Progressives in Washington are facing an existential crisis like never before as they brace for the incoming Trump administration.
Not only are they at odds with their own party, with many Democrats seeking to pin the blame for their November losses on them, but some on the left are also openly fearful that an emboldened GOP will use its influence against their flank.
“What is it that we can do that’s effective when they control everything?” said Joseph Geevarghese, who runs the grassroots organizing group Our Revolution. “They’re going to use their state power against us. I think they’re going to target progressives,” he said. “It’s a very challenging moment.”
Progressives faced their first postelection rebuke last week, when Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) missed out on a key leadership post on the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, a sign to many of their diminished influence. Not only did fellow Democrats reject her policies, but they preferred an older male candidate — Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), whose profile resembles that of the congressman, former Rep. Joe Crowley (D-N.Y.), she ousted six years ago.
Republicans, including President-elect Trump, publicly mocked her efforts.
“Really too bad that AOC lost the Battle for the Leadership Seat in the Democrat Party. She should keep trying. Someday, she will be successful!” Trump wrote in a post on his platform Truth Social.
The loss is emblematic of an evolving political landscape that has proven challenging for progressives over the past several cycles. The 2018 surge of energy that helped fuel the formation of the “squad” has deflated, with some Democrats questioning its future.
Trump’s rise to victory over Vice President Harris all but extinguished the momentum progressives were hoping would carry them forward on Capitol Hill. Democrats’ main strategy against Trump was not effective, and progressives failed to differentiate themselves from other anti-Trump voices in the party.
While Ocasio-Cortez and her mentor, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), each has vast national appeal — they’re popular with young people and working-class voters Democrats say they need the most help winning back — there’s still an open question about what they can tangibly do moving forward.
Some allies who have helped lift the progressive lawmakers’ political careers say members of the left need to look beyond D.C. now for new clout.
“I think it's always about organizing,” said one former Sanders campaign adviser. “The tangible things that can be done are not just about legislation. It’s about building a grassroots network that can affect things at every level.”
“From the discussions I have been having with folks I think it might be happening organically,” the former adviser said.
Both Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez have long relied on the use of small-dollar donations to fund their bids, shunning corporate donations and inspiring others to generate support from people with just a few dollars to give at once. Some are now fearful that Republicans are beginning to try to weaponize that small-dollar model against them, further stifling their ascent.
“Elon Musk and Mike Johnson have their sights on Act Blue,” Geevarghese said about the platform that progressives and other Democrats use for fundraising. “They know that’s our money source. … It’s a signal.”
Sanders has been critical of Democrats since Trump’s win showed key deficiencies in states where many working-class voters reside. He has moved away from the unifying rhetoric that most in the party used right before the election and has gone into introspection and even attack mode, urging his own party to change their priorities to focus more heavily on economic concerns.
The economic-first approach is what got many progressives with nontraditional backgrounds elected to Capitol Hill initially. Ocasio-Cortez famously worked as a bartender before taking office, mirroring the trajectories of other “squad” members: Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) was a nurse, for example, while Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) was a school principal. Both were defeated by more centrist opponents.
Facing a lack of potency, others on the left are trying a newer strategy that seeks to merge some of their more palatable progressive goals with areas of populism favored by Trump. The handful of members who have tried to make that case, including Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), have been met with interest among some on the opposing side.
Many progressives are starting to get on board with that tactic, possibly because there are few great options. “We’ve got to engage with DOGE and we’ve got to point out what we think are the inefficiencies in the system like fossil fuel subsidies,” Geevarghese said, referring to the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, which is not a formal agency but a project conceived by Elon Musk that has received much fanfare from conservatives. “That’s going to be a major fight next year right around the expiration of the Trump tax cuts.”
“Another example would be Pentagon spending,” he said. “I think we should engage on that and have a real fight over whether we need to fund certain initiatives. The question is can we find common cause?”
It’s a start, some say, of what could be a step forward for Democrats who have expressed profound discontent with how their leadership, strategists and party apparatus operate.
“The party needs a reckoning with itself,” said Corryn Freeman, a progressive operative and executive director of Future Coalition, an organizing network. “They’re saying it out of their mouths but their actions are fully aligned with the sameness that has gotten us to the place that we are now, which is powerless.”
“The people are dying for our own — I won’t say our own Donald Trump and our own Marjorie Taylor Greene because those people are unhinged — but Democrats are dying for people who are willing to stand up, take some assertive action and call things out as they see them,” Freeman said.
Another progressive strategist encouraged those within the party to reexamine their roots and reclaim the relevant parts of their platform from the GOP.
“I don’t know exactly when Democrats lost their comfort with populism, but I don't think it was because Trump picked it up,” said the strategist. “I think Trump picked it up because Democrats gave it up during the Obama years, when they started chasing Silicon Valley money and Obama wanted to appeal to college-educated people who think populism is icky and uneducated.”
“We replaced it with a really prominent condescension,” the strategist added.
