Ross Morales Rocketto is co-founder of Run For Something, an organization that supports diverse, young progressives running for state and local office. We discuss which candidates win, why building a bench of local and state politicians is important, and how an increase of candidates leads to better voter turnout.

Robert P. Jones, Ph.D., is the CEO of PRRI, a leading scholar, and the author of The End of White Christian America. PRRI is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that conducts independent research at the intersection of religion, culture, and public policy. We discuss how partisanship, demographic changes, and low voter turnout affect American society.

Phil Polakoff, MD, is a physician with a distinguished career in public health and clinical medicine, the CEO of A Healthier We, and a consulting professor at Stanford University of Medicine. We discuss how an emphasis on prevention coupled with innovations in healthcare access and delivery can help us share greater health and equity for all Americans.

Ashley Allison is the Executive Vice President of Campaigns and Programs at The Leadership Conference, the nation’s premier civil and human rights coalition. We discuss how the census is a cornerstone of our democracy. The data it provides is vital for delivering the resources and services that are necessary to sustain thriving communities.

Esther de Rothschild is the founder of The Love Vote, a platform where people who cannot vote, mobilize those who can. Together with Outreach Director Aicha Cherif, we discuss how love can be a strong motivator for voting. Eligible voters are moved to vote on behalf of their loved ones and give collective action a powerful boost.

Brian Miller is the Executive Director of Nonprofit VOTE, an organization that partners with other nonprofits to integrate voter engagement into their ongoing activities. We discuss the importance of promoting voter registration in excluded communities to achieve full representation, and the benefits of a non-partisan, in person approach to do so.

Michael Faye is the president and co-founder of GiveDirectly, an organization that sends cash directly to people living in extreme poverty. We discuss why we should use cash as a new benchmark for international aid, unpack false assumptions about decision-making, and examine the benefits of universal basic income.

Maria Yuan is the founder of Issue Voter, an organization whose mission is to make civic engagement accessible, efficient, and impactful. We talk about the importance of being informed on the bills before Congress, communicating your priorities and opinions to your representative, and understanding whether your rep is truly representing you.

Rachel Leyland and Kendra Abel are public school teachers in Oklahoma City who participated in the walkout in April of 2018. We discuss how the walkout shed light on the problems caused by chronic underfunding of public education, the power of standing together to demand change, and the importance of supporting pro-education candidates for office. 

Scott Warren is the CEO and co-founder of Generation Citizen, an organization that works to ensure students in the United States receive an effective civics education. We talk about the unique power of political action to bring about change and the need to teach our youngest generations how to be active participants in our democracy.

Brent Wilkes is the former CEO of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) and a lifelong advocate for Latino rights. We discuss what fair and comprehensive immigration could be, the positive contribution by immigrant labor to the US economy, and how we can demand sound immigration policy at the ballot box.

Mark Hetfield is the President and CEO of HIAS, the oldest refugee assistance organization in operation. We discuss our humanitarian obligations to refugees, the tremendous benefits that they bring to American society, and bust the misconceptions about the current refugee situation in the US.

Paul Lagunes is a Columbia University political scientist whose scholarship focuses on corruption in the Americas. His current book project is Corruption and Oversight: Insights from Field Experiments. We define corruption, discuss how it relates to democracy, and learn that voting is a tool to fight against it.  

Ian Bremmer is a prolific thought leader and author, the president and founder of Eurasia Group, as well as foreign affairs columnist and editor-at-large at TIME. His most recent bestseller is Us vs. Them: The Failure of Globalism. We discuss how globalism, the ideology, has been rejected, and what we can do to write a new, more equitable social contract.

Shafi Goldwasser is an award-winning mathematician and computer scientist and the Director of the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing at UC Berkeley.  Her most notable work is in cryptography and zero knowledge proof. We discuss the promise of cryptography to make our society more secure.

Jennifer March is the Executive Director of the Citizen’s Committee for Children of New York. This non-profit and nonpartisan child advocacy organization combines public policy research and data analysis with citizen action. We discuss family homelessness, juvenile justice, and the power of effective advocacy.

Democratic Congressman Beto O’Rourke represents his hometown, El Paso, TX. Currently a Candidate for US Senate, he is running a people-powered campaign, visiting every single county in Texas and listening to the needs and concerns of the state’s constituents. We talk about how to rebuild our democracy, the necessity of bipartisanship, and how big money corrodes our political process.

Ruth Milkman is a sociologist of labor and labor movements, and Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the CUNY Graduate Center and at the Joseph S. Murphy Institute for Worker Education and Labor Studies. We examine the role of unions for workers, the main factors of de-unionization, and the potential leadership by millennials in this space.

Robert Hammond is the executive director and co-founder of Friends of the High Line, which was the driving force behind turning an abandoned elevated railroad in New York City into a public park. We discuss the essential role of a city’s public open spaces and how exhilarating it is to pursue your dreams.

Nick Ehrmann is the founder and president of Blue Engine, which was borne from the discovery that the strongest predictor of college completion is sustained academic rigor in high school coursework. The organization re-imagines the classroom in order to teach students how to master core academic skills and be truly ready for college.