The left builds power in Congress
In textbooks, speeches and the popular imagination, the U.S. is a democracy accountable to the people. Yet recent coverage of the negotiations surrounding the Biden administration’s Build Back Better Act has focused on just two people: Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), a one-time social worker turned proud hater of the working poor. But behind the scenes, as a result of mass organizing on the left, progressives are wielding power in new ways…