It’s Time for the Congressional Progressive Caucus to Raise Its Game

It’s Time for the Congressional Progressive Caucus to Raise Its Game

It’s Time for the Congressional Progressive Caucus to Raise Its Game

The CPC must move from being the conscience of the Democratic caucus to being its captain, from defining the alternative to defining the agenda.

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A massive people’s uprising is driving the opposition to President Trump. In Congress, the Congressional Progressive Caucus is an emerging center of that resistance.

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the CPC. Its first and founding director was an independent socialist from Vermont named Bernie Sanders. Now, co-chaired by Representatives Keith Ellison (D-MN) and Raúl M. Grijalva (D-AZ), the CPC is the largest Democratic House caucus, with 73 dues-paying members. Each election in recent years has provided it with dynamic new leaders—Wisconsin’s Mark Pocan, New York’s Yvette Clarke, Pennsylvania’s Matthew Cartwright, and now Washington’s Pramila Jayapal and Mayland’s Jamie B. Raskin.

Last weekend more than 30 of those members joined with activists from across the progressive landscape to share ideas and plot strategy at the annual summit of Progressive Congress. CPC members individually are already mobilizing against Trump. The challenge is whether the CPC can collectively begin to define the forward-looking agenda of the resistance.

Read the full text of Katrina’s column here.

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Even before February 28, the reasons for Donald Trump’s imploding approval rating were abundantly clear: untrammeled corruption and personal enrichment to the tune of billions of dollars during an affordability crisis, a foreign policy guided only by his own derelict sense of morality, and the deployment of a murderous campaign of occupation, detention, and deportation on American streets. 

Now an undeclared, unauthorized, unpopular, and unconstitutional war of aggression against Iran has spread like wildfire through the region and into Europe. A new “forever war”—with an ever-increasing likelihood of American troops on the ground—may very well be upon us.  

As we’ve seen over and over, this administration uses lies, misdirection, and attempts to flood the zone to justify its abuses of power at home and abroad. Just as Trump, Marco Rubio, and Pete Hegseth offer erratic and contradictory rationales for the attacks on Iran, the administration is also spreading the lie that the upcoming midterm elections are under threat from noncitizens on voter rolls. When these lies go unchecked, they become the basis for further authoritarian encroachment and war. 

In these dark times, independent journalism is uniquely able to uncover the falsehoods that threaten our republic—and civilians around the world—and shine a bright light on the truth. 

The Nation’s experienced team of writers, editors, and fact-checkers understands the scale of what we’re up against and the urgency with which we have to act. That’s why we’re publishing critical reporting and analysis of the war on Iran, ICE violence at home, new forms of voter suppression emerging in the courts, and much more. 

But this journalism is possible only with your support.

This March, The Nation needs to raise $50,000 to ensure that we have the resources for reporting and analysis that sets the record straight and empowers people of conscience to organize. Will you donate today?

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