How Progressives Learned To Love Persuasion
WASHINGTON ― A gathering of top progressive political operatives, donors and elected officials on Tuesday, in many ways, could have come straight out of 2019. There was bemoaning of Democratic establishment timidity, promises to find “disability justice, racial justice, economic justice, water justice and air justice,” and spotlights placed on candidates running to the left in crucial primaries.
But the gathering’s name ― Persuasion 2025 ― contained a not-so-subtle shift in how the progressive movement is selling itself to the broader Democratic Party. For much of President Donald Trump’s first term, large portions of the left dismissed the idea the party should do much to try to win over his voters, and instead suggested they could win by motivating disaffected voters, many of them Black and Latino, to turn out by proposing sufficiently bold policies.
The movement is now changing its tune, placing a renewed focus on arguing progressives are better equipped to persuade swing voters who are distrustful of establishment politicians and skeptical of entrenched insiders, and speak to voter anger about rising prices.
“We want to push a shift,” acknowledged Tory Gavito, the president of Way To Win. “I was brought up in the Obama years to think about this as an either/or question, where you had to persuade some voters and you had to turn out others.”
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/how-progressives-learned-to-love-persuasion_n_68e1e714e4b060c19f1a96e5