James Madison argued that politicians’ ambition would lead them to uphold the separation of powers. Today congressmembers’ ambition seems to lead them to do the exact opposite: submitting to Trump and completely bargaining away their own power.
Oliver Stone Goes to Washington
Jacobin sat down with legendary filmmaker Oliver Stone to talk about his recent testimony before Congress on the JFK assassination, the CIA’s continued stonewalling, and why we’re closer than ever to finally piecing together the mystery of November 22, 1963.
Warfare Is Hell at the Movies
Alex Garland and Ray Mendoza’s Warfare is another combat movie that promises to make war look like hell but instead makes it look like a thrilling trial by fire for young men to prove themselves.
“Natalcon” and the Contradictions of the Pronatalist Right
Last month’s gathering of pronatalists in Austin, Texas, revealed a right-wing milieu riven by internal contradictions — and without a plausible plan to significantly increase birth rates.
Winning the Rank-and-File Vote
A look at recent bottom-up efforts to win endorsements for Bernie Sanders and mobilize trade unionists against Donald Trump offer insights into how the labor movement can better and more democratically engage its members in politics.
Born in the seventeenth century, our faith in progress is now at death’s door. Sociologist Göran Therborn traces the idea’s history — and argues that it must be revived.
ICE Sets Its Sights on Massachusetts Immigrant Workers
This week, ICE snatched an immigrant seafood worker in Massachusetts at an employer whose workers have engaged in nationally celebrated collective action for years — the kind of collective action that, on a mass scale, would be a major threat to Trump.
Elon Musk Decimated the Government and Saved Almost Nothing
Elon Musk’s cuts may have “saved” the public less than half a percent of the national debt, but they are already making Americans poorer and sicker and forcing them to spend hours waiting on phone help lines.
Capitalist Progress Threatens Human Survival
Marxist scholar Michael Löwy, responding to Samuel Farber’s “In Defense of Progress” from the new issue of Jacobin, defends philosopher Walter Benjamin and argues that “progress,” as defined under capitalism, has come to threaten humanity’s very survival.
From Civil Wars to Neoliberalism in Central America
The end of the bloody, US-backed civil wars across Central America led to a brutal neoliberal economic restructuring near the turn of the century — which then helped produce the 21st-century authoritarianism of Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele.
Cambodia Is Still Haunted by the Legacy of the Khmer Rouge
Fifty years ago today, the Khmer Rouge took power in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh. Instead of rebuilding the country after a destructive US bombing campaign, Pol Pot’s movement plunged it into one of the last century’s most horrifying catastrophes.
Will Trump’s Attorney General Override the NLRB?
An anti-union trade association is urging the US attorney general to invalidate 15 previously decided NLRB cases. The group argues the AG can and should declare that certain board precedent is no longer binding, an unprecedented and illegal move.
Trump Has Exposed the Fragility of the Global Dollar System
What caused Donald Trump to walk back on many of his tariffs last week was not domestic pressure but a run on the market for US Treasuries led by large institutional savers. If US debt is no longer a safe asset, then American hegemony is also at risk.
Recovering Our Power
The Left’s predicament today is not that there is no opposition or resistance and not that the Right has all the power. It’s the sense that we lack the levers of power we once wielded.
