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President Trump's unpopularity masks a harsh reality: Across the country, the Democratic Party is in its worst shape since the 1920s. In 2016, Hillary Clinton won just 487 of more than 3,100 counties nationwide. Can Democrats come back from the deep hole they are in? The growing reaction to Trump's grotesqueries and the Republican-led Congress' extremism is promising, but the Democratic Party won't revive itself unless it changes. The good news is that — against entrenched resistance — reformers are beginning to force the party to open up. Sen. Bernie Sanders's (I-Vt.) 2016 campaign — and the reaction to Trump's victory — unleashed new energy and roused new activists. Remarkably, instead of turning their backs on the party or giving up on electoral politics in disgust, many have decided that it's time to reform the Democratic Party from the bottom up and top down.

Last weekend, members of the party's Unity Reform Commission voted on final recommendations for reforming the national party. The commission is the creation of an agreement made by Sanders and Clinton at the 2016 national convention to help heal the deep wounds the primary had left with Sanders supporters.

Not surprisingly, the Sanders delegates drove the reform agenda, pushing to open the party up to new voters and new energy. The resulting recommendations make important changes in three major areas. First, they slash the number of superdelegates to the Democratic National Convention — delegates who can vote for whomever they want — by 60 percent, limiting them to sitting legislators, governors and former presidents, vice presidents and DNC chairs. In addition, in each of the 57 separate state parties (parties include territories and Democrats abroad), activists will push to demand that the remaining superdelegates be pledged to vote for their state's choice. In 2016, superdelegates gave Clinton 30 percent of the votes needed for nomination before the first caucus or primary. Going forward, insurgent candidates such as Sanders will have a more level playing field.

Second, the commission suggested changing the rules for caucuses to open them up and make them more transparent. Sanders won nearly all the caucuses, but his nominees pushed to open them up even further. State parties holding caucuses will be required to allow same-day voter and party registration and to offer absentee ballots, reducing the disadvantage for workers with inflexible schedules.

The commission was not able to codify similar reforms for primaries, as the state parties control those. However, the commission sent a message with its strong objection to closed primaries like that of New York, where independent voters must register as Democrats months before the primary to be eligible to vote. (For the 2018 primaries, it is already too late: The deadline fell on Oct. 13.) This system is intentionally designed to disadvantage a candidate such as Sanders capable of bringing new voters to the party. The commission urged primary states to adhere to the same rules as those imposed on caucuses, and called for penalties against state parties that do not do so.

Third, the commission would curb the license of DNC insiders to spend money on cronies and consultants without accountability. Jim Zogby, who has been a voting member of the DNC for more than a decade, notes that he had never seen a DNC budget. The commission recommends an Ombudsmen Council to investigate conflicts of interest, and empowered the Budget and Oversight Committee, with elected DNC members, to review any expenditure exceeding $100,000 to outside contractors or consultants. It required that budget documents be made public to the committee and that meetings be open to all DNC members. It also expressed clear disapproval of consultants serving both the DNC and a Democratic candidate, as exemplified by the law firm of Perkins Coie that somehow found no conflict of interest in representing both Clinton's campaign and the DNC during the Democratic nominating process.

The commission, of course, doesn't have the final say. Its recommendations will eventually have to be approved by two-thirds of the entire DNC. The DNC is where reforms go to die, particularly those calling for curbing the privileges of DNC members. This time may be different, however. A broad range of grass-roots groups pushing to transform the Democratic Party has vowed to continue driving the reforms. The first step is pressure on the existing DNC to approve the commission's report.

Many bemoan the growing intra-party fights over direction, procedure and candidates, but this new energy may well be the party's salvation. Our Revolution — which grew out of the Sanders campaign — has more than 500 chapters in 47 states, with a growing capacity to drive issue campaigns while also pushing to take over Democratic Party committees and recruiting and supporting candidates. Its president, the charismatic Nina Turner, has pushed them to build infrastructure in red states as well as blue. As John Nichols reports in the Nation, it has made Texas its first formal affiliate. There, old populists such as Jim Hightower are combining with young activists to mobilize voters, drive a platform and run candidates, even in areas Democrats have neglected for years.

Our Revolution isn't alone. The Working Families Party, People's Action, MoveOn, Democrats for America and a spate of new organizations such as Indivisible are recruiting and supporting candidates. Most are rallying around the bolder agenda articulated by Sanders, including a $15 minimum wage, Medicare for All, a green New Deal, balanced trade, getting money out of politics and more.

As Trump continues to trample all bounds of decency and betray those voters who supported his economic populism, and congressional Republicans escalate their class war on working people, progressives have every reason for despair. But as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. taught, it is always darkest before the dawn. And if the Unity Reform Commission's ideas are codified, Democrats may begin to see the light.

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