The current moment in the U.S.—marked by billionaire assaults on the working class, the Trump administration’s authoritarian maneuvers, and widespread voter dissatisfaction with both major political parties—presents new challenges and opportunities for the labor movement. Rank-and-file members can and are demanding more of their leaders, and unions are being challenged to think about how they should be mobilizing their roughly 14 million members right now. If the goal is to lift up independent working-class leaders and organizations, what should unions be doing differently to rebuild union density and democracy?  Eric Blanc, one of the contributors to the Labor Notes Roundtable series, where we have invited organizers and scholars to address that question, joins the pod to discuss his piece, “After No Kings, How Can We Escalate?”Blanc is an assistant professor of labor studies at Rutgers University and an organizer trainer in the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee.