Vote Trump Out, Then Hold Biden Accountable—that’s the name of RootsAction’s most recent campaign. Having successfully achieved the first part of its goal, RootsAction is now focusing on the second part.

As a nonprofit advocacy group, RootsAction seeks to organize progressives and other politically active individuals in order to hold politicians accountable. It was founded in 2011 by progressive activists and journalists Norman Solomon and Jeff Cohen. At the end of its first year, RootsAction had 100,000 members. Now, its numbers have swelled to 1.2 million. 

“We’ve done that through being very multi-issue,” said Solomon. 

Its work includes challenges to corporate power, institutionalized racism, fossil fuels and the prison-industrial complex. “We started because we felt that while progressives had already developed a lot of already good news and information and analysis sites on the web, there wasn’t a parallel force that was action-oriented,” explained Solomon. 

One of the key priorities for RootsAction has been maintaining independence from the Democratic party, which it sees as crucial, given one of its stated goals is to hold politicians of all political parties accountable. As a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization, RootsAction—whose legal name is Action for a Progressive Future—relies on donations from its members and the general public. Its total revenue fluctuates from year to year. In 2016, its total revenue was $163,675. In 2017, its revenue increased to $387,129 while decreasing to $114,682 in 2018. In 2019, its total revenue was approximately $173,000, according to tax filings. 

RootsAction also has a 501(c)(3) arm called the Roots Action Education Fund, which works to educate the public on issues like economic fairness, equal rights, civil liberties, environmental protection and moving from a war-based foreign policy to one based on nonviolent conflict resolution.

Responsibility for action 

According to RootsAction, progressives have two main responsibilities: to oppose the right-wing—“the racists, the xenophobes, the nativists, the misogynists, the corporatists who put profits ahead of human well-being,” according to Solomon—but also to fight for a progressive agenda and progressive policies like the Green New Deal and Medicare for All. 

“And we need to do both at once,” he said, later adding, “I think it’s a responsibility of progressives, both in terms of moral position and ability to win elections nationally, to insist that progressive populism is not just some theory. It’s imperative.”

That’s exactly what RootsAction has attempted to do. Solomon explained that the organization was first and foremost focused on ensuring Trump wasn’t re-elected. Initially, RootsAction threw its support behind Sen. Bernie Sanders (Solomon was a pledged delegate for Sanders in both 2016 and 2020). 

“After Biden gained the nomination, we recognized that the only way to defeat Trump would be to, in swing states, for people to vote for Biden for that purpose,” said Solomon.

Vote Trump out

RootsAction has had a lot of success thus far. As part of its Vote Trump Out campaign, itn galvanized its efforts with voters in the key swing states of Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin—all of which Biden ultimately won. 

RootsAction’s Vote Trump Out campaign worked to mobilize voters by persuading those who were hesitant about Biden that voting Trump out was a “moral responsibility.”

This was done through a robust social media campaign and built on RootsAction’s 1.2-million-user email list. 

Additionally, RootsAction offered toolkits, both national and those focused on swing states. The toolkits included sample tweets, posts, endorsements, graphics and illustrations. At the same time, RootsAction also worked to help re-elect all four members of “the squad”—Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar and Ayanna Pressley. 

Challenge Biden 

Having successfully helped defeat Trump, RootsAction is now turning its attention to pressuring Biden and other Democrats to adopt progressive policies. “I think it’s necessary for progressives to hold our ground,” Solomon said. “If we make concessions, then we lose the moral authority and the grassroots momentum that is really the wave of the future.”

He pointed to Democrats’ congressional losses and their failure to gain a majority in the Senate as evidence that a moderate approach doesn’t resonate with voters. “We think in the long run that actually it’s much more effective to challenge the right-wing by taking a progressive-populist approach and doing the political organizing to give it power from the grassroots,” he added. 

According to Solomon, RootsAction policy priorities for the upcoming Biden administration include addressing climate change, income inequality, structural racism, rampant militarism, immigrant rights, civil liberties and progressive tax reform. Additionally, RootsAction advocates for “healthcare as a human right”—a policy idea that is especially relevant given the current COVID-19 pandemic. 

In order to achieve its goal of holding Biden accountable and pushing him left, RootsAction looks to build coalitions with other movement groups and support progressive activism. In particular, it will work to organize and place grassroots pressure on congressional Democrats. 

Recently, RootsAction scored a major victory. After weeks of publicly-pressuring Biden not to nominate Michele Flournoy as Secretary of Defense, who was largely seen as the frontrunner for the position, Biden chose instead to nominate Lloyd Austin. RootsAction, along with a coalition of other progressive groups, had promised to launch a grassroots campaign against Flournoy had she been nominated.

This is just one example of the kind of pressure RootsAction seeks to put on Biden and his administration.

“We believe that constituent activism that focuses on elected representatives can significantly change the political terrain,” said Solomon. “Of course this is easier said than done. This is a very complicated country, and there are some very deep-seated reactionary forces that we’re going to have to always be challenging.”

RootsAction has now launched a new campaign called No Honeymoon, which will focus on challenging Biden and pushing for a progressive agenda. Among its issues of focus are canceling student debt, ending wars, racial justice and universal healthcare.