What the Bernie campaign showed us was that you could out-raise a well-funded opponent with grassroots donations, and you could out-voter-contact them, too.
Obama tried to make deals with Republicans, and I don't think he realized he'd have such an insanely opposing Congress.
Not taking corporate money is a core part of the progressive message.
The interesting thing about the Green New Deal is it wasn't originally a climate thing at all.
When you shoot for big stuff, you stay true to the movement. You fight unapologetically on the inside; that is a very, very powerful way to pass the radical solutions that are necessary to face the radical problems that you have.
You have to decide to create the society you want to create, and that's done through politics.
The reality is, our problem isn't that more people are voting Republican than Democrat - our problem is most people who would vote Democrat aren't voting.
I like to show my cards and see people's reactions.
Yes, climate change is an existential threat, but there's also kind of this existential issue of why is it that as our society is progressing... things seem to be regressing and getting worse for a large number of people? Why is that happening? How do we fix that?
Progressives think the way to win is mobilizing and convince people to vote for something.
I don't know if it's a uniquely American thing, but I associate it that way. People get excited by this idea of, 'Let's come together and defeat this huge enemy through innovation, by solving this crisis.' I think that's motivating and inspiring.
For background, Brand New Congress was created in the summer of 2016 with the goal of recruiting 400 candidates to run for Congress with a national campaign and a clear set of policies they would advocate for. It was an attempt to create, as per the name, a brand new Congress.
It's not at all a secret that I was one of the co-founders of Brand New Congress, and we've never tried to hide our goals.
I am talking about the radical conservatives in the Democratic Party. That's who we need to counter. It's the same across any number of issues - pay-as-you-go, free college, 'Medicare for all.' These are all enormously popular in the party, but they don't pass because of the radical conservatives who are holding the party hostage.
I co-managed AOC's campaign alongside Vigie Ramos Rios and also was the one that managed the launch of her initial campaign in 2017.
It's fairly common for new members of Congress to hire their former campaign managers onto their official staff.
I'm not a fan of people making up lies, and I do feel I owe it to people to know what the truth is.
We need new leaders, period.
There's a whole pipeline for where people recruit current Hill staff from, and it's people who go through a kind of ideological training that's incorrect, I'd say, and so there's a lot of work to do, and Justice Democrats is trying to figure out where it fits.
I don't think people have to be personally racist to enable a racist system.
