The People’s Propaganda

In the golden age of American political cartooning, Populist artists lampooned injustices that their contemporaries overlooked.

Issue 54: Dossier

The language of land management.

Issue 54: Letters

Send your crop report to [email protected].

The Black Belt Communists

During the Great Depression, black sharecroppers and the Communist Party waged war against tenant farming in the South.

When Bernie Went Back to the Land

While free love, weed, and tie-dye might not have been his bag, even the young Bernard Sanders of Brooklyn, NY, tried a life of living off the land. It didn’t work out.

Fund the Jacobin Commune

Provincial Pretenders

The only thing more American than living and working on a farm is pretending you do.

Issue 54: Misery Index

Can Policies Make Rural Politics?

The rural divide is deep and, in many cases, based on real abandonment by liberal technocrats. More than just new policies, Democrats need a new approach to rural voters.

A Twenty-First-Century Horse Opera

Yellowstone sells a fantasy of rural America — and conservatism — no different from any other prime-time soap opera.

Tall Tails

Some of the most frightening beasts of American folklore may be hiding out in your neck of the woods.

The Old World’s New Agriculture

In today’s Europe, the exploitation of migrant workers puts food on the table.

Apartheid’s Green Thumb

Since the 1960s, Israel has planted millions of trees across the Naqab desert and the West Bank. The afforestation effort greenwashes ethnic cleansing — and literally covers up the evidence.

Favela Archipelago

Brazil’s impoverished, informal urban neighborhoods are the result of long-term rural neglect.

Outside the Green Line

Israel has laid waste to Palestinian agriculture for decades. It’s only gotten worse since the war started.

Sacrificial Lambs

The success of the “nuclear sponge” strategy means the destruction of the Great Plains.

What Happened to Rural Unions?

Rural Voter Blues

Contrary to what you’ve heard, progressives actually can reach rural voters.

Jane McAlevey Knew We Could Win

Among Jane McAlevey’s many audacious projects in the labor movement, her organizer training program, Organizing for Power, is one of her most innovative. Reaching tens of thousands of workers worldwide, her ideas and commitment will live on through it.

Old Man Zuck’s Family Farm

Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t work the land on his Hawaii ranch, but he and other wealthy landowners still benefit from huge agricultural tax breaks.