Jonathan Smucker on How To Achieve Hegemony Today

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"Jonathan Smucker, co-founder and director of Beyond the Choir, a group that trains social justice organizers. He has worked for two decades in grassroots movements for social, economic and ecological justice and trained thousands of people in campaign strategy, framing and messaging, direct action, and other skills. He is also a doctoral student in sociology at UC Berkeley. His writings have appeared in The Nation, The Huffington Post, Alternet, Waging Nonviolence, Yes Magazine and more and he is the author of the new book, Hegemony How-To: A Roadmap for Radicals.

BACKGROUND: In our on-going coverage of how political organizing can take on the Trump agenda, we turn next to a long time activist and writer Jonathan Smucker, who's new book Hegemony How-To: A Roadmap for Radicals, examines movements like Occupy Wall Street, to understand how best to take on the political establishment.

With so many assaults on American democracy and the Constitution coming so thick and fast, there is a real concern of burnout among new and experienced activists. Francis Fox Piven said of the book, "Smucker asks the important question: How can the movements on which we rely in our pursuit of a more just and democratic world be sustained and enlarged over time?"