Progressives Unveil 10-Point Agenda to 'Prevent Fascist Takeover' in 2024
Progressive advocates take part in a rally on March 31, 2017. (Photo: Zach D. Roberts/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
"With our support and voice, progressives may persuade and enable President Biden to achieve more progressive policy objectives during his second term and prevent a fascist takeover."
by Jake Johnson
A coalition of national progressive advocacy groups on Monday released a list of 10 policy objectives that it believes President Joe Biden should embrace to consolidate support for his high-stakes electoral rematch against presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump.
The platform—released by Our Revolution, Progressive Democrats of America (PDA), and the State Democratic Party Progressive Network—frontloads the threat that Trump and the fascist movement at his back pose to basic freedoms and democracy itself.
"The 2024 presidential election presents a challenge for progressives to preserve and amplify our voice while fighting the most dangerous threat to U.S. democracy in our nation's history," reads the platform's introduction. "Our best strategy to advance both goals is to become state and national Biden delegates at the state and national Democratic Party conventions and to elect Joe Biden for a second term. Throughout this process, we must advocate for a progressive policy agenda that builds and expands upon progressive elements of President Biden’s original Build Back Better (BBB) plan."
"With our support and voice," the document adds, "progressives may persuade and enable President Biden to achieve more progressive policy objectives during his second term and prevent a fascist takeover."
The first plank of the agenda urges Biden and the Democratic Party to "develop and repetitively use more aggressive messaging against and educate the public about the dangers of fascism including exposing and condemning Project 2025, the fascist blueprint for a second Trump administration."
It also calls for more concrete policy changes such as filibuster reform, term limits for Supreme Court justices, and the passage of robust voting rights legislation in the face of large-scale Republican attacks on the franchise.
Other planks of the agenda include working to end the privatization of public goods such as housing and healthcare, using "all means available" to raise the long-stagnant federal minimum wage and slash poverty, raising taxes on billionaires and corporations, overturning the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, canceling student debt and establishing tuition-free public college, expanding Medicare benefits, declaring a climate emergency, and conditioning U.S. aid to Israel.
The groups said Monday that they plan to submit the policy agenda to the Democratic Party Platform Committee ahead of the Democratic National Convention in August.
"We intend this to be a unifying effort, urge the second Biden administration to fulfill the ten policy objectives outlined in these proposals, and invite the Democratic presidential campaign to engage in dialogue with us to achieve unity and progressive electoral support around them," the progressive coalition said Monday.