In their early-twentieth-century heyday, American socialists advanced a distinctive vision of constitutional interpretation that centered popular mass politics — not judges and lawyers. As we face our own crisis of constitutionalism today, we should look back to that vision.
The Rochester, New York labor council recently resolved to “prepare for and enact a general strike of all working people” if Trump tries to steal the election. The rest of the labor movement needs to pay attention — labor can help stop an authoritarian power grab if unions start making plans right now.
Republican senator Mike Lee ignited a controversy last week when he insisted that it’s a good thing the US isn’t a democracy. His comments were appalling — but they remind us that what democracy we do have in the US is thanks to the countless bottom-up struggles against elites like him since the country’s founding.
In an attempt to send a message to any legislators considering challenging the mass incarceration status quo, law enforcement unions in California have spent nearly $1 million to unseat Reggie Jones-Sawyer, a state assembly member and Bernie Sanders–backed criminal justice reformer.
The most important part of the New York Post‘s dubious Ukrainegate story has nothing to do with Ukraine: It’s Facebook and Twitter’s partisan rush to censor the story, a reminder of the tech monopolies’ growing threat to a free press.
International financial institutions and G20 countries have constructed a partnership to benefit private finance at the expense of the citizens in poor countries. We need a radically different development model.
Netflix announced the forthcoming movie adaptation of JD Vance’s reactionary, victim-blaming book Hillbilly Elegy yesterday. But why would anyone seek answers about life in Appalachia from a right-wing former venture capitalist, when they could put on a Dolly Parton record instead?
Amy Coney Barrett refuses to agree that humans contribute to climate change, while Democrats fail to ask her to recuse herself from a landmark climate case involving Shell, the oil company that employed her father. Democrats must bring up the climate in Barrett’s confirmation hearings — the future of our planet is at stake.
Liberal premier Gladys Berejiklian may be the latest casualty in a series of corruption scandals that have rocked the Australian state of New South Wales. The recurrent scandals stem from deeply entrenched corruption in Sydney that gives property developers free reign.
Karl Marx celebrated liberalism’s achievements, such as freedom of the press, while excoriating its fidelity to private property rights. We can hold the same tension in our minds — fiercely opposing capitalism while fighting to make liberal rights real through socialist transformation.
Over 1,400 workers at the 11 Loblaws-owned Dominion grocery stores in Newfoundland have been on strike since August 22. It’s a fight between workers on the front lines of the pandemic and some the worst oligarchs in Canada.
Despite all the mounting evidence of climate catastrophe, fossil fuel companies are still planning to carry on business as usual. The climate movement must be ready to use tactics that disrupt the normal routines of fossil capital and prompt states to take meaningful action.
A report compiled by an international network of unions exposes ruthless worker exploitation at XPO Logistics, the global transportation giant headquartered in Connecticut. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the company’s mistreatment and repression have only gotten worse.
Ousted from the Georgian presidency in 2013, Mikheil Saakashvili bizarrely moved his anti-Putin crusade abroad, as he became governor of Ukraine’s Odessa region. His recent return to Georgian politics is the latest in a series of quixotic antics — but also expresses the essential shallowness of liberal democracy in the post-Soviet space.
Yesterday, Amy Coney Barrett told lawmakers she doesn’t have “firm views” on climate change. For decades, her father was a lawyer at Shell Oil, which now has a major climate case in front of the Supreme Court.
America’s political institutions are designed to keep democracy at bay. But evidence is mounting that Americans have had enough and want reform.
One in four rural households have been unable to get the medical care they need during the coronavirus pandemic. Rural Americans have been struggling to obtain and afford care like never before, and Donald Trump could end up paying the price in November.
In 2018, the “Red for Ed” teachers’ strike wave exploded, first in West Virginia, then in Oklahoma, Arizona, and beyond. It shook the foundations of public education and teacher unionism in America — and may play a key role in fighting COVID-19–induced education austerity in the near future.
Since its establishment, the Electoral College has stood out as one of America’s most unpopular political institutions. But the long history of failed reform attempts hasn’t made this outmoded institution any less undemocratic — it’s time we finally abolished the Electoral College.
To court pack, or not to court pack? That is the question Democrats are doing everything they can to avoid answering — even though Republicans have been successfully packing the courts for years.