It’s been a hard, strange year for pro­gres­sive activists, and this week’s Net­roots Nation con­fer­ence seems to be rein­forc­ing that sense of strangeness.

Instead of gath­er­ing in Den­ver, Col­orado, as was orig­i­nal­ly planned, the con­fer­ence’s orga­niz­ers and atten­dees are con­gre­gat­ing remote­ly, using a web­site pow­ered by Socio that inte­grates with video­con­fer­enc­ing pow­er­house Zoom.

Thurs­day’s keynote address (which took place from 2 PM to 3:30 Pacif­ic Time) sought to cel­e­brate the vic­to­ries pro­gres­sives have won in recent months and rec­og­nize some of the pow­er­ful Black fig­ures lead­ing the pro­gres­sive movement.

Along­side Arshad Hasan, one of Net­roots Nation’s board mem­bers, atten­dees were wel­comed vir­tu­al­ly by Col­orado’s U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Joe Neguse.

Neguse remind­ed his lis­ten­ers about the vital impor­tance of pro­gres­sive ener­gy in the bat­tle to defeat Trump in Novem­ber, and point­ed to recent elec­toral suc­cess­es by pro­gres­sives as a sym­bol of hope for the country.

“My belief in the promise of Amer­i­ca remains strong,” Neguse said.

The sub­se­quent keynote dis­cus­sion was host­ed by Mau­rice Mitchell, the exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Work­ing Fam­i­lies Par­ty, who inter­viewed three “unapolo­get­i­cal­ly Black, unapolo­get­i­cal­ly pro­gres­sive can­di­dates” for elect­ed office: Penn­syl­va­nia State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Sum­mer Lee, Mondaire Jones and Jamaal Bow­man. Mitchell described the group as “the biggest, bad­dest, black­est pan­el of the summer.”

The can­di­dates were asked about co-gov­er­nance, and all agreed that elect­ed pro­gres­sives need to work close­ly with grass­roots activists to succeed.

Both Jones and Bow­man quot­ed U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Ayan­na Press­ley: “Those clos­est to the pain should be clos­est to the pow­er.” Elect­ed pro­gres­sive politi­cians offer activists access to the struc­tures of pow­er, and in return activists can exert pres­sure on the streets to pres­sure oth­er offi­cials to work with progressives.

The pan­el dis­cussed a set of top­ics that ranged from repa­ra­tions, recon­struc­tion, white suprema­cy, and the role of Black peo­ple in the pro­gres­sive movement.

Jamaal Bow­man point­ed out that the U.S. has always been “recon­struct­ing” itself in one way or anoth­er through­out its his­to­ry, but that the task is now to ensure that peo­ple of col­or are not “left out of the equa­tion… this is our moment to rebuild our nation into the coun­try we know it is capa­ble of being!”

The con­ver­sa­tion soon moved to the rela­tion­ship pro­gres­sive activists and orga­ni­za­tions have with the estab­lish­ment of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty, espe­cial­ly with the par­ty’s expect­ed nom­i­nees for the pres­i­den­cy and vice presidency.

Sum­mer Lee, who has beat­en back pow­er­ful forces to remain in her Pitts­burgh area seat, remind­ed every­one that estab­lish­ment fig­ures who preach par­ty uni­ty  don’t always prac­tice it themselves.

She described being “indoc­tri­nat­ed” against sup­port­ing a pri­ma­ry against an incum­bent once she was sworn in – only to be sur­prised at the fact that the state Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty refused to endorse her in her re-elec­tion bid.

On the nation­al lev­el, Mondaire Jones open­ly admit­ted that a Biden-Har­ris tick­et “was not our first choice” as pro­gres­sives and promised to lever­age all the pres­sure he could upon Biden as soon as he enters the Oval Office.

He said it was “shame­ful” that the nation­al Democ­rats have not com­mit­ted to basic pro­gres­sive prin­ci­ples, and called on grass­roots activists to hold “self-described pro­gres­sives” in Con­gress to account.

Mitchell asked the pan­elists about the role of Black pro­gres­sives in the post-Trump era, how to not only “change the com­plex­ion of Con­gress, but change the direc­tion of Congress.”

All three pan­elists agreed that pro­gres­sive lead­ers best rep­re­sent the needs and issues of Black com­mu­ni­ties, and also that “prob­lem­at­ic” Democ­rats are far eas­i­er to pres­sure with grass­roots activism than white suprema­cist Repub­li­cans are.

Mondaire Jones made the case that we are liv­ing in “a Black moment and we have to make it per­ma­nent, because when we have more peo­ple for whom pol­i­cy is per­son­al, we get bet­ter policy.”

Jamaal Bow­man wrapped up the pan­el by remind­ing Net­roots Nation that the oth­er side are orga­niz­ing, strate­giz­ing and mobi­liz­ing to stop progressives.

Bow­man’s warn­ing was an apt intro­duc­tion to the next seg­ment of the evening, as Jes­si­ca Byrd of Three Point Strate­gies inter­viewed her old boss and cur­rent leader of Fair Fight Action, Stacey Abrams, who rose to fame in 2018 after her guber­na­to­r­i­al ambi­tions in Geor­gia were thwart­ed by bla­tant vot­er sup­pres­sion.

Byrd start­ed the inter­view by prais­ing Abrams’ impres­sive résumé and polit­i­cal achieve­ments, not least of which was the fact that “you got Oprah to can­vass for you!” (Abrams respond­ed to this remark with a non­cha­lant shrug).

For­mer Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Stacey Adams, the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Leader in the Geor­gia Gen­er­al Assem­bly, explains what needs to be done to turn states in the Deep South blue (edu­cate, acti­vate, and agi­tate!) at Net­roots Nation 2014.

When asked how to inspire Black Amer­i­cans to vote, Abrams launched an elo­quent defense of the pow­er of vot­ing, and tied vot­ing direct­ly to the protest move­ment on the streets, say­ing that “vot­ing is protest­ing at the bal­lot box.”

She expand­ed the dis­cus­sion beyond the realm of vot­ing, implor­ing Net­roots Nation atten­dees to par­tic­i­pate in the 2020 cen­sus and encour­age friends, co-work­ers and fam­i­ly mem­bers to take part too.

The con­ver­sa­tion moved on to a dis­cus­sion of the cur­rent state of the Unit­ed States Postal Ser­vice (USPS), the nation’s mail system.

Abrams not­ed that some ver­sion of the postal ser­vice has exist­ed for as long as the U.S. has as a coun­try, because “the way you knit togeth­er a nation is com­mu­ni­ca­tion.” She blast­ed the Trump regime’s efforts to pri­va­tize the USPS, say­ing “when you hear some­one say “pri­va­tize a pub­lic good,” they want to take it from those who can’t afford it.” Abrams decon­struct­ed the var­i­ous ways that Trump and his cronies have been under­min­ing the USPS, and along with it the 2020 elec­tion, in minute detail – describ­ing Trump and his post­mas­ter gen­er­al Louis DeJoy as “a pyro­ma­ni­ac and an arsonist.”

Abrams used the exam­ple of the Post Office to lay out how the Repub­li­cans attack pub­lic insti­tu­tions: “One of the tricks is to break some­thing and then com­plain that it’s bro­ken… you set some­thing on fire, then com­plain that it’s burning!”

Abrams laid out a sim­ple strat­e­gy to respond to the Repub­li­can attempts to under­mine vot­ing. “Remem­ber that vot­ing by mail starts in September…get your appli­ca­tion in the moment it’s pos­si­ble… the minute you get your bal­lot, find out if your state has drop box­es… we need to make sure they can’t steal it.”

She encour­aged pro­gres­sive can­di­dates with some cam­paign tips.

She said that can­di­dates can’t just plan for sce­nar­ios A, B, or C, but must “plan for sce­nario Z!” She remind­ed can­di­dates that good team lead­ers not only inspire those who fol­low, but set a good pace so that peo­ple can make it to their tar­gets. She also encour­aged every­one to remem­ber that pro­gres­sive pol­i­tics is not about win­ning indi­vid­ual bat­tles, but about mov­ing the front line in a long war.

Byrd wrapped up the evening with a touch­ing reminder to Abrams of the many Geor­gians who love and sup­port her, and want to one day vote for her again.

Net­roots Nation 2020 con­tin­ues tomor­row and will con­clude on Saturday.