To be honest, I had low expectations going into the Thursday night launch of the new American Dream Movement headed by Van Jones and MoveOn.org. Now, I love me some Van Jones. Personally, he’s been a good friend, and politically, I think he’s one of the most compelling voices of our generation.

But launching a national mass movement is a heavy lift, especially if you seem to be trying to do so as one charismatic guy putting on a fairly top-down stage show in midtown Manhattan.

Yet, it turns out that’s not what Van and Co. are trying to do. Once I understood their goals and strategy, I left the event a good deal more inspired and at least a smidge less cynical.

In fact, Van and Co. don’t want to reinvent the left. That’s not to say it couldn’t use reinventing…but the American Dream Movement is actually something much more simple, even modest. The premise is that movement is already happening. Wisconsin. DREAM Act protests. Actions against the greedy big banks. For lack of a more pacifist metaphor, there are already thousands of battles for justice — big and small and in-between — being waged all across our nation. But what the left has failed to do is cohere those battles under a shared banner of a common war.

This is Jones’ essential analysis of what the Tea Party did right : They joined their otherwise disparate gripes and, in their case, relatively small public mobilizations into a recognizable, larger force through the power of branding. There were anti-tax and anti-government protests before 2009, but you barely heard about them until Rick Santelli shouted about Tea Parties on television and, almost overnight, a movement identity was born.

Van Jones, who in his speech Thursday night evoked both his own father and his own two children, wants to play a similarly paternalistic role in today’s progressive movement for change.

But can he? Or, put another way, will we let him?

On its face, the American Dream Movement is very compelling. Jones combines a sharp, populist economic critique with the highest ideals of optimism and justice embodied in patriotism and hope. America isn’t broke; we were robbed. Wall Street and big business have our money, and now we want it back, to rebuild the middle class and the American Dream. Van delivers this message with a soulfulness, a humor, a passion and a punch that’s hard to match. But, of course, that strength is also a weakness — can the American Dream Movement stand on a million feet, not just Van’s?

Originally, I had thought Van intended to go straight to the people and build his own base — think MoveOn on methamphetamine. But as I understand it now, Van wants to inspire existing progressive organizations with existing political power and cache to wrap themselves in the American Dream flag — not necessarily changing the work they do, but changing how they talk about it to use the American Dream framing and branding. There’s some evidence this could happen. I gather that, upon learning about Van’s new vision in the early stages, the Campaign for America’s Future called up MoveOn and basically offered to rebrand its signature “Take Back America” conference to be christened “Take Back the American Dream.” And pollsters tell me that language around reclaiming or rebuilding the American Dream tests very well across all populations. That’s something.

Yet overall, the success of the American Dream Movement depends on the willingness of progressive organizations and leaders to glom onto Van’s message. And progressives, in general, aren’t known for glomming on. Maybe it’s because we’re free thinking, anti-hierarchical types who like to create things ourselves. Maybe it’s because funders prod us to compete with each other and, thus, have our discrete, self-identified projects and wins. Maybe it’s because, after listening to George Lakoff and the like for years, we’ve all become over-invested in our own messaging and branding projects and want the one we came up with to be the solution. Or maybe it’s because we’re overly analytical or even cynical, too busy dissecting any solution as imperfect to be enthusiastic about the good parts.

Whatever the reason, Van and Co. have to simultaneously demonstrate their concept’s stickiness while persuading the gatekeepers of existing progressive power (such as it is) that it is stuck without their help. I applaud Van Jones and MoveOn for trying. It’s audacious. It’s inspiring. And we need to be trying things and hoping they succeed rather than hedging our bets and presuming failure. If Van’s plan works, we could have the vast majority of Americans humming the same tune of frustration with our present and singing a hymn of deep hope for justice in our future.

But even if it doesn’t work, just getting the left interested in perusing and arguing about a common, visionary theme would be a great opening note.

Sally Kohn is a community organizer and political commentator. She is the Founder and Chief Education Officer of the Movement Vision Lab. Read her full HV archive here. Follow her on Twitter.