Progressive strategist Adam Green said on Monday that the Democratic Party has shifted in a more progressive direction, citing changes in Social Security stances, campaign finance reform and challenging corporate power.
“Several years ago, we had a Democratic president, unfortunately, saying that he was going to cut Social Security as a deal with the Republicans, a grand bargain. In order to raise taxes on the wealthy, we’d cut Social Security,” Green, the co-founder of the Progressive Change Committee, told Hill.TV’s Buck Sexton and Juanita Tolliver on “Rising” told Hill.TV’s Buck Sexton and Juanita Tolliver on “Rising.”
“Both of the Republican ideas there were unpopular, but for some reason, Democrats were going to cut that deal. Fortunately, that didn’t happen,” he added. “The fact that we now have Democrats across the country campaigning on expanding Social Security just shows how the center of gravity has shifted.”
During his second term, Obama had proposed a budget that would increase taxes to wealthy households and corporations, while lowering benefits provided under programs like Social Security and Medicare.
Green added that Democrats were adopting an increasingly “anti-corporate stance,” saying that reflected a shift as he noted the party had previously been critiqued for taking too much corporate money.
A number of Democratic candidates this year have said they would not take corporate or PAC money, relying instead in a surge of small donations from platforms like Act Blue.
“We have so many people taking an anti-corporate stance when one critique of the Democratic Party has been too much corporate money. So the fact that there’s a push for campaign finance reform is consistent with this whole set of issues where generally we’re challenging corporate power and going to bat for everyday working people,” he said.
Green argued in an op-ed published in The Washington Post last week that victories in the midterms show that the progressive wing of the Democratic Party is now in the mainstream.
Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) has emerged as one of the leading members of the progressive wing of the party, advocating for policies including “Medicare for all.”
— Julia Manchester
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