Obama’s Progressive Mandate

Obama’s Progressive Mandate

President Obama won big on election night, garnering a wider margin of victory than many of his predecessors. Now’s the time for him to act.

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As John Nichols wrote yesterday, President Obama won big on election night, garnering a wider margin of victory than many of his predecessors. Nichols argued on Democracy Now! that the win represents a mandate from progressives for the president to push back against the right’s doctrine of austerity. But Obama can’t do it alone. Progressives also need to speak out and push the president away from his centrist governance. Nichols also talks about Montana and Colorado voters’ rejection of the Citizens United decisions on ballot referendums this past Tuesday.

Steven Hsieh

Read John Nichols’s post-election blog post, “For Obama a Bigger Win Than for Kennedy, Nixon, Carter, or Bush.”

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With the midterm elections now firmly upon us, the question is whether Democratic candidates will do more than merely occupy ballot lines as mild alternatives to the red-hot crisis that is Donald Trump.

As Trump spends over $1 billion a day on a globally destabilizing war on Iran and admits that he doesn’t “think about Americans’ financial situation,” millions across the country are struggling with the surging costs of essentials. Democrats must seize this moment and advance bold, small-“d” populist ideas—not settle for cynical caution that once again snatches defeat from the jaws of victory.

The Nation elevates progressive ideas, movements, and elected officials achieving real change across the country into the national conversation. At the same time, our journalists are exposing how crypto and AI-funded super PACs are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to knock out candidates they oppose, reporting on the devastating impact of the Supreme Court’s evisceration of the Voting Rights Act, and sounding the alarm on attempts by red states to quickly redraw electoral maps, disenfranchising Southern Black voters.

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Onward,

Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editor and Publisher, The Nation

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