Criminal Justice Reform: 

In an editorial for In These Times, Citizen Action Executive Director Robert Kraig  explains how social movement breakthroughs such as the historic Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 create opportunities for the defenders of the status quo to foment public backlash, and how establishment politicians backslide under the pressure. Community organizing can turn the tide back towards fundamental reform and eventual liberation, but only if it works to change the cultural common sense about what makes us safe for the multiracial working class. Read the column here.

Making the Democratic Party a Progressive Party 

In a column for the Wisconsin Examiner, Citizen Action Executive Director Robert Kraig argues that the Democratic Party is now a coalition between its moderate and progressive wings. Progressives are now a slight majority of Democratic voters, but neither wing can hold power without the other. In stark contrast to Congressional Democrats, where the progressive and moderate wings share power, moderates continue to dominate Democratic politics in Wisconsin state government. Exemplifying Citizen Action’s theory of change, Kraig argues that fault is not with moderate elected officials like Tony Evers, but progressives for not doing what it takes to build the strategic alignment and inside-outside power to shift the party’s agenda to the left. Doing so would benefit the Democrats’ election prospects, and our changes for restoring democracy. Read the article here.

Building the National Power to Make the 2020s an Era of Social & Economic Justice

In an article on Inauguration Day 2021 for In These Times, Citizen Action Executive Director Robert Kraig argues that progressives have more influence than they have in 50 years, which President Biden has recognized, forming a strong coalition. This offers the potential to achieve the biggest advances in economic opportunity, racial justice, and health care reform since the New Deal, while heading off the existential threat of runaway climate change. This is possible if progressives build the grassroots power to co-govern with moderates and check the influence of Billionaires and self-deal corporations on the moderate wing of the party. Progressives also must evolve a governing worldview, giving up absolutism beyond our immediate power to achieve. The article provides a longer historical grounded explanation of Citizen Action’s radical pragmatism. Read the article here.