Internet advocacy group Demand Progress knows that the fight isn’t over—after a decade pushing for internet freedom, human rights and economic justice, a new administration offers new opportunities and new challenges.
“We started out not with the notion that we would become the foremost internet freedom organization,” co-founder and Executive Director David Segal told Blue Tent. “We were trying to be an economic justice organizing organization with also a bit of a left-libertarian critique of national security policy. And I would say that the 10-year arc of the organization has been one of identifying opportunities to return to that initial vision.”
Demand Progress issued demands of the incoming Joe Biden administration in December in an effort to align the new White House with what Americans really want.
Beginnings
Segal founded Demand Progress with the late open internet activist Aaron Swartz in 2010. The group focuses on keeping the internet free and independent and using it to advocate for government accountability and against corporate power.
Segal and Swartz became friendly when Segal ran for Congress in Rhode Island that September. “Aaron had worked on my campaign and we just clicked,” said Segal. “And he was looking to do something new on the other side of it.”
The pair launched Demand Progress the day after the primary.
Advocacy
With 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) arms, Demand Progress is part of the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a left-leaning dark money group with ties to Arabella Advisors, a Washington-based advisory firm that focuses on liberal and left-leaning interests. The fund took in and distributed over $143 million in 2018, according to public documents.
While most of Demand Progress’ funding and operational structure are located within the fund’s broader structure, it does receive outside funding. Open Society Foundations gave $150,000 to the group’s 501(c)(4) arm, Demand Progress Action, in 2018.
The nonprofit’s 501(c)(3) received $200,000 from the Democracy Fund in 2017 and $150,000 in 2019.
Future Perfect
Demand Progress has fought for net neutrality, against Internet censorship, and is a frequent voice in opposition to corporate power and the national security state.
Today, Demand Progress is shifting its mission to incorporate a more sweeping critique of the economic system, said Segal. “We have been able to open up this much broader economic critique, which, because of the power of the Internet platforms, now encompasses that, as well,” said Segal.
That fight will face challenges in the incoming Biden White House, Segal acknowledged, though there have been some encouraging signs from the transition team on appointments. Still, the “politics of the possible” is just that.
“I wish we were operating on a playing field where the breadth of some of the spectrum of possibilities was a little bit broader,” said Segal.
What Americans want
To that end, Demand Progress released a white paper in December aimed at the incoming Biden administration to make the case for a more just and responsive White House.
Citing polling showing majorities against corporate lobbyists and industry insiders working in the White House and regulatory agencies, Demand Progress claimed in the paper that the incoming president has a “rare opportunity to bridge the partisan divide by excluding corporate lobbyists and executives from his administration in favor of individuals committed to advancing the interests of working families.”
With broad support across party lines for an administration free of the influence of big money and for the closure of the revolving door between government and the private sector, Biden has a clear political win—if he wants to take it.
“Though there may exist a bipartisan consensus among the Washington elite that well-monied corporate interests deserve an even larger seat at the policy-making table, this attitude evidently does not extend beyond the Beltway,” the group said. “In a deeply divided country, something that voters across partisan lines can agree on is that the interests of working families, not corporate giants and their lobbyists on Capitol Hill, should be prioritized in the cabinet composition process.”
