Becky Bond - Rules for Revolutionaries: How Big Organizing Can Change Everything

Praise for Rules for Revolutionaries

Two of our generations most accomplished organizers share the creative tactics and technology they used to lead hundreds of thousands of people to volunteer their time to change the course of historyand how you can, too. This page-turner belongs in the hands of new and veteran organizers alike and will set the standard for how to make change in the twenty-first century.

David Broockman , assistant professor of political economy, Stanford University

Becky and Zacks rules are as refreshing as Bernies candidacy itself. Their rules are specific enough to get started right now and flexible enough to last for the long haul of the revolution we so desperately need.

Tim DeChristopher , Bidder 70; cofounder, Climate Disobedience Center

If you want to change the world and the status quo, read this book. An alternate title would appropriately be: How to Make the Impossible, Possible . Prepare to be inspired.

Assemblywoman Lucy Flores

For populists who want to continue Bernie Sanderss political revolution and win radical change, this is a book for you. In their Rules for Revolutionaries , Becky Bond and Zack Exley lay down a new marker for what mass volunteer organizing makes possible by combining emerging consumer technology and radical trust with some tried and true old organizing tactics.

Jim Hightower , author of Swim Against the Current

Bernie Sanderss presidential run was a spectacular wake-up call, revealing the huge number of Americans willing to fight for radical change. That includes a great many who didnt sign up for the political revolution this time around, which is good news: Our movements can learn how to go even bigger and broader. We can winbut only if we continue to develop the kinds of tactics, tools, and vision laid out in this vitally important book, perhaps the first to explore how to organize at the true scale of the crises we face.

Naomi Klein , author of This Changes Everything and The Shock Doctrine

Climate activists around the world watched Bernies vibrant volunteer network with envy and wondered whether we, too, could build that level of engagement absent a candidate and national election. Bond and Exley answer that question: Yes, we can! Everyone who wants to solve climate changeor any other big issueshould read this book and get started.

Annie Leonard , Greenpeace USA

If you want to understand Bernies remarkable campaignand more importantly, if you want to understand how to organize big, world-shaking campaigns of all kinds in the futurethis is the book for you. The authors bring enormous credibility and enormous insight to a crucial task; what they describe in electoral politics goes just as much for battles like the one around the Keystone pipeline.

Bill McKibben , New York Times bestselling author; cofounder, 350.org

Heres a guide from the heart of Bernies grassroots movement that mobilized hundreds of thousands of volunteers. Rules for Revolutionaries is a playbook for big organizinga melding of grassroots movement tactics with new technology. Its a must-read for anyone who wants to take back our economy from the moneyed interests.

Robert B. Reich , author of Saving Capitalism

Rules for Revolutionaries is a lamppost for those who are committed to causes of community uplift, grassroots empowerment, and organizing for good. Insurgents get ready, this is the book for you.

Nina Turner , assistant professor of African American history, Cuyahoga Community College; national surrogate, Bernie Sanders campaign; former Ohio state senator

This must-read book lays down twenty-two rules designed to put power in the hands of people who want to make radical social change. Becky Bond and Zack Exley have walked the walkand they know what organizing looks like when you begin with a big, transformative demand and challenge the establishment. You win big when you ask bigand whoever wins in November, well need to push for revolutionary change from Day One. Becky and Zacks book is a vital contribution to that project!

Katrina vanden Heuvel , editor and publisher, The Nation

Crucial, important, strategic, urgent.

Naomi Wolf , New York Times bestselling author of The End of America

Copyright 2016 by Becky Bond and Zack Exley.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form by any means without permission in writing from the publisher.

Project Manager: Patricia Stone

Project Editor: Brianne Goodspeed

Copy Editor: Deborah Heimann

Proofreader: Angela Boyle

Designer: Melissa Jacobson

Printed in the United States of America.

First printing November, 2016.

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Our Commitment to Green Publishing

Chelsea Green sees publishing as a tool for cultural change and ecological stewardship. We strive to align our book manufacturing practices with our editorial mission and to reduce the impact of our business enterprise in the environment. We print our books and catalogs on chlorine-free recycled paper, using vegetable-based inks whenever possible. This book may cost slightly more because it was printed on paper that contains recycled fiber, and we hope youll agree that its worth it. Chelsea Green is a member of the Green Press Initiative ( www.greenpressinitiative.org ), a nonprofit coalition of publishers, manufacturers, and authors working to protect the worlds endangered forests and conserve natural resources. The text pages of Rules for Revolutionaries were printed on paper supplied by QuadGraphics that contains 100% postconsumer recycled fiber.

ISBN 978-1-60358-727-3 (paperback)ISBN 978-1-60358-728-0 (ebook)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

Chelsea Green Publishing

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www.chelseagreen.com

For the volunteers who are leading the political revolution

Contents

Preface

becky

This is how we win. That was the subject line of the first email I wrote back in the fall of 2015 to the rapidly growing list of Bernie Sanders supporters. It was 6:00 a.m., and Zack and I were occupying the lobby of a Comfort Inn in Little Rock, Arkansas.

While brilliant field veterans Robert Becker and Julia Barnes were building incredible traditional campaigns on the ground in Iowa and New Hampshire, Zack and I found ourselves on a team of go-for-broke irregulars charged with organizing what was then a vast outpost of the Bernie Sanders campaign for president. It was our task to help organize supporters in all the states that would not be staffed until much later in the primary campaign cycle.

Of course, Bernie didnt win the primary, and that was heartbreaking for so many of us. As Zack and I finish up the writing of this book, we are watching the polls tighten in the race between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. A race that all polls have indicated would have been a cakewalk for Bernie. Meanwhile, the police continue to murder unarmed black people seemingly with impunity, and Native American tribes are leading an epic human rights protest blocking the route of a new oil pipeline from breaking sacred ground in North Dakota. We dont know yet who will win the 2016 general election or the outcome of social justice confrontations that are reaching a boiling point. But we do know that no matter what happens next there is a new and better way forward for those of us fighting for social change.