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Progressive Petition Calls for DNC 'Emergency Meeting' to Shift Gears Against Trump
"Doing the same old thing (or nothing) nets the same dismal results," wrote one petition signer.
May 28, 2025
A petition sponsored by two national progressive organizations is urging the Democratic National Committee to convene an emergency meeting of all its members in order to chart "truly bold action" against U.S. President Donald Trump and his "cronies."
The petition, which was sent to Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chair Ken Martin this week and circulated by the groups RootsAction and Progressive Democrats of America, has 7,000 signers, according to a Wednesday statement. It also includes more than 1,500 individual comments from petition signers.
One petition signer, Andrea Helene Hansen of Hudson, New York, wrote: "As a lifelong Democrat (and I'm now 77 years old), I'm looking for an alternative since my party is failing me (and others of the boomer generation). WAKE UP!"
"Doing the same old thing (or nothing) nets the same dismal results. Time to represent your voters that want you to fight Trump and GOP and overwhelmingly support progressive programs," wrote Anne Eisinger of Auburndale, Florida.
Recent polling and the success of Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) "Fighting Oligarchy" tour—with appearances by other key progressives including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.)—this spring suggest that a sizable portion of the Democratic base is keen to see Democrats pushing back forcefully against Trump.
The petition urges the DNC to convene the emergency meeting as soon as possible and make it fully open to the public.
"The predatory, extreme, and dictatorial actions of the Trump administration call for an all-out commensurate response, which so far has been terribly lacking from the Democratic Party," the petition states. "It is time for the Democratic National Committee, as the organization tasked with responding to the concerns of Democrats, to heed the insights of progressive policy analysts and grassroots activists—and that should begin at this emergency meeting."
The text of the petition does not specify which insights the groups and petition signers would like the DNC to heed.
According to the petition, waiting until the DNC's next regular meeting in late summer would be "irresponsible."
In a Common Dreamsop-ed published Wednesday, RootsAction national director Norman Solomon highlighted anger directed at Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) after he decided to support a Republican spending bill in March, and Democratic congressional leadership's poor performance in recent polling.
"Four months into his job as the DNC's chair, Ken Martin has yet to show that the DNC is truly operating in real time while the country faces an unprecedented threat to what's left of democracy. His power to call an emergency meeting of the full DNC remains unused," wrote Solomon.
Meanwhile, the DNC recently took steps to void the elections of multiple DNC vice chairs, including gun reform activist David Hogg, who rankled DNC members earlier this year when he announced his intention to support primary challenges to "asleep-at-the-wheel" Democrats in safe-blue seats.
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Why David Hogg (Almost) Gets It, and the DNC Still Doesn’t
DNC Vice-Chair David Hogg is right to call out do-nothing Democrats but fails to articulate a bold, unapologetically populist vision that names the enemy.
Apr 29, 2025
The Democratic National Committee needs to take a step back and reflect on the moment in which it finds itself. The sense of national anxiety and uncertainty is palpable. Trust in our institutions is staggeringly low. Everyday Americans are scared, and they’re looking for actual leadership. They’re looking for hope. They’re looking for visionaries.
However, for the sake of party unity and integrity, the leaders of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) must remain neutral when it comes to primary challengers.
At least, that’s what the DNC leadership is saying now.
The only way to win back the trust of voters and challenge the proto-authoritarian regime we’re up against is by listening to the demands of working-class people and dropping the paternalistic attitude that insists the elites know best.
That certainly wasn’t the approach taken in 2016 when Hillary Clinton was given insurmountable preference and privilege by the DNC, and again in 2020 when early primary victories for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) sent the party establishment into a panic. Deals were made, and party elites all but sealed the nomination for former President Joe Biden. Neutrality surely wasn’t a priority then.
So what changed? A young, occasionally progressive vice-chair of the DNC with a massive platform announced that his personal grassroots organization, unaffiliated with the DNC, would pledge funds to back primary challengers in democratic strongholds where the running incumbents are failing to rise to the moment we face, and are pompously ignoring the demands for bold change from their constituents. Now, all of a sudden, it would be improper for anyone with real influence in the party infrastructure to pick a side in contested primaries. Interesting. Apparently it’s only improper for party officials to pick a side when the side they pick challenges the status quo.
DNC Vice-Chair David Hogg is right to call out do-nothing Democrats who cling to power while refusing to fight for popular policies like Medicare for All, green jobs, and a wealth tax on the ultra-rich. These corporate-backed incumbents are dead weight on the party, and are more concerned with donor checks than the people they claim to represent. But where Hogg, and too many well-meaning liberals, fall short in their criticism is in their failure to articulate a bold, unapologetically populist vision that names the enemy: a rigged political system in which wealthy donors, corporations, and special interests can buy off politicians of both parties, and subvert the will of the people by simply writing a check.
The party establishment may not have gotten the memo, but the voters certainly have. According to a February Pew Research Center survey of U.S. adults of both parties, the role of money in politics is the issue described by the highest percentage of respondents (72%) as “a very big problem,” followed closely by the affordability of healthcare (67%).
We need candidates and a party that refuse to accept dark money in the primaries. We need candidates and a party that draw a sharp distinction on this front. The Democratic Party must be a democratic party, not a plutocratic or oligarchic party.
If the DNC wants to be the vehicle the future requires, it must rally behind candidates who dare to say that healthcare is a human right, and will fight for a single-payer system. The party needs primary challengers who will unapologetically say that our tax dollars should pay for public services, not for bombs that are sent overseas to maim and murder civilians. We need candidates committed to a transformational Green jobs investment. We don’t need lip service and half-measures, but a full-scale mobilization to save our planet from climate catastrophe and corporate greed. We need candidates who will say enough is enough.
The moderate, establishment wing of the Democratic Party would have you believe that these policies are too radical, fringe, and unrealistic to help win elections. These political elites spend so much time convincing the media that they represent the views of the average voter that perhaps they’ve even begun to believe it themselves. The facts tell a different story.
Not only have progressive policies been proven successes in countless advanced democracies all over the world, but they are also extremely popular among Democratic voters. Let’s first look at who is currently popular among the Democratic base. As of last month, the Democratic Party’s favorability rating stands at just 29%. By contrast, the popularity of bold progressive voices in the party is dwarfing that of establishment moderates. Bernie Sanders, alongside Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), is drawing massive crowds scarcely seen in nonelection years on their Fighting Oligarchy tour, while centrist Democrats are struggling to adequately respond to frustrated crowds at their town halls. According to a CNN poll from March 2025, 1 in 6 voters under 45 describe AOC as “emblematic of the party’s values,” much higher than any other politician listed in the poll.
With 48 years separating them, their popularity has less to do with age, and more to do with progressives’ ability to articulate a vision of the future for America that offers more than returning to business as usual. Working class Americans feel left in the dust in a rapidly changing economy that values quick profit over long-term growth and sustainability. The Biden administration failed to acknowledge and sufficiently address the challenges of struggling Americans, and the Kamala Harris campaign didn’t do enough to convince voters that it would be responsive to their needs..
The citizens of this country want to know that their vote and their voice matters, and that it won’t be drowned out by the overwhelming noise of super PACS and billionaire donors. They want to know that a devastating medical emergency won’t be the cause of their family’s bankruptcy. They don’t want the laws of this country to reinforce the idea that the value of your voice and the value of your life are directly tied to the amount of money in your bank account.
The bottom line is this: You win elections by responding to the needs and the concerns of the voters. When the voters of both parties agree that the electoral system is rigged for the rich and the healthcare system is broken, and yet both parties refuse to do anything meaningful about either of those problems, it inevitably follows that voters will look for leaders who seek to fundamentally change the parties that ignore them.
The DNC and the Democratic Party must recognize that leading into the midterms, we are truly at an inflection point. The playbook of the past has failed. There is no reviving it. The only way to win back the trust of voters and challenge the proto-authoritarian regime we’re up against is by listening to the demands of working-class people and dropping the paternalistic attitude that insists the elites know best. While we may disagree with David Hogg on certain issues and candidates, his commitment to cutting the dead weight from the Democratic Party is commendable. Where his strategy misses the mark, however, is in failing to articulate that what we need is not just young candidates willing to fight against Trump. We need to back young candidates willing to fight for a version of America that lives up to its promise in action, not just rhetoric.
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DNC Chair Takes Aim at Vice Chair David Hogg's Push for Primary Challengers
"There are some effective people in our party; there are certainly some who are failing to meet the moment and know it's time for them not to seek reelection," Hogg told The Washington Post's daily podcast.
Apr 24, 2025
Democratic National Committee Vice Chair David Hogg rankled some in the party when he announced last week that he intends to support primary challenges to "asleep-at-the-wheel" Democrats in safe-blue seats—and now DNC Chair Ken Martin has rebuked Hogg and is poised to offer him what amounts to an ultimatum.
According to Martin, Hogg's effort could threaten the perceived neutrality of the DNC.
"You can't be both the player and the referee. Our job is clear cut: let voters vote, and once they've made their choice, to fight like hell to get that Democrat elected to office," wrote Martin in a column forTime published on Thursday.
Martin also invoked an episode from DNC history, when revelations like leaked emails cast doubt on the DNC's neutrality in the 2016 primary race between then-presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, in favor of Clinton.
"The controversy alienated even our party's most loyal supporters who felt that party bosses, not Democratic primary voters, were deciding which candidate would emerge in the general election as the Democratic nominee," Martin wrote of that moment.
Martin also said that in the coming days, he plans to introduce reforms that will codify "principles of neutrality and fairness in our official party rules," including requiring party officers to stay neutral in Democratic primaries.
The outlet NOTUS was first to report Wednesday that Martin was planning to unveil this requirement, citing an unnamed senior official. Currently officers must remain neutral in presidential races.
Politico framed the move as an ultimatum, and wrote that "if passed by DNC members at their August meeting, [it] would effectively force Hogg to choose between remaining a party vice chair or stepping back from the group he co-founded, Leaders We Deserve."
Hogg, a gun reform activist and survivor of the 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Florida, intends to support primary bids through Leaders We Deserve. The political action committee has pledged to spend $20 million to support challengers.
According to The Washington Post, Hogg has already identified some of the incumbents he would like to see gone and is recruiting people to mount bids against them.
"There are some effective people in our party; there are certainly some who are failing to meet the moment and know it's time for them not to seek reelection. Whether that's because they're too old, for example, or if that's just because they aren’t able to meet it," Hogg told Colby Itkowitz on "Post Reports," the newspaper's podcast. "Because frankly, unfortunately, sucking is something that is not limited to age."
Hogg said he would not support challenges to Reps. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), James Clyburn (D-S.C.), and Steny Hoyer (D-M.D.)—but did not name the incumbents he had in mind to challenge.
On Wednesday, the progressive group Our Revolution announced results from a survey which showed that there's support among progressive and Democratic-leaning voters for primarying establishment Democrats who "lack grassroots energy or urgency."
"Our Revolution polling shows Hogg's sentiment is shared by a large majority of engaged progressive voters," the group said.
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