Coalition architects reflect on Jackson’s model
Donna Brazile, a former chair of the Democratic National Committee who began her career as an organizer on Jackson’s 1984 presidential campaign, said the challenge now mirrors the one Jackson himself navigated in building the original coalition.
“What Reverend planted in American politics were seeds that continue to blossom and bloom,” Brazile said.
Brazile recalled that Jackson understood early that a coalition anchored solely in Black political empowerment could not win. “Reverend told us straight up that our patch was not big enough,” she said. “Reverend began shifting his rhetoric from Black empowerment to speak to any of those who didn’t have a seat at the table.”
On the current divide between progressives and moderates — a conflict Brazile witnessed from the center during the contested 2016 Democratic primary between Hillary Clinton and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders — she drew on the culinary language Jackson himself favored.
“Reverend understood that you needed a roux,” Brazile said. “In gumbo, you need the seasoning of those who came before but every now and then you also need some new salt. We have to coexist. The moderates need the progressives, and the progressives need the moderates. That’s the dance of American politics.”
Progressive wing looks to Jackson’s moral framework
Rev. William Barber, a minister who co-chairs the Poor People’s Campaign — a movement calling for economic justice — and identified himself as a longtime Jackson mentee, said progressives should treat Trump’s second term as an opportunity to reorient the party around a bolder agenda rooted in Jackson’s example.
“He served to challenge the party as a moral leader,” Barber said. “He didn’t spend time saying what he was against. He spent all of his time talking about what he was for.”
Barber said activists, clergy, and progressive lawmakers plan to convene strategy sessions soon to adapt Jackson’s approach to the current political climate. He pointed to Jackson’s 1988 campaign message as directly applicable.
“Anyone serious about taking on the extremism we see going on now in Congress and general assemblies and the presidency needs to grab onto the vision that was expressed in 1988 because it is so necessary in this moment,” Barber said.
Pragmatist wing stresses problem-solving over ideology
Others who knew Jackson cautioned against reading him as a purely ideological figure. Steven Benjamin, the first Black mayor of Columbia, South Carolina, a former senior adviser to President Joe Biden, and a member of the board of trustees of Third Way — a moderate public policy think tank — argued that Jackson’s effectiveness stemmed as much from his pragmatism as from his politics.
“He was incredibly progressive. But he was even more so pragmatic. He was a problem solver,” Benjamin said.
Benjamin argued that Democrats should find areas of agreement across their ideological divides without abandoning core values. “I would tell all those who may consider themselves somewhere under the Democratic banner that we’ve got to find ways to coalesce around central values and never compromising those values,” he said. “Everything else, you have to find ways to be thoughtful and pragmatic about how to actually solve problems.”
Listening as electoral strategy
Democratic strategist Antjuan Seawright said the most transferable quality from Jackson’s approach was his willingness to genuinely hear from the communities he sought to represent.
“We have to learn, as Reverend Jackson and others of his day did so effectively, to listen more than we talk,” Seawright said. “We have to show up and hear from folks about what their priorities are, instead of showing up, telling people what we think their priority should be.”
Party leaders said the debate over coalition strategy is expected to sharpen as Democrats brace for contested primary fights in the run-up to the 2028 presidential election.