranks of Momentum volunteers, working alongside traditional Labour party activists.

The movement to elect Corbyn was animated by musicians and artists. Grime musicians, a music scene that emerged in London in the early 2000s, formed Grime4Corbyn. Other music scenes, like Moshers for Corbyn, followed along. These artists promoted voter registration and engaged their audiences.

Momentum aimed to use social media to make politics fun. They produced hundreds of shareable graphics and videos, including one popular memeBring your Dog to the Pollswhere people posted pictures of themselves with their dogs outside polling places before the election.

Social media can sometimes just be an echo chamber, but we are trying to change and break out to reach new people, Rees said. Some of our videos were highly shareable. While the conservatives spent millions on dark ads accusing Corbyn of being a threat to national security, we spent like 2,000 on Facebook advertising.

Rees said that 1 in 3 Facebook users in the U.K. watched a Momentum video during the campaign, and a staggering 7.4 million watched one particularly popular video.

The experience of Momentum is inspirational and instructive for those eager to repel Trumpism and the right-wing takeover of U.S. politics. There are obvious differences between our countries: The United States is more geographically diverse and our electoral systemsa parliamentary system in the U.K. and a Republican and Democratic party duopoly in the United Statesare also quite different. And the United States faces the special challenge of highly gerrymandered districts that reduce the number of truly competitive races.

But one common denominator is the power of grassroots organizing and the importance of face-to-face engagement. There is a realignment happening in U.S. politics, the result of growing inequality and polarization, and this creates both dangerous volatility and progressive possibilities. We need to build on the existing infrastructure of grassroots movements and mobilizing groups. Perhaps Momentum can provide some inspiration.

Read Chuck Collins full interview with Momentum activists Emma Rees and Deborah Waters here.

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8 Lessons US Progressives Can Learn From the UK Labour Party - YES! Magazine