July 31, 2026

SYMPOSIUM ROUNDUP: Forging a Democracy That Works for All

A visionary exercise for progressives in an age of American fascism from our third annual Wallace Symposium.

IPS Executive Director Tope Folarin talks with Sulma Arias and Rep. Jamie Raskin at the third annual IPS Henry A. Wallace Symposium (photo by Rick Reinhard for IPS)

In this report

To speak with an expert, contact IPS Deputy Communications Director Olivia Alperstein olivia@ips-dc.org. For recent press statements, visit our Press page.

This summer, IPS — together with The Nation, We Build Progress, and the Wallace Global Fund — hosted our third annual Wallace Symposium, entitled “Forging a Democracy That Works for All.”

The event marked the launch of our new agenda of the same name, which outlines steps to break up billionaire, corporate, and Pentagon power to reinvest in democracy. It also formed the capstone for this summer’s Henry A. Wallace Fellowship, IPS’s leadership development program for young scholar-activists.

Below, we’re proud to present videos and full, edited transcripts for the event.

Panel Roundup

In the introduction, IPS Executive Director Tope Folarin lays out our moral framing: For domestic policy, who counts as an American? And for foreign policy, who counts as a human being? Shortly after, Sarah Anderson lays out our agenda document designed to advance policies reflecting the most universal answers to those questions.

In the pair of panels that follow, our speakers lay out how Henry A. Wallace approached them. Members of the Wallace family share memories of Wallace himself, reflect on his writings, and share how they’re honoring that legacy together with IPS. And in a stirring address afterward, Nation editor John Nichols — the author of a book on Wallace — makes the forceful case that Wallace “got it right in his time, and he teaches us how to get it right in our time.”

Then we get into our panel discussions.

In the first, organizers Kate Hess Pace, Erica Smiley, and IPS’s Khury Petersen-Smith go into depth on “Organizing to Defeat Fascism and Deepen Democracy” — not only in our politics, but also in the civic life of our communities, the everyday reality of our workplaces, and our foreign policy.

In the second, experts Lindsay Owens, Shane Larson, and IPS’s Lindsay Kosgharian explore policy pathways for making that a reality — by reining in corporate greed, empowering the labor movement, and getting resources out of the military-industrial complex and back into programs that actually meet human needs.

In a short “report spotlight” afterward, IPS expert Bella DeVaan previews new IPS findings on how the rules governing philanthropy often impede those goals — and explains how they can be fixed.

Finally, in our evening keynote panel, IPS executive Director Tope Folarin talks with Sulma Arias and Rep. Jamie Raskin about how to link deep organizing with policymaking to make these visions a reality.

A Guiding Document

Like Wallace, we’re internationalists. We’re working to build a world in which every human being can thrive, with universal rights to all the basics for a dignified life on a healthy and peaceful planet.

We see the main impediments to this vision as the excessive power of billionaires, unaccountable corporations, and the Pentagon. Together these three forces undermine democracy at home and around the world. And it will take powerful social movements — not just principled political leaders — to confront them.