Keith Ellison Should Run for President in 2028

The key to winning is uniting the Bernie and Obama voters behind a real pro-worker populist agenda and a seasoned political leader with ties to both labor and the civil rights community.

Feb 21, 2025

I’m republishing this as the new DNC chair, Ken Martin, starts his tour. He was backed by fellow Minnesotan Keith Ellison in his bid for chair even though most of the leadership in the Democratic Party sabotaged Ellison’s candidacy when he ran for chair in 2017. Imagine if Biden, Obama, and the Clintons realized after Trump’s first election in 2016 that the people actually wanted more of a break with the status quo, not less. They wanted more of what Obama, the insurgent candidate, promised and represented in 2008—disruption, change, and a challenge to the two-party consensus for war and Wall Street. They wanted to move forward with leaders like Bernie Sanders and Keith Ellison, not backwards with neocon corporate Democrats like Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden (the old guard Obama ran against and defeated). I’m not holding my breath that the DNC will be able to free itself of its dependence and subordination to its donor class, but the fact that Ken Martin was not their candidate is a good sign. Let's hope he at least tries to undo the damage that was done by the big donors, experts, consultants, and corporate Democrats who don’t have a clue what ordinary working and middle-class Americans want, let alone where and how they live.

Keith Ellison Should Run for President in 2028

The key to winning and rebuilding a national movement is uniting the Bernie and Obama voters behind a real pro-worker populist agenda and a seasoned political leader with ties to both labor and the civil rights community.

We are in another ludicrous post-election season with pundits and prognosticators turning themselves inside out with recriminations, finger pointing and self-serving self-reflections.

The stark divide between establishment Democrats, liberals and progressives on the way forward has been as predictable as it is laughably imbecilic.

The status quo morning Joe types blame the “woke left” and call for a more “moderate” approach which usually means a white male candidate who is reliably pro-business, pro-putting Black people in jail, pro-war but never declares or asks for preferred pronouns. [1]

But it’s the proposals from the progressive wing (or to the progressive wing) that have been the most baffling and brainless. Many are rightly crediting Bernie Sanders as the true and now vindicated standard-bearer of anything like a viable and compelling populist left that could have eclipsed Trump’s anti-establishment message and program. Too bad he was cheated in 2016 and outmaneuvered in 2020, but now (they say) he’s just too damn old. But the names that have been bounced around as his possible successors have been as ridiculous as they are certain to be disastrous if any were seriously pursued. These boneheaded proposals include amateur boutique leftists like Cenk Uygur, Kyle Kulinski, or defeated Squad members from urban districts like Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman. [2] There’s even been a bizarre and deeply misguided call by some for an anti-Trump celebrity, including the funny but hopelessly naive comedian, Jon Stewart. [3]

Senator Sanders' age is the least of his weaknesses. Bernie at 83 is probably still the best national leader to lead the Sanders wing of the Democratic Party (just as Trump at 79 is the guy to lead the Trump wing for the next four years). The problem is that the Sanders wing isn’t big enough now, especially since the Democrats will likely face a far more decidedly populist Republican opponent in 2028 bent on peeling off more labor support and more Black and brown votes along with the remainder of the white working class.

His weaknesses today are the same weaknesses that halted his momentum in his past two presidential bids. It's not just that he was cheated and outmaneuvered; it's that he let himself be cheated and outmaneuvered. His justifiable and endearing contempt for the establishment too often got confused with a self-defeating disdain for institutions. Barack Obama fought to steal the Black church, Congressional Black Caucus members, and leaders of Black networks and associations away from the Clintons, splitting and eventually destroying their most reliable bastion of defense in a Democratic primary. Bernie famously told Rachel Maddow in 2020 that he didn't even bother to meet with and ask the powerful dean of the Black Caucus, James Clyburn, for his support because “Jim is a very nice guy,” but “his politics are not my politics.”^[4]

And while Sanders was a far more pro-union senator and candidate than Barack Obama, it was Obama who did more to deny the Clintons that critical institutional support by using his friends in Chicago and in the Black labor movement to strong-arm their internationals into delaying (and in some cases denying altogether) [5] what was supposed to be an automatic Clinton endorsement.

The point here is not to criticize Bernie Sanders, who ran a historic and inspiring populist campaign, fueled not by his personality but by the very evident and visible authenticity he portrayed as a fierce opponent of the ruling corporate elite and his willingness to name and attack them. When Bernie left the field, it was Trump (not Biden or Harris) who stepped into the populist breach created by widening inequality and a corrupt two-party system.

The criteria for identifying a new leader to carry on what Bernie started should start not with personalities, platforms, or celebrity, but with politics. Steve Bannon, in a fascinating interview with PBS in 2017, [6] explained how he was “constantly” looking for “the guy” after he and his allies had already determined there was a hunger for an anti-free trade, anti-immigration, anti-interventionist, right-wing populist movement to take over the Republican Party. Trump was hardly his first choice. ^[7]

Our search should borrow from Bannon, as he did from us, when he recognized that both Obama and Bernie were appealing to many of the same economic anxieties, disdain for elites, and exhaustion with war that he wanted to leverage in 2016—and did. Bannon seemed to understand better than most liberals today that Obama also ran as a populist and was clearly the insurgent spoiler—regardless of how you think he governed. And unlike Bernie, he won. And unlike Trump, he was the first insurgent in modern history to defy and defeat his own party’s ruling establishment and then crash the gates of the White House. Trump was the second. Obama won because, just like Sanders and Trump, he not only ran against the establishment; he ran against the same pro-war, pro-free trade, pro-Wall Street establishment candidate—Hillary Clinton.

The goal of progressives should not be to defend the establishment or ensure that the Democratic Party allows them a “seat at the table.”. The objective should be to retake the populist mantle from Trump and Trumpism. That means a national campaign that is prepared to go it alone. Not necessarily as an independent run, but certainly not expecting the blessing or even a promise of shared power with the establishment Democrats. Let them choose a corporate, pro-war, “moderate” white guy. Good luck to them.

This may sound scary to some progressives, but look at the recent history. The establishment wing of the Democratic Party has sold out, cheated, and betrayed the progressive wing, and Bernie in particular, time and time again. They have shown they are more willing to hand the White House over to Trump than someone like Bernie Sanders. And what is the danger of leaving and antagonizing the donor wing of the corporate Democrats? Trump has shown they are a paper tiger. They are incompetent, inept, and completely out of touch with ordinary Americans and American politics. Their massive infrastructure of donors, media allies, pollsters, analysts, communications experts, and celebrities has been exposed as a fragile house of cards. Even much of their ground game is based on a failed demographic analysis and a conflicted political strategy that prioritizes affluent, white Niki Haley/Liz Cheney Republicans over suburban Black and working-class voters. Any alliance with them is a liability because voters really hate them. Even most Democrats. So, what do you got to lose?

And the formula to retake the populist mantle is not all that complicated. We need to unite the Bernie voters with the Obama voters. Those numbers by themselves add up to a win. But that coalition would need to be fused together with the right candidate and around a more coherent and consistent populist agenda than the one that Trump and Bannon are claiming. And it would need to be bolstered with as much institutional support as possible from all sectors of the labor movement and from Black networks and institutions, including the Black church, civil rights groups, and Black elected leaders across the country. Progressives’ aversion to working through institutions often reflects a discomfort and unease with power. Individual donors and even millions of voters on social media platforms, databases, and spreadsheets are not power if they are not organized through institutions. We have all seen too many times that when the political winds change, they evaporate.

Keith Ellison served in Congress as the first Muslim American and co-chair of the Progressive Caucus. He clearly checks some good boxes if our criteria come from the failed identity politics of the pronoun progressive crowd. Far more important is that he was a member of the Black Caucus [8], with deep ties and strong relationships with members and leaders from that important and powerful network. And he founded the Congressional Antitrust Caucus and the Congressional Consumer Justice Caucus. His record on labor is considered one of the best, and union leaders from all sectors of the labor movement remember him as a reliable and loyal champion and friend. He has broad appeal. When he first served in Congress, he was the only Black member to win and represent a majority white district. When he left Congress, he ran for and almost won the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee, not just as a progressive but explicitly as the Bernie Sanders candidate after the 2016 election disaster. ^[9]

He went on to run and get elected statewide as Minnesota's Attorney General—the “people’s lawyer”—where” he fought unscrupulous banks and predatory lenders and in 2021 successfully prosecuted Derek Chauvin. And while that high profile case was handled with professionalism and without an ounce of spite, rancor or self-righteousness, he was viciously attacked with racist ads accusing him of being anti-cop and pro criminal. The ads were not paid for by police unions seeking to avenge Chauvin but by big banks, pharmaceuticals, and energy companies seeking to prevent the reelection of an attorney general who had threatened to sue them.[10]

Ellison is not the perfect candidate any more than Trump was Bannon’s idea of the perfect guy to drive his vision. “I just remember him as a guy that was bankrupt all the time.”. Ellison has some baggage. But he’s been tested, and he’s far more seasoned and mature than anyone else in the Squad, the podcast space, or Comedy Central. Moreover, he has broad appeal. He is the first Black leader to win statewide in Minnesota. Like Obama, he didn’t win statewide despite being Black; he made it an asset. But unlike Obama, he ran and won as a Black, Sanders-aligned crusader for workers and consumers and against corporate greed and corruption. And unlike the Squad members, his electoral coalition is not activists and urban voters; he has been running and winning in hundreds of blue-collar and middle-class suburbs and rural communities since he was in the state legislature. And he knows the Midwest. He is representing a near-swing state today, but he is from Detroit, Michigan.

Ellison has the relationships and credibility to unite the Bernie wing with the labor movement and the deep networks of Black middle and working-class institutional support that was so important to Obama. Not all at first, but he can peel off more than anyone else. There is growing frustration among these groups with the mainstream corporate Democrats and a willingness to look elsewhere. Moreover, these two strains of institutional working-class constituencies (labor and Black civil rights) overlap powerfully and especially today with the emergence of 5 Black international union presidents who, as a block, intend to wield enormous power within the broader labor movement. [11]

The good news is that Trump has made the world safe for populism. It’s time to take it back. The opportunity is now before Trump and J. D. Vance can expand their coalition. Even if they are sincere (and I believe they are) about continuing to remake the Republican Party as a multi-racial working-class coalition, they will be slowed by Mitch McConnell and obstacles from their establishment wing and their own MAGA ranks that are so filled with contradictions and conflicts of interest. But I would never underestimate them, and neither would Keith. I would close by reminding the reader of a scene from an ABC News panel in July of 2015 when then Representative Ellison was mocked and hysterically laughed at by two very establishment pundits, George Stephanopoulos and the New York Times now in-house Trump expert Maggie Haberman, when Ellison said of Trump, “This man has got some momentum,” warning, “We’d better be ready for the fact that he might be leading the Republican ticket."[12]

Keith Ellison Should Run for President in 2028

The key to winning is uniting the Bernie and Obama voters behind a real pro-worker populist agenda and a seasoned political leader with ties to both labor and the civil rights community.

Keith Ellison Should Run for President in 2028

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