Toward a People-Powered Democracy

James Mumm
And Scot Nakagawa
https://convergencemag.com/articles/toward-a-people-powered-democracy/

Concern about the mounting MAGA threat is percolating through left and progressive movements, and conversations and convenings are brewing. One such is the 22nd Century Conference: Forging a People-Powered Democracy, set to take place in Minneapolis, MN on July 6 – 9, 2023. Here, the conference organizers reflect on the strategies, alliances, stories and political imagination needed “to turn back the authoritarian tide and create a resilient and inclusive multiracial, feminist, and pluralistic democracy.” This is the latest in the Convergence “Organizing Against Autocracy” series.
 
The struggle between authoritarian minority rule––largely by white Christian nationalists with a reactionary patriarchal, xenophobic, and racist agenda––and multiracial majorities committed to a pluralistic democracy is playing out at every level in the United States from school boards to statehouses, the US House of Representatives and the Supreme Court of the United States.
The US is two years away from the possibility of federal autocracy if the MAGA-controlled Republican Party succeeds in electing the next president and taking control of the US Senate. Such an outcome would consolidate the last 60 years of authoritarian gains that have already eroded majority rule, and lead to sweeping structural changes cementing minority rule for years to come.
The questions at the heart of this struggle between authoritarian minorities and multiracial majorities are fourfold: who is in, and who is out of, our democracy and economy; who deserves dignity; and who gets to decide? In a pluralistic democracy these questions are decided in free and fair elections, where majorities decide policy and minority opinions are protected by the courts without bias and the threats of state violence or extrajudicial violence.
Issues addressed: 

1. How can we build a shared identity as the multiracial pluralistic majority and a pro-democracy movement across a wide spectrum of constituencies, organizations, and movements?
2. What does it take to construct majority coalitions for people-powered democracy at this point in time, knowing that anti-racist majoritarianism has rarely been achieved or proven durable in the United States?
3. How do we develop campaigns that achieve important goals and are also designed explicitly to divide the right and recruit communities and constituencies to pro-democracy majority coalitions? In other words, how can our campaigns animate the base, persuade the middle, and alienate our enemies (those committed to the ideologies of the authoritarian right)?

 
Read more;
https://convergencemag.com/articles/toward-a-people-powered-democracy/