At the People’s Summit, Activists Plot How to Take Bernie Sanders’ Revolution Down Ballot

[insta8er]

Participants are looking to carry their momentum on to local races around the country.

Over 3,000 Bernie Sanders supporters convened in Chicago for the People’s Summit last weekend. “That we have come together is not a coincidence,” said Summit host and executive director of National Nurses United (NNU) RoseAnn DeMoro in her opening remarks. “How we stay together is the challenge before us at the People’s Summit.”

People filed in from across the country. Attendees included volunteers from local Sanders groups, student organizers, current and recently laid off Sanders staffers, Sanders surrogates like Sen. Nina Turner, progressive non-profits, hundreds of nurses, People for Bernie, Brand New Congress and more.

Many said they were politicized by the Sanders candidacy. Others, like the dozens of People’s Action organizers attending the summit, said they have been doing the work of building independent progressive political power for years.

“A movement to build institutions that are grounded in a world view and a set of people, not a political party, and to do down ballot candidate development,” has been in motion for years, says People’s Action co-director George Goehl. People’s Action is the result of this year’s mammoth merger between National People’s Action, U.S. Action and Alliance for a Just Society.

http://inthesetimes.com/article/19235/independent-progressive-political-power-culminates-at-chicagos-peoples-summ

[L. Coyote]

1. Simple, overthrow the Republican Congress.

55 districts to flip in a Democratic wave election
By joeknapp

And Bernie should lead the charge explicitly. That's how a revolution works, and that's how you get your ideas passed into law, by winning the majority in Congress.

[forjusticethunders]

2. Need to flip local races too and Statehouses and gov mansions too.

[L. Coyote]

7. Will happen if we turn out the voters.

[timmymoff]

3. Would've been simple

If every republican who ever heard the name Clinton wasn't going to come out of the woodwork.

[tonyt53]

8. But it only takes six seats to switch the Senate. A revolution can only be successful is it is smart

Trying to switch 55 seats as compared to 6 isn't very smart. The Senate votes on the Supreme Court nominees. The switch of the Senate if far more important at this time.

[L. Coyote]

9. It takes two houses of Congress to pass laws. So, not very smart to focus on one only.

The smart move it to overthrow the obstructionist crooks everywhere is a great SWEEP.

[Retrograde]

5. Great! That's what the Tea Party did a few elections back

Get control of key state houses to control redistricting after 2020 (although I still prefer California's citizens' committee approach), Secretary of State or equivalent positions to make voting easier for all, then start filling up the state legislatures and eventually Congress.

The big challenge after that is to keep fringe groups from hijacking the podiums, always a problem with an inclusive party. (And no, I'm not referring to Sanders and his supporters here - I mean the one-cause advocates who had a tendency to show up at every leftist rally in the Bay Area and try to turn it to their own particular issue.)

[Ash_F]

6. They can start by picking up all those empty precinct chairs all over the country.

I know two young Sander's supporters who grabbed empty spots near me.

It's not that much power, but more than they had before they took it.