Working Families Party (WFP) National Director Maurice Mithcell visited with Politics Done Right (PDR) on Radio Row at Netroots Nation 2019 in Philadelphia recently. He explained what the party was all about and its relationship to the Democratic Party.
PDR interviews WFP National Director Maurice Mitchell
Maurice Mitchell said that just like the Establishment Democratic Party is accountable to millionaires, billionaires, and corporations, the Working Families Party is accountable to everyday working people.
“We seek to pioneer,” Mitchell said. “This idea of nondelusional third party politics.”
WFP does not work against the Democratic Party. Most of the times it works with the Party. Their candidates generally run as Democrats. They have proven that throughout the country that the Progressive agenda wins.
So who is WFP?
What we believe
We believe that our economy is out of whack when wages are stagnant and good jobs are harder and harder to come by, but the very wealthiest just get richer and richer. When college is getting more and more expensive, and retirement more and more insecure. When quality public education is only available for some, but not all, of our children. When as hard as we work, inequality in America is only getting worse.
We also believe the promise of our democracy has been broken when the views of a single wealthy donor can carry more weight that the needs of millions of hard working families. When a moneyed few can pull the strings in our democracy, they rewrite the rules of our economy to benefit them.
The wealthy few are making money by doing harm to working families, whether they’re outsourcing jobs, privatizing schools or poisoning the environment.
Working Families is a growing progressive political organization that fights for an economy that works for all of us, and a democracy in which every voice matters. We believe that our children’s life chances must not be determined at birth, and that America must be a nation that allows all its people to thrive.
What we do
Working Families is building progressive power to renew the American Dream. Here’s what we do:
- We run aggressive campaigns to raise standards for working families. Since our founding, we’ve won minimum wage increases and passed paid sick days laws in states and cities; fought off school privatization schemes; raised taxes on the rich to fund hospitals and schools; created tens of thousands of green jobs and passed the nation’s most innovative plans to tackle student debt.
- We are electing the next generation of progressive leaders. Working Families recruits, trains and elects leaders who share our mission to local and state office in a growing number of cities and states. From small-town school boards to big city mayors, from county legislators to members of Congress, we’re sending Working Families Democrats to office to help build an economy that works for all of us.
- We organize. We reach hundreds of thousands of people every month, knocking on their door, calling on the phone, or in your inbox, to give people the opportunity to take action. Our work doesn’t end on Election Day. After elections are over, we need to work just as hard to hold all our elected officials accountable to the needs of hard working families.
Watch the full speech Maurice Mitchell gave at the Daily Kos Caucus at Netroots Nation 2019 here.