The Most Progressive Democratic Party in America Is in Texas

Don’t confuse us with the DC elite. We’re building a working-class movement from the ground up.

Yesterday, I came across a guy’s TikTok page who is running for Congress in Texas. I scrolled through a few of his videos, and he made me so mad. I just scrolled away, but I thought about him again this morning and couldn’t remember his name or find his videos again. (🤦🏻‍♀️Don’t you hate it when that happens?)

The reason he pissed me off so much, is he’s 100% running on the Texas Democratic Party platform, but he’s running as an independent. I mean it’s like, he read the platform, said, “these are good ideas,” and then decided to run on those ideas while distancing himself from the party. We’re talking universal healthcare, pro-union, climate justice, the whole nine yards. This is the second independent candidate I’ve come across in this election cycle who is doing this.

The Texas Democratic Party is the most progressive state party in the United States. However, I’m not sure that the general public is aware of this. Moreover, I don’t think the general populace knows or understands the difference between a Texas Democrat and a California liberal.

The Texas Democratic Party’s platform supports universal healthcare, strong labor rights, climate justice, LGBTQ+ equality, racial equity, reproductive freedom, and deep investments in public education.

The right has spent decades painting every Democrat with the same out-of-touch, San Francisco-brunch-club brush, and honestly, the left hasn’t done a great job pushing back. So now we’ve got candidates parroting the Texas Democratic platform word for word... while pretending they’re too “independent” to be associated with the very party that wrote it.

And then this week, I watched a podcast that took all of this frustration and cranked it up to eleven.

It was a thoughtful conversation, sure, full of valid points about the national party’s failures, the donor-class rot, and how Democrats have lost touch with working people. And I found myself nodding along... until I realized something that pissed me off. It was painting all Democrats with the same tired brush.

The conversation was clearly about blue-state, establishment Democrats, the ones who’ve had power for decades and haven’t done a damn thing to shift wealth or protect working people structurally. And maybe, yeah, THOSE Democrats are the problem. Perhaps they are the donor class’s favorite sock puppets.

But here’s where it gets messy, that same critique, when made without nuance, gets dumped right on the heads of Texas Democrats, too, and that’s where I lose patience. Because down here, we’re not the establishment. We’re not in power. We’re not sitting on TV panels or wining and dining with hedge funds. We’re organizing in hostile territory with no help from national leadership and no room for error. And when national pundits or slick TikTok candidates lump us in with “the Democrats” like we’re the ones holding the line on progress back, it doesn’t just hurt, it sabotages the very people who are trying to fix it.

The Texans at the Fight the Oligarchy Tour this week reminded me exactly why I still fight, why I’m still a Democrat, and why the national narrative is failing Texas.

Because while pundits and TikTok randos are busy dragging the Democratic Party through the mud, lumping in everyone from Nancy Pelosi to some 27-year-old organizer in Laredo, actual Texas Democrats were onstage calling out billionaires, calling for justice, and laying out the boldest working-class vision in the country.

Listen to Kendall Scudder, Texas’ new Democratic Party Chair, give an unabashed speech for the working class and against billionaires and the establishment class.

Then came Beto O’Rourke. Say what you want about Beto, the pundits always do, but Texas Democrats love him because he fights for what WE believe in.

And we can’t forget Congressman Greg Casar, the Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, is one of Texas’ own.

Beto O’Rourke didn’t mince words. Greg Casar brought the fire. Kendall Scudder and everyday Texans showed that we are not the problem.

We’re not the donor class.

We’re not the DNC elite.

And we’re damn sure not sitting quietly while the country burns.

What we are, here in Texas, is a progressive party rooted in solidarity, not Silicon Valley. And if anyone bothered to listen to what was said on that stage, they’d realize that the beating heart of American populism isn’t in Brooklyn or Beverly Hills.

It’s right here, where the stars at night are big and bright.

Why is the Texas Democratic Party the most progressive in America?

The Texas Democratic Party platform is a true work of art if you have never read it. It’s not watered down. It doesn’t hedge. It doesn’t compromise with corporate talking points or shy away from hard truths. It calls for universal healthcare, a Green New Deal for Texas, a living wage, housing as a human right, reproductive freedom, and taking big money out of politics. It’s bold. It’s unapologetic. And it’s precisely what the national party should be learning from, not ignoring.

The Texas Democratic Party platform isn’t some fringe manifesto. It represents the will of millions of Texans who’ve shown up, spoken out, and demanded better. Every two years, grassroots delegates from across the state gather. Teachers, union members, students, retirees, and working-class families come together to debate and shape it.

This platform is built from the bottom up, not handed down from consultants or donors. It reflects what everyday Texans want, healthcare, good schools, fair wages, and a government that works for us, not billionaires.

It’s the most progressive party platform in America, but beyond that, you may be wondering, “How did Texas Democrats become so progressive?”

I have a lot of ideas on that, mostly centered around fascism and oppression from the Republican overlords, but I reached out to a few friends to ask why they thought Texas Democrats were more progressive than the rest of the nation.

“Texas is the birthplace of progressive populism. The history still runs in the veins of everyone who calls Texas home. It was progressive Texans like Sam Rayburn and LBJ who gave the nation Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid—who fought the bankers, billionaires, and bosses to give working folks dignified incomes and working conditions. I’m thrilled to see TX Dems embrace their progressive populist roots, as that is the key to (re)turn Texas blue.”

—Clayton Tucker, former Chair of the Progressive Caucus, Candidate for Agriculture Commissioner

and

“Texas Democrats are some of the most progressive in the country—because we have to be. When you live in the most diverse communities in America and you’ve watched conservative policies wreck everything from schools to healthcare, you don’t lean left for fun—you do it for survival… and maybe a little spite. Knowing that if people knew how government can work for them, they might be less apathetic.”

—Nancy Thompson, Mothers Against Greg Abbott

One of the people I admire most in this fight is Clayton Tucker.

He talks often and passionately about how Texas was the birthplace of the original progressive movement. And he’s right. Back in the late 1800s, long before FDR or Bernie Sanders, it was Texans who stood up to the Robber Barons. It was farmers and ranchers, rural folks fed up with getting screwed by railroads and monopolies, who launched what became the Populist Party. It was Texans who demanded a shorter workweek, public control of infrastructure, and direct elections. And now, Clayton is one of the loudest voices reminding us that Texas can do it again.

He doesn’t just believe in progressive populism, he thinks it’s the most Texan thing a person can be. And he’s helped lead the Texas Progressive Caucus to do something the national party has failed to do for decades, which is build a real grassroots movement rooted in working-class solidarity, not donor-class obedience.

But for that movement to grow, for Texas to be the cradle of the next progressive revolution, we have to confront one major challenge…

We have to distance ourselves from the coastal liberal elite.

I’m talking about the donors, consultants, and national talking heads who think they know best, but haven’t set foot in Hays County or the Rio Grande Valley in years. They don’t align with our values. They align with the establishment, with the billionaires, with the plantation capitalists.

That means we have work to do, not just inside the party, but out in the world. We must demonstrate to voters that Texas Democrats are not like Chuck Schumer. We are not Nancy Pelosi.

We are James Talarico. We are Greg Casar. We are Jasmine Crockett, Beto O’Rourke, and Kendall Scudder. We’re not the problem. We’re the proof that a different kind of Democratic politics is still possible.

We can’t fix New York. We can’t fix DC. But we can build something different right here. Something honest. Something people-powered. Something that looks a lot more like the working families of Texas and a lot less like a Washington wine cave fundraiser.

If we do this right, Texas won’t just be the birthplace of the first progressive movement. It’ll be the launchpad for the next one. A shining beacon in a state long written off, burning bright enough to make the rest of the country finally pay attention.

I’ve been screaming from the rooftops for years now: Texas Democrats are to the left of the rest of America.

Our platform proves it. Our candidates prove it. But here’s the hard truth, most regular people don’t know that. And my newsletter, as much as I love it, tends to reach the folks who already pay close attention to politics, not the ones who barely vote or have tuned out altogether.

So this part isn’t just on me. It’s on all of us.

Next time you hear someone say, “The Democrats are useless,” or “They’re all the same,” don’t just sigh and nod.

Say this: “I agree, those Democrats in DC aren’t fighting for us. But Texas Democrats? They’re different. They’re progressive. They’re working-class. They’re fighting like hell in one of the toughest political climates in the country.”

We need to correct the record, one conversation at a time. Because if we don’t speak up, the loudest voices will keep defining us. And if we want to build a future rooted in justice, dignity, and real populism, it’s going to start here, not in Washington, not in California, not on some podcast, but right here in Texas.

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