We acknowledge that there is nothing inevitable about progressive reform, despite the seismic shifts engendered by the COVID-19 crisis. The global catastrophe has exposed the limitations of political populism, which failed to produce practical solutions to the problems engendered by the pandemic, underlined by the floundering incompetence of the Trump presidency in the United States. Yet the crisis has unleashed forces that could as easily fuel individualism and national chauvinism as solidarity and internationalism. Progressives will have to win big public debates that can redefine our world, identifying governing strategies that will succeed in increasingly fractured societies.