A new piece in HuffPost delves into the many struggles facing Justice Democrats,
the progressive group that endorses progressive candidates and
gets quite a few people elected, at least in the past.
The ladies of the squad are Justice Democrats.
Jamal Bowman is another example of a Justice Democrat.
But right now, it seems that the left wing coalition is disintegrating,
unfortunately, and progressives have different ideas on how to rebuild it.
So I'm gonna give you a few excerpts, and Jenk is also quoted in the piece.
But before we get to Jenk's, quote, first the details on the Justice Democrats.
Just over six years since its founding, Justice Democrats opposition
is more organized, while its mission is more muddled and its coffers depleted.
Faced with a shortage of funds, the group laid off nine of its 20 staff members
in mid July, a move that took many prominent progressives by surprise.
And they seem to be returning their main focus back to electoral politics and
away from advocacy on policy.
Except it should be noted that the Justice Democrats have not yet
announced any endorsements of primary challengers of candidates in open seats,
and that is a stark change from what they did previously.
Previously, the whole point is to primary corporate Democrats in Congress, and
they again have yet to endorse any new candidates.
And I'm curious what you think about that Jenk.
>> Yeah, look, when we started Just Democrats and yes,
we started Just Democrats.
And by we, I mean both me and the co founders like Sharkhat Chakrabarti and,
yes, Kyle Kalinsky and Zach Exley.
But also we as in you guys, the audience, you gave literally millions of dollars to
start this group, and we launched it here on the Young Turks.
And we were all very clear you have to challenge the establishment.
That's the whole point of this organization.
And in the first cycle, we ran 78 races.
Zach's original idea, he's one of the co founders,
was to run 435 or 535 races, if we could, right?
Now that was too ambitious but I loved him for it, and
it was the right way of thinking about it.
And then we only won four out of the 78.
But you normally you'd get a lot of ha ha,
that, your winning record is not that good, your winning percentage, etc.
But that was a hell of a four.
AOC, Rashida Talib, Ilhan Omar and Ayana Presley.
And they made a giant difference in the beginning, right?
So we were going in the right direction.
But then the organization, for
some reason, started worrying about their winning percentage, and
then they started running less and less people, and they started running them in
only super blue districts cuz they thought that was more winnable.
That's fair.
It is more winnable in super blue districts, but we got to scare some people
in purple districts, otherwise we can't get their votes in Congress.
Cuz the point isn't to get AOC elected or any one of these people elected,
the point is to pass bills, to pass policy priorities for progressives.
But along the way, both the legislators and
the group unfortunately lost their way and they took their eyes off the prize.
I have more on that in a second.
>> In fact, okay, so this is a perfect time to mention one of the biggest
obstacles for the organization at the moment, which is fundraising.
So I'm gonna give you the quote.
Alexander Rojas, who is the Justice Democrats executive director,
told HuffPost, quote, we are vulnerable to sudden changes in grassroots giving.
The ebbs and flows for us are bigger.
Now remember, Justice Democrats, they take up small dollar donors grassroots money.
And this is my speculation, but you're going to get less funding
from grassroots donors if they feel that you are not delivering for them.
So I'm gonna give you a few examples.
When there are headlines about Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez
voting present when she should have voted no on an extra $1 billion for
Israel, right.
That's on top of the funding that we already provide for
Israel every single year, billions and billions of dollars.
That showed a level of weakness and the willingness to honestly turn her back on
the people who have supported her and promoted her and
defended her as she's being attacked by corporate Democrats, right?
That's one example I have in mind.
The latest example, in my opinion, when it comes to AOC, and I don't mean to harp on
her, I've seen some failures when it comes to Justice Democrats in Congress,
across the board, but she just goes on Podsave America.
And without trying to get any concessions from Joe Biden, prematurely endorses him,
saying, given the field, yes, I endorsed Joe Biden for reelection.
>> Speaker 2: And why would you do that?
Look, I think Israel is an ironic example cuz they've actually been the toughest on
the issue of Israel overall.
Nine Just Democrats voted against saying that Israel is not a racist state and
they held the line even though they got a lot of blowback from Washington and
all of this is nuanced.
And by the way, Alex Rojas was definitely part of the initial team,
leadership team and was a huge part of the successes that happened and
that's why she got the executive director position.
Corbin Trent was an incredible part of the organization originally, etc., and
they've done great work.
Just Democrats have done great work overall, there's eleven Just Democrats in
Congress when nobody thought that that was possible.
Now, having said that, look, on economic issues, they just didn't fight.
And so I don't think it's speculation at all.
I think it's stone cold fact to say that you're getting less grassroots funding cuz
you didn't deliver.
And that breaks my heart because we started Just Democrats together.
And I wanna come out here and tell you we did deliver and we did awesome, and
we did exactly what we were supposed to do.
It's not we anymore, I'm not part of the group anymore.
But you remember when I left the group, I backed them 100% anyway, right?
Eyes on the prize.
How many times you guys hear me say eyes on the prize?
But when we had the prize as something like $15 minimum wage,
I know for a fact that they chose not to fight.
They said, Bernie Sanders doesn't wanna fight.
The legislators in the House don't wanna fight.
Well, who cares?
Push them to fight.
That's the whole point of Justice Democrats.
If you had told me you're going to get 11 Justice Democrats in Congress,
I would be like, yes.
If you told me they're not even going to fight for $15 minimum wage,
I would be like, that can't be right.
That can't be right.
That their paid family leave is gonna die on the table and
no one's even gonna push back.
I couldn't believe it.
They're not even gonna fight for voting rights and
that they were gonna go with a strategy and this one is on Pramila Jayapal.
And I asked her to be a Justice Democrat personally, and
now I completely regret that her strategy was trust Biden.
How'd that work out for us?
It worked out terribly.
We didn't get any of our policies.
The only thing we got was we got some action against climate change
in the Inflationary Reduction Act.
But then Biden's like, hold on, hold on,
It seems like I'm helping you a little bit, psych.
Instead, what I'm gonna do is totally neutralize that by allowing drilling
everywhere, including the Willow Project in Alaska.
I'm gonna give Joe Mansion a pipeline even though he destroyed 85% of my agenda.
I'm gonna gratuitously have more and more drilling so that turns into a zero,
and you didn't get anything else, and then you wonder why your funding dried.
They have these total excuses and I got to say,
I talked to Daniel Moranz who did that piece, and
I just thought at the end, the piece seemed to emphasize, well, golly gee,
great grassroots funding is drying up for everyone, it's not their fault.
Well, why do you think grassroots just drying up?
Because there's no hope left.
Because we can't even get the bare minimum passed.
We can't even get them to fight for the bare minimum.
Don't pretend that $15 minimum wage was not the bare minimum,
that voting rights was not the bare minimum.
No progressive in their right mind can pretend that.
And don't pretend you fought for it.
You're on the record, you did nothing to fight back.
>> Speaker 1: I just feel that just based on what we can see publicly,
there's a lack of strategy and a lack of it seems like they don't
really talk to one another or plan on what their plan of attack is, right?
And in fact, there was an aide who spoke to HuffPost about this and
this is what they said.
So this is a progressive senior House aide.
We have huge champions like Bernie Sanders, AOC, Ilhan Omar,
who are able to be successful political fundraisers, but
movement wise we're not in a great place right now.
And one House aide conceded that Justice Democrats aligned incumbents,
lacked cohesiveness, and
did not have regular group meetings with Justice Democrats.
Other than some Israel bills, we never talked about legislation.
There's a perspective that people with Justice Democrats win their race and
come to Congress and do their own thing.
>> Speaker 2: That's not a perception, that's a stone cold fact.
That is absolute reality.
And you guys have heard me allude to it before.
I don't reveal private conversations, but I tell you, generally I was shocked
to find out there's no strategy, no planning, no leadership on anything.
And that's not just the Democrats that's also other so
called progressives in Congress.
Yes, that includes Bernie Sanders,
Elizabeth Warren, nobody ever talks to anybody.
They don't coordinate.
How the hell are you gonna pass something if you don't go and talk to people and
you don't have come up with a plan, a strategy?
Look and then if somebody proposes a strategy from the outside,
everybody's too good now, I am a Congressperson, I am a Senator.
Who cares?
What have you done?
So do something.
And guys, we're dying for leadership.
So if AOC, for example, who's the most prominent of the Just Democrats, said,
that's it, I'm leading, I would love it.
Thank you.
Even if I didn't agree exactly with the plan, and even if I thought, well,
I would do it in a different way, who cares?
At least she's leading.
At least she's bringing together a coalition.
She's fighting back against the establishment.
Did it happen?
It's a verifiable fact that it didn't happen and
so it breaks my heart to tell you that.
But that's the situation we're in.
I hope that some of this gets through and
they begin to realize that they've let the grassroots down.
You can't say, I let you down, I didn't get you anything you wanted, but
give me money, but give me money anyway.
That is not a compelling argument, but my guess is they won't listen to anybody.
They have Washingtonitis.
All of them do, all the reporters do, all the groups do, the legislators do.
What is that?
They think that Joe Biden actually got a lot done.
They're so happy and proud of themselves.
They're like, what do you mean?
We got a little bit of climate change in there.
[LAUGH] Yeah, people are still complaining.
Look, guys, in Washington that might work in the bubble cuz everybody's nuts
in Washington and everybody on cable news is just as nuts.
And they're like talking about how Biden's FDR but
for the rest of the country they're like, where the hell is higher wages?
I mean, Joe Biden didn't even offer the public option, let alone MediCare for all.
And you never held him to account.
Did a single Justice Democrat ever say, Joe Biden is a liar?
He said he'd do the public option.
Not only did he not do it, he didn't even propose it.
Joe Biden said he'd do $50 minutes wage and
he threw it under the bus at the first opportunity.
Did any of you call him out on that?
No, they went with the trust Biden strategy that got their ass handed to him.
That's a fact.
>> Speaker 1: Well, a former Bernie Sanders campaign operative,
Karthik, are you familiar with Karthik?
>> Speaker 2: No.
>> Speaker 1: Okay, so Karthik Ganapathi says, it's really hard to
challenge incumbent Democrats in this particular time,
especially with Biden's few progressive accomplishments,
which makes challenging the establishment feel less urgent.
>> Because Biden got progressive accomplishments on Planet Zandu or
wherever the hell this guy's are.
>> This is the co founder of Left Flank.
>> Speaker 2: Are you?
>> Okay, when there's a big gap between where the president is on legislative
priorities and where the left is, it becomes really important for
the left to take on a more confrontational posture.
But comparing, for example, the role of single payer advocacy groups during
the affordable care act fights versus the role of groups like
sunrise movement in the inflation reduction act process, it's night and day.
I generally think the white house and the biden campaign see progressives as part
of their coalition, and that counts for something.
>> Speaker 2: No, it doesn't.
Legislation counts for something.
You thinking you're part of the coalition and having tea with Nancy Pelosi and
Joe Biden counts for nothing.
Show me the bills, show me the fight.
This isn't why we started Justice Democrats so
you guys could all be famous and get along.
Be super comfortable in Washington and get along with your goddamn colleagues.
None of us are interested in your colleagues.
There's only one thing we're interested in, pass the bills, pass the bills.
And until you do that no interest.
Who's gonna do fundraising for you guys?
Rah rah, let's get more, no bills passed, not interesting.
So they need a lot of help.
And it doesn't even seem like they recognize the problem.
They don't even realize they have a massive problem.
It isn't because of cycles.
It isn't because you didn't do your mail this right.
It's because you didn't deliver and you didn't fight.