Seeds of a movement: A 21st century Populist renewal is flourishing at America's grassroots

• Since last April, for example, a broad coalition of hardy North Carolinians has been braving arrest as part of their continuing series of "Moral Monday" protests against the GOP legislature's ceaseless attacks on voters, labor, women, students, the poor, and the unemployed.
  
  
• Even in our corporatized Congress, a growing Progressive Caucus, directly connected to grassroots activists groups, is pushing bold, populist solutions and directly confronting the corporate interests. Such lawmakers as Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, for example, are reversing the conventional Washington discussion on "how much to cut" people's programs and calling for expansions of Social Security and an extension of Medicare to all Americans.
  
  
• The pulpit has steadily been enlarging its concerns beyond fire-and-brimstone broadsides that demonize LGBT and ostracize all who would permit a woman's right to choose. Major evangelical super churches now embrace environmentalism (and confront human-induced climate change) and give priority to meeting the needs of the poor and our declining middle class. In a happy surprise, the globe has been given a forceful new moral voice against the "idolatry of money" and the "new tyranny" of unfettered capitalism: Pope Francis.

The challenge of 2014

Musical poet Leonard Cohen sings a deep, rhythmic anthem titled "Democracy Is Coming to the USA." Democracy is coming, but it will not arrive as a mystical, inevitable force but as the result of hard pulling by good people who are (1) committed over the long haul to America's democratic ideals, (2) willing to confront today's powerful plutocracy head on, and (3) ready to do the serious groundwork of organizing a viable Populist movement.

If you're looking for an example of this in politics, check out the under-reported successes of the Working Families Party. The WFP is a savvy and aggressive democratic organization whose members, organizers, and voters were the populist force behind Bill de Blasio's landslide victory in November's New York City mayor's race. Running on a boldly progressive platform focused on the issues of widening inequality and the hollowing out of the middle class, de Blasio and WFP won a stunning 73 percent of the vote. Working Families candidates also doubled the party's membership on the City council and won three other citywide positions.

While the rejection of business-as-usual politics in this huge city seemed to "come out of nowhere," it was the fruit of more than a decade of recruiting, training, developing, and steadily moving up top-quality candidates who champion populist ideals and ideas.

The elements of a full-fledged Populist movement are out there, and they are moving. As we enter a new year, the moment is ripe to bond them into something larger.