Sometimes, as in the case of Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders, they begin persuading people simply by pushing their ideas - like the forgiveness of student loan debt - into the public conversation.

He asked how they hope to nudge, coax and drag America toward a better future. The author talked to a wide array of activists and politicians, including Linda Sarsour, who helped push for more diverse viewpoints in the 2017 Women’s March Diane Benscoter, who helps deprogram people who have been in cults Anat Shenker-Osorio, a consultant who uses research to help clients understand how to motivate voters and a former bartender by the name of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The result is “ The Persuaders: At the Front Lines of the Fight for Hearts, Minds, and Democracy,” a book he calls a “hope tonic.” So he started spending time with people who still believed change was possible and were committed to making it happen. If changing minds cannot happen, then this is the end of democracy.” Giridharadas understood the impulse, but he felt that giving in meant “basically declaring game over. “It just became, ‘Don’t bother,’” he recalls. Now he was noticing that people he agreed with on common policy goals were giving up on trying to convince others of those ideas - never mind the basic realities of things like vaccines and election integrity. His previous book, “ Winners Take All,” examined how global elites conserved their wealth and power at the expense of progress or fairness. In 2020, bestselling author Anand Giridharadas was feeling fatalistic about America’s future. If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from, whose fees support independent bookstores. 'The Persuaders: At the Front Lines of the Fight for Hearts, Minds, and Democracy'

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