Socialism 2026: Full Schedule

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12:00pm CDT

Necessary Trouble: Movement-Building since the Financial Crisis

Sunday September 6, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT

The 2008 financial crisis upended US politics, and laid the groundwork for how we got to the current conjuncture. In the years since, we’ve seen the rise of both right-wing populism and a new class politics on the left. Marking the 10th anniversary of her book documenting post-crisis social movements, join Sarah Jaffe and comrades for a conversation about the trajectory of struggle—from Occupy to the Movement for Black Lives to rising socialist electoral power—and reaction that has shaped this pivotal political period.

Speakers

Cat Salonek Schladt

Cat Salonek Schladt (she/her) is a South Minneapolis based organizer for people power.
At work, Cat serves as Executive Director of Tending the Soil, an alignment of five power-building non-profits and labor organizations led by working class, BIPOC community leaders with a long history of effective and equitable organizing. Prior to her current role, Cat made good
... Read More →

Chenjerai Kumanyika

Chenjerai Kumanyika is a journalist, scholar, organizer, and professor at NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. He is the host and creator of Unruly Subjects, produced with Rowhome Productions. Through conversations with organizers, journalists, artists, and scholars, Unruly... Read More →

Alex Hanna

Dr. Alex Hanna is Director of Research at the Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR)

Sarah Jaffe

Sarah Jaffe is the author of Necessary Trouble: Americans in Revolt, Work Won’t Love You Back: How Devotion To Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted, and Alone, and From the Ashes: Grief and Revolution in a World on Fire, all from Bold Type Books. Her next book, Heterosexuality... Read More →

Yotam Marom

Yotam Marom has been in movements since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. He has played leadership roles at Occupy Wall Street and other movements before and after, and co-founded IfNotNow and the Wildfire Project. Yotam has trained and facilitated many of the leading social justice... Read More →

Sunday September 6, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT
W190A

US Politics

3:00pm CDT

Left Insurgents and Liberal Exhaustion: Consolidating Power from Below

Sunday September 6, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT

W190A

Trump’s reelection has triggered historic openings for the left. Wins at the ballot box suggest an organic hunger for leftist political visions among masses of people as well as an enduring exhaustion with the mainstream liberal establishment. In this panel, Dr. Chenjerai Kumanyika and Hasan Piker will survey the state of left power in 2026. How can we build on and harness mass disaffection into a principled socialist movement in the US?

Speakers

Hasan Piker

Wielding sharp political insight and a characteristically irreverent sense of humor, Hasan Piker is redefining what political commentary looks like in the digital age. A journalist and wildly-popular content creator on the streaming platform Twitch, Piker has become an authoritative... Read More →

Chenjerai Kumanyika

Sponsors

Hammer & Hope

Unruly Subjects

Sunday September 6, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT
W190A

US Politics

5:00pm CDT

Are All Cops Bastards?

Sunday September 6, 2026 5:00pm - 6:30pm CDT

W190A

While liberal objections to an ACAB approach may be expected, recently some surprising defenses of police forces in supposedly socialist states have emerged. This session will examine the role of police around the world and ask the question, is there really any such thing as a “revolutionary” cop?

Speakers

brian bean

brian bean is a Chicago-based socialist organizer, writer, and agitator originally from North Carolina. They are one of the founding editors of Rampant magazine. Their work has been published in Truthout, Jacobin, Tempest, Spectre, Red Flag, New Politics, Socialist Worker, International... Read More →

Anderson Bean

Anderson Bean is a North Carolina–based activist and editor and contributor of the book Venezuela in Crisis: Socialist Perspectives from Haymarket Books, and the author of Communes and the Venezuelan State: The Struggle for Participatory Democracy in a Time of Crisis from Lexington... Read More →

Sunday September 6, 2026 5:00pm - 6:30pm CDT
W190A

Abolition

7:00pm CDT

Steal This Story, Please! Film Screening and Discussion

Sunday September 6, 2026 7:00pm - 9:00pm CDT

W190A

Fiercely independent journalist Amy Goodman has spent three decades holding the powerful to account, reporting from war zones and the Democracy Now! newsroom. In Steal This Story, Please!, Oscar-nominated filmmakers Carl Deal and Tia Lessin craft a riveting portrait of journalism’s power – and peril – in an era of corporate control and political attacks on truth. (Film screening and Q&A)

Speakers

Socialism 2026

12:00pm CDT

Cat Salonek Schladt

Chenjerai Kumanyika

Alex Hanna

Sarah Jaffe

Yotam Marom

3:00pm CDT

Hasan Piker

Chenjerai Kumanyika

Hammer & Hope

Unruly Subjects

5:00pm CDT

brian bean

Anderson Bean

7:00pm CDT

Amy Goodman

Juan González

Carl Deal

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