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The US has little standing to condemn Russias oligarchs while the Trump administration openly loots the public with a tax reform bill designed to benefit the wealthiest Americans.

Most Democrats and Republicans in Congress are committed to punishing Vladimir Putin and the network of oligarchs surrounding him for election meddling by expanding the sanctions regime first imposed by the Obama administration following Russias annexation of Crimea in 2014. Congress has attempted to tie Trumps hands by imposing new sanctions in retaliation for election interference, but the Trump administration has been lax in enforcing them. However, even properly enforced sanctions will never solve the underlying problem: Russia is functionally a kleptocracy, and the United States bears some responsibility for making it that way.Current Issue

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In the 1990s, Washington encouraged the rapid and blatantly rigged privatization of Russias economy, resulting in skyrocketing inequality, the impoverishment of millions, and the elevation of a tiny billionaire elite. While Putin has claimed credit for a revival of stability and a measure of prosperity in the 2000s, driven to a large extent by high energy prices, over time he has consolidated power at the top of a fundamentally corrupt system. The United States has emerged as a leading destination for Russias elite to park their fortunes, often at the expense of middle-class Americans in major real-estate markets like New York, and with the help of banks and law firms happy to turn a blind eye to corruption overseas. Russian money-laundering through high-end real estate is also a major issue in London, where British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has proposed tackling it in response to the recent attempted poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter. Going after the money is far more likely to produce meaningful results than expelling diplomats, the strategy the United States and its European allies have so far pursued.

The United States has little standing to condemn Russias oligarchs while the Trump administration openly loots the public with a tax-reform bill designed to benefit the wealthiest Americans and with taxpayer dollars constantly funneled through Trump Organization properties. The next administration should make the case that the transnational oligarchy spanning from New York to London to Moscow isnt merely greedy but also poses a threat to national security by undermining the integrity of the political process. It should expand FARA and end foreign lobbying, both legal and illegal, on K Street. It should crack down on money laundering through banks and real estate, as well as offshore tax havens.

Contrary to what some writers on the left have argued, the American public is legitimately interested in the Trump-Russia scandal and isnt going to stop paying attention. But rather than singling out Russia, the next president should pledge to take on kleptocrats everywhere, using Trumps outrageous corruption (including but certainly not limited to his Russia ties) to make the case for a more just economic order.

In addition, the next president should place a champion of global environmental justice in charge of the State Department, rather than the CEO of ExxonMobil or an outspoken Islamophobe and climate-change skeptic, to make clear that the oil-and-gas sector is not in charge of US foreign policy. Exxon, like other energy companies, has lobbied for normalized US-Russia relations so that it can exploit Russias vast natural resources at whatever cost to the climate, and has even been fined by the Treasury Department for violating sanctions by signing an agreement with the Russian oil giant Rosneft under Rex Tillersons management. Reducing tensions with Russia should not mean deepening ties between the energy barons in both countries.

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The consensus in Washington is that the United States must contain Russias imperial revisionism on every front, as though the Cold War never ended. But this only encourages a similar consensus in Moscow, empowering hard-line nationalists who see their country encircled by US proxies and consider neighboring former Soviet republics to belong in Russias rightful sphere of influence.

Those countries, including flashpoints like Ukraine and Georgia, are entitled to sovereignty under international law, and Russian encroachment on that sovereignty, from Crimea and the Donbass to Abkhazia and South Ossetia, deserves condemnation. But the next president must also make clear that the United States does not intend to extend its own sphere of military influence via NATO or in any other capacity.

Moscow opposed, and still deeply resents, the expansion of NATO into the Baltic states and Eastern Europe during the 1990s and 2000s, and in particular the 1999 NATO military campaign against Yugoslavia despite a Russian veto at the UN Security Council. With considerable justification, Russian military planners see NATO as existing primarily to surround and isolate Russia.

For better or worse, Washington is committed to the security of its Baltic allies now. But the next president should affirm that the United States does not have long-term designs on a military alliance with Ukraine, Georgia, or any other country on Russias border. This does not mean abandoning those countries. The United States and its European allies should commit to negotiating a just peace that will preserve Ukraines territorial integrity and work to ensure that Russia complies with the 2014 Minsk Protocol. Russia must not be rewarded for the illegal annexation of Crimea, which should not be recognized as long as Putin is in power. Down the line, negotiations to hold a UN-sponsored referendum on Crimeas fate could be held if tensions ratcheted down. The reality, as most policy-makers in Washington are well aware, is that it is unlikely Crimeans would choose to return to Ukraine in a fairly organized vote.

For better or worse, Washington is committed to the security of its Baltic allies. But the next president should affirm that the US does not have long-term designs on a military alliance with Ukraine, Georgia, or any other country on Russias border.

In Syria, Washington is understandably wary of rewarding Russias horrific conduct in defense of Bashar al-Assads regime against rebel groups backed by the United States and its allies. While there is no justifying Russias or Assads atrocities, the United States also bears responsibility for stoking this civil war in the first place and for its interventions in Iraq and Libya, which Putin opposed and which have been catastrophic. Moscow views Washingtons enthusiasm for toppling dictators as destabilizing, and while this view is motivated by Russian geopolitical interests, that doesnt make it wrong. The next president must be willing to work for a negotiated peace between all factions in Syria, accepting that Assad will be left in control of much of Syrian territory for the foreseeable future, with the long-term goal of withdrawing US and Russian forces from the region.

Finally, the next administration should seek to once more engage Russia in negotiations over nuclear weapons. Under Obama, the United States and Russia signed the 2011 New START Treaty aimed at dramatically limiting the deployment of strategic nuclear arms by both countries. Trump, however, has disparaged New START and recently committed to a new nuclear-arms race. If there is one lesson to be drawn from Trumps volatile and unpredictable behavior as president, its that nuclear weapons cant be safely entrusted to anyone. The United States and Russia must recommit to diplomacy with the aim of further arms reductions and a stronger global nonproliferation regime.

It is reasonable for the United States to want to hold Russia accountable for its 2016 interference, including the dissemination of fake news via social media and the DNC email hacks. A proportionate response would be to release embarrassing information about the shady finances of Putin and his inner circle. But this may have already occurred in the form of the Panama Papers, a giant info dump on the global oligarchy published in early 2016 that Putin blames on the US government, along with the Olympic doping scandal.

It is in neither countrys interest to pursue this tit-for-tat indefinitely, although arguably both Americans and Russians benefit from the exposure of their respective elites secrets. Ultimately, there will have to be negotiations, including other major powers like China, to establish rules of the road for cybersecurity. At the same time, the United States should recommit to strong campaign-finance laws in order to insulate itself not only from interference by foreign powers but by oligarchs and corporate interests everywhere.

But if the United States wants to prevent Russian cyber attacks in future elections, one crucial step would be to begin dismantling the tech monopolies that have left the US electorate badly exposed to foreign influence.

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In 2010, Russias then-President Dmitry Medvedev visited Silicon Valley as part of Obamas ill-fated reset policy. An impressed Medvedev met with the CEOs of companies like Apple, Google, and Twitter, which at the time were seen by Democrats as pillars of American innovation. While Medvedevs dream of a Russian Silicon Valley remains unrealized, Russia has plenty of homegrown tech talent, as seen in the troll factory that sought to manipulate swing voters.

The next US president should make clear to the public that the biggest tech companies have gotten dangerously powerful, and that their hoarding of private data for profit undermines national security and election integrity. Social media can be a powerful tool for grassroots political organizing and protesting authority, but when it is only regulated by the free market it becomes a way for wealthy interests, including foreign governments, to manipulate people. Renewed antitrust enforcement should be a priority in general as a way to protect consumers and small businesses, but with regard to Silicon Valley it would offer the additional benefit of countering foreign influence and restoring the credibility of real news.

Russian hackers have exposed a flaw in the US political system created by years of coddling unaccountable monopolies.

Russian hackers have exposed a flaw in the US political system created by years of coddling unaccountable monopolies. Lawmakers have pressured companies like Facebook and Twitter to crack down on Russian bots, but this doesnt solve the underlying threat for-profit social networks pose to the democratic process. The extent of this threat is clear from new revelations about how Cambridge Analytica used Facebook data, acquired without the consent of Facebook users, to help the Trump campaign target voters. As Tamsin Shaw, a professor at NYU who has written about cyber warfare, told The Guardian, Silicon Valley is a US national security asset that [Russia has] turned on itself. The only effective solution is to break these monopolies up and regulate them like utilities.

Despite what Steven Lee Myers has claimed in The New York Times, that Putin is a hero for the worlds populists, strongmen and others occupying the fringes of global politics, both left and right, few on the left are under the illusion that Russia is a utopia. As Jeremy Corbyn wrote recently, Labour is of course no supporter of the Putin regime, its conservative authoritarianism, abuse of human rights or political and economic corruption. And we pay tribute to Russias many campaigners for social justice and human rights, including for LGBT rights. Bernie Sanders has voiced similar sentiments, stating that our goal is to not only strengthen American democracy, but to work in solidarity with supporters of democracy around the globe, including in Russia. In the struggle of democracy versus authoritarianism, we intend to win.

Putin has attacked civil society, consolidated control of mass media, and marginalized opposition parties. One of the most prominent opposition leaders, Alexei Navalny, was barred from running for president this year in what everyone understands were sham elections. Many journalists and politicians have been murdered, and LGBT people have faced discriminatory laws throughout Russia and a brutal purge in Chechnya.

Putin, with the close cooperation of the Orthodox Church, has selectively stoked xenophobic nationalism, homophobia, misogyny, and jingoism, not only at home but with support for far-right parties in Europe. The left has an interest in countering this influence, which is in direct opposition to core progressive values, but the next president must do so in a way that is not a cover for empire and is not aimed at regime change in Russia. Putin uses the perception of Western designs on Russia to maintain his legitimacy and to justify his most aggressive policies.

Putin will eventually leave power, but it is not Washingtons place to facilitate this, nor is it an inherently desirable outcome. No one knows what will follow in Putins wake, or who could fill his role after nearly two decades and counting in the Kremlin. And no one doubts that Putin is genuinely popular, although support for him in the capital and among younger educated Russians has slipped.

The United States should not ignore human-rights abuses in Russia. But principled criticism is only undermined by the perception that civil-society groups in Russia serve as fronts for US intelligence, and Russia has become increasingly hostile to such groups. The next administration should make clear that the United States is not trying to bring Putin down, and that its support for human rights is genuine. It should be wary of directly supporting opposition figures, who are easily tarred as American puppets. And it should lead by example and hold its allies accountable for their human-rights abuses and elite corruption as well.

Ultimately, the best way the United States can help civil society in Russia is by normalizing relations enough that private civil-society groups from the United States and other countries can more effectively work in tandem with Russian counterparts. It is hard to argue that the US-Russia tensions following the failure of Obamas reset have done Russian civil society any favors.

In short, the next presidents Russia policy should reflect an agenda of combating corruption, inequality, and abuses at home. If the US political system is vulnerable to interference from abroad, it is only because it has decayed from within.

Russia should be held accountable for its intervention, but the greater priority must be to hold accountable those Americans who accepted Russias assistance in order to enrich themselves at the expense of the public. The most important thing the next administration can do to prevent another 2016 is to root out the institutionalized corruption in Washington that Russia successfully exploited, and to investigate, expose, and prosecute everyone in Trumps orbit who knowingly facilitated Russian interference. The only way to secure American democracy from foreign influence is to make America more genuinely democratic.

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How Progressives Should Think About Russia | The Nation

Certainly the most successful third party in the immediate post-World War I era was the Progressive effort led by Senator Robert M. La Follette of Wisconsin. The end of the war had seen an upsurge in left-wing political activity in the United States, as evidenced in the growth and development of the Workers Party (the Communists), the Socialist Party and the Farmer-Labor Party, all of which increased their ranks at the beginning of the 1920s.

Also making an impact at this time was the Conference for Progressive Political Action (C.P.P.A.), which in 1922 merged the efforts of several railway unions into a surprisingly effective state and local political force. They successfully backed a number of liberal candidates in Congressional races and had visions of greater success in 1924. The C.P.P.A. held a national nominating convention in Cleveland, Ohio, that year and concluded that their best hope of gaining real influence would come through backing a candidate with a national reputation. La Follette fit the bill, but he was leery of Communist influence in left-wing political parties and styled himself an Independent. He was, however, enticed to accept the Progressive nomination by being given full control over the party platform and the choice of his running mate.

The C.P.P.A., in many ways heir to the defunct Bull Moose or Progressive Party of Teddy Roosevelt, offered a platform in 1924 that was only marginally more socialistic than the statement issued a dozen years earlier. La Follette called for:

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The Progressive Party unraveled quickly following the election defeat in 1924, but it staged a comeback in the 1930s on the state level in Wisconsin where La Follettes sons, Robert Jr. and Philip, forged a successful movement that lasted until the end of World War II.

A third effort bearing the name of Progressive Party would be a factor in the Election of 1948.

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The Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) is a membership organization within the Democratic congressional caucus in the United States Congress.[5] The CPC is a left-leaning organization that works to advance progressive and liberal issues and positions and represents the progressive faction of the Democratic Party.[6][7] It was founded in 1991 and has grown steadily since then, having more recently added 20 members since 2005 and having hired its first full-time Executive Director, Bill Goold, in May of that year. Subsequent Executive Directors have included Andrea Miller (20092011) and Brad Bauman (20112014). With 78 members, it is currently the largest Democratic congressional caucus. The CPC is currently co-chaired by U.S. Representatives Ral Grijalva (D-AZ) and Mark Pocan (D-WI). The current Executive Director is Mike Darner. Of the 20 standing committees of the House in the 111th Congress, 10 were chaired by members of the CPC. Those chairmen were replaced when the Republicans took control of the House in the 112th Congress.

The CPC was established in 1991 by six members of the United States House of Representatives: U.S. Representatives Ron Dellums (D-CA), Lane Evans (D-IL), Thomas Andrews (D-ME), Peter DeFazio (D-OR), Maxine Waters (D-CA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT). Additional House Members joined soon thereafter, including Major Owens (D-NY), Nydia Velzquez (D-NY), David Bonior (D-MI), Bob Filner (D-CA), Barney Frank (D-MA), Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), Jim McDermott (D-WA), Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Patsy Mink (D-HI), George Miller (D-CA), Pete Stark (D-CA), John Olver (D-MA), Lynn Woolsey (D-CA) and Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). Sanders was the convener and first CPC Chairman. Bill Goold served as Staff Coordinator for the Progressive Caucus in its early years until 1998.

The founding CPC members were concerned about the economic hardship imposed by the deepening recession and the growing inequality brought about by the timidity of the Democratic Party response in the early 1990s. On January 3, 1995 at a standing room only news conference on Capitol Hill, they were the first group inside Congress to chart a detailed, comprehensive legislative alternative to U.S. Speaker Newt Gingrich and the Republican Contract with America, which they termed "the most regressive tax proposals and reactionary social legislation the Congress had before it in 70 years". The CPC's ambitious agenda was framed as "The Progressive Promise: Fairness".

In April 2011, the Congressional Progressive Caucus released a proposed "People's Budget" for fiscal year 2012.[8] Two of its proponents stated: "By implementing a fair tax code, by building a resilient American economy, and by bringing our troops home, we achieve a budget surplus of over $30 billion by 2021 and we end up with a debt that is less than 65% of our GDP. This is what sustainability looks like".[9]

The CPC advocates "universal access to affordable, high quality healthcare", fair trade agreements, living wage laws, the right of all workers to organize into labor unions and engage in collective bargaining, the abolition of the USA PATRIOT Act, the legalization of same-sex marriage, U.S. participation in international treaties such as the climate change related Kyoto Accords, strict campaign finance reform laws, a crackdown on corporate welfare and influence, an increase in income tax rates on upper-middle and upper class households, tax cuts for the poor and an increase in welfare spending by the federal government.[10]

All members are members of the Democratic Party or caucus with the Democratic Party. In the 115th Congress. there are currently 78 declared Progressives, including 76 voting Representatives, one non-voting Delegate, and one Senator.

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Progressivism, political and social-reform movement that brought major changes to American politics and government during the first two decades of the 20th century.

Progressive reformers made the first comprehensive effort within the American context to address the problems that arose with the emergence of a modern urban and industrial society. The U.S. population nearly doubled between 1870 and 1900. Urbanization and immigration increased at rapid rates and were accompanied by a shift from local small-scale manufacturing and commerce to large-scale factory production and colossal national corporations. Technological breakthroughs and frenzied searches for new markets and sources of capital caused unprecedented economic growth. From 1863 to 1899, manufacturing production rose by more than 800 percent. But that dynamic growth also generated profound economic and social ills that challenged the decentralized form of republican government that characterized the United States.

The Progressive movement accommodated a diverse array of reformersinsurgent Republican officeholders, disaffected Democrats, journalists, academics, social workers, and other activistswho formed new organizations and institutions with the common objective of strengthening the national government and making it more responsive to popular economic, social, and political demands. Many progressives viewed themselves as principled reformers at a critical juncture of American history.

Above all else, the progressives sought to come to terms with the extreme concentration of wealth among a tiny elite and the enormous economic and political power of the giant trusts, which they saw as uncontrolled and irresponsible. Those industrial combinations created the perception that opportunities were not equally available in the United States and that growing corporate power threatened the freedom of individuals to earn a living. Reformers excoriated the economic conditions of the 1890sdubbed the Gilded Ageas excessively opulent for the elite and holding little promise for industrial workers and small farmers. Moreover, many believed that the great business interests, represented by newly formed associations such as the National Civic Federation, had captured and corrupted the men and methods of government for their own profit. Party leadersboth Democrats and Republicanswere seen as irresponsible bosses who did the bidding of special interests.

In their efforts to grapple with the challenges of industrialization, progressives championed three principal causes. First, they promoted a new governing philosophy that placed less emphasis on rights, especially when invoked in defense of big business, and stressed collective responsibilities and duties. Second, in keeping with these new principles, progressives called for the reconstruction of American politics, hitherto dominated by localized parties, so that a more direct link was formed between government officials and public opinion. Finally, reformers demanded a revamping of governing institutions, so that the power of state legislatures and Congress would be subordinated to an independent executive powercity managers, governors, and a modern presidencythat could truly represent the national interest and tackle the new tasks of government required by changing social and economic conditions. Progressive reformers differed dramatically over how the balance should be struck between those three somewhat competing objectives as well as how the new national state they advocated should address the domestic and international challenges of the new industrial order. But they tended to agree that those were the most important battles that had to be fought in order to bring about a democratic revival.

Above all, that commitment to remaking American democracy looked to the strengthening of the public sphere. Like the Populists, who flourished at the end of the 19th century, the progressives invoked the Preamble to the Constitution to assert their purpose of making We the Peoplethe whole peopleeffective in strengthening the federal governments authority to regulate society and the economy. But progressives sought to hitch the will of the people to a strengthened national administrative power, which was anathema to the Populists. The Populists were animated by a radical agrarianism that celebrated the Jeffersonian and Jacksonian assault on monopolistic power. Their concept of national democracy rested on the hope that the states and Congress might counteract the centralizing alliance between national parties and the trusts. In contrast, the progressives championed a new national order that completely repudiated the localized democracy of the 19th century.

In their quest for national community, many progressives revisited the lessons of the Civil War. Edward Bellamys admiration for the discipline and self-sacrifice of the Civil War armies was reflected in his enormously popular utopian novel Looking Backward (1888). In Bellamys utopia, men and women alike were drafted into the national service at the age of 21, on the completion of their education, where they remained until the age of 45. Bellamys reformed society had thus, as his protagonist Julian West notes with great satisfaction, simply applied the principle of universal military service, as it was understood during the 19th century, to the labor question. In Bellamys utopian world there were no battlefields, but those who displayed exceptional valour in promoting the prosperity of society were honoured for their service.

Bellamys picture of a reformed society that celebrated military virtues without bloodshed resonated with a generation who feared that the excessive individualism and vulgar commercialism of the Gilded Age would make it impossible for leaders to appeal, as Abraham Lincoln had, to the better angels of our nature. His call to combine the spirit of patriotism demanded by war with peaceful civic duty probably helped to inspire the philosopher William Jamess widely read essay The Moral Equivalent of War (1910). Just as military conscription provided basic economic security and instilled a sense of duty to confront a nations enemies, so James called for the draft of the whole youthful population to form for a certain number of years a part of the army enlisted against Nature, which would do the rugged jobs required of a peaceful industrial society.

Jamess proposal for a national service was not as ambitious as the one found in Bellamys utopian society; moreover, James called for an all-male draft, thus ignoring Bellamys vision of greater gender equality, which inspired progressive thinkers such as Charlotte Perkins Gilman. But both Bellamy and James expressed the core progressive commitment to moderate the American obsession with individual rights and private property, which they saw as sanctioning a dangerous commercial power inimical to individual freedom. Indeed, progressive presidents such as Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, and the philosopher John Dewey, strongly supported Americas entry into World War I, not only because they believed, with President Wilson, that the country had a duty to make the world safe for democracy, but also because they acknowledged that there was no moral equivalent for the battlefield. Most progressive reformers held a common belief in civic duty and self-sacrifice. They differed significantly, however, over the meaning of the public interest and how a devotion to something higher than the self could be achieved.

The great diversity of progressive reformers and the ambiguous meaning of progressivism have led some to question whether the Progressive movement possessed any intellectual or political coherence. Although many leading political leaders and thinkers joined the Progressive Party (better known as the Bull Moose Party), that organizations brief existence (191216) underscores the movements powerful centrifugal forces. The party was torn apart by fundamental disagreements among its supporters about the role of the national state in regulating society and the economy. For example, the progressives 1912 presidential campaign, with the celebrated former president Theodore Roosevelt as its standard bearer, was deeply divided over whether the reform movement should attack legally enforced racial segregation in the South (see Jim Crow laws). In the end it did not, instead accepting the right of states and localities to resolve the matter of race relations. Most progressives, in fact, called for the enlightenment, rather than the expansion, of popular sovereignty. Their idea of national community did not includeindeed, was threatened byAfrican Americans and immigrants. Moreover, because reformers held such divergent views on the meaning of patriotism, progressives were irrevocably fractured by Americas entry into World War I. More generally, the very notion of progressive democracy is fraught with contradiction, presuming to combine reformers celebration of direct democracy and their hope to achieve more-disinterested governmenttheir ambition to create a modern statewhich would seem to demand a more powerful and independent bureaucracy.

Without denying that the Progressive movement was weakened by a tension between reforms that diminished democracy and those that might make democracy more direct, its central thrust was an attack on the institutions and practices that sustained the decentralized republic of the 19th century and posed an obstacle to the creation of a more-active, better-equipped national state. For all their differences, progressives shared the hope that democracy and administrative efficiency could be combined and that in this combination Americans obsession with self-interest and rights could be tempered by the development of a greater sense of national and international responsibility. For progressives, public opinion would reach its fulfillment with the formation of a modern executivefamously celebrated by Theodore Roosevelt, as the steward of the public welfarefreed from the provincial, special, and corrupt influence of political parties and interest groups.

Although progressives failed in many respects, their legacy is reflected in the unprecedented and comprehensive body of reforms they established at the dawn of the 20th century.

In the most fundamental sense, progressivism gave rise to a reform tradition that forced Americans to grapple with the central question of the founding: Is it possible to achieve self-rule on a grand scale? That was the question that had divided the Federalists and Anti-Federalists at the time of the countrys founding. The persistence of local self-government and decentralized political associations through the end of the 19th century postponed the question of whether the framers concept of We the People was viable. But, with the rise of industrial capitalism, constitutional government entered a new phase. It fell to progressives to confront the question of whether it was possible to reconcile democracy with an economy of greatly enlarged institutions and a society of growing diversity.

Up to a point, the Progressive era validated the Anti-Federalists fears. Despite progressivisms championing of mass democracy, its attack on political parties and its commitment to administrative management combined to make American politics and government seem more removed from the everyday lives of citizens. Yet progressive reformers also invented institutions and associations that enabled citizens to confront, if not resolve, the new problems that arose during the Industrial Revolution. Many of the political organizations that have been central to American democracy from the 20th centurylabour unions, trade groups, and professional, civic, and religious associationswere founded during the Progressive era.

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