Building From the Ruins
The Left needs a revived labor movement, and a revived labor movement needs the Left.
19646 Articles by: Jonathan Sas
Jonathan Sas has worked in senior policy and political roles in government, think tanks, and the labor movement. He is an honorary witness to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. His writing has appeared in the Toronto Star, National Post, the Tyee, and Maisonneuve.
Thank Socialism for the Vaccine. Blame Capitalism for Its Distribution.
The jaw-dropping speed of COVID-19 vaccine development is a glorious marvel of science, cooperation, and economic planning. But the lifeboat ethics of vaccine rollout is a horrifying display of the cruelty of capitalism.
Trumpism After Trump
Don’t count right-wing populism out. While technocrats have seen their fortunes rise under lockdown, the sense of national decline and disarray that first brought leaders like Donald Trump to power still has a bright future.
The Indifferent and the Defiant
Battered by poverty and coronavirus, South Texas should have been deep blue turf for Joe Biden. It wasn’t. But in the Rio Grande Valley, the story is less about growing conservatism than about the rise of nonvoting — and despair.
Issue 40: Letters + Internet Speaks
Our inbox at [email protected] is open to your effusive praise or ruthless criticism.
A Left That Matters
Our still small but growing socialist movement now has a chance to make a real impact.
Where Boomers Party Till They Drop — Dead
Welcome to The Villages, where not even the coronavirus can keep retirees from their steady diet of sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll, and Donald Trump.
The 2020 Presidential Election and Working-Class Voters
Our findings suggest that the 2020 presidential election represented a continued shift in the base of the Democratic Party from one rooted in working-class voters to a coalition that’s highly concentrated in high-income suburbs.
Trump’s Surprising Working-Class Success
In November, the Right continued to lose wealthy suburbs but made inroads in working-class counties.
Bob Dylan’s American Apocalypse
Dylan’s latest album, Rough and Rowdy Ways, is a fitting capstone for our end times.
The Biden Doctrine
As president, Donald Trump launched broadsides against the liberal international order. Will Joe Biden be able to put America “back at the head of the table” once in office?
When Biden Met Hillarycare
Records from the Clinton presidential archive give a revealing — and unflattering — look at the triangulating politics of Senator Joe Biden.
How the Right Won a Postwar Counterrevolution in Economics
The Great Depression thoroughly discredited laissez-faire economics. But over the postwar decades, with the help of generous business funding and political connections, figures like Milton Friedman led a remarkable revival of nineteenth-century economic ideas. They did it by adopting a pseudo-populist rhetoric that celebrated individual choice and autonomy.
Further Means Testing of the Stimulus Will Be Disastrous for Suffering Americans
If Democrats subject the next round of survival checks to more means testing, Americans battered by the economic crisis will find it even more difficult to make ends meet.
You Have to Watch Chadwick Boseman in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
Chadwick Boseman’s final performance in playwright August Wilson’s new Netflix adaptation of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is a haunting but appropriate farewell.
Anti-Asian Racism Is on the Rise in Australia — and It’s Coming From the Top Down
This past year saw a wave of anti-Asian racism, egged on by a club of conservative “anti-anti-racist” commentators who brand opponents of bigotry as stooges for the Chinese Communist Party. It’s long past time to challenge their sly dog whistles and disingenuous smears.
New Polling Shows That Millions of Americans Really Hate Wall Street
The GameStop saga was more than a simple tale of upstart traders taking on big business. But it highlighted again how disconnected Wall Street is from ordinary workers — and new polling finds that even more Americans now resent Wall Street.
To Defeat the Radical Right, End American Empire
The American military has long been fertile ground for the far right. To weaken the radical right’s power, we need to dismantle the warfare state — and build in its place a humane welfare state that provides for all.
Keeping George Orwell on the Left
The term “Orwellian” has long been a vacuous cliché, and now even allies of Trump are making use of it to deride their opponents. But George Orwell, a self-described democratic socialist, always belonged on the Left.
The Left Can Take Back Power in Ecuador
From 2007 to 2017, Ecuador was a beacon of hope on the Latin American left, but the last four years have seen a neoliberal regime imposing IMF-driven austerity. The front-runner in polls for today’s presidential election, left-winger Andrés Arauz, told Jacobin how he’ll continue the Citizen Revolution — and build on his ally Rafael Correa’s legacy.