“Many movements have to walk through a little bit of ridicule and laughter before they can shift to people thinking, Oh, they were right. ”

Scott Olson / Getty Images Demonstrators march in front of the McDonald’s headquarters demanding a minimum wage of $15 per hour and union representation April 3, 2019, in Chicago.

WASHINGTON — During his 2013 State of the Union address, the first of his second term, then-president Barack Obama proposed something shocking. “Tonight, let’s declare that in the wealthiest nation on Earth, no one who works full-time should have to live in poverty, and raise the federal minimum wage to $9.00 an hour,” he said. “We should be able to get that done.” Around the same time, former senator Tom Harkin of Iowa went even further and proposed raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. But progressives wanted more. “I remember Tom Harkin calling me and saying, ‘$15? Mary Kay, what are you doing?’” Service Employees International Union (SEIU) President Mary Kay Henry told BuzzFeed News with a laugh during an interview Wednesday. Today, a $15-an-hour minimum wage is the standard in the Democratic Party, and Thursday morning, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $15 an hour over the course of six years. The bill is unlikely to get a vote in the Senate or a signature from President Donald Trump. But if it did become law, the legislation would raise the wages of an estimated 33 million Americans, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said at a press conference celebrating the vote Thursday morning. It’s a major achievement for progressives, who, in less than a decade, brought a $15 minimum wage from the realm of the radical to passing, with much fanfare in the House. Its success also offers a road map for the left, one they believe they can use to make other progressive priorities, like Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, and free college, the party’s agenda. “Really being able to build a coalition that is broad and diverse and has resources, has staying power, and is spread out across the country is very, very useful,” Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) cochair Rep. Pramila Jayapal said in an interview with BuzzFeed News ahead of the vote. “Each of these things on their own wouldn’t be sufficient.”

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Recreating that diverse group of backers and securing the support of organized labor, Jayapal said, are two vitally important steps for progressives as they push for their other priorities — a sentiment that was echoed by many of her current and former colleagues in interviews. Rep. Ro Khanna, who is also a member of the CPC, told BuzzFeed News Thursday he sees the fight for $15 as a playbook for other progressive priorities, particularly on other economic issues. “A few years ago, the idea of a $15 minimum wage was resisted even by liberals in our own party. Now it’s being embraced by New Democrats and Blue Dogs,” he said, referring to moderate groups in the party. “It shows that when you have a strong economic argument and a populist message and you mobilize, you can win the debate. We can certainly do it on Medicare for All, because the economics make so much sense … I think that will be the next big one.” The fight for $15 began in earnest in 2012, when hundreds of fast-food workers in New York walked off the job demanding higher wages. In 2014, Rep. Raúl Grijalva, then the cochair of the CPC, joined striking workers in Phoenix, and the next year, along with the caucus’s other leader, former representative Keith Ellison, introduced the first $15 minimum wage bill in Congress. Around the same time, progressive leaders joined Senate cafeteria workers as they walked off the job, chanting, “$15.00 and a union.” Letting workers lead, Ellison said in an interview with BuzzFeed News on Wednesday, was vital. “We united with them. We didn’t fall into the mistake and the trap that members of Congress could move this thing,” he said. “Members of Congress can vote, but they cannot mobilize and organize and educate across the country, and that’s what those groups did. And they didn’t just do it in DC. They did it everywhere.” And the strikes themselves were critical, Henry, the SEIU president, said, arguing a willingness to truly upend the status quo is essential for bringing other progressive and workers’ rights priorities into the mainstream. “It’s insufficient to mobilize or take a day of action. We have to be willing to disrupt business as usual,” Henry said. A $15 minimum wage was, along with Medicare for All and free public college, part of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2016 platform, a plan the party dismissed as too radical at the time. But when Sanders introduced single-payer legislation in the fall of 2017, the bill picked up 16 cosponsors in the Senate, many of them high-profile Democrats now running for president who have embraced Medicare for All on the campaign trail. The left has faced a similar fight over the Green New Deal — a progressive climate and jobs creation plan — that Pelosi recently dismissed as “the green dream or whatever.” But getting laughed at is proof you’re on the correct track, Henry said. “It’s really important to recognize the initial ridicule as you being bold enough,” she said. “Because I think many movements have to walk through a little bit of ridicule and laughter before they can shift to people thinking, Oh, they were right.”

Win McNamee / Getty Images Protesters supporting Medicare for All.