Nicole Gaudiano

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Progressives were calling for a more liberal agenda for the Democratic Party Wednesday as they absorbed the shock of Donald Trump’s presidential win and another two years, at least, of a Republican-controlled Congress.

Trump’s win underscored the divide among Democratic centrists and progressives allied with senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton’s former rival for the Democratic presidential nomination. Progressives say election results show the party must embrace economic populism, which many centrists have long considered a political loser.

“If the Democratic Party is not clear as crystal on the side of the working man and woman of America, some opportunistic politician is going to pick up that mantle and create confusion,” said Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota, co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and a member of the Congressional Black Caucus. “I don’t think anyone can deny that Trump tried to sound like an economic populist.”

Moving forward, he said the party can learn from the electoral successes of ballot measures to increase the minimum wage in Arizona, Colorado, Maine and Washington state — along with Trump’s emphasis on how the current trade model hurts working people. Democrats should call for a “full life cycle economic program,” from investments in education and college affordability to protecting American’s retirement security.

“We need to address the needs of people who have been living in stagnation,” he said.

Stephanie Taylor, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, said progressives have repeatedly warned that Republicans could “outflank” Democrats on trade, jobs, Wall Street reform and “corporate greed.”

“This race should not have been so close, and Democrats will lose in the future — over and over — if they don't go through a serious ideological shift and follow Elizabeth Warren’s lead, fighting against the rigged economy in a truly authentic and real way,” she wrote in a statement.

But Matt Bennett, co-founder of the centrist think tank Third Way, disagreed that economic populism would have saved the election for Democrats. The message from voters was that they care about creating more and better jobs — not fairer jobs, he said.

"They don't care what rich people make," he said. "If they cared, they would not have elected the guy with the gold-plated plane."

Democrats agree anti-establishment sentiment is what powered the electorate, making it hard for an insider like Clinton to convincingly argue that government could solve Americans' problems.

The question is which path forward Democrats should take.

“We need to do some real soul searching in the Democratic Party about its future,” Sanders’ former campaign manager Jeff Weaver said on CNN Wednesday. “There’s a lack of understanding by people in Washington about what’s going on out in the real world. Until Democrats do that, I think they’re going to have a difficult time.”

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Progressives point to losses by centrist Senate candidates such as Evan Bayh, a former senator from Indiana, and Rep. Patrick Murphy of Florida as evidence that the "Wall Street wing" of the Democratic Party is on the decline. But Bennett noted that progressive candidates Zephyr Teachout of New York and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin also lost their bids for Congress and the Senate, respectively.

"What we don't need right now is a war inside our party or circular firing squads," he said.

The race for the next chair of the Democratic National Committee will become a big priority for progressives to ensure the party is capable of building a mass movement to defeat Trump, said Neil Sroka, spokesman for Democracy for America, which endorsed Sanders in the primaries.

"The only answer to the incredibly tragic loss yesterday is a massive multi-racial, multi-generational progressive political revolution similar to what Bernie Sanders was calling for," Sroka said.

PCCC and Democracy for America vowed to fight a Trump agenda. DFA executive director Charles Chamberlain said his organization “will do everything in our power to obstruct, delay, and halt the attacks on people of color, women, and working families that will emerge from a Trump administration.”

But Clinton, while speaking to her supporters Wednesday morning, said Americans owe Trump “an open mind and a chance to lead.” And Warren, who famously sparred with Trump on social media, told the Boston Globe she is willing to put her differences with him aside and work with Trump to rebuild the economy for working people.

Ellison said he doesn’t want to prejudge or obstruct, and he wishes Trump success. But progressives and the Congressional Black Caucus won’t abandon their agendas, either.

Progressives will push for infrastructure development, increases to the federal minimum wage, an expansion of Social Security, tax reform and tuition-free college at public schools for working class families. And the Congressional Black Caucus will continue to seek to rewrite the Voting Rights Act, a top priority for the caucus.

“We’re going to try like hell,” he said. “(Republicans) will get a chance to do the right thing.”

Follow @ngaudiano on Twitter.

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