Transcripts For CSPAN Progressives Discuss Post-Election Priorities 20161112

Formally because it is being filmed for cspan as well. Could turn off their phones we are going to have an incredible panel. We will start with them. Then we will get questions from some of you. We have an overflow room. It will be going until 2 00. We have plenty of time. We have seats for people just coming in. Ok. Welcome the people in the room and the tens of thousands to the through cspan institute for policy studies for the session on what we have theed election debrief next step support of the progressive movement. I am john cabana, the director for the institute of policy studies i will be moderating todays session with five wonderful scholar activists from ips and allied groups. I just want to read you the that ips wrote when they wrote up the session three weeks ago, because it is still what we are doing. Let me read this. Says, these are these two smart people. They said the election is over. Racism, xenophobia, Climate Change, inequities, inequality are still with us. We maintain our collective momentum and what are our next steps to positively transform our nation after the ballots are counted . Join our informed and Dynamic Panel and be a participating audience member as we discuss and interact with some of these struggling movement to transform them. We need to come together and immediately begin action steps for the next four years and beyond. So, that is what we plan to do for the next 90 minutes. Let me briefly introduce our five panelists. Ips,e cofounder of someone who has led us in understanding elections going back several decades. Aen fly the omitted as, senior attorney and project director on immigrant justice. Ofn barber, the director domestic policy and a longtime ally for the center for policy research and the Prince Georges county, maryland peoples for or later. Alition he is also the winner of a human rights award for his brave work with a group repeal or ridge rest. And finally the institute of policy studies new internationalism project and an author most recently of understanding isis and the new global war on terror, a primer. Let me start by saying this. Ips has worked with vibrant social movements for over five decades to advance peace, justice, and the environment. In the u. S. And beyond. And we are committed to being a space for Creative Ideas and civil dialogue in this deeply theded country and world in days and weeks and years to come. And i just want to say our cofounder is here. Let us through much of that. Jamie was elected to the u. S. Congress. Many people in this country and the world are right now in shock over this election. And we will need to cherish these spaces where we can come together and dialogue and we at ips offer you one. You can find us on the web also cc. Org. Ips is nonpartisan. We do not take positions on candidates. But we are aware that many individuals supported jill stein in this election. Many supported Bernie Sanders. Clinton. Orted hillary many supported others and we celebrate that diversity. Here are the rules. Each of our five folks will speak for five minutes. I will remind them 15 minutes are up. They have a lot more to say, but we will save the rest of it in dialogue with all of you and i will field questions and we will be getting some also via social media and i will intersperse the conversation today with a few quotes from movement allies. People who are already building for this next phase of work, things they have set out this morning and i just want to start with a quote this morning, not from one of our allies, but a woman i did not know on the Huffington Post who wrote a blog called what do we tell the children . Just to set the tone for the is by allie, it michael, these director for the Race Institute for k12 educators. Here is what she wrote. Its funny. She asked if it was ok if she cried in the session and, of course, it is. Tell them first we will protect them. We have democratic processes in the u. S. That make it impossible for one mean person to do too much damage. Protect theseill democratic processes and we will use them so that trump is unable to act on many of the false promises he made during the campaign. Tell them second you will honor the outcome of the election, but you will fight to get tree. All them bigotry is not democratic value and it will not be tolerated at your school. Tell them you stand by your muslim family, your samesex gay families, your mexican students, your immigrant families, your trans students, your native students. Tell them you will not let anyone hurt them or to port them or threaten them without having to contend with you first. Say that silence is dangerous and teach them how to speak up when something is wrong. Then teach them how to speak up, how to love one another, how to understand one another, how to deal with conflicting ideologies and the skills to deal with a world that does not help no have to do this. Let me start with steve, progressive democrats of america. Steve so, that was a nice night, huh . [laughter] steve i meant to wear a black armband today so i did not have to be clear on where i stood. I guess we know why all the medical marijuana initiatives past. We are going to need it over the next few years. Eight years ago, i was on a in the wake old ips of barack obama from first elections. And i remember telling everybody it was probably the best election of the rest of my life, and i think probably last night might qualify for the worst, and im old, so that includes Ronald Reagan in 1980 and Richard Nixon winning 49 states against George Mcgovern in 1972, which was my first one. I have been through some bad with. That one last night might have been the worst. Phenomena ight this is obvious, right . Its not going away. Duh. It is worldwide. It is connected to austerity, and of course, it is connected to racism, and its going to be with us for way too long. Time in the last seven president ial elections, the democrats will win the popular vote. Hillary will win the popular vote. No one pointed it out left that, but she took the lead this morning and its going to grow. The electoralis, college is taken the popular vote victory away from us, and the Supreme Court and other things obviously helps in 2000, but we do need to remember she rising american electorate did hold together last night, more or less. Even without barack obama, who of course is a tremendous votegetter. Hillary is going to win that election thanks to latinos especially. She is going to have the margin of victory last night. Unfortunately, we are missing in two0 or 30,000 votes or three states that were needed. This is partly a structural defeat combined with, as bomar said last week, a slowmoving rightwing coup as bill maher said last week, a slowmoving rightwing coup. Donors,idden money from but her malpractice, gerrymandering, a poisonous, fraudulent internet, which we have lost control of. We used to be the masters of it only Progressive Side and were not anymore. Course,it job, and of holding the Supreme Court hostage for a year, for which the republicans are not only not going to pay a price, they are going to be rewarded. So, its more obvious than ever we need serious electorate reform. In my remaining minute or a half or what ever high of gotten, we need small dollar multiple public match public financing. We need instant runoff financing. We need to roll back Citizens United and buckley. Popular voteional so the prisoner wins the election wins the election. We need a constitutional right to vote. We need to in gerrymandering. We need universal automatic photo registration like oregon pioneered last year in a few states have copied you read we need to regain the public airwaves, which we have given away to privateers. We need to eliminate long lines at the polls because long lines at the polls are voter suppression. And we still need to fix the electronic machines because who knows who one pennsylvania last night . We are never going to know. For getting all of this nonsense i have worked on this my entire career to an amazing of success is to get out of the way and let the millennials figure it out. If you want me to talk about that later, i will. At me end on a thin reed of Silver Lining here. The decks are cleared for 2018 and 2020. Is no we are in a dead straight fight right now. The fight requires a serious left leadership. It requires people like ips. One thing about ips they are never going to be out of a job because theres always going to be racism, sexism, xenophobia, Climate Change, Nuclear Catastrophe to deal with. We need the energy and smarts all the millennials, of people like ips. , progressive ideas. Eform ideas the lines are clear in the right is going to fail. We know they are going to fail. Their ideas dont make any sense. Everyone is going to see a better world is still possible, however far away it seems this morning. John thank you. [applause] john next fly the of gimenez flavia gimenez. Invia just spent time florida where there was quite a bit of gerrymandering and confusion at the polls. Coming off of that. Thank you for inviting me today. To read two sentences from the press release at the advancement project today. Talking about the pull of color. We have demonstrated people of color. We have demonstrated we will not be silent. Our movement is stronger than it has ever been. Our solidarity is deeper than ever. So, what happens to immigrants and immigration policy in this country now in the wake of this unexpected election . I would say first and foremost there has never been a more important time to build a multiracial movement. There is a very, very clear aalysis on how racism has hand in policymaking in this country as relates to immigrants. We must be very clear, because the lap of clarity is actually quite shocking. This is one of those things where hindsight is 20 20. Tomorrow is a new day. We have to get to a reset. The unity of the Alliance Building with the leaders in the africanamerican community, Lgbt Q Community Lgbtq Community has never been more important. For the next several months until 2017, january 2017, leaders will have to expand and create new alliances. I know there are many organizational alliances who have begun this journey on how to build these broadbased multiracial alliances. Just a little bit about what we know about what donald trump said during his candidacy on immigration. He talked about building a wall. He talked about setting up a federal Deportation Force for the undocumented. In other words emboldening and forceful the already deportation practice that was president obama who has deported more individuals than any other president in the history of the United States, over 2 million people. A Trump Presidency will continue this and expand on that. , veryalso very likely possible, the next president will take away the deferred action for childhood arrivals, aca, which is helped hundreds of thousands of immigrant youth obtain a deferment to their deportation. That is the bad news. Ok . What is the good news . The good news is we have absolutely no option to build a wall of resistance. Candidate trump talked about building a wall. We will build a wall of resistance. There are number of moderate republican to understand complete isolation and deportation policies are bad for communities and ultimately for them in their own communities moving forward. How do we work with those individuals who have said out loud, im not comfortable with mass deportation . These alliances well beyond what we have already done is going to take a lot of work, but there is no time for paralysis. I think we are all feeling that way right now. Lets give ourselves one day to to be paralyzed and tomorrow, lets start working outside of our comfort can buildee how we these alliances. They are going to be powerful moving forward with the progressive movement, with all of these other communities. The lives ofy millions of people are at stake, including families with children born in the United States. So they have United States citizenship and we have to take more courageous steps so the rights of every single individual, including those who are undocumented are protected in the face of what could be a deportation machine, and expanded deportation machine. Please follow the advancement project on social media. Sign up for our email list as we embark on this new era in american history. Thank you. To nexting text to our guest from cpr. Thank you for this very important and crucial for a. Like a lot of others, i did not get a lot of sleep last night. Ancollected this to be historic election, and it was, but not the way we thought it would be. We find ourselves at a historic moment. This could be a turning point. Our route has changed, but we still have the same way forward we did. Today we are going to talk about some of those ways in ways that they intersect. But for now, i want to touch on inequality. Income inequality remains a challenge we have to overcome as a nation and even though the executive and legislative branches will not be as receptive as they were still saweeks ago we in this election campaigns that gave voice to a popular spirit that insists on being heard. Does haveis populism roots in income inequality. For far too long, americans have been more and more productive at work, but we have not seen our grow in proportion. The family of four makes pretty much the same thing they may 20 years ago and if we talk about the warm percent, we know it is even worse. See the back, we can top 1 has grown by 138 . The bottom 90 is at 15 . Let that sink in. I mean, that means the American Dream that a lot of us think of does not exist for a lot of people. The u. S. Has fallen to number 13 in terms of social mobility nations. Anced this is important because we find ourselves at a moment where these campaigns have given voice to populist movements at a state and local level and this is where we have to turn our attention to. We have to push for raising the minimum wage. I think if we continue to focus maybeas like that, we can claw back some of the losses we and start thinking about 2020. And away the campaign of 2020 starts right now. A lot of things will come out of the next 100 days. The Trump Administration will set the agenda that people are running on, running against. We deserve a moment. This hurt. But what we have to do is take that moment, galvanize ourselves and go back to local communities and find issues we can organize around and find people we can put in position to run for local office, National Office and we will turn this around. Now, john and karen sent us a lot of gentle, subtle reminders about keeping to the clock. So i am going to close. John thank you, alan. In the conversation we will get into the local level, the state level, as well as the global level we fight on. Next, jonathan, as i mentioned, from the peoples coalition, the coordinator in Prince Georges county, maryland. Jonathan think it, john. Thank you to the institute for policy studies for helping us and giving us this opportunity to project forward to the nation and the world at large. What i was planning to say today was totally discarded probably about midnight last night. And i began to think about how we got here. , im speaking we about those of us who were born on the margins. Im talking about those of us who constitute the desperate, the damped, disinherited, the disrespected, and the despised. 20 years ago when i was the student audie president at 1998, weiversity in heard from a revolutionary and in my opinion, the greatest and most humble revolutionary to walk that campus. He was known to my mothers generation as to click on michael. This was nine months before he somed and he left us with historical dictums and there was one that penetrated me that day and that resounds more profoundly today than it ever did. He simply said to us, numerous thes that night but struggle is eternal. That means there is no time for us to relax and sit back and enjoy life. He went further to tell as this was reactionary thinking of the worst order. When i was thinking earlier about what i could say, i thought to myself that i am a child of the american south. We were taught in atlanta, georgia i am a 1980s kid, born in 1977, we had overcome. But what i recall from my nephew , oral and written, is when the modernday Civil Rights Movement began in 1955 in montgomery, alabama, when a training human rights activist by the name of rosa parks that refused to give up her seat that day we didnt enough votes thats it. In fact, we could not vote. So how were we able to bring a bus system to its knees . In 1957 in little rock, arkansas, we didnt have the most votes. They couldnt vote. In 1961, when the freedom ride took off in washington, d. C. The 13 freedom riders, architect of that freedom ride, equalityess of racial would not have the most votes. We cannot even vote. In 1963 in birmingham, alabama, eugene represented statehouse. We were being crushed in birmingham. We didnt have the most votes. We didnt even have the right to vote. These cities i am saying to you in selma, that was the crescendo, where everything came to the climax. Here we had a climax of Alabama State power smashing down on these nonviolent direct action protesters. We didnt have the right to vote. We still made it to the state capital. So what is the theme . The theme is that what i want to say to any activist, any organizer, anyone that desires to labor for peace, that should be all a bus, is that the joke that went through my spine yesterday is if we left the streets, we got to get back in the streets and organize for our survival. Thats number one. Number two is that we have to have a deeper analysis of how to use the vote. Firmly which i believe in. I believe post1965 coming took a too many of us nap and with the election of barack obama, sad to say, some of us went straight to sleep and we thought the white house was going to do the work for us. But the reality is that we are now in a worse situation today in the United States of america racially and in times of class and times of poverty than weve ever been. At least in my lifetime, and i will be 40yearsold in the spring. So, weve got to get back in the streets. The vote can be a tool in the weapon for progress. Two more points and i will be done. What do i mean by that . Number one, we have to analyze what does it mean to win . What does winning mean . , was reminded in San Francisco coming back to the theme of not having enough votes, jackson senior did not have enough votes in San Francisco. Some of you might have been there. Im sure you were. He ran third out of eight candidates. Over 3. 5 million votes and massive black Voter Registration in the south, we took the senate in 1986. What did that mean . It meant when the veto came from Ronald Reagan against the sanctions and the apartheid in south africa, there was a majority in the senate that smashed the veto and behind that was the advocacy of california. We can do that. Thats how we use the vote as a tool and weapon for our survival and lastly i would say, we have to struggle to create alternative power in the cities and municipalities. My colleague said to get the progressive reforms that we need, i am reminded of one of the lasting reforms of marion barry was to make it a law to be people hired to work for the city government, and that legacy still stands to this day. So we have to organize. We can do it. Organize, organize, organize. Thank you so much. [applause] thank you, jonathan. Finally, from the organization,sm and policy study. Phyllis thank you all for coming out today also the day of free mobilization and connection. I would start with the movement jonathan pointed to. We have to remember that movements are what change history. It is movement that can be very dangerous. The movement around the trunk candidacy was in many ways trump trump candidacy was in many ways more dangerous than the candidate. There was a Movement Based on racism and White Supremacy and misogyny, xenophobia, a whole host of evils that represents in many ways why this was so shockingly shocking to all of us. Elections are never our turf. It is never our people at this stage. They are a tactic. People have died for the right to vote, but that doesnt mean that voting is enough. Voting is one thing that we do. Its only one little part of our democracy. Its the movements that matter. I was remembering on september 12, 2001, the day after the 9 11 attacks, the day that george bush announced that his response to that attack would be to take the world to war. On that day, begun in email at ips from our great friend, the works onin bolivia who water rights, and he wrote we still believe another world is possible. We are with you. I think it was important because we have to remember we are part of a Global Movement. When we talk about movement is not only here. Much of the work is going to be local rather than national. We are going to have a hard time going to National Efforts right away. Its going to start in cities and counties and states. In that context, it is going to be important to keep in mind the planet and the people of the planet. That is part of what we are fighting for, a greater challenge than it has been before to keep the global central. It is also part of how we are going to win. We are not the only country that has elected somebody shocking in the recent period. There are a lot of comrades around the world looking at similar elections and selections of various sorts of leaders who are selfappointed, incredibly dangerous for whole host of reasons. We can learn from them and work with them and we are part of a Global Movement to do that together. We have, i think, a lot that we were planning to take up when we were getting ready, those of us who work on challenging wars and occupations, we were preparing for immediate resistance, no waiting, stop the war before it exploits before escalates. We still have to do that. Wars are not going to not happen because hillarys plan for the nofly zone in syria is not on the agenda for white house. The war will not stop right away. So we have a whole lot of those things to do to the specific movements but we have to take that up in the context of defending those among us who are the most vulnerable. The communities of color, immigrants, muslim immigrants, women, people of color in general. This is who lgbt communities. These are the communities that are going to be at such high risk. So all of the work that we do to stop wars, challenge racism at its fundamental way and not just way, all of about that work will have to go on in the context of protecting our comrades in these communities who are going to be at greater risk. Our resistance is going to be defensive and offensive at the same time, defendant communities, going on the offense against the policies and against the stealing of our democracy. When we talk about how we are going to link movements, it means that everything has to be based on our understanding of the structural realities that gave rise to not White Supremacy separately from misogyny, not from xenophobia separate from racism and islamophobia, but in the way that all of those things come together. So, we are going to have to defend people against street violence, which may emerge as a greater threat than before and defend people against being deported. When we do that, it will have to be in the context of protecting and defending refugees whove come here fleeing the war and that means we have to work to stop the war that people are fleeing when they come here as refugees and immigrants and migrants, so that when we call for the cities to become once again cities for sanctuary and called on the states based institutions, churches and synagogues and mosques to become themselves laces up refuge and century, that means at the same time we have to be calling on them to demand them and to the and then to the wars that put these people at risk and at the same time demand that our government change our policy of not allowing people to come here and reclaim the notion that we are a nation based on not just the rule of law but some kind of internationalism. I would urge people to read the piece on friday in the New York Times on the ease of the election when he talked about what we had to lose in the election. He said what we have to lose is everything. Everything the civil rights fought for, what earlier movements at four, but he reminded us from the Vantage Point attorney 90 next month, that everything can change. Point of turning 90 next month, that everything can change. We come here today and the institute stands for 53 years now but all of us come together recognizing moments in history create the movements required to change them. We stand on the shoulders of all of those earlier movements. This time around, we will win. [applause] thank you. Thank you very much. We have almost a full hour for your comments and thoughts. I just want to read one more justice intagline is the environment and we have not covered everything here, and just a bit about the environment. I want to read two sentences. Therefrom the executive director of 350. Org and just to thoughts of hers this morning. One, this is a Global Movement. It is more important than ever to remember connection with literally every country fighting the fossil fuel industry right now. Many in the toughest conditions imaginable. I believe in the collective power like nothing else, so definitely a moment for more global action. Secondly, local fossil fuel resistance is taking root everywhere. Not only has the fight against the Dakota Access pipeline spread like wildfire, but other campaigns against fracking, pipelines and call are too many to name. None of us are giving up and going home today. So again the fights that we can win locally and at the state level, or we can build national residents, will be were a lot of our attention is. We are going to start with two people here. Thatve a program at ips brings called our next Leaders Program that brings amazing than leaders to ips and we will start with chris and take maybe three comments or four comments and then take comments from the panel. Say who you are, if you would. Chris [indiscernible] sir anderson at the Global Economy project, i would like to thank the panel and everyone else for coming out. Definitely some trying times. I tend to be an optimist and look on the bright side of things and one of the things i want to address, which was brought up, was the millennial challenge and also fighting inequality. Inequality is a big theme in the election. In 2014, there were five initiatives that decided to increase the minimum wage, four of them were in red states. Arizona, one state, that voted to increase the minimum wage. I see that in terms of reducing inequality but also the bipartisan issue, in which both sides of the party agree that they can work to combat and i would like to know the panelistss thoughts on that. Thank you to the panel for being here. I was really happy that you brought up the dakota pipeline and how the Energy Transfer partners announced they would begin the final drilling. And what the popular means for Sexual Violence for native ,mericans and the indigenous and also for women who are immigrants and undocumented immigrants face Sexual Violence coming into the United States. And jonathan brought up rosa parks and kelly watch her story over and she was an naacp investigator investigating rates of black women by white men. How do we get the collective power to care about Sexual Violence of women of color and all women of different gender identities because the violence against trans people is rampant, when we have someone who has been accused of Sexual Assault and rape leading the nation as the president . Just to let you know, there are people in the breakout room and we will have some questions brought them here from them. Bruce . Ruth. Safer you are. Ruth i am concerned up as understanding the other. And i think the voters for trump are the others. Theres a tremendous amount of fear. I dont see that as evil. I see that as really scared. I see that drug abuse and suicide and the lack of jobs. Its not a matter of the minimum wage increasing the state owned jobs. They dont have a hope for the future and i think that we have to somehow understand the other, the people that voted for trump and not just demonize them to the europe how to build the movement where the jobs will be created that will bring us a green revolution and bring them jobs. Thanks, one question from the other room. We will have plenty of time for the next round but go ahead, emily. Emily what our concrete ways to delay or stop the Trump Administration agenda . Great, lets give you all the chance to absorb that per second and lets go right down the line and address any of these questions you would like to , starting with you, steve and we will go in the same order. Steve i think ruth is a better person than i am because i dont think its just bad economy and scared people that lost their jobs. The driving force behind was fairly welloff and had job and there seems to be a lot of meanness, racism, xenophobia, even antisemitism rearing its ugly head at the end of this campaign that doesnt negate her comments that we have to understand them and the ones in that group have voted for barack obama eight years ago, where clearly not driven by racism and so they are still theoretically reachable. And i do think we spent a lot of time on the coast mocking the trailer park crowd and we need to stop that and get serious about talking to them. I also think we understand that the people running this show are not them. They are not the ones that voted for barack obama each years ago and donald trump this time. They are the people that have been on the fringes, and the meanies,atics and the and im using nice words because i am on cspan, and now theyve moved the center of the politics and they will be running things for a while and its a very dangerous moment. I wish i had more generosity like ruth in my heart, but i do think shes right that a good program and some empathy some of empathy, some of the voters can still be brought back but we should also remember our coalition is technically bigger than theirs, even right now. It just structurally didnt fit the ridiculous contours of projects. Olitical for the second time in five years, we got robbed that way. I just want to address the issue of Sexual Violence because i think its an important one. We see of the Central American refugees coming to the border since 2015, almost 100 of the children have faced sexual abuse. So, this is something that is clearly an issue, and i dont have an answer for how to address this, but i do think though that making space and creating space for individuals, particularly women to raise their voices around these kind of issues, i think has to be part of this new way of being able to address the issues and i think also in our ability to support the families that are migrating to the United States , particularly because that is my area of expertise, being able to address this issue of qualifying for asylum and providing some sort of refugee status. I understand thats going to be its going to be a very uphill battle, but the century cities in the 1980s offer us at least a way to think through structurallocal solutions to this problem. So how do we engage in the interfaith dialogue and actually open up the doors of our institutions . Let me take a crack at the two of these. First on the issue of immigration for central, and i would say many of our allies raising up the issue that the number one priority today is to reach out to the millions under threat of deportation and to show our solidarity. I just want to say two months ago in this room, we had allies talking about what we could do if trump were elected and one of our allies was here that runs the center for Racial Justice and said, we will have to get all movements this is when donald trump was so focused on building the wall he said we have to get all of the movements to come together and get 100,000 people to march to the border and prevent the wall from being built. We talked about that for a half an hour and said we will do that. Avias earlier points, that would require coming back to the earlier point, a different coming together of movements. So i think just on the challenge of all to reimagine the possible, reimagine the coalitions that we would need to go to stop the worst from happening and then the other thing, several of you have raised and chris just that they should local initiatives we had ips, karen dolan, phyllis and others, if you produce in this, we built a coalition called cities for peace and worked with over 350 cities that passed coalitions against the war. Then we had mayors and City Council People to washington to raise up the action. So local actions that were Given National prominence. Can we do that around something related to the refugees and the issue of deportation . Are the city council resolutions, and phyllis has been thinking about this so when we get to her, she can pick up on it. Cities for peace and refuge thats lifting up the protection of and bringing in refugees with a statement of a different kind of foreign policy. Another of our colleagues chris answer anderson have chris and Sarah Anderson have been working with the Portland City Council on a resolution that will likely pass in early december that will Tax Companies more in portland more than a 1001 ratio. Again, we know that its popular. Can we get 200 cities to do that and build pressure directly on the companies . And to win at the levels that we could win while we try to stop the works at the National Level. Jonathan i think im going to try to tackle the question regarding minimum wage and why raising it isnt a cureall but it is important. It isnt a cureall but it is an justtant tool to point, for background if we look at the current federal minimum wage right now at 7 25, that is basically the same as it was in to8 and that doesnt amount a livable wage for people today and that means it is much more difficult for them to engage in Civic Society and to take time from work to go to the polls and vote. The might be an endemic of messed up Voting System we have now, but is still problematic. Then we can bring in melanie millennials into the equation by noting that millennials recognized this. Right now with the latest four states that just passed in favor of raising the wage, we have 22 states that now want to raise the wage higher than the federal minimum wage by 2020. That would not have been possible without the energy of millennials, who were out pushing boundaries, making sure people realize this is a problem we could come together and solve it is important because right now, our economy is suffering from a serious lack of demand and by raising the wage, create demand. That Economic Growth creates jobs and thats how it plays into being the tool that helps the economy at large. It fights economic inequality. Not a cureall but it is one crucial piece to the puzzle. Thank you. Now to jonathan. Jonathan looking at the last question that was asked in terms of direct action that is needed, to stop the trump agenda, what i was saying to myself is from where i sit and organize the internal is primary. What do we i mean by that . I live in a Majority Democratic Party state, the state of maryland wasnt a battleground state last night. It was called pretty early and i definitely live in the majority democratic county, Prince George s county, 70 africanamerican , which is certainly hillary country. But within that situation as progressives, weve got a battle thats taking place. For 15 years, 15 years plus for me, weve been laboring and struggling to get reform to the lawenforcement officers bill of rights in maryland. This is a wall that codifies my perspective the blue wall of silence. And up to last year officers, when they were involved in an act of Excessive Force they were given up to 10 days that they were not questioned by anyone. From an activist standpoint, you can see how we put up with that. It wasnt until the rebellion that took place in baltimore and the aftermath of freddie grays untimely no, the tragedy of freddie gray, that we even got movement within the state legislature on that law. They labored tirelessly and he got two bills passed. One was the internal trial boards. What we see right now is qualification being practiced and the law not being implemented both in Prince Georges county and throughout the nation fighting to keep transparency and accountability on the system, so we are still in a battle right now as we speak. Paid sick leave, i have been in the county that is democratic and they rejected paid sick leave. Progressive maryland lobbied and fought for it. The county rejected it. I live in a county where the school board appointed including the superintendent and we just lost a head start of 4. 6 million because of a budget abuse in the school system. I come from the perspective we got the judge yesterday the New York Times loaded expose judge dawson just won reelection, and they were people in you for circuit seven juvenile judges, he is documented as using mass incarceration as a weapon against our young people and he when they appear in his courtroom. So i come from the perspective that although we have to have that struggle externally, weve got to fight for those that claim to be our allies, those that claim to represent us. We have to battle internally to hold those folks accountable, otherwise, we wont be able to take back the country in any progress away. Im going back to organize. [laughter] [applause] phyllis i wanted to comment on the question about trump voters and they should fear. I think it is very important. I agree with steve. There is not just a threat but the core of racism that runs through it. It is not that every individual who voted the trump is a stone cold racist, but in the absence of connecticut laded alternative , cultural approach to how to deal with the very real challenges that people face in areas where jobs have disappeared, money is not available, where options have disappeared, we do see this except and dashed accepted racist scapegoating as a basis for turning the trump. We have to deal with what drives people to look for that kind of a model that recognized that the motto that they have chosen is fundamentally racist at its core and all these other things misogynistic and homophobic and everything else, but i wanted to talk about this idea of focusing a part of our work in areas where we can actually gain some traction. I dont want to say victories because i do not know that we are there yet, but in terms of changing public discourse, some of that happens at the National Level but a lot more at the local level, cities, counties and states comes of this idea of this discourse, based on her own campaign, the idea of mobilizing cities to work for some version of either a city council resolution, mayors proclamation, it could take a number of forms, but the challenges but the key is linking the challenges we face which is defending the rights of refugees, the rights to gain refuge internationally under international law, the rights of people in our communities to welcome refugees and not have them treated as their class people who have to be admitted in the tiniest numbers. Getting away from the idea that we should be claiming it is a point of pride to say that the u. S. Is taking in 10,000 refugees in an entire year, when you look at last summer, germany took in 20,000 a day, so this notion has to be challenged. We are not just talking about the rights of refugees. We are talking about the challenging u. S. Policies that have been so fundamentally creating the wars and perpetuating the wars that create the refugees. Linking the rights of refugees and the welcoming of refugees and protection of immigrants in that context, not only refugees but others, with the need to challenge the war drive. Its a big set of issues. It is something that i think makes a lot of sense for a lot of people because it answers to the two sets of things. A campaign of cities for peace and refuge or some other name, Something Like that, that would link people around the country that are working on this in their local area so they begin to have National Impact when they look at how the discourse on these questions get changed. Right now, the discourse about refugees is they are all terrible. They are all terrorists, they have to be super vetted, it takes up to three years for u. S. Residency without any right, we have to get past that. We have to be welcoming and saying the old saying on the statue of liberty, give me your tired, your poor, it doesnt say only if theyre rich and have been vetted and no manic only be no man, only women, we have to get past that. At the same time, we have to be taking responsibility for what our government, using our tax money and what they are doing to perpetuate that war. Its a combination of things. We can take on whoever is in the white house. You had your hand up in the blue shirt. If you could keep thoughts short, we would take several and get a set of reactions. [indiscernible] read that first and then we will go to the blue shirt and move around. Two blue shirts. Sorry. [laughter] i am bringing some questions from folks watching at home, live stream with twitter. We have dori smith, asking, how can me help those are not able to get Health Care Without obamacare . Says iso have gabo who see the fight against the surveillance state, [indiscernible] thank you. Lets start with the light blue shirt and go to the dark. [laughter] i am sam perkins. One of the things that i was watching really closely is im from Southern New Hampshire which was projected to go clinton quite a bit and this is not an area for the jobs have where the jobs have been fleeing. It is relatively affluent with tech jobs. I kept thinking about my grandmother from the area, passed away now, but she was born in 1919 and she wouldve absolutely been a trump boater. Trump voter. The reason for that is not, we talked talked about this sort of racist line, she probably never had to deal with anyone of color or anyone who wasnt white middleclass protestant. Shes a great woman but you cant reach these people to some extent. I think it was a tragedy that a lot of the country and laws of the country were written off and you and not be able to touch these people and lets write them off. Im wondering how we can address that. Thank you very much. It is connected with the last question. Im wondering, weve heard these excellent presentations on how how to move forward, which is important, but will we find anything wrong in the campaign and what was it and what could we have done differently . And related to that, maybe, is there a future for the movement around Bernie Sanders . Thank you, very much. You have had your hands up for a long time. Diane, first. And then ron. [indiscernible] out thatwant to point this happened along the ninth of november, which is the anniversary of the shattering of the glass, and we did not shatter the right glass. And the falling down of the berlin wall. There is an imagery of opposites, opposite of 9 11, 119. The anniversary. I wanted to talk about the vulnerability of a category of people who love trump. I agree with steve that there is a small percentage that are unreachable but theres also an issue of nv, humiliation and feeling inferior and we have to orcareful not to insult things like that. But that we have to find ways to satisfy ways of their deeper needs. The courses of identity that trump appealed to and made them feel better about themselves. Some of the races and is associated with black people being left out, and i think in our culture, theres more dignity with people who are not academically inclined. We have to dignify to reach these people and make them or help them be less vulnerable to manipulation. Thank you very much. My website is peoplenow. Org. You can find everything there that i would like to talk about. What i would like to talk about is that the United Nation has issued 169 targets. That is all my website. These answer all the questions, all these problems that ive heard today. In each one of these problems, i have what is called a target action plan. Youve got to take action. These are target action plans. The main one i want to talk about is what phyllis was saying. She is correct that we need to get all this information in one place. The movements are really important. This plan is to organize everything, everybody by nine digit zip codes. Did this in an election and we want, toone. The goal covers everything. You have nine digits. The goals cover everything. I have one quick question. I know about five or six things we can do about trump. I would like to hear any idea, the hardest things have been to get people to read, but please tell me what you would do. [indiscernible] thank you. Down here and then well go back here. Hello, i am with the Climate Justice alliance. This panel has given advice and i would love to take action. I would like to discuss Climate Change because i did not hear it much in the panel and i think it is fundamental and a discussion that needs to be addressed soon. Our International Colleagues are working right now as we speak. Folks are organizing as weve heard before. Something is going to give us hope. 500 years of resistance is going to give us hope so were putting we are putting out a call to remind folks to join us with the committee to come out and show your real support. The really look at what 500 years of resistance is and how we adjust transition for this framework because using our kind of terminology, what we need to adjust this for the communities, and bring thoughtful and using fossil fuels, limiting Greenhouse Gas emissions is important, providing solutions for communities most formidable i think is number one. Thank you. Also, were going to take more because you all have a lot to say and then we will have a chance for everyone here to respond to what theyve heard, but the young gentleman in the back. Thank you. [indiscernible] statewide legislation there. To ated down my question larger point of viewing the election. I guess my question is, what happens to the conversation when we assume that the white people that voted for trump and the black people that did not show up were making rational decisions or irrational decisions . Whether it is derek bell talking about the wage of whiteness, a material thing that books are consuming, so that if the elites have not been neglecting [indiscernible] and i think some of the data is showing where cross economic data. It is more about race in early election data. [indiscernible] why some of those black voters did not tonight, look at some of the history of the urban communities, socalled Infrastructure Investments have not been good. In terms of what the highways have done. [laughter] [indiscernible] that was a site for coincidence. Hundreds and millions of dollars were pumped into that community and the folks that benefited broaden in policing to secure their investment. What happens if the Democratic Party [indiscernible] for the white and blacks . [applause] [indiscernible] thank you very much. Emily, did you have something from the next room to bring in . Emily this person in the next room is wondering if we should work about the crisis in the house. My question for myself comes from a place of feeling fear for my family and i love the idea of what you have been talking about in terms of sanctuary cities and im wondering if is an idea we could apply to these views are what other ideas you have in general for protection and how we can protect our community. Thank you so much. We obviously arent point to going to answer everything, but do want to get the ideas and thoughts on here and analyst said at the beginning, ips is dedicated to be being a space in the groups of folks that are here, also, a space where we have to have a lot of conversation in the days and weeks to come. Three more to take. The gentleman there. Piggybacks off of the comments of the brother in the back. Has to do with everybody talking about who voted for trump, but in the african community, we dont take seriously those people who see no positive impact of the democrats or the republican party. Asking themselves what appears farse for as for very long time, even our political leaders it on the radio and talk about how we are apathetic and help adding trump in power, but really our political analysis is telling us that the democrats and the republicans are two sides of the same coin, and it never served our interest, and we have to begin to look at different kinds of politics, which brings us to my question for the panel. Perhaps, it is really time to start looking at some times of some kind of Coalition Party that can be a Viable Third Party option to both the republican s and the democrats that is based on the sincere and real interest of the exploited and oppressed people in the nation. We are not to put our life and our wellbeing and our future in the hands of Hillary Clinton or donald trump, and we really werent that disappointed at last nights results because it is pretty much the same thing. [applause] steve, and then we will come to you in the back. Steve i guess what i want to ask about what can be done to be filled up economic institutions. In michigan, it became a red state in 2014. If that had not happened, that is likely to be blue instead of red. Oft can be done in terms organizing, not just for elections, but for economic selfsufficiency and institutions that will allow for stronger movements. Thank you. We will take two more. The woman with a scarf and a gentleman over here and that will come back for panel. Thank you everyone. My name is michelle roberts. Robinson. We would be remiss if we did not look at the whole trajectory that goes back to racism and all these other things from the Natural World [indiscernible] with the fails of our chemical policy and our Environment Group to the disconnection of that of the war in the military conflict and as it relates to that, oil, gas and chemicals. Hence, the issue of the climate crisis. Hence, the issue of injustice and migration. Unless we look at this in a totality, whereby which grassroots are honestly leading from the bottom up, we must organize, strategize with this most impacted, but they are not in this room, are they . And we continue to have this types of questions and discussions, no disrespect, but this type of paradigm must even begin to shift, so this is where the earth is rumbling right now for all to figure out and i want to say, this is no different for us for blacks and brown americans today than it was yesterday or tomorrow. I tell you what, the faith we keep and we have come by this far with faith and it will lead us on. Im with all of you who want to organize in a faith filled the filled, principled, just this we can see that everybodys voice is front and center, and nobody is disassociated then the other. Thank you. [applause] thank you. Thank you very much. The final word over here. I see this is a golden opportunity if people look at it. First, i just want to say i i voted i voted for Joel Stein Jill stein. I was fortunate to be able to vote in the election and i voted for jimmy carter. I have not voted for a republican or democrat since then. I got smart. One of the things i think that is the opportunity of this that the electorate did a Great Service to the Democratic Party. They limited clinton out of its stroke, so that vacuum that exists with them gone should be a priority of what youre going due to fill it. Theres only two things you can do. You can create a separate Political Movement and a separate Political Party or you can do with the tea party did and take over and drive it through you want to drive it. We have not seen them do that yet, but with the war looming, it could be done if you put that down and made it happen. One of the things that absolutely needs to be done is that the leaders of the neoliberal last, progressive, socalled right movement, has got to get off their horse because when we have bona fide progressive people, when she ran in the green party, she had a 10 year certified record in the house and she was dissed by probably everybody in this room and never given a threat of legitimacy for being a candidate for the green party. [indiscernible] my question is, will this opportunity, will this golden opportunity be used to create a really viable alternative that actually puts the priorities of black people, poor people, half not in some position, but have the people who come out and lead this movement and have white progressives actually take the leadership. Thank you. We have about 15 minutes left. Theres five of you, if you could keep your comments to two or three minutes and pick one or two of the ones you feel like you want to take on. Starting with steve. Steve i helped draft bernie to run so i suppose i weigh in on the burning question in this question of third party. It seems to me in the last year and a half, we have conducted two major experiments, both of which argue against trying to do a third party from the top down , which is that bernie who had never been a democrat generated huge enthusiasm, visibility for his issues, raised a quarter of 1 billion, and jill stein running topdown green, and this is not to compare bernie and jills moral authority, it is to compare tactically what happened, she was ignored. She got 1 of the vote. Simultaneously, we see the alright taking over the major party in this country and elevating themselves to positions of power and danger in front of our eyes and it strikes me they didnt form the party, they used donald trump to take power, and that seems to me to be a pretty clear illustration. The bernie illustration on the trump illustration both lead us to the same conclusion, which is that the Democratic Party, for better or worse, until you build something from the ground up , which is not visible to me around the country, than the Democratic Party is our vehicle, and i do think most of the people we care about are going to regret that Chuck Schumer is not majority leader even though he is a wall street senator and Hillary Clinton, who is a wall street president or wouldve been, they are going to regret that theyre not an office in power come january. I feel fairly safe in making that prediction, even though we would have been fighting with them starting tomorrow. Im glad to continue that conversation because i know that is a deepseated argument thats been going on forever with us, including with myself. I will leave it there. Thank you, steve. Flavia so, i want to say, there, there have been a couple comments about, well, it would have made no difference either way, trump are clinton, but i just want to say for the 11 million undocumented workers in this country in the hundreds of thousands of immigrants who will lose their temporary partech protection on deportation, this is a very real fear. It does in fact make a very real difference to them who is in the white house. That is just a matter of fact, not my opinion. We are about creating power from the ground up in advancement projects, so our job is really to support the impacted communities of color on a friday of issues, including education, immigration and voting. There has been a lot of conversation about voting but i would say that in terms of building and creating these alliances, the right to vote is something that we really do, we really should get behind because it almost feels to me like that is at the core of so many of the issues that we are talking about is fundamentally the right to vote in this country and our ability to create these democratic infrastructures at the local and federal level. Thanks. Just a couple quick points from my Vantage Point of the policy studies institute. One, first on the trump voters, people here, and our friend from New Hampshire talked about this , as well, have referred to the fact that we should and put them all in one big camper category. There are some who are part of a dangerous Militia Movement in this country that is racist and there are others who perhaps can be reached. I simply want to give an invitation to alter we have a project that ips, which reaches out to trump voters this way. We send 5 opeds a week to the 1700 small circulation papers in this country. Most of them in rural areas, many of them in red and blue and purple states and we are reaching out to people who dont agree with us. It challenges us to write in a way that reaches out and if any of you would like to learn more about it, take part in it, let me know. Just the other point, many of these commonsense had to do with movement. Just fabulous. Comments havese to do it movement. Just fabulous. From our standpoint some of our core allies here, we share office organizing nannies and caregivers and domestic workers. We have a deep alliance with a group called peoples actions. All of them are building movements to challenge for power. Almost all of them have both nonprofits and c4s that are running people for office. I simply want to say, read one paragraph from the paragraph of peoples action and they say even in this moment of darkness, there are victories that give a soap. In nevada, we elected the first latina senator. In washington state, we elected a Longtime Community champion to the house of representatives, a friend of many of us in this room. In minnesota, we elected our first somalianamerican immigrant. And in arizona, we removed one of the most vicious, antiimmigrant sheriffs in the history of our country, and all of these because of movements. So, i think we all have a strong instinct. It is partly the selfcriticism some of you mentioned from the first two years of barack obama, as jonathan said, some people went to sleep. Haveow now we would been prepared to feel are clinton was president , but we knew wins would come from Movement Building allies and there are some amazing ones growing, peoples action has affiliates, over 50 and 32 states. They are building power. Its not going to be quick. But none of the things that we describe have been quick. Again, we invite you to join us. Really quickly, i will address the question that was posed to me. Unfortunately, it is one with you are wrong. If the aca does get repealed, people who were given health care, they wont have it anymore. That is something, we have had people working toward healthcare for years and if it were repealed, there isnt anything that could take its place. We have pivoted to thinking about what we can do to get a public option at the state level, to advance it forward. Unfortunately, it is one of the darkest answers here on the stage today. What i can say, its back to what we have all been talking about, if we continue to organize, if we continue to fight and demonstrate that in states where the exchanges are still there, that you cant just take away Health Insurance from people, republicans in the red states are going to realize that their constituents have healthcare. Even though they hate obamacare, they do like the fact that they can go to the doctor with a preexisting condition. We have to continue to build those movements and ill use that to go to the other question about economic institutions. That is how we build it to organize. We have models that happened at the state level. If you look at montana, montana has a law that is unique in the United States. This law says that after one year, there is no at will employment. After one year, you cant be fired. Just arbitrarily. If you start organizing the union, you cannot be fired arbitrarily. If for whatever reason your employer just decides to kick you to the curb, you cannot be fired for no reason. That is the kind of thing if we have our coalitions and organizations coalesce, we can move to issues like that. We can put issues like that on the ballot the cost the u. S. , and that is the sort of rain that can build up economic institutions. And working in conjunction, we can get to appoint really dont have to worry about people losing their health care coverage. Hopefully, we can push back on it and not let things like that happen. Quickly. Where i stand on just two issues during the first issue of whether or not we should work in a twoparty system or not. I look at that question more as a tactic in strategy and not the principal. I do not work within the Democratic Party based on principle. I do not look at that as a slow way to organize. I do see it potentially at the local level, i have seen it being efficient and Tactical Movement centric. If those people that represent us are based in our movement. In terms of a two shot that we have had at this desk in the 1980s, i felt the Rainbow Coalition represented a potential opportunity for us. What did the concession speech in 1984 get us . It created the democratic leadership council. Persons was Hillary Clinton and bill clinton. Agreements,r trade this was the dlc. What did the concession in 1988 us, a goddess george h w it got us george h w bush. Bernie won the state of michigan. Hillary lost the state of michigan. So, what did the concession get us from bernie . What if there was not a concession from bernie . What if you went all the way he went all the way . What if . Hasident barack obama still a few minutes left in office. We should hold him accountable. There are tags in military equipment out there right now. Accountableld him to stay true to what he said about ferguson. Very quickly, when he said. On the question of seeing voting and parties in a strategic way, but never as a question of principle i think it is very important that we see these things as a concept of both inside and outside organizing. Sometimes one is more important, but we can never lose sight of two diametrically opposite things. We have to engage with power where it is. That is often in Political Parties but not always. If we are going to engage with them, that is how we have to do it. We have to do it understanding that the mainstream parties have never and will never represented the interests of people of color, of impoverished communities, of indigenous people, that is not where it happens. They do not represent those interests. That does not mean that there is ordifference between parties candidates. It is different at different times. To say that the threats to our whole movements and our ability to resist, which we now face from a Trump Administration in a way that we did not face with clinton, it is a big difference. It is not to say that Hillary Clinton was our friend. Got for bit. God forbid. We were planning protests for when she got if she got elected. There is a big difference between if we can have a protest at the white house versus losing the ability to protest in the streets in front of the white house. I think we recognize the need outside inside and strategies, that we engage with power in a significant way, and that we remember that our country has been through these periods before and survived. We had the mccarthy era, and there was the era of reconstruction, and it was an enormous price that was paid by africanamericans. But the movement survived in the Civil Rights Movement came out of it. It is not because we have had a defeat that are movements are gone. Are movements continue, and we stand on the shoulders of those that have come before. Thank you. Share aosing, i want to quote from another Movement Ally that just came in. They did when one fair wage getting rid of the tip minimum wage in maine. If you are in d. C. , she had people at the polling places having people sign up for a Ballot Initiative to get rid of the tip minimum wage on the d. C. Ballot. That is another important fight. I want to remind you all that each of these people come from institutions that you should get to know better. You should visit their sites. , salvia Gimenez Bobby A gimenez fobia h. Menez, phyllis dennis, i want to thank everyone that shared with us on the media. We were able to get to a few of those in those in our short time together. Us,se stay in touch with and we will plan more of these discussions. Thank you all for coming. [applause] [inaudible] the field of candidates interested in leaving the Democratic Party continues to grow. Despite early report for keith ellison, others are considering a run for the post including tom perez, martin omalley, jamie harrison, ray buckley, jason kander, and former dnc chair and m on governor howard dean vermont governor howard dean. That theorts say congressman will announce his future plans on monday. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton and former president ill clinton hosted a Party Last Night at her bill clinton hosted a Party Last Night at her Campaign Headquarters to thank and celebrate her staff members. She spoke with the group saying that the past few days have been very tough. She encourage them to have a good time tonight and then to howoup and better plan for love trumps hate. We are asking students to participate in our student cam contest by asking students what is the most important issue for the incomingmp and congress to address in 2017. Students can work alone or in a group of three to produce a five to seven minute documentary on the issues selected. A grand prize will go to a student or team with the best overall entry. Hundred thousand dollars in cash prizes will be awarded amongst students and teachers. Deadline is on inauguration day. For more information on the website go to best for more information on the contest go to for more information on the contest, go to studentcam. Org. Newsmakers, presented at luke messer will talk about working with the Trump Administration. Representative luke messer will talk about working with the Trump Administration. Chosen becauses it was americas most and penetrable the location impenetrable location. Treasury,ary of the henry morgan thiel, gives permission to use a portion of forasury for thie these documents. 26 1941, Important Documents were moved to fort knox. They have to make a decision on what documents will be there. The original, enclosed declaration of independence, the constitution, of course. The gettysburg address goes, too. He makes this decision very methodically on what is going to go to fort knox. These are considered the most valuable documents in the country. The magna carta is the document that he has been asked to preserve for the brits. Sunday night on q a. Cook, now with his postelection analysis. He analyzes the challenges that will face both democrats and republicans. This is an hour and 15 minutes. Good afternoon, everyone. I am kevin, the president of national journal. I am going to welcome everyone to National Journals day after the election event. The guests of todays program will be charlie cook, who will be breaking down the who, what,