Practical Radicals

In this, our final episode of the Practical Radicals Podcast, we hear from over a dozen progressive leaders, including several former students, and reflect with them about what we’ve learned since the book  Practical Radicals  came out last November and what we make of the path ahead — as the U.S. and the world face a daunting and overlapping set of crises. We offer thoughts on the seven strategy...

Most famous guides to strategy are written for overdogs. (Think of Machiavelli’s The Prince or Sun Tzu’s Art of War. ) And overdogs today invest in strategic education at a scale that dwarfs anything on the left. Their commitment is captured in the slogan of the right-wing Leadership Institute, which has trained over 200,000 people: “You owe it to your philosophy to learn how to win.”  In research...

In the struggle to abolish slavery — the social movement that arguably set the template for all that followed — organizers used all seven strategies we identify in Practical Radicals . According to our guest, historian Manisha Sinha , the abolitionists were “radical in their goals . . . but pragmatic in implementation” — the quintessential practical radicals. Stephanie and Deepak begin this episod...

Underdogs often respond to systemic oppression through collective care – acts of mutual aid and cooperation with the goal of meeting people’s basic survival needs when the state fails to do so. Some people feel collective care is just what we should do as decent human beings, but that it isn’t a strategy for systemic social change. Others are more critical, noting that collective care can turn peo...

Sometimes social movements can spread like wildfire. From the sit-ins of the Civil Rights movement to the sea change in support for marriage equality, from the divestment campaign to end apartheid in South Africa to the climate justice movement winning the largest climate bill in history (2022’s Inflation Reduction Act) — the strategy model known as Momentum has proven powerful time and time again...

In the right circumstances, progressive groups can work with progressive insiders in government to win big policy changes. In this episode, we consider “inside-outside campaigns,” including what makes them possible and some of the inevitable tensions that they create, for example about when and how to compromise when a coalition doesn’t have enough power to win all its demands. Stephanie and Deepa...

Episode 7: Electoral Strategies with Maurice Mitchell Many progressives are cynical about electoral politics. But our guest today explains why engaging in electoral politics is crucial for building the kind of society we want. Maurice Mitchell is the National Director of the Working Families Party , a savvy, independent political organization that has given progressives greater voice and leverage...

In the past two decades, progressives have gotten far more savvy at the strategy we call “narrative shift,” learning how to challenge the dominant story and change the common sense on key issues. For example, on same-sex marriage, activists drove a sea change in public sentiment — from 27% support in 1996 to 71% in 2023. And research shows that Occupy Wall Street, which some criticized as a “blip,...

In this episode, we explore the strategy of disruption and talk with one of its leading theorists and practitioners, the legendary scholar and activist Frances Fox Piven. Stephanie and Deepak begin by distinguishing protest from disruption, two types of action that are often confused. They consider famous instances of disruption, like the mass actions on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation that b...

In the Spring of 2021, dozens of immigrant New Yorkers, mostly women, launched a hunger strike that lasted 23 days and was the climax of a campaign to win an unprecedented $2.1 billion relief package for workers who had been excluded from unemployment benefits, federal stimulus checks, and rent relief. At the time, many thought the campaign’s demands were out of reach, but as our guests Ángeles So...

To succeed, any social movement needs people power. And, as the great Ella Baker preached, that takes a lot of slow, respectful work to forge relationships — what she called “spadework.” Base-building is the first of the “seven strategies to change the world” that we elaborate on in our book Practical Radicals . And base-building is so important that all of the other six strategies depend on it. S...

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King famously said, “Power without love is reckless and abusive, and . . . love without power is sentimental and anemic.” But many on the left seem allergic to power. This episode starts with a fundamental question: What is power?  Drawing on the influential sociologists Michael Mann and Erik Olin Wright, Stephanie and Deepak present a novel typology, identifying six for...

Progressives need a strategy upgrade, and this episode points the way, first by delving into one of the greatest victories of the civil rights movement and the strategic masterstroke of Rev. Wyatt T. Walker. Next, we talk with Maria Poblet, Executive Director of the Grassroots Power Project , who argues that “the way strategy is being developed in progressive movements now in the United States is...

Deepak and Stephanie welcome listeners and give a preview of some organizers and thinkers who will appear in future episodes: Maurice Mitchell of the Working Families Party, longtime progressive activist Ilyse Hogue, legendary activist and scholar Frances Fox Piven, and historian Manisha Sinha. You can buy the book and find out more about the show at www.practicalradicals.org