A group of progressives, including the freshman “Squad,” unveiled their new vision for America  that will serve as a rallying cry for the election and a roadmap on how to push Joe Biden leftward.

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The Working Families Party “People’s Charter” calls for free public healthcare, universal childcare, creating millions of green jobs, canceling student debt, a $15 minimum wage and shifting money away from police departments and toward investments in schools and communities.

One of the plan’s backers, Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., said the agenda will be the legislative blueprint for what progressives in the House will push during a Biden-Harris Administration.

“The aim is a clear agenda that progressives in the House will advance focuses on these big items,” Khanna told Fox News. “We will push for Medicare-for-all during the pandemic. We will push for the creation of millions of good jobs in communities left behind. And we will advance a bold vision to tackle climate change and have a liveable planet, which is the aspiration of the Green New Deal. I expect at least 80 to 100 House Democrats will support the basic principles and agenda.” . . .

Progressives had accepted the fact that neither of their preferred candidates won the election — Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. — and Biden was a more moderate choice. But some saw the choice of Harris, who represents the future of the party, as an olive branch to the left. . . .

Even Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who supported Sanders but has since backed Biden, took to Twitter to respond: “Fracking is bad, actually.”

Fracking is bad, actually

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) October 8, 2020

The progressives acknowledge Biden wasn’t their top choice, but they make the case he’s far better than President Trump and they have a better shot of mobilizing pressure on him to adopt their agenda if he wins office. The People’s Charter is the vehicle to organize for the election, to activate the base and hold Biden accountable if he wins, organizers say,

“We’ve always said that electing Joe Biden was a doorway, not a destination,” said Working Families Party National Director Maurice Mitchell in a statement. “The People’s Charter is that destination: a nation that cares for all of us, no matter what we look like, where we come from, or how much money is in our pockets.

“We’re going to beat Donald Trump on Nov. 3, and then we’re going to organize to make the vision outlined in the People’s Charter a reality,” he added. . . .

The aspirational agenda also includes taking on systemic racism, eliminating housing and zoning rules that enable segregation, putting 16 million to work, taxing billionaires and large corporations. The activists want investment to fight climate change, giving the public ownership stakes in all corporations receiving bailouts and public buyouts of oil and gas companies to take on climate change. . . .

After Biden is elected, the progressives hope to generate a groundswell of support for the agenda to force movement by Biden to back the large-scale agenda.

“Just electing Joe Biden won’t make any of this happen … The destination is this work and that requires us to advocate and organize. We’re going to be pushing on Democrats. We’re going to be challenging, both Democrats and Republicans and independents to do the work of the people,” Mitchell said.

A number of local and federal lawmakers have signed on, including the four members of the freshman squad: Ocasio-Cortez, Reps. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts.

Progressive groups joining the cause include The Movement for Black Lives, the SEIU union, MoveOn, United We Dream and the Sunrise Movement, a climate activist group.

“The vision laid out in the People’s Charter is exactly why we’re going to beat Donald Trump in November,” Omar said in a statement. “Organizing people around the promise of something better – that’s how we’ll win. And when we do, we’ll be ready to fulfill that promise.”

(Excerpt from Fox News. Article by Marisa Shultz. Photo Credit: Getty Images.)

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