Democratic candidates for 2020: the party must adhere to progressive ideals and not to Trump's voters

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) – Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren said Saturday in front of a room filled with liberal activists that the party should fully adopt policies such as raising taxes on the rich, the government, and the government. Debt Elimination Student Debt and Criminal Justice Reform White House.

The 70-year-old US Senator of Massachusetts said that these ideas were not only supported by activists at the Netroots Nation conference in Philadelphia, the largest annual gathering of progressives in the United States, but also by a large majority of the American public.

"The progressive program is the American program," she said.

Three other Democrat candidates – former US Housing Secretary Julian Castro of Texas, US Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Washington State Governor Jay Inslee – have made similar calls to the party for He adheres to the progressive program. But it was Warren who pulled the biggest applause.

More than two dozen Democrats are fighting for Republican President Donald Trump in the November 2020 elections. This year, a record 3,700 people have signed up for Netroots Nation, organizers said, highlighting the enthusiasm progressive on the eve of an election year. The conference underscored the tension between the party's progressive base and its less vocal centrist wing – and the left wing's push for candidates to choose their side.

Conference participants said the Democrats should stop trying to eliminate Trump voters by moving to the center, calling it "the gold of the fool". Instead, they needed to focus on putting in place a progressive base to attract new voters.

"For centrists to succeed, they will have to animate people here to win. I do not think the motivation to beat Trump will be enough, "said Greg Robinson, 35, who works for the progressive group Living Liberally.

Inslee, 68, who put the fight against climate change at the center of her campaign, said the only way to implement a progressive agenda is to remove the rule that allows a US Senator to block bills.

"We have to eliminate the buccaneer," Inslee said.

Castro, 44, has proposed several ways to combat income inequality, such as housing vouchers and law enforcement on fair housing. He also said that companies such as Amazon (AMZN.O) pay unfairly little or no taxes and sometimes even get discounts.

"We need a tax code that rewards people who work for a living," Castro said.

Gillibrand, 52, was asked to elaborate on her recent response to a white woman in Ohio who was in financial trouble because of the loss of the manufacturing industry and who challenged the Senator's notion of white privilege.

She said she had to recognize the women's pain because it was real.

"But what she does not see as her son grows up, my son grows up, it's the moment when his whiteness will protect him. … When he walks down the street with M & M wearing a hoodie, he will not be shot. "

Warren was the only high-level candidate to attend the annual meeting, which gave her a unique opportunity to attract activists and organizers who had just spent the week learning their craft. She has been a frequent speaker at this event for about a decade.

Warren has been steadily increasing in polls in recent months, removing voters from the leader and former vice president Joe Biden and his progressive rival, US Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

She reiterated her calls for the legalization of marijuana, debt cancellation related to student loans and the taxation of the rich to help them pay for expenses such as public pre-school education.

About 10 of the 25 candidates in the Democrats nomination contest were invited to speak, the organizers said.

"It's hard to understand why the guests did not come. I do not understand the strategy. The big winner here is Warren, the only leading candidate to run, and she can look forward to the glory, "said Markos Moulitsas, founder of the Daily Kos website, which chronicles progressive activism.

Moulitsas assumed that Biden's centrist politics would not work well, while US Senator Kamala Harris might have worried about her record as a prosecutor in her state of California.

The Black Lives Matter movement blamed Sanders for not paying enough attention to criminal justice and race, Moulitsas said.

"If you can not enter an ideologically favorable territory without holding your position, how can we expect you to develop the kind of support they need to win the elections?" Said Moulitsas.