Why Is This Happening? with Chris Hayes

How do you build a movement? How do you connect people across race and religion and identity in order to create a united coalition? This is the work of Rev. Dr. William Barber II, one of the best and most important political voices in America right now. He has dedicated his life to the fight against systemic racism and poverty, and is known for his ability to organize diverse coalitions around every manner of social justice issues. He’s an incredible figure in movement building politics, particularly in the South, who is doing the tireless work of stitching together a multiracial democracy. RELATED READING

Let’s talk about socialism. There’s a marked generational divide in the way people think about that word, what it means, and what it conjures. For those who were adults during the Cold War, socialism evokes something very different than those who came of age after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Now, there’s a growing part of the left that’s trying to make a case for socialism, inciting a definitional dispute about what it means and what it’s capable of. Bhaskar Sunkara is at the center of the political moment, having founded Jacobin , a democratic socialist magazine, back in 2010. Now, he’s here with his new book “The Socialist Manifesto” to discuss the debate.    RELATED READING:

There’s been a heated national debate over what to call some of the migrant detention centers along the southern border. Are these facilities deserving of the label "concentration camps"? Andrea Pitzer has a uniquely deep perspective on this, having written a global history of concentration camps titled “One Long Night”. This conversation details the lineage of concentration camps, from the late 1800s in Cuba to the death camps of WWII to their most modern iterations we are witnessing today. RELATED READING:

After two years of a Donald Trump presidency, voters turned out in the 2018 midterms to deliver Democrats the House by a historic margin. That freshman class has its fair share of rabble-rousers who are using their platforms to shake up Congress from the left of the party.  But those members of Congress aren’t the ones who won Democrats the majority – for that, you have to look at the candidates who flipped district after district on election night. That includes Rep. Max Rose (D-NY 11th), an exceptionally fascinating guy who won a historically conservative district. Frontline members like Rep. Rose are the cornerstone upon which this Democratic majority is built, and will therefore be crucial to maintaining that majority in 2020. So how is his approach different – and how is it being received by his constituents? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit

Got impeachment on the mind? If you do, odds are there are two recent examples of the impeachment process you might be drawing from – Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton. But what do you know about the first ever presidential impeachment? There is no better time to revisit the case of Andrew Johnson, the white supremacist President whose impeachment reveals a wild truth about the history of this country. Brenda Wineapple spent the last six years uncovering the details of an erratic and power hungry President thrust into power after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Hear her tell the story of how Johnson's dangerous actions during Reconstruction presented an extraordinary moral dilemma for the nation and its leaders. RELATED READING: