We Can’t Ignore Class Dealignment

Matt Karp on class dealignment and why the Left’s weakening connection to blue-collar workers isn’t a problem we can wish away.

Emmanuel Macron’s Plan to Raise the Pension Age Is Class War

French president Emmanuel Macron plans to hike the retirement age to 64, sparking massive protests. The government claims the current retirement age is unsustainable: but what French workers really can’t afford is to work till they drop.

Nikki Haley Is an Out-of-Touch Politician Who Thinks Life Is Too Hard for the Rich

Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, is expected to announce her bid for president this month. As a South Carolinian, I can tell you that having her in the White House would be a disaster for workers and their families.

Striking Food Delivery Workers in Russia Take on Tech Giant Yandex

In Russia, mounting authoritarianism and the wartime crackdown on dissent have hobbled trade unions. A five-day strike by food couriers showed that at least some workers are refusing to be muzzled.

Democratic Leaders Join House Republican Attack on “Socialism”

House Republicans have wasted no time in red-baiting the Left, and the centrist leadership of the Democratic Party has apparently been happy to join them.

Democratic Leaders’ Craven “Socialism” Vote Is a Symptom of Political Cluelessness

Some Democrats apparently thought voting for the GOP’s ludicrous anti-socialism resolution would keep them safe from Republican attacks. They’ll find out soon enough how wrong they were.

Rosa Parks Was a Radical

Rosa Parks was born on this day in 1913. Far from being a face of respectability politics, she was a defiant and seasoned working-class organizer who despised the cringing submission that Jim Crow induced and who doggedly fought oppression in all its forms.

The Global South Must Be at the Center of the Making of a Just Global Economic Order

The US-dominated economic order constructed after Bretton Woods did not take the Global South into consideration. A new, just system will have to change that.

Private Equity Values Are Down — and Workers Might Pay With Their Savings

As public officials across America prepare to funnel even more of government workers’ savings to private equity moguls, they risk gambling away public retirement money as private equity values drop and industry executives continue to rake it in.

Poker Face Is the Working-Class Columbo We’ve Been Waiting For

Rian Johnson and Natasha Lyonne’s new detective show, Poker Face, is a brilliant working-class riff on Knives Out.

Cities Are Spending More to Brutalize Homeless People Than It Would Cost to House Them

Few scenes are as emblematic of the barbarism of American capitalism as the now-routine “sweeps” in which police round up homeless people and destroy their belongings. By some estimates, it would be cheaper to just provide them with housing.

The Rod Dreher Reality Show Is Hard to Look Away From

Following every juicy, unhinged twist and turn of Rod Dreher’s writing is trash TV for leftist intellectuals.

Ilhan Omar Should Wear Her Expulsion From the House Foreign Affairs Committee as a Badge of Honor

Ilhan Omar has been kicked off the House Foreign Affairs Committee. The move is a backhanded acknowledgment by her enemies of her unusual effectiveness as a critic of the hypocrisies of US foreign policy.

J. D. Vance Is Wrong. Donald Trump Was No Antiwar President.

J. D. Vance, the faux-populist senator from Ohio, says that Donald Trump “kept the peace” as president. He has a short memory.

After Independence, Algeria Launched an Experiment in Self-Managing Socialism

After the end of French colonial rule, Algeria’s first government began to promote workers’ self-management in the “Mecca of Revolution.” But a backlash by conservative elements led to a military coup that established the regime still in power today.

Israel Is Threatening to Turn Iran Into Another Ukraine

Israel’s air strikes on Iran highlight the risk that Israeli bellicosity and Biden administration fecklessness could combine to produce a disastrous regional war in the Middle East.

Own Your Bad

CUNY Is the People’s University. Austerity Is Killing It.

The City University of New York is the crown jewel of the city’s once-robust welfare state, a vital resource for working-class New Yorkers. Mayor Eric Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul are starving it.

Big Pharma Is Obscenely Jacking Up the Prices of Publicly Funded COVID Vaccines

With pharma giant Moderna planning to quintuple the price it charges for its COVID vaccines — developed using taxpayer dollars — the case for nationalizing an out-of-control drug industry has never been stronger.

There’s No Such Thing as a “Self-Made Man”

The bootstraps narrative is near and dear to Americans’ hearts. But it’s a fiction, one that obscures complex relationships of interdependence and generates a culture of self-blame. It’s time to bust the myth for good.