Listening to an MSNBC interview of Norman Solomon, a Sanders’ delegate. He said more than once that change comes from the ground up. True enough, but unless this indisputable point is amended it becomes a simplification of the “process” of change and a disservice to its makers. A quick look at turning points in our history reveals a important place as well for strategic thinking, tactical flexibility, broad unity of diverse social actors and forces, soberness and compromise as well as militancy. and, not least, a deepening of people’s understanding of the change process.

I would further add that as Democrats gather in Philadelphia for their convention and as voters prepare themselves to go to the polls to elect a new president and Congress, each of these elements of the change process should figure prominently in people’s thinking if Trump and the rest of the Republican gang is to go down in ignominious defeat.