Episode 1.21: After Bern: Progressive Activist Winnie Wong on the Future of a Movement

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. Bernie Sanders has twice failed to win the nomination for President, but in the process has transformed the policies and politics of the Democratic party. WINNIE WONG, a founding organizer of Occupy Wall Street, a co-founder of People for Bernie 2016, and a senior adviser to the Sanders 2020 campaign, urges that these transformations should be pushed further, even as the nomination has been clinched by a moderate. In her discussion with political scientist Matthew Berkman, Wong looks back at what she felt at the time were strategic missteps by Sanders, while emphasizing strengths of the campaign that the mainstream media has been reluctant to acknowledge. Her focus, however, is on the perils and promise of the current moment: a public health and economic crisis that calls for bold policies to protect the public welfare; a Democratic candidate attempting to rally the party, including its left wing; and a progressive movement that, without Sanders as a unifying figure, risks becoming the "wild west."