The Progressive Agenda: End Iran War, Rein in AI, Get Dems to Do Something

Now that Democrats have secured earth-shattering wins in both chambers of Congress, the party’s progressives are sending a message to their more moderate leaders: It’s time to deliver for voters who are demanding meaningful action.

“Even where the candidate wasn’t a self-described progressive, progressives won big last night,” said Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Greg Casar, D-Texas, during a press call on Wednesday. “Across the country, so-called moderate candidates ran on ending forever wars,” he added, pointing out that Democrats went after the GOP for voting down congressional attempts to stop President Donald Trump’s unpopular military actions — efforts that the progressive caucus had organized.

With comfortable majorities in both chambers — 54 seats in the Senate and 237 in the House, as of 4:30 p.m. ET Wednesday — Democrats now have the legislative breathing room to deliver on their promises to reduce the cost of living, root out government corruption, and end Trump’s failed war in Iran.

But they’ll have to notch these achievements under an angry lame-duck president who vowed last night — via a Truth Social post of one of his signature red hats — to wield his veto against the new class of Democrats. The current Democratic leaders in each house of Congress, Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, both have long track records of sparring with the left. And which of their goals will progressives prioritize when their ranks swell come January?

“We will have an H.R. 1 through 10 that focuses on costs and healthcare and corruption,” Casar said Wednesday, referring to the first 10 House resolutions he wanted to see his party push. “Every single week, we should now be sending a bill to Donald Trump’s desk that is overwhelmingly popular with the American people, that cracks down on corporate greed, that cracks down on price gouging, that cracks down on big money and politics.”

To Will Lawrence, a co-founder of the Sunrise Movement and a former member of the Democratic Socialists of America who beat Republican incumbent Rep. Tom Barrett in a Michigan swing district on Tuesday, the Democrats’ historically successful night translates into a responsibility to achieve transformative change.

“It’s undoubtable that this was a sweeping mandate around the entire country,” said Lawrence, who ran a campaign focused on his opposition to data centers, a notoriously unpopular area of tech development that the left has pushed Democrats to oppose.

“Every year, we see record-breaking numbers for the most expensive races in history by the millions.”

The outsized influence of the artificial intelligence industry is another critical area for progressives to tackle, Rep. Summer Lee, D-Pa., told The Intercept. She said that she and other progressives will push legislation to end the outside influence of billionaire and super PAC money in elections, including her bills to ban super PACs and overturn the Citizens United Supreme Court decision.

“Every year, we see record-breaking numbers for the most expensive races in history by the millions,” Lee said. “In the 120th Congress, I look forward to our party recognizing the detrimental impact of special interests and billionaire influence in our politics, whether it be from crypto or AI or AIPAC.”

Other progressive priorities include passing policies like Medicare for All, ending corporate corruption, and investing in affordable housing. The ideas are tenets of the redistributive platform popularized by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who rallied voters across the country to “fight oligarchy” earlier this year and helped elevate many of this cycle’s upstart candidates.

On Wednesday, progressives did not yet seem prepared to commit to which single issue they would push for first. Asked by The Intercept about their Day-One priorities when they return to Congress, Casar said progressives planned to keep up the legislative pressure throughout the two years of the coming congressional term.

The Working Families Party, which backed Lawrence and often works to push Democrats to the left, saw Tuesday’s results as a sign that “voters want Democrats to stop the buildout of data centers and rein in the AI industry,” said Ravi Mangla, the group’s spokesperson. Like the congressional progressives, WFP cited a range of priorities for the years to come: guaranteeing healthcare and low-cost childcare, lowering housing costs, and providing more union jobs to American workers.

In fact, candidates who signed onto a promise to push a suite of pro-labor policies organized by labor leaders in swing states were among the Democrats’ biggest winners on Tuesday night. Signatories to the “Contract with Working America” included Troy Jackson, who toppled three-decade incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins in Maine; James Talarico, who flipped the Texas seat for the first time in almost 40 years; and Gina Hinojosa, who ousted 10-year incumbent Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.

Jackson pointed to the pledge during his victory speech in Maine on Tuesday night and thanked the union members who canvassed for him.

“On Labor Day, brothers and sisters, I stood before you and I made a pledge to working Mainers,” Jackson said to cheers at his election night party in Portland. “And I’m going to keep that promise. Because I am a union member tonight. I’ll be a union member when I walk into that Senate chamber.”

“The way things are set up in our economy right now, the money is just moving up and concentrating at the top, and squeezing the people at the bottom,” said Maine AFL-CIO President Cynthia Phinney. Her organization helped develop the labor platform Jackson signed onto, and she said they “fully anticipate that we’re going to need to continue to organize around these issues that matter to the folks who voted for him, and a lot of folks who didn’t vote for him.”

Referring to Hinojosa, Rep. Delia Ramirez, D-Ill., noted that Latino voters “delivered a gubernatorial seat in Texas,” as well as a U.S. senator. Ramirez, who has introduced a bill to abolish the Department of Homeland Security, argued that her party should not lose sight of outrage over violent immigration enforcement.

“Shame on us Democrats if we again do not meet the moment when it comes to immigration and when it comes to justice as it pertains to ICE and CBP and DHS,” Ramirez told The Intercept.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., pointed out that the issues that defined this cycle were often first championed by progressives.

“We were the first to fight back against the war in Iran. We were the first to call out corruption on so many levels. We were the first to push to rein in ICE and CBP, a shift that really drove a lot of Latino voters across the country that mattered in this election,” said Jayapal. “Hopefully, this puts to rest the idea that you can’t be a progressive and win with your ideas in any district in the country.”

If history is any guide, it won’t. As the wins rolled in on Tuesday night, Jeffries, the next likely speaker of the House, threw cold water on the idea that the vote marked a seismic rebuke of the Republican Party’s way of doing things, saying the results were “patriotic,” not “partisan.”

On Wednesday, Jeffries said voters had chosen Democrats “because they want to see a dramatic change in direction.”

“I agree, and I’ll go one step further,” Casar said. “The American people delivered a demand for bold change.”