Progressives looking beyond 2018

The left is pouring its energy into the November midterm elections. But organizers from the Democratic Socialists of America and Justice Democrats told the Guardian this week that the work they’re planning beyond that is just as important.

Waleed Shahid, a director at Justice Democrats, said he believed there could be a parallel in the long term – sparked by Bernie Sanders’ 2016 run bringing democratic socialism to the fore – to the impact Barry Goldwater had on the Republican party.

“[Goldwater inspired] a whole generation of conservative activists, organizers, intellectuals who felt emboldened to kind of plant the seeds of a movement, and that movement ultimately, 16 years later, led to Ronald Reagan,” Shahid said.

Maria Svart, national director of the DSA, also sees a bright future.

“We’re building the socialist wing of a broader movement that is really pushing this country and will definitely be pushing Congress, but at the same time we are an organization that wants to build at the grassroots for the long term,” she said.

“We’re building the pipeline of people that will run for office. On November 7 we’re already going to be thinking about who’s going to be running in 2019 and 2020 for local office.”

Women seeking equal pay from Google

A class-action lawsuit brought against Google in California, charging that the company paid women less than men, could cover more than 8,000 women who work, or have worked, for the company, the Guardian’s Sam Levin reported this week.

The lawsuit is an amended version of a complaint filed against Google a year ago. That lawsuit would have covered more women, but a judge dismissed it.

“The civil complaint, filed a year ago, alleged that Google was paying women less than men doing similar work while also denying promotions and career opportunities to qualified women who were ‘segregated’ into lower-paying jobs,” Sam wrote.

On Thursday, the New York Times published an investigation saying Google paid a $90m severance package to an executive while concealing details of a sexual misconduct allegation against him.

What we’re reading

Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders “have been conflated for years”, writes Bhaskar Sunkara, the founding editor of Jacobin. But they shouldn’t be.

Sanders “was trained in the dying remnants of the Socialist party and cut his political teeth in trade union and civil rights organizing”, Sunkara says.

Warren, meanwhile, despite establishing herself as a progressive Democrat, believes that markets and corporations can be reined in by policy – which Sundara says is different from Sanders’ “worker-centric” approach:

“Elizabeth Warren is a progressive who can be an important part of a broad coalition for change, but we need a democratic socialist leading that coalition if we’re to deliver it.”

What we’re listening (to)

The origins of the #MeToo movement are a decade older than the first allegations against Harvey Weinstein, the ACLU says. The organization’s latest podcast features Tarana Burke, the civil rights advocate described by the Cut as “the architect of #MeToo”.

Burke says that #MeToo has come to be depicted in the media as a movement “only about taking down powerful men”. And that’s not right.

“As activists, as feminists, as advocates, as whatever, we have to stop buying into this popular narrative of what this movement is. This is a movement that is for and by survivors.”