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While rolling out their plan to extend Californias cap-and-trade program, Gov. Jerry Brown and legislative leaders have portrayed their proposal as a win on two fronts: reaching the states ambitious climate goals and tackling local air pollution.

But beyond the triumphant rhetoric, there is ambivalence about the proposal, largely from progressive lawmakers and environmental advocates. Meanwhile, more conservative legislators and industry groups have stopped short of embracing the plan, throwing the swift passage Brown hoped for in doubt.

The reactions to the proposal underscore a key tension in the debate over Californias self-styled role as a national and international climate leader, particularly as President Trump slashes environmental regulations in Washington: How to balance aggressive action with broad political appeal.

The state is responsible for a tiny fraction of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, meaning its only hope of influencing global warming is modeling policies that can be embraced elsewhere, including in more conservative states. Cap and trade, a system that requires companies to buy permits to release greenhouse gases, is seen as a more business-friendly alternative to other methods that would dictate how polluters such as refineries reduce their emissions.

Being able to show that [emissions] reductions can happen, that the economy can continue to thrive with this ambitious climate commitment, that's going to be critical for this model being replicated around the world, said Erica Morehouse, a senior attorney with the Environmental Defense Fund, a national environmental group that quickly backed Browns plan.

But other green advocates want the state to set an example with the most stringent possible regulations, and blanch at the concessions that oil companies and other industries have extracted from Brown, who has been pressing for a deal before lawmakers break for summer recess July 21.

Brown wanted to declare victory on something and go home, and that's what he's doing unfortunately hes doing so at the expense of our state's climate goals, said R.L. Miller, president of the grassroots group Climate Hawks Vote.

Gov. Brown and Democratic leaders offer plan to extend cap and trade, with aim for approval this week

The climate package, which was unveiled late Monday, received a lukewarm reception among lawmakers across the ideological spectrum Tuesday. Progressive Democrats worried the design of the cap-and-trade system was too friendly to industry. Republicans, whose votes Brown has courted, want tweaks on tax relief for manufacturers and for certain landowners currently paying for fire prevention that was written into the measure. They also want more clarity on how the revenues from the cap-and-trade auctions will be spent.

Brown and his allies want a two-thirds vote to extend cap and trade, the threshold for passing tax increases, to insulate the program from legal challenges. Democrats narrowly hold the necessary supermajorities in each house, but a substantial bloc is aligned with business interests, making it difficult to push a purely progressive measure through the Legislature.

Despite California's reputation as a green leader, environmental groups often struggle to become the driving force in the Capitol, said Fabian Nez, the former Assembly speaker who shepherded landmark legislation on climate change in 2006.

"There's a difference between protest politics and governance," he said. "The environmental community has difficulty transferring from one to the other."

The disappointment among some environmentalists stands in stark contrast to their major victory last year with legislation setting an ambitious target for slashing emissions by 2030. With the goal enshrined in state law, they hoped to have more leverage over industry groups when it came to negotiating the future of the cap-and-trade program.

Brown said the business community was "going to plead" to extend the program to avoid more costly regulations. Browns prediction, in a sense, was borne out: Now, industries that have tried to undermine the program in the past are now seeking its extension, touting it as the most cost-effective way to reach the states goals.

Although clean energy businesses were quick to tout the plan released Monday, other sectors, including oil and agriculture, have so far kept quiet.

Given the magnitude of the importance of this, we only have one shot to get this right, said Rob Lapsley, president of the California Business Roundtable. We support cap and trade, and we are all trying to figure out how we can build a balanced plan we can support that reduces greenhouse gases and grows our economy.

Chris Megerian

There's a lot of ideas out there for changing the cap-and-trade program. Here are the highlights.

There's a lot of ideas out there for changing the cap-and-trade program. Here are the highlights. (Chris Megerian)

The implications of cap and trades future extend beyond Californias borders. Dean Florez, a member of the California Air Resources Board, said the governor needed to make a market-friendly proposal to show China and others considering climate change policies that a large economy could develop a measure that was environmentally sound and allowed for economic growth and flexibility.

If the governor did anything differently with this, he wouldnt have been a credible person on the international stage, Florez said. It would be seen as this wacky proposal.

Industrys hand was strengthened at the beginning of June when oil companies teamed up with powerful building trade unions, which have contracts at refineries, to block climate legislation backed by progressive lawmakers and some environmentalists.

The State Building and Construction Trades Council, the umbrella group for construction unions, said Tuesday it supports Browns plan. Cesar Diaz, the groups legislative director, said the state needs a "balanced approach."

"Our members are working at these refineries," he said, adding that if they started shutting down or scaling back, "our members would suffer."

Besides the split between labor and environmentalists, green groups have also struggled to reach a consensus among themselves. Increasingly ambitious environmental justice advocates, who are focused more on addressing local pollution, are generally opposed to cap and trade, while other more established national organizations back the policy.

Meanwhile, oil companies worked with other industries, such as manufacturers and agriculture interests, to create their own detailed proposals, which aligned in part with the legislation introduced Monday.

Perhaps no issue has caused as much angst with the environmental justice faction as an industry request that would limit state and regional regulations on greenhouse gas emissions. The plan would prohibit air quality regulators from adopting carbon-cutting rules for refineries and other so-called fixed pollution sources that are also subject to cap-and-trade.

A Bay Area Air Quality Management District official criticized that provision as a giveaway to the Western States Petroleum Assn., the industry group that has led the charge against the districts efforts to regulate greenhouse gases from refineries.

That element of the bill is specifically designed to prevent the adoption of progressive, tough air quality regulations by agencies like the Bay Area air district against refineries, said Tom Addison, senior policy advisor for the Bay Area district.

The provision was similarly criticized by environmental justice advocates.

Diane Takvorian, who heads the San Diego County-based Environmental Health Coalition and sits on the state Air Resources Board, called the limitation a direct attack on ARB's proposed refinery reduction measures.

"We just can't tie the hands of our state and local regulatory agencies like this," Takvorian said.

For now, negotiations continue at their wearying pace, as backers strive for a vote by the weeks end. Well into Tuesday evening, the governors office was still hosting meetings with Republicans and other interested parties on the package.

Times staff writer Liam Dillon in Sacramento contributed to this report.

melanie.mason@latimes.com, chris.megerian@latimes.com, tony.barboza@latimes.com

Twitter: @melmason, @chrismegerian, @tonybarboza

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Here's why progressives aren't thrilled with Gov. Brown's cap-and-trade plan - Los Angeles Times

Although obviously disillusionment is widespread, there are many important reasons for progressives and popular sectors to support the Maduro government.

In recent weeks, a number of Venezuelan specialists on the left side of the political spectrum have published and posted pieces that place them in an anti-Chavista, ni-ni position that consists of a plague on both your houses with regard to Maduro and the Venezuelan opposition. I consider myself a critical Chavista.

RELATED: We Will Never Give Up: Venezuelas Maduro to Marco Rubio

Its not an easy position to be in, particularly because the last thing I would want to do is to act in any way that would favor the right (that is the Venezuelan opposition and its allies abroad). On the other hand, I have always opposed (even in my writing) the position of some people on the left who feel that U.S. leftists should not publicly express criticisms of socialist governments. Criticism (including public criticism) is necessary as it is part of the process of assimilating lessons. Nevertheless, at this point, I believe there is a conclusive need to support the government in spite of the numerous criticisms that I have (some more profound than others).

The recent articles that harshly attack the Maduro government have been published in Jacobin magazine by Gabriel Hetland and another by Mike Gonzalez as well as Hetlands piece posted by NACLA in which he uses the expression que se vayan todos. More recently NACLA posted an interview with Alejandro Velasco that was originally published by Nueva Sociedad.

I know a number of people both in Venezuela and U.S. academia who I used to see eye to eye on with regard to Chavez and I now find them expressing total rejection of and even animosity toward the government. The only thing that binds us now is our common support for the need to defend Venezuelan sovereignty, and sometimes not even that.

What are the arguments of the ni-ni position that I agree with and what are the ones I disagree with:

Agree:

1. Corruption is an extremely serious problem in Venezuela which the government has not done nearly enough to confront, though some timid measures have been taken (eg. over the last six months in the oil industry).

2. The government has violated certain democratic principles the decision to strip Henrique Capriles of the right to participate in elections on grounds of corruption; and the delay of the gubernatorial elections; but not the decision not to hold the recall in 2016 (since the opposition didnt have their act together on that one).

RELATED: Heres Your Guide to Understanding Protest Deaths in Venezuela

3. The negative role of the state apparatus and the Chavista elite Velasco begins his interview with these words. I agree that the state bureaucracy and Chavista elite have stifled internal Chavista democracy and in doing so have discouraged mobilization.

Nevertheless, I also recognize that this bloc (the Chavista bureaucrats) buttresses the Chavista hold on power as it has a mobilization and organizational capacity that would be lost should Maduro unleash a revolution within the revolution.

Hastily turning power over to the rank and file would have disastrous immediate consequences. Thus, for instance, Chavezs decision to implement the Plan Guayana Socialista with the worker presidents of state companies was a failure, because the labor movement in those companies, almost 100 percent Chavista, went at each other's throats.

4. The Chavista movement has lost a large number of its active supporters. In addition to the factors named by the ni-nis (corruption, government bungling, etc.) there is the factor of "desgaste" (wearing down process over time) which is inevitable and doesnt in itself reflect negatively on the Chavista leadership. Eighteen years is a long time.

Disagree:

1. My most important disagreement at this moment is the statement that the Maduro government is authoritarian or heading in an authoritarian direction. The ni-nis who make this statement never acknowledge the importance of context. They recognize, though in some cases they play down (not so in the case of Hetlands Jacobin piece), the violent activity unleashed by the opposition, but dont relate the states actions to the challenges it is facing.

Just to provide one example. A totally anti-government hostile media encourages the audacity and extremism of the opposition for two reasons. First, the police and National Guard are held back from responding firmly and thus they lose their dissuasive capacity.

And second, the protesters themselves feel empowered. Both factors have a dialectical relationship. In the U.S. or any other country, the corporate media (and some of the alternative media) would be completely sympathetic to the actions of security forces, even their excesses, in a situation of urban paralysis and urban violence over such an extended period of time (its been three and a half months).

Furthermore, to use the term authoritarian when the local media is so supportive of the opposition, is simply fallacious. It is true that the national TV channels (specifically Televen, Venevision, and Globovsion) are less hostile to the government than in 2002-2003 but they (perhaps with the exception of Venevision) are still more pro than anti-opposition. But almost all of the important written media both nationally and locally are vocally anti-government. And in the case of the international media, the bias has no limits.

2. Velasco says the government is not sincere about dialogue there is no evidence one way of the other on this one.

3. The Chavista rank and file has little reason to actively support the Maduro government and for that reason 2 million of them abstained in December 2015.

Although obviously disillusionment is widespread, there are many important reasons for progressives and popular sectors to support the Maduro government: nationalistic foreign policy, rejection of neoliberal type agreements with international financial institutions, social programs that involve community participation; zero-sum-game policies that favor the popular sectors (example: the Bus Rapid Transit, BRT, that in Barcelona-Puerto La Cruz reserves one of two lanes on the main drag connecting the two cities to accordion-type buses at the expense of automobile traffic); and finally Maduro (in spite of all of his shortcomings as an administrator and failure to take necessary bold decisions) has proven to be a fighter and to convince his base that hes not going to go down without a struggle to the end.

RELATED: Abby Martin Busts Open Myths on Venezuela's Food Crisis: 'Shelves Fully Stocked'

He has also attempted to mobilize his base; the failure to attempt to do so by Lula and Dilma Rousseff is a major reason why the impeachment against the latter went through.

4. Venezuelas economic difficulties are not about low oil prices but about government ineptness. There are three causes of the economic crisis and they all have approximately the same weight: low oil prices, the economic war (with Julio Borgess public campaign against multinational investments in Venezuela the existence of an economic war is clearer to see than in the past), and erroneous government policies. With regard to the latter (and here I probably diverge somewhat from Mark Weisbrot), I believe that decisions on economic policies were necessary and urgent, but that there were no easy and obvious choices and anyone that was made would have come with a price both politically and economically.

5. Government intransigence is due to the fact that the Chavista leaders dont want to lose their privileges. This statement is misleading, even while there is undoubtedly an element of truth in it. But the statement assumes that Chavista leaders are all cynics and without any sense of idealism. Where is the scientific evidence to support this statement?

6. Luisa Ortega Diaz represents a neutral position which the Maduro government is unwilling to tolerate. In fact, regardless of her motives, she has assumed an explicitly pro-opposition position. In such a critical situation in which the opposition openly proposes anarchy as a means to unseat Maduro, it makes sense that the Chavistas are attempting to remove her from office.

Steve Ellner has taught economic history at the Universidad de Oriente in Venezuela since 1977 and also teaches in the Sucre Mission. He is the editor of "Latin Americas Radical Left: Challenges and Complexities of Political Power in the Twenty-First Century" (Rowman and Littlefield, 2014).

Excerpt from:
The Venezuelan Dilemma: Progressives and the 'Plague on Both Your Houses' Position - teleSUR English

As progressive populists have been flexing more muscle within the Democratic Party, some Democratic CEOs have decided to fight back. Unfortunately for the CEOs, their checkbooks havent bought them the ability to land a punch.

Last week, Silicon Valley billionaires Mark Pincus and Reid Hoffman launched Win the Future, an effort to advance the agenda of an ethos that is pro-social, pro-planet, and, most grating to the lefts ears, pro-business. Their political ambition for WTF is to act like its own virtual party within the Democratic Party, shaping the platform and launching candidatessimilar to what Senator Bernie Sanders is doing in his quest to gain control of the party, through his Our Revolution political action committee and Sanders Institute think tank.

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Pincus makes no bones about his desire to sideline the Berniecrats. Im fearful the Democratic Party is already moving too far to the left, he told the tech industry news site Recode. I want to push the Democratic Party to be more in touch with mainstream America.

Those words were greeted with incredulity and widespread mockery throughout the increasingly cocksure left. The rich peoples social milieu is to think that the swing voter is kind of like them, which is to say progressive on social issues and regressive on corporate power, and thats not actually where the bulk of median swing voters in America are, said Jeff Hauser of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. Social Security Works Alex Lawson went in for the kill: The weakness of the Democratic Party is not due to an underrepresentation of venture capitalists and tech company board members. WTF, indeed.

The lefts reactions to Pincus and Hoffman, however, were tame compared with the near-universal derision and personal invective that has in recent days been aimed at Mark Penn. On Friday, Pennthe founder of a private equity firm who is best known as the chief strategist and pollster for Hillary Clintons failed 2008 Democratic presidential primary bidpublished a New York Times op-ed (co-authored by a Democratic Trump supporter) counseling Democrats to move to the center and reject the siren calls of the left.

In progressive circles, Penn is the personification of the third way, 90s-era neoliberal policies that they argue drove working-class voters to Donald Trump two decades later. Moreover, some progressives argue, hes a political incompetent who drove Clintons 2008 campaign into a ditch by fundamentally misunderstanding what voters wantand hasnt learned much since.

Penn is used to being wrong, wrote New Republics Sarah Jones, Barack Obama ran to [Clintons] left at the time and is mostly absent from Penns version of history, despite uniting the partys factions and winning the general election twice. Esquires Charles Pierce was unsparing: If this guy gets within 10 city blocks of your campaign headquarters, call the local hazardous waste unit immediately.

If the Penns, Pincuses and Hoffmans of the world are to survive the Democratic civil war between the populists and the pragmatists, they must learn fast that their money and stature are not assets, but burdens to overcome. And more substantially, they must develop ideas that serve the public good, not just their own bottom lines.

***

The progressives swipes at the Democratic corporate class might be dismissed as the usual griping from the online peanut gallery if our CEO saviors came equipped with compelling ideas that compare favorably with whats being peddled by the populist left. But the CEOs showed up with little more than cocktail-napkin policies that excite almost no one.

Penns policy advice to win back working class voters is full of dissonant left-right pairings, which may work in a focus group, but lack coherence. Youd expect the left to cheer Penn when he writes, the new tech-driven economy has been given a pass to flout labor laws with unregulated, low-paying gig jobs, to concentrate vast profits and to decimate retailing. But he confusingly juxtaposes this with a hysterical claim that the old brick-and-mortar economy is being regulated to deathas if government regulation, not the inherent convenience of e-commerce, was the source of the retail industrys woes. Likewise, Penn actually accepts the populists political diagnosis on trade: Democrats should recognize that they can no longer simultaneously try to be the free-trade party and speak for the working class. They need to support fair trade and oppose manufacturing plants moving jobs overseas. But then he ties it to a big tax cut for multinational corporations, arguing Democrats should link new taxes on offshoring with repatriation of foreign profitsthats wonkspeak for letting corporate profits that had been parked abroad to escape taxation come back to America at a discounted tax rate.

Over on the West Coast, the WTF brigade began its centrist advance by encouraging Twitter users to post and retweet ideas with a #WTFagenda hashtag, with the best ideas to be slapped on Beltway billboards. (One week in, the groups Twitter feed has about 650 followersa paltry number that has to sting the Silicon Valley whizzes.) But the WTF leaders are putting their thumb on the scale with their own suggestions.

Most of what the founding team members posted is inoffensive to the left, but isnt particularly original or innovative: such as Healthcare is a right, not a privilege and Congress: Fire Trump ... or Youre Fired. But Pincus raised eyebrows with an out-of-the-box proposal to Offer every [A]merican an engineering degree for free. On Twitter, Jamison Foser, of NextGen Climate, noted that the idea is narrowly tailored to serve the interests of Pincus and his fellow Silicon Valley CEOs: Limiting this to engineering makes it seem like tech billionaires dont care about education or inequality: just want to pay engineers less.

The self-serving proposal validated Matt Stollers BuzzFeed takedown of WTF, and the Democratic Party generally. The New America fellow and former policy adviser to Sanders places WTF in the long history of wealthy, highly connected, and powerful people trying to fix Democratic politics going back to the Atari Democrats of the 1980s.

Stollers essay summed up the progressive populist view of establishment Democrats, who have repeatedly positioned themselves to curry favor with big business, to push away questions of regional inequality, labor rights, small business rights, family farms, and genuinely open markets for goods and services. He argues Democrats need to go in the exact opposite direction, since, Changing politics is about refocusing democratic deliberation on the places where power exists. And right now, power exists exactly where Hoffman and Pincus made their fortunes: Silicon Valley.

Of course, the economic power that has accumulated in Silicon Valley has not always been easily leveraged into political power. When Facebooks Mark Zuckerberg rallied his fellow tech executives behind the pro-immigration effort FWD.us, the $50 million project ran into a brick wall of Republican partisanship and anti-immigrant, right-wing populist sentiment. Tech leaders found out that while most Americans eagerly consume their apps and devices, that doesnt mean they are perceived to be the political good guys. Their agenda was not presumed by critics to be an altruistic attempt to give immigrants a crack at the American Dream, but a selfish ploy to hire coders at lower wages. Now Silicon Valley is learning its motives are considered suspect by elements of the left as well.

This is what the centrist CEOs, from Silicon Valley and elsewhere, need to grasp: they are facing a force that wants their kind banished from the Democratic Party. Thats not hyperbole; Hauser told HuffPost that Pincus and Hoffman should become forces within the Republican Party rather than water down the message of the Democratic Party.

Pincus, in an interview with Fast Company, responded to the criticism with a dismissive shrug: We just want to help, and Im sorry if were not the best messenger. I cant help it.

But if the disrupters want to successfully disrupt, thats the wrong answer. The answer is to become better, more credible messengers. That will require CEOs to do two hard things:

One, become policy wonks. Work with public policy experts to develop fresh, substantive ideas that tackle the pressing issues of the future and outshine Sanders heavily ambitious, light-on-details democratic socialism.

Two, become class traitors. Shine a light on bad corporate practices. Offer proposals to rein in irresponsible behavior and to ensure everyone pays their fair share in taxes.

Pincus and his partners could take a cue from Penn: the lightly regulated gig economy is causing great uncertainty about the future of work. The populists left main responsestronger unionsmakes sense on paper but has gotten little traction from the workers themselves. Unionization in America is at an all-time low, accounting for only 6.4 percent of private-sector workers. That wont turn around on a dime, no matter what new laws, if any, are enacted. If our Silicon Valley gurus have some better ideassophisticated ones that benefit from their intricate knowledge of the tech industry, but are not ruses to fatten corporate profits at the expense of labornows the time to share.

Democrats dont need business leaders demanding a pro-business agenda. Democrats need business leaders who can show how smart regulations can help workers, consumers and executives simultaneously. Democrats need business leaders who can make the case that taxes on wealth and carbon pollution wont stifle entrepreneurship. Democrats need business leaders who can offer their expertise in shaping policy relevant to their field, while having the humility to understandas our current CEO president does notthat business expertise in a single industry is not equivalent to public policy omniscience.

For the nations CEOs to save America from the zero-sum populism of both the right and the left, its going to take far more than a few sanctimonious swipes, bullet point proposals and hashtag campaigns. These corporate honchos need to internalize that for many Americans, they are the problem, and they will have to work double time to prove they can be part of the solution.

Bill Scher is a contributing editor to Politico Magazine, and co-host of the Bloggingheads.tv show The DMZ.

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How to Lose a Fight with Progressives - Politico

A national organization will establish a local presence this evening. The New Leaders Council (NLC), a nonprofit focused on bringing fresh names and faces into progressive politics and other leadership positions, launches its Columbus chapter tonight during a happy hour at Strongwater in Franklinton.

We want people who dont look like or do the kinds of things that those kinds of people who are already in politics engage in, said John Tannous, NLC Columbus Co-Director. Right now if you want to get involved in politics in Central Ohio, you need to tread this really narrow path of certain kinds of jobs, volunteering for certain kinds of people. Ideally, itd be great if you had a certain name, and if you dont have connections in that space, there is no way for you to get involved.

I think what we want to do is create an onramp for people who are really passionate, but they dont know the right people. They dont know how to get involved, he added.

Its an effort thats been in the works on the national level for over a decade. The NLC reaches out to those outside of the political realm and trains them on how to apply progressive politics in ways that are meaningful to the individual, creating a pathway for the unengaged to become informed and active in politics. This could mean running for office, becoming a campaign aid, learning effective advocacy tactics, or applying progressive ideas in entrepreneurship.

Training is offered through their six month Institute, which gathers progressives for one weekend each month and covers a range of topics, including entrepreneurship, fundraising, and communications, among others. Graduates then enter a community of alumni, some of whom end up becoming mentors, panelists at NLC events, or even lobbyists at their state capitals.

To start the change locally, NLC Columbus is inviting progressives of all backgrounds and levels of engagement to join their program. And while there is no litmus test for what exactly progressive means, Tannous said the typical member believes in strong democracy, equal opportunity and social justice.

Co-Director Colleen Lowry thinks of NLC as a pushback against heavily-funded conservative efforts to train and run right-leaning candidates. Organizations like the Heritage Foundation, a D.C.-based conservative think tank boasting an annual budget of $30 million, has graduated well known policy leaders Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell.

No equivalent exists on the progressive side, and NLC itself keeps a budget of roughly $1 million. Its self-sufficient, though, incorporating training on fundraising in its curriculum and applying that directly to raise the money needed for the next class.

While NLC has a fraction of the funding the Heritage Foundation receives, its managed to graduate more than 4,200 progressives from its 48 chapters, and 700 of them have run for office or are making plans to. Of the alumni, 53 percent are women, 57 percent are non-white, and 11 percent identify as LGBTQ, indicating a future of diversified candidate slates for local and state elections.

There are obviously a few exceptions, but for the most part a lot of our elected officials are older, white, and male, Lowry said, and I really think that our generation has the ability to change that, to switch up that narrative.

NLC leaders and potential fellows will have their launch party happy hour tonight, July 11, from 6 to 8 p.m. at Strongwater, 401 W. Town St.

For more information, visit newleaderscouncil.org.

Link:
National Progressive Training Organization Launches Local Chapter Tonight - columbusunderground

Education and Technology:

Microsoft Learning Tools is software that helps improve reading skills by reducing visual crowding, highlighting words, and reading text aloud, so students can engage with words in a whole new way.

Again?

Images by Gage Skidmore and Michael Vadon/Wikimedia Commons.

America and the world may be stuck with President Trump for now, but that doesnt mean progress is entirely on hold.

For many, the obvious approach is to fight Trump and his Republican allies each step of the way. But one of the progressive lefts most outspoken voices says that even in the age of #Resist, there are still opportunities to pass meaningful legislation even if that means handing symbolic legislative victories to Trump.

At least thats the view of Secular Talk host Kyle Kulinski, a popular figure in progressive politics, who says voters shouldnt completely abandon the Trump presidency, even as they plan to support their own slate of candidates in 2018 and 2020.

Image via Kyle Kulinski/YouTube.

When Donald Trump needs to be opposed, we will do everything to block hideous legislation from getting through, Kulinski tells GOOD. However, the 29-year-old pundit who supports a growing roster of anti-corporate candidates under the Justice Democratsbanner said there are several major issues where progressives can successfully lobby Trump, rather than simply oppose him.

On issues like infrastructure and trade, Trump made promises that at least on paper were music to progressive ears. The question now:Can and should activists like Kulinski lobby Trump in the hopes that hell get behind a popular idea like rebuilding the nations bridges and roads? Is it worth the time and energy to work with a president who has pushed back on somany other issues?

Of course you work with him on those issues, Kulinski says. Thats the kind of bipartisanship the American people are behind.

According to Kulinski, the problem is less about Republicans vs. Democrats and more about the bipartisan influence of corporate campaign donations and their alleged influence on public policy. Kulinski argues that the Democratic Party has fallen out of touch with the heart of its working class and progressive base by aligning with big business interests. Its a debate that was at the heart of the Democratic primary fight between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders and continues within the party today.

Three days after Trumps inauguration, Kulinski and his Young Turks colleague Cenk Uygur teamed up with former members of the Sanders presidential campaign to launch Justice Democrats, a political action committee that supports congressional candidates who refuse to accept corporate campaign donations. The groups ambitious mission statement is to build "a unified campaign to replace every corporate-backed member of Congressand rebuild the [Democratic] party from scratch," beginning withthe 2018 midterm congressional elections.

Its been called the lefts equivalent to the Tea Party movement that launched a number of conservative Republicans into office during the 2010 midterm elections. So far, theyve raised over $1 million in small-donor contributions and have an elected Democrat in their ranks: Rep. Ro Khanna(California).[

Rep. Ro Khanna.Image via Wikimedia Commons.

The corporate wing is a house of cards, an illusion of successful politicians, Kulinski says. The proof is in the pudding. What are the results? Trump is president, Republican control in Congress. The Democrats have basically been wiped out at every level.

However, it remains unclear whether the left has the same kind of organized passion and anger that droveTea Party activists to the polls.

Since Trump took office, there hasbeen a handful of races where Democrats seemed primed to steal a congressional seat from a previously safe Republican. In each of those races, political analysts and Democratic leaders argued that such an upset would foreshadow larger losses for Trump and Republicans in the 2018 midterms. However, the Republican candidates have managed to squeak by in each of those races so far. Nonetheless, Kulinski says, candidates like Jon Ossoff show that an energized base is alive and well.

There was a colossal closing of a gap that no corporate Democrat would have been able to close, he says. Bernie is the most popular politician in the country. You have these ideas that are wildly popular, like a living wage, universal health care, and free college, but for a long time, the Democratic Party hasnt fought for them.

Ultimately, Kulinski says the key is for progressives to focus less on labels and more on broadly appealing issues in order to win over a majority of voters. In a sense, thats what worked for Trump,albeit with a very different approach:playing on voter resentment about jobs, free trade, and military interventionism.

Kulinski says this approach can work with someone like Sanders leading a new wave of Democrats committed to core principles. And with a little luck and lots of hard work, maybe they can even bring Trump along to support some of their more popular reform proposals.

People dont really care about labels, Kulinski says. People listen to Bernie talk about those issues, and even though they describe themselves as conservatives, they find themselves agreeing with him on the issues.

See the article here:
Why One Leading Progressive Says It's OK To Work With Trump - GOOD Magazine