Date: February 13, 2025
Time: 5:30pm-7:00pm
Location: Kerwin 301
The Progressive Left has had but limited success in recent American elections. Despite the splashes of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Biden won the presidency because he was regarded as centrist, and Sanders and Kamala Harris lost in part because they were not. Trump won running on an explicitly anti-woke platform. Is there a future for Progressivism in the United States? Come find out from one of the nation’s leading political demographers and from the very person who many see as the Progressive Left’s best hope to be president.
Congressman Ro Khanna is a leading progressive voice in the U.S. House of Representatives and cited as the Progressive Left’s best hope to become president. He is serving his fifth term representing California's 17th Congressional District, located in the heart of Silicon Valley. Khanna serves as vice chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, among many other positions, and was co-chair of Bernie Saunders 2020 president campaign. He is one of only a few members of Congress to refuse contributions from PACs and lobbyists. Since arriving in Congress, he has had five bills signed into law. Khanna was born in Philadelphia, PA to parents who immigrated from India. Prior to serving in Congress, he taught economics at Stanford University and served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce in the Obama administration. He has written two books: Entrepreneurial Nation: Why Manufacturing is Still Key to America's Future and Dignity in a Digital Age. Khanna graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a B.A. in Economics from the University of Chicago and received a law degree from Yale University. As a student at the University of Chicago, he walked precincts during Barack Obama's first campaign for the Illinois Senate in 1996.
Ruy Teixeira is one of the most influential political demographers in the nation. For 19 years he was Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, before moving to the American Enterprise Institute in 2022. He has also held positions at the Brookings Institution, the Century Foundation, and the Progressive Policy Institute. He has authored six much discussed books, including Red, Blue and Purple America: The Future of Election Demographics; America's Forgotten Majority: Why the White Working Class Still Matters; and The Disappearing American Voter, as well as hundreds of articles, both scholarly and popular. Teixeira's 2002 book, The Emerging Democratic Majority, written with John Judis, was the most widely discussed political book of that year. Teixeira’s more recent work has focused on the leftward shift within progressive segments of the Democratic Party and the transformation of party coalitions. He earned his BA from the University of Michigan and an MS and PhD in sociology from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.