One mild April afternoon in 2015, deep within the ideological dead zone of the second Obama administration, Bernie Sanders took a break from his Senate workday and stalked out to the lawn in front of the Capitol building. Unfolding a crinkled sheet of notes, the Vermont senator took less than ten minutes to tell reporters why he was running for president: Americans were working longer hours for lower wages, while the rich feasted on profits and billionaires ruled the political system. The country faced its greatest crisis since the Great Depression, he said.

Five years later, on an April morning in 2020, Sanders stood inside his home in Burlington, Vermont, and announced that he was suspending his second campaign for president. This race, like the contest four years earlier, had ended in defeat, and though Bernie gave an inspirational fifteen-minute speech — quoting Nelson Mandela and thanking supporters for their blood, sweat, tears, and social media posts — even a sympathetic viewer might wonder what, exactly, all this passionate effort had yielded.

Income and wealth inequality have soared to new heights; a billionaire sits in the White House, while the opposition party turns to its own billionaires for leadership; and the COVID-19 pandemic has left the United States not merely approaching its greatest crisis since the Great Depression but thoroughly immersed in it.