In his book, Brown is the New White: How the Demographic Revolution Has Created a New American Majority, Steve Phillips explains how dramatically the racial and ethnic makeup of the U.S. population has changed over the past 50 years. He argues that this change has given the progressive movement in America a historic opportunity to reshape the political landscape.
Phillips is the co-founder of a social justice organization called PowerPac, which has mobilized voters in support of political candidates like Barack Obama, Cory Booker, and the Attorney General of California, Kamala Harris. With the political campaign season in full swing across the nation, candidates of the major parties are hard at work appealing to a wide range of constituencies in their political bases, from Tea Party conservatives and Evangelicals on the right, to progressives and people of color on the left. Steve Phillips joins Tom on the line from his home in San Francisco to discuss the possibilities of a new left coalition of progressives and minorities.
This story originally aired on February 26, 2016.
