If either Sen. Bernie Sanders or Sen. Elizabeth Warren had triumphed in 2020, they would have been undeniably the most left-progressive US president in history. Since their campaigns collapsed amid the chaotic tumble into the isolating COVID-19 pandemic, there has been endless—and persistent—arm-chair quarterbacking and online hand-wringing. Loyalist passions on both sides still run high more than three years later. It's a difficult moment to glean any value or level-headed lessons from.

In this episode, William steps up to the heavy task of attempting just that: assessing what we can learn for future organizing and electoral campaigns and finally putting the debate to rest. To help him do that, he enlists Becca Rast, who was national field director for Bernie 2020 and now acts as managing director for Justice Democrats, and Max Berger, who served as director of progressive outreach for the Warren 2020 Campaign and more recently worked with 2020 Bernie Campaign Director Faiz Shakir to help develop More Perfect Union, a progressive communications outlet. They'll size up the terrain of that moment and explain why they placed the bets they did, and then use what we know in hindsight to explore how we move forward in Left engagement with national electoral politics.

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