When we look at the Trump candidacy or we look at any Republican candidacy for the presidency that's been successful, they tend to win by the margin of black and brown and poor people and immigrants who do not vote.

Part of why I wrote my book was so that we could focus on the structural and systemic reasons behind social misery. Changed hearts and minds are important. But they do little against the backdrop of a system that needs to exploit people and labor to survive. I'm more interested in changed systems than changed hearts.

We have to convince the white worker that they have something to gain by forming a solidarity politics with black workers because everything that's happened over the last three to 400 years in America has divided the white and the black worker.

If we begin by the conversation that some people shouldn't be encouraged to come to the polls, that does nothing to help us. And just as a practical matter, when we don't encourage voters to come out to the polls, the people who stay home quickest are black and brown folk.

Nothing lasts forever, whether it's Greece, Rome or the British Empire. It doesn't mean that America has to end. The country could be reshaped and reimagined in a way that is even more democratic and less imperial in nature. We're trying to radically reshape the nation in ways that are more just and fairer. That's what I mean when I say that empires eventually fall. I'm not calling for the end of America. I'm just calling for a reimagination of its democratic possibilities.

When we look at the Trump candidacy or we look at any Republican candidacy for the presidency that's been successful, they tend to win by the margin of black and brown and poor people and immigrants who do not vote.

The truth is there are people who are quite informed who still vote against their interests. I would argue that, as a Green Party supporter, I would argue that middle-class black people are voting against their interests oftentimes.