Dana Fisher is an assistant professor of sociology at Columbia University. She’s the author of Activism, Inc: How the Outsourcing of Grassroots Campaigns is Strangling Progressive Politics in America. In the book, Fisher examines the role of the professional political canvasser. She’s a guest on the October 11th edition of WINA’s Charlottesville–Right Now, and talks about how the institutionalization of activism is defeating the point of democracy.
“What you have is a bunch of young people working for one office who wear a different t-shirt on a different day, and say a different script on a different day to raise money for a different cause,” says Fisher. Read more on Fisher’s work in a recent American Prospect article. The organization Fisher profiles in the book has set up a website to counter her argument.