Paul Engler

Social movements provide a unique mechanism for responding, creating common identity and purpose between strangers and allowing genuine, collective participation in building a better democracy. There is no better antidote to hopelessness than action in community.

Creating a trigger event and a moment of the whirlwind — a period in which social movements capture the political spotlight in a country in a major way and shift the terms of public debate — is a rare and important accomplishment.

Although there are limits to what groups engaging in disruptive action can control, the five factors of polarization provide guideposts for anticipating how a protest may be received and how they can work to shape this response.

We need something else that can speak to working-class people across race and region. The Democrats aren’t going to do it. We need to be out there trying to win people over, not to win the left over.

Resolving the conflict between being visionary and being pragmatic is critical for those who want to transform society.

Social movements are stronger when they sing. That’s a lesson that has been amply demonstrated throughout history, and it’s one that I have learned personally in working to develop trainings for activists over the past decade and a half.