After living through a 40-year neo-liberal dystopia with increasing income inequality and decreasing class mobility, the two party system is under mounting stress. Barry Eidlin, Assistant Professor of Sociology at McGill University, discusses the weakness of class-based political appeals in the U.S. and why there has been no labor or viable mass progressive third party to date in the United States.
Jacob Swenson-Lengyel, Deputy Communications Director of People's Action, talks about the upcoming People's Summit in Chicago where Bernie Sanders supporters will gather to discuss how to continue and deepen the political revolution that's been sparked during the 2016 campaign season.
Jason Schulman, a co-editor of New Politics magazine, argues that the movement to elect Sanders represents the best opportunity to build a much larger socialist movement—and hopefully a split from the Democratic Party that results in an independent leftist party—that we’ve seen in generations. To make that party a reality, ironically enough, meant getting involved in this Democratic Party presidential campaign.
Adam Guillette, a lead organizer for the Sanders campaign in Plattsburgh, NY, explains what drives his volunteering. "How does change happen?" Guillette said. "It's not politicians. It's usually from the bottom up -- a social movement.” Adam is part of a new generation of youthful activists that is forming its political identity, an identity shaped by experiences in Occupy, the social movements, and the Sanders campaign. We may be seeing a radicalization that will last long after this election.
Ashley Smith argues that while the Sanders campaign has begun to bring together a new mass left-wing constituency, this can either be dissipated and demoralized through the Democratic Party, or salvaged and built upon through independence from it. Ashley argues for the need to present concrete alternatives to voting for the "lesser evil", i.e. Clinton v.