Single payer activists will join hundreds of others in Washington DC September 8 to 10 to discuss how to bypass the Democratic Party.
The People’s Convergence is being pulled together by Draft Bernie for a People’s Party, the Progressive Independent Party, and Socialist Alternative.
The groups say they are coming together to discuss two central questions facing the movement.
What will it take to defeat the right wing and build a powerful left alternative?
Should progressives continue the fight to reform the Democratic Party or should we launch a people’s party independent of corporate money and influence?
In fact, the groups have already decided on question two.
Or as Draft Bernie organizer Nick Brana makes clear – “the Democratic Party is structurally incapable of becoming a people’s party.”
Brana wants Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders to bolt the Democratic Party and start a new people’s party.
But it’s becoming increasingly clear that Sanders is beholden to the Democrats.
Next month’s conclave at American University in Washington DC will lay the groundwork for something new.
The first day will feature Brana, Cornell West and Seattle City Councilwoman and activist Kshama Sawant.
Brana said that his group will deliver more than 44,000 petition signatures to Sanders’ Senate office the day before the Town Hall.
The petition calls on Sanders to launch a party rooted in the progressive views of the majority of Americans — “a party that can fight to win the policies he has championed for so long, like Medicare for All and free college education.”
What the organizers of the conference fear most is if Sanders runs for President in 2020 in the Democratic Party.
“For all of the reasons cited in our briefing sent to Sanders, the Democratic Party is structurally incapable of becoming a people’s party,” Brana said. “The only way to defeat Donald Trump and the Republican agenda is to start a new party for the progressive majority.”