Ben Wikler Quotes

An organization is great if you have a clear vision to be able to make it powerful. If you don't, an organization can kind of sap energy that could go elsewhere.

I think changing the Democratic Party platform [at the convention] is a great place to start. It should include expanding Social Security, a $15 minimum wage, and breaking up too-big-to-fail banks on Wall Street - among other Sanders priorities.

Bernie or bust actually reduces the leverage for Bernie [Sandеrs] to claim victory.

There is a question as to whether these rallies [2016] are going to stop in the fall. I think they should continue. They are a tremendous display of energy but also a source of energy, because people come out of them ready to fight.

When [Bernie] Sanders was challenged about how he would pass his visionary ideas after he became president, he talked about if lawmakers look out the window and they see a million people marching, it changes their calculus. Well, here's an opportunity to continue working to organize these million people even if he is not the one in office.

Elizabeth Warren is, I think, a great demonstration of the kind of movement-oriented model-wielding power from within the Senate. Over and over, she's rallied tons of people to battles that they don't normally get involved in.

We've just gone through this period of years where the players in the game were at least written about as being a Democratic administration, establishment Republicans, and then the rabble-rousing radicals of the tea party. And it was like a three-way negotiation between them. But we are going to enter an era where there's a physical, powerful, vibrant progressive movement that will, I think, be able to exercise power in the same way as the right-wing and the right does.

The most important thing will be building a bench of powerhouse progressives in elected office and in the next administration. [Bernie] Sanders has an enormous spotlight that he can shine on champions that are following the Sanders path of really building from the left.

What he [Bernie Sanders] does next will really determine whether he is blazing a trail that others can follow into office, or whether he is an exception to the rule.