RevolutionZ
RevolutionZ
Ep 363 WCF: Chapters Are Essential
Episode 363 of RevolutionZ as its main focus continues with another excerpt from the Oral History titled The Wind Cries Freedom. The episode opens, however, with a comment on our place and our times following on Mamdani's remarkable victory and Steve Bannon's call for Republicans to take over all institutions or face jail in about a year. In the struggle for institutions, for us to act as though Trump and Co. are now wielding a mighty force that is targeted at each and every one of us, ready and able to trounce us each now, in our workplaces, schools, and homes— for us to believe that exaggeration, and in response to be so security conscious that we curtail ourselves to avoid attracting their assault, that approach will do their work for them. That response from us will give them what they are racing to gain but which they do not now have. Our resignation. We have to fight back, not hunker down.
The episode then takes a second side route to present the lyrics of four specially chosen songs. Time to get up stand up, imagine, escape the badlands, and bring our ship in. Finally, hopefully roused a bit, we return to the oral history. This time the interviewer, Miguel Guevara questions two interviewees who we have already met, Mayor Bill Hampton and academic activist Andre Goldman about RPS first forming chapters and thereby getting real.
We see, in the oral history's time, how real chapters of their Revolutionary Participatory Society organization formed, grew, and spread to multiply power without losing heart. We see RPS's scaffolding for durable organizing that started around kitchen tables and scaled to a national federation—including the role of its weekly meetings, balanced roles, internal culture, local campaigns, and outreach as strategy.
Bill Hampton walks us through the early steps after their founding convention: setting a growth trigger for action, launching local campaigns at twenty members, and using those campaigns to reach forty to fifty members and then divide and double the chapter count. He explains how strategic recruitment, chapters sharing their innovations peer to peer, intramural sports, open classes, and street theater plus initial activist campaigns all emphasized growth and roads to member leadership. He shows us what “invite, don’t preach” looks like when stakes are high. He gets concrete on accountability, patience, a culture that welcomes rather than filters, and a movement that emphasizes flexible growth not static self defense.
Andre Goldman next adds the educator’s lens, including how he in his chapter and others throughout the organization worked to pair internal education with external actions through organizing schools that trained people to listen across difference, to frame demands without needless polarization, and to teach others to do the same. He tackles hard truths about gender, race, and class after Trumpism and why being morally right doesn’t guarantee strategic effectiveness. Miguel questions how RPS split chapters without drama, added supports like childcare and modest dues, and dealt with interpersonal conflicts by designing structures that contained heat without dimming the mission.
In short, with eyes on early chapter building, this episode continues the agenda of The Wind Cries Freedom, to convey what it might look like to not only block and terminate Trumpism but to continue on beyond that to achieve a fundamentally better world. And that is why RevolutionZ is devoting so many episodes to conveying the current draft of Miguel's oral history to you. To contribute to confidence, strategy, and vision in a congenial and personal way. And, hopefully, to get some feedback to help with additional improvements to the book.
Hello, my name is Michael Albert, and I'm the host of the podcast that's titled Revolution Z. This week we have another in our The Wind Cries Freedom series of episodes based on an oral history of the next American Revolution. Which history from the interviewee's world and time is conveyed to us via the book and via these podcast episodes. But first I'd like to interject a comment about our own world and our own time. You have perhaps seen that after Mamdani's recent win, Steve Bannon got a very got very explicit about his team's task. Seize the institutions. Do it now, do it urgently, do it mercilessly. If we don't do it we lose. We totally lose, Bannon urged. Bannon's values, his soul, is surely decrepit. Nothing there to emulate. Rather like Charlie Kirk, and of course, their malignant master in chief, Donald Trump. But Bannon does see one thing quite clearly. Trump, all his buddies, his puppet masters, his crew, and his team, who we can reasonably call the fascist brigade, need to consolidate their power to avoid being swept from the political stage into oblivion, or, in Bannon's prediction, swept from the political stage into jail. Put differently, there is in America a pivotal contest, a pivotal race underway. We are in it, like it or not. Will Trump and Coe, the billionaire fascist brigade, consolidate their control over effectively all societal institutions so as to exert unbridled state power, unbridled reactionary repressive power with no guardrails at all, so as to exert whatever violence they wish whenever they want, all to make our resistance and thus our lives far, far more difficult and to enrich themselves. Or will our resistance grow its support, grow its stamina, grow its diversity, grow its methods, and grow its agenda sufficiently to remove or to at least relegate the fascist agenda to irrelevance before they can fully entrench. This picture of a pivotal race, them versus us, us versus them is not paranoia. Bannon is right that that contest, that struggle, that race will determine our and our kids and perhaps the whole human species future. Who will win? When Bannon says to Trump, get tough, arrest and deport Mom Donnie as but one example, he means it. So we have to organize to win. But I want to note one caveat. Their aims are as bad as they repeatedly broadcast them to be. But that doesn't mean they have attained their aims. For us to act as though they are now wielding a mighty force that is targeted at each and every one of us, ready and able to trounce us now in our workplaces, schools and homes, for us to believe that exaggeration, and in response to be so security conscious that we curtail ourselves to avoid attracting their assault, that approach will do their work for them. That response from us will give them what they are racing to gain, but which do but which they do not now have our resignation. We need to instead do the opposite of hunkering down. We need to do the opposite of exaggerating their power. We need to openly and militantly confront and challenge Trump and his apparatus at every opportunity, not to duck and cover fearful of their exaggerated and if we struggle hard enough never to be attained maximal power. For us to cower is for us to lose. If we get up, stand up, we will win. The Wind Cries Freedom, on which a sequence of Revolution Z episodes is based, tries to convey what it might look like to not only block and terminate Trump, but to continue on beyond that to achieve a truly fundamentally better world. And that is why I am devoting many episodes to conveying its current draft of that oral history to you, to contribute to confidence, strategy, and vision in a congenial and personal way. But for this episode, before getting on with offering a new chapter, it has been quite a while since I have offered up some lyrics, and well, here are a few that might accompany this oral history's prose. The first is the favorite of a friend of mine who is not feeling well. It is by the Jamaican revolutionary Bob Morley. The lyrics go like this Get up, stand up, stand up for your right. Get up, stand up, stand up for your right. Get up, stand up, stand up for your right. Get up, stand up, don't give up the fight. Preacher man, don't tell me heaven is under the earth. I know you don't know what life is really worth. It's not all that glitter is gold. Half the story has never been told. So now you see the light. Ah, you stand up for your right. Get up stand up. Stand up for your right. Get up, stand up, don't give up the fight. Get up, stand up, stand up for your right. Get up, stand up, don't give up the fight. Most people think God will come from the sky. Take away everything and make everybody feel high. But if you know what life is worth, you would look for yours on earth. And now you see the light. You stand up for your right. Yeah. Get up, stand up, ya. Get up for stand up for your right. Get up, stand up, get up, stand up, don't give up the fight. Life is your right. Get up, stand up so we don't give up the fight. Stand up for your right. Lord, Lord, get up, stand up, keep on struggling on, don't give up the fight. We're sick and tired of your ism and schism game. Die and go to heaven in Jesus' name. Lord, we know and we understand. Almighty God is a living man. You can fool some people sometime, but you can't fool all the people all the time. So now we see the light. What you gonna do? We're gonna stand up for our right. Yeah yeah, yeah. So you'd better get up, stand up in the morning, don't give it up. Stand up for your right. Stand up right now. Get up, stand up. Don't give up the fight. Don't give it up. Don't give it up. Stand up, stand up, get up, stand up. Stand up for your right. Get up, stand up, get up, stand up, don't give up the fight. Get up, stand up. Get up, stand up, stand up for your right. Get up, stand up, don't give up the fight. Get up, stand up, stand up for your right. Get up, stand up, don't give up the fight. Get up, stand up. The second lyric for for today is from John Lennon. This one is not about rising up, but about what to rise up for. The Wind Cries Freedom goes much further into vision than John Lennon's song does, and into strategy too. But as songs go, this one, short as it is, has few peers. Imagine there's no heaven, it's easy if you try, no hell below us, above us only sky. Imagine all the people living for today. Ah, imagine there's no countries, it isn't hard to do, nothing to kill or die for, and no religion too. Imagine all the people living life in peace. You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us and the world will be as one. Imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can, no deed for greed or hunger, a brotherhood of man. Imagine all the people sharing all the world. You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us and the world will live as one. Third, here is one from Bruce Springsteen, conveying the spirit, at least to my eyes, that winning needs. Lights out tonight, trouble in the heartland, got a head on collision smashing in my guts, man. Caught in a crossfire that I don't understand, but there's one thing I know for sure, girl, I don't give a damn. For the same old played out scenes, I don't give a damn for just the in betweens. Honey, I want the heart, I want the soul, I want control right now. To talk about a dream, try to make it real. You wake up in the night with a fear so real. You spend your life waiting for a moment that just don't come. Well don't waste your time waiting. Badlands you gotta live it every day. Let the broken heart stand as the price you've gotta pay. Keep pushing till it's understood. These bad lands start treating us good. Working in the field you get your back burned. Working neath the wheels you get your facts learned. Baby I got my facts learned real good right now. You better get it straight, darling. Poor man want to be rich, rich man want to be king, and a king ain't satisfied till he rules everything. I want to go out tonight, I wanna find out what I got. Well I believe in the love that you gave me, I believe in the faith that could save me, I believe in the hope, and I pray that someday it may raise me above these bad lands. You gotta live it every day. Let the broken heart stand as the price you've gotta pay. Keep pushing till it's understood these bad lands start treating us good. Whoa whoa whoa whoa for the ones who had a notion, a notion deep inside, that it ain't no sin to be glad you're alive. I want to find one face that ain't looking through me. I want to find one place I want to spit in the face of these bad lands. You gotta live it every day, let the broken heart stand as the price you've got to pay. Keep pushing till it's understood, and these bad lands start treating us good. And finally, to conclude our brief musical interlude, I have a fourth from Dylan, and yes, I have done this one before, but well, it's my personal favorite. I guess all four, without leaving out all the lessons and personal accounts, have the same basic message as the Wind Cries Freedom. Get up, stand up, and imagine so that our ship comes in. Oh the time will come up when the winds will stop, and the breeze will cease to be breathing, like the stillness in the wind before the hurricane begins the hour that the ship comes in. And the seas will split and the ship will hit, and the sands on the shoreline will be shaken. Then the tide will sound, and the wind will pound, and the morning will be breaking. Oh the fishes will laugh as they swim out of the path, and the seagulls they'll be smiling, and the rocks on the sand will proudly stand the hour that the ship comes in. And the words that are used for to get the ship confused will not be understood as they're spoken, for the chains of the sea will have busted in the night and will be buried at the bottom of the ocean. A song will lift as the mainsail shifts and the boat drifts onto the shoreline, and the sun will respect every face on the deck the hour that the ship comes in. Then the sands will roll out a carpet of gold for your weary toes to be a touchin', and the ship's wise men will remind you once again that the whole wide world is watching. Oh the foes will rise with the sleep still in their eyes, and they'll jerk from their beds and think they're dreaming, but they'll pinch themselves and squeal and know that it's for real the hour that the ship comes in. Then they'll raise their hands saying we'll meet all your demands, but we'll shout from the bow your days are numbered, and like Pharaoh's tribe they'll be drowned in the tide, and like Goliath they'll be conquered. Okay, I hope roused a bit, let's get back to the oral history. This time the interviewer, Miguel Guivera, questions two interviewees who we have already met, Mayor Bill Hampton and academic activist Andre Goldman about RPS first forming chapters and thereby getting real. To start, Miguel asks Bill, recorded during a session in his office in Grace Mansion in New York City. Bill, as people left the initial convention, I imagine the key next step was forming chapters. Was that so? And why? When we walked out of that convention hall, there was a shared understanding, clear as day, that the success of RPS would hinge on strong, reliable chapters rooted in real relationships, trust, conversation, eye contact. We appreciated what technology could offer, of course, but we knew that nothing beats face to face connection. Our vision was to plant chapters in communities, on campuses and in workplaces. A chapter of ten folks was fine to start with, but we initially believed that a group of forty or fifty could go deeper, do more. And when the chapters reached that kind of scale, the idea was simple, divide, not in conflict, but in community, like a cell multiplying. One chapter would become two, each to grow again, then four, and so on, like the growth of a living organism. Let's say a single chapter first represented an entire campus or city or workplace. Over time it would grow and split naturally into chapters for dorms or neighborhoods, for departments or divisions, all still connected, all part of the same extended family. And as these local chapters matured, they'd form assemblies, and then over time those assemblies would be part of a broader federation. Now I won't oversimplify it. It was ambitious. Dreams like that often leap ahead of what's possible in the moment. But that's what RPS was about, not settling for what's easy, but aiming for what's necessary. We weren't here to tick off a few modest wins and pat ourselves on the back. We were here to imagine and build a whole new society. We knew we needed chapters to make that possible, to make RPS personal, real, participatory. Without chapters, we'd just be another online network, loose connections scattered across flashing screens. But with chapters, interleaked and rooted, we could cultivate shared purpose across distance and difference. Miguel asks, Can you tell us what the steps were and what difficulties occurred? Every case had its own flavor, but let me give you mine. After the convention I invited a group of friends over. We had dinner. I told them about the convention, what we had talked about, what it meant, what we wanted to do. I passed out some materials that explained RPS in broad strokes. I said, if you're interested, come back next week, let's keep talking. Was it a little assertive? Yeah, sure. A little idealistic? Maybe. But we weren't trying to form a book club. We were trying to change the world. That means not pressuring, not preaching, but inviting. And yes, sometimes the steps are slow, even boring. But movement work isn't always a march or a rally. Sometimes it's dinner around a kitchen table. Sometimes it's a quiet commitment to come back next week. Sometimes you have to push. Anyway, the first step went well. At our second meeting, twelve of us showed up. We joked about calling ourselves the dirty dozen until we realized we'd soon outgrow that name. We made some simple decisions, weekly meetings, Sunday nights dinner together, with the responsibility for food rotating. We added something extra too. An optional cultural gathering each week. Could be a film, a picnic, maybe a game of basketball. The goal was to build trust, to build joy, a real community. Now when it came time to decide what to do, that's when tensions arose. Some folks said we needed to get fluent in RPS's ideas before anything else. Learn the vision, practice the language. Others felt that was too slow. They said we've talked enough, let's hit the ground, join a campaign or start a new one. We could have argued in circles, but instead we compromised. We agreed that once we reached twenty members, less than doubling our current number, we'd launch our own campaign even as we kept recruiting. That way we'd be learning, building, and acting at the same time. Turns out momentum was with us. It only took a couple of weeks to hit that mark. We grew to forty before long, thanks in part to the energy around our early campaigns. And at that point we split into two chapters. From there, growth continued. Miguel asks, What two campaigns did you settle on? And how did you get people to work well together when they hadn't seriously known one another earlier and had so many differences among them? Our campaigns were rooted in the urgency we felt on our campus and across the country. One was a local expression of the national boycott against arms manufacturers. The others focused squarely on confronting violence against women and racist attacks targeting minorities. Issues that on our campus were often tied to the actions and culture of certain fraternities and sororities. Building real trust had two aspects. First, we invested time in genuinely getting to know one another. We shared our stories, listened deeply, and allowed ourselves to be vulnerable. Over time, and this became more true as we grew, our chapter wasn't just a political meeting space. It became a central part of our social lives. When that transition happened, without losing our broader sense of purpose, we were socially tight, but we didn't close ourselves off. As chapters grew across campuses, we didn't just organize protests or issue statements. We built community. We started intramural sports leagues, we hosted open parties. Members offered classes based on their skills, photography, computer programming, tennis. Later on we had painting workshops, and the broader assembly began sponsoring plays and street theater, not just for culture's sake, but to educate, to agitate, to inspire. Whenever we tried something new, started a project, developed a tactic, launched a class, we documented it. We shared it with other campuses and communities too, and they did the same for us. That kind of peer to peer learning didn't face much resistance early on, but it became the foundation for later campaigns that did face opposition, and it made us ready for it. Miguel asks, why didn't it happen years earlier? That's a question that haunts a lot of movements. Maybe it was the cultural context earlier, so much fragmentation, so many distractions, so much individualism woven into our media and our institutions. Maybe it was just that we hadn't yet made it a priority. But I do know this, there was a real danger in all that social energy we were building. We could have turned inward, we could have gotten comfortable, satisfied, built our own little echo chamber of virtue and self affirmation, but by and large, we didn't let that happen. We made a collective commitment early on. If our chapters weren't structured to sustain themselves, if they didn't reflect the fullness of people's needs, both political and personal, then they would fall apart. We needed to nourish our internal relationships and push ourselves to reach out. We knew that reveling in shared joy, mutual support, and the energy of like minded people was important, but not enough. If we didn't engage with those who disagreed with us, if we didn't make our ideas legible and welcoming beyond our circles, our movement would stall. So we structured even our social gatherings with an eye toward bringing in new folks who weren't yet part of RPS. That was true on campuses in neighborhoods and at job sites alike. One of the most effective things we did, something I still think about, was how intentional we were in outreach. We weren't just waiting for folks to show up. We were proactive, strategic. We sat down back when we were only fifteen people, and we made lists of individuals to reach out to. People with influence in different parts of campus life, athletes, leaders in Greek life, members of big dorm communities. Each person on that list was assigned to one of us, and we followed up again and again until we made progress. Same thing in neighborhoods, same thing in workplaces. Now some folks might hear that and say, well, that sounds a little too calculated, maybe even cold. But the truth is movements that change the world don't just happen. They're built with care, with discipline, with love, and yes, with strategy. We were serious about winning, not at the cost of our values, but because of them. Winning meant more than good intentions. It meant bringing people in, growing power, doing what was needed to get there without losing our empathy or our humanity. Miguel asks, Andre, at the same session, were your experiences like Bill's? Did you try to get a chapter going too? Not at first. I've never been especially social. I participated in the convention and was writing about its ideas, but I had long standing difficulties navigating social situations outside of structured political context. I suppose you could say I was shy, so I didn't immediately try to start a chapter. Instead, people who were already trying to build one would occasionally approach me, asking me to join. At the time, I was an older graduate student. Between developing RPS ideas, teaching, and attending my own classes, I felt joining a chapter would be an unmanageable addition. But eventually, after some urging, I realized I couldn't very well be advocating for RPS while abstaining from its most basic organizing practice. So I joined, reluctantly, and to my surprise, not only did I find it worthwhile, I enjoyed it. The chapter I joined, this was still early in RPS's development, and on our campus we were quite small and barely recognized, did in fact evolve in a manner similar to what Bill described. At one point, I was even tasked with reaching out to the president of the Interfraternity Council on campus. To my astonishment, we hit it off, and he joined. After that, we were regularly invited to speak at fraternity meetings. It's worth emphasizing this wasn't the norm in prior organizing efforts. More typical would have been constant friction, burnout, and stagnation. That's why so many initiatives, even promising ones, quickly plateaued or collapsed. RPS's growth trajectory by contrast was anomalous. Even in its earliest phase, something different was at work. I think much of it came down to the chapters, their structure, tone, and internal culture, not just on campuses, but also in communities and workplaces. Miguel asks, Once you were chapter building, what was your own approach? What problems did you see, and how were they overcome? My priority was twofold internal education and external outreach. And I saw them as fundamentally interconnected. One challenge that stood out was a widespread lack of confidence, especially when it came to engaging with students who didn't already share our views. Many were unsure how to relate, how to listen, how to find common ground. To address this, I focused on what eventually became a kind of RPS school for organizing. The idea was to prepare people, not only to engage effectively on campus or in their communities, but also to train others to do the same. We wanted a pedagogy of movement building, one rooted in reciprocity and replication. Those who learned would in turn teach others. As Bill noted, we shared our experience and outcomes openly, and over time this internal educational model spread, not just to other campus chapters, but with adaptations to workplaces and neighborhoods as well. Miguel asks, It seems like there was no one right or accepted approach to getting a chapter going. Was that true? Did you require attendance? Did you have dues? You're absolutely right. There was no single prescribed method. Even as RPS scaled to hundreds and then thousands of chapters, there remained no universal broup learn. Our chapter, for example, encouraged attendance at our weekly meeting and at one additional group event per week. That was a considerable ask, but we enforced it only through peer accountability and collective norms. If someone persistently failed to participate, the group could ask them to leave, but that was quite rare. Chapters evolved. They changed with circumstances. Daycare, for instance, was something added later when needed. So were modest dues to help defray costs for materials, events, or mutual aid. There was one issue Bill didn't touch on that I think deserves mention. People often resisted splitting up chapters. As groups grew, say to forty members, they were expected to divide. But by that point, members had formed close friendships. There was reluctance to part ways. To avoid unnecessary conflict, we adopted a mechanical solution. We drew an arbitrary line through campus, adjusted it until it divided the group roughly in half. And then that was that. An east and west chapter was formed. As more chapters emerged, we added north and south. Eventually people got tired of the geographic naming and switched to creative titles. I remember one chapter I was part of called itself Willie RPS, and for the life of me I don't remember why. Before long there were enough chapters so that they were in dorms, and then often there was more than one chapter in a dorm, and roughly the same kinds of developments occurred in communities and workplaces, albeit for many obvious reasons, more slowly than in colleges. One of the more important aspects of this approach, beyond its obvious contribution to sustained growth, was its effect on our personalities. Historically, when a left group formed, whether an organization or a campus based movement, it might grow for a time, but then it would often stagnate. Members would become tightly interconnected, frequently adopt similar speech patterns, even styles of dress. It would evolve into a kind of subcommunity or subculture with its own internal logic, and too often that insularity would self reinforce. Rather than seeking to expand, the group would become preoccupied with preserving its identity. Growth would halt. Maintenance would replace movement. Our chapter model helped counteract that tendency. New members arrived regularly. Success wasn't measured by survival or stability, it was measured by expansion. Community mattered, yes, but it was a community oriented toward the outside, not merely toward itself. That said, it's worth acknowledging a certain paradox. When you form an organization, share a vision and strategy, collaborate in both work and social life, you inevitably begin to converge, at least in tone and expression. I suspect that readers of these interviews might wonder, how is it that individuals with different backgrounds, experiences, and focal concerns nonetheless seem to speak with a broadly unified voice? My guess is that this is due to the imprint deep collective involvement leaves. Miguel asks, What about the flip side of getting social with each other? What about a member disliking another member or even feuding with another member? There's a common belief, quite misguided, that being on the side of justice and And showing courage somehow insulates you from conflict. As you clearly recognize, that's simply not the case. Disputes occur, jealousies arise, tensions surface, no one is universally liked. We all encounter people we find irritating or even intolerable. Was this a problem in chapters? Yes and no. In smaller groups, the impact could be serious. Imagine a chapter of five people, two of whom are in conflict. It's nearly impossible to contain the tension. The entire group feels it. Questions arise. Whose side are you on? What did you say? It creates an atmosphere of unease and suspicion. But as the chapter grows, say to around twenty members, it becomes easier for those in conflict to operate independently. And when a chapter divides into two, those at odds can simply end up in separate groups. The possibility of structural separation provides a practical, if not always ideal resolution. So the question you asked became for us, what should we do when two people at odds couldn't separate and couldn't accommodate? There was frankly no perfect solution. In different instances, different strategies were employed. Sometimes the individuals in question would simply step back, at least temporarily, until the group grew large enough that a structural division became viable. Other times they'd suppress their differences for the sake of the group, an uneasy truce, you might say. In either case it was never ideal. Occasionally such tensions even derailed chapters. In some cases the friction was relatively minor. In others it involved individuals who were deeply involved, even central to chapter activity. I wish there were some universally applicable remedy, but I don't think there is. Miguel asks, were you ever in a situation like that? Yes, a couple of times. In one case, physical distance resulting from a chapter split offered a solution. In another, we had to coexist under strained circumstances for a considerable time. It wasn't pleasant, but it was preferable to the fallout of open conflict. And while disputes between longtime friends or entanglements involving romantic relationships could be difficult enough, a still more challenging dynamic involved familial ties, parents and children, siblings, spouses. The assumption that biological connection ensures agreement or harmony is, of course, a myth. Conflicts within families are common, often complex and sometimes bitter. Within RPS, some of the most painful and destabilizing conflicts arose when the de when the disagreements were about RPS itself. Not just about strategy or tactics, but about its very legitimacy or value. When a family member opposed your involvement altogether or rejected the time and energy you devoted to the organization, it wasn't simply an intellectual or logistical disagreement. It became personal, effective, cutting to the core of one's identity and commitments. And I don't think, even twenty years in, that anyone can offer a prescriptive solution, some foolproof way to handle a relative or spouse who fundamentally disagrees with your involvement. RPS had built strong networks of mutual support, and that helps. But when someone close to you remains implacably opposed, it's a deeply difficult situation, often resistant to resolution, regardless of the surrounding solidarity. Miguel asks, do you think there were other new aspects of chapter priorities compared to prior efforts that contributed to later success? In addition to the structural elements you mentioned, outreach, participation, internal education, I think so, though it's not entirely clear cut. During the lead up to our first convention, a lot of attention turned, understandably, to the enduring impact of Trumpism. Initially that reflection took the form of blame casting. Many looked outward, assigning responsibility to everyone but themselves or their immediate circles. But in time a more honest reckoning began to emerge. People started to look inward. I recall being particularly shaken by four areas of concern. The first, and perhaps most troubling for me, was the gender dimension of Trump's support. As someone who had long identified with feminist commitments, I found myself asking, how was it that after decades, five decades of feminist organizing education and mobilization, so many people, including women, could support a figure whose misogyny was so blatant, so unrepentant? Did our organizing polarize more than it persuaded? Did we reach people initially but fail to sustain engagement? Were our values miscommunicated, or worse, were our strategies ineffective or even alienating? The question wasn't just tactical, it was existential. Could we really claim that our collective work over so many years had been adequate, given the outcome we faced? And if it wasn't adequate, what should we have done differently? These weren't rhetorical questions, they demanded serious reflection. Did it follow that rather than bemoaning the choices of women and men who voted for Trump, we should ask what we ought to change about how we talk about, make demands about, and organize about gender so we attract rather than repel those who don't initially agree? Being morally and socially right for decades about society's gender injustices had won a lot, but it hadn't created an unstoppable tide against sexism. Did we need to say more about medium and long run goals? Did we need to seek feminist outcomes in ways that put off fewer potential allies? Could we find ways to make uncompromising, comprehensive demands that didn't polarize away non misogynist men, and that accounted for other social phenomena like class and race? Second, as an anti racist internationalist, I looked at the admittedly small numbers of low or modest income African Americans and Latinos confused about Trump. And I wondered how any could exist. Worse, how could his support in those constituencies grow over time? I looked at the not very firm support from blacks for Sanders, which was part of the twenty sixteen election turning out as it did, and I wondered how that too could exist. And while I certainly understood considerable racism still existing in various white constituencies, I looked and saw the relative lack of fury at Trump's racism, Islamophobia, and immigrant bashing, and I wondered again, how could that exist? Had decades of anti racist organizing not tried often or energetically enough to reach whites who resisted the appeals? Had our movements preached overwhelmingly only where we already had a receptive audience? Had our messages too often failed due to their tone or substance, alienating those who we needed to reach? Had anti racist communities pursued too narrow an understanding? Had anti racist values, aims, or methods been flawed or miscommunicated? It was analogous to gender. Did anyone believe that in over a half century we could not have done better? And if we could have done better, how? Being morally and socially right for decades about racism's ills had won a lot, but it hadn't created an unstoppable tide against racism. Could we find a way to talk and make uncompromising, comprehensive demands about race that didn't polarize away white people and ignore other social phenomena like class and gender? Third, as an anti capitalist, I looked at a narcissistic billionaire bully attracting tens of millions of working class votes, and I wondered how that could exist. How could five decades of anti-capitalist organizing leave so many workers susceptible to Trump's rhetoric and posturing? Did we not sufficiently address what working people feel and experience in ways they would relate to? Did we give off hostility toward working people, quite like what they daily encountered from authority figures in hospitals, courts, and workplaces? Working people were rightly furious at their plight, yet anti capitalists had little connection to and often even insufficient empathy for workers' rising fury. What did we have to change about how we talked about, made demands about, and organized around class and economy to reach those who didn't yet agree? Was the issue part style, part substance, with both owing to inadequately understanding the situation of workers and being too dismissive of them? And perhaps even aspiring to be above them, both in the movement and in the new co in a new economy? Finally, fourth, as an activist, I examined the progressive and left writing during the twenty sixteen election as something of a case study. I encountered repeatedly the argument that Trump offered a solving lining, that he would galvanize opposition, that he was merely another ruling class functionary like the rest, and therefore not voting in swing states or voting for Jill Stein in swing states was a reasonable, even principled stance. I found myself asking, how could such callousness toward those most vulnerable to Trump's fascistic tendencies and ecological recklessness take hold among people ostensibly committed to justice? How could there be such confusion about the comparative implications of organizing resistance under Trump as opposed to under a liberal, even if corporate aligned and more complicit alternative? How could these views emerge among radicals steeped in left literature and activism? What failures in our own work, those of us who knew better, allowed these suicidal conclusions to proliferate? How could months, years, even decades of radical involvement and exposure to movement history and theory result in such judgment? What deficiencies in the cumulative output of the left, its text, its organizing, its discourse led to such widespread misapprehension, that so many younger radicals and respected commentators alike could immerse themselves in that output and yet embrace these positions demanded serious reflection. In voicing these concerns, I was not alone. In fact, I suspect my response was broadly shared among those who initially gravitated to RPS, and so I believe that the recurring confrontation with these questions, and crucially, the desire to examine them seriously and respond with practical corrections shaped many of the later successes in chapter building. That willingness to critique ourselves, not in the spirit of blame, but of accountability and learning was, I think, essential. It provided a tone, a posture, a commitment to self-correction that reinforced everything else we were trying to build. But another question arose. What did we really want? What would success look like? And that was the close of the tenth chapter of The Wind Cries Freedom. I hope it served some purpose for you. I hope it opens some uh some avenues for investigation and thought. If so, maybe you'll let me know by one channel or another. In any event, all that said, this is Mike Albert signing off until next time for Revolution Z.