Brent Scher of the Washington Free Beacon reports on one large-scale liberal donor’s requirements for 2020 presidential candidates.
The secretive Democracy Alliance donor club is hoping its nearly $300 million in political spending this cycle will result in a new political leadership willing to advance liberal ideas such as the Green New Deal, a private and confidential document obtained by the Washington Free Beacon shows.
The document, “Vision for a Progressive America, and What’s Needed to Get There,” was distributed to Democracy Alliance partners at their spring donor conference in Texas earlier this month. In it, leadership reflects on the effectiveness of the $1.83 billion it has injected into “progressive infrastructure” since its founding in 2005, and lays out agreed upon policy objectives for the coming years.
Among those objectives is the Green New Deal, the document states.
“A safe and sustainable planet would include a new president and Congress that are positioned in 2021 to advance bold actions, like a Green New Deal, that achieves dramatic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions while creating millions of jobs and reducing economic inequality,” the document says.
The group puts the failure to advance climate action on itself, arguing that too little investment has been made to combat the fossil fuel industry.
“Even as the crisis worsens daily, progressive advocates lack sufficient political power and influence to overcome the fossil fuel industry and its ideological allies,” it says. “Too little investment has been made in elections, and the movement generally has not held elected officials accountable for their positions on climate, even as climate denial has become a dominant position for many in Congress.”
