ABSTRACT
The ongoing effort of progressive Democrats to realign the Democratic Party to successfully address the environmental crisis and the crisis in American democracy is the focus of the conclusion. I look at the efforts of the Democratic Party establishment and its leaders to thwart progressive challenges to incumbents. I also draw on Heather McGhee’s book The Sum of Us to analyze the prospects for building a multiracial progressive Populist movement and developing a vision of community that can unite the diverse constituencies making up this burgeoning movement. I tie this analysis with Klein’s vision of ecological regeneration and Reid and Taylor’s vision of renewal of the civic and ecological commons, both of which are animated by what the authors call “a love of place.” The emphasis on populism as a discourse that, not only divides the political landscape but that promotes an alternative unifying vision of community harkening back to the original Populist vision of the “cooperative commonwealth” guides this analysis.
