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.
Trump has shown his cards. He’s determined to cling to office regardless of the election result — with no sign from leading Democrats that they’re willing to put up a fight. That means it’s up to us to defend democracy. And we have to start now.
Led by the autocrat Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey’s government has responded to the coronavirus crisis as you would expect: with an iron fist. But the mainstream opposition isn’t proposing a democratic, egalitarian alternative. Workers will have to step in to fill the void.
The New York Post is screaming that if the city isn’t careful, socialists will “really take over.” The paper is terrified that average New Yorkers actually like the socialist platform — and that socialists are very good at organizing to win it.
Donald Trump is making it very clear that he has few qualms about using undemocratic, authoritarian means to stay in power. If they’re serious about stopping him, Democrats will have to stop cowering in fear and act like a real opposition party.
The story of how one extremely wrong Data for Progress poll kneecapped a socialist congressional candidate in the Bronx.
Back when Jacobin was founded this month in 2010, there was hardly any socialist media in the United States. Today, we’re a small part of a growing movement that can still change the world.
New South Wales is allowing stadiums to seat up to 10,000 fans right now, but the Liberal state government has used COVID-19 as a pretext to ban all public protests. Vinil Kumar, who faced the NSW Supreme Court on this issue, spoke with Jacobin about the battle to protect our democratic rights amid lockdown.
Socialists should be making well-thought-out proposals for a better future and building the class power to bring that program into reality. The idea that our purpose is simply “shifting the Overton window” by spouting the most radical-sounding slogans is an unhelpful distraction.
Last week, Donald Trump denounced the “radical” ideas brainwashing students to hate America. Right on time, the 1776 Unites project released education materials they claim are a corrective. Praised by education secretary Betsy DeVos as “wonderful,” the materials aren’t a serious look at American history — they’re empty boosterism for American free markets.
Having Association of Flight Attendants president Sara Nelson as the head of the AFL-CIO wouldn’t cure all that ails American labor, but it would be an enormous boon for the project of building a more democratic, militant, progressive US labor movement. It won’t be easy, but there’s a real path to getting her elected.
Much of the discussion around Donald Trump’s Supreme Court appointment after Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death has been about crucial issues like abortion. But the court also rules regularly on issues of corporate power in America — and whoever Trump’s replacement is will be a steadfast friend to corporations.
Jacobin has been publishing for 10 years now. And we still retain the hope that the solution to the world’s ills will come through more popular democracy and freedom, and not less.
Joe Biden keeps stomping on progressives — despite the fact that he desperately needs their votes. If he wants to defeat Donald Trump, this is exactly the wrong way to do it.
For decades, austerity-minded politicians have bashed universal programs by concern trolling about the danger that a handful of rich people would get them. The urgency of the pandemic is helping people realize just how inconsequential this hang-up is compared to the advantages of universal benefits.
La pandemia del COVID-19 impacta en una América Latina ya golpeada por la crisis económica y por una ofensiva conservadora casi sin precedentes. Pero los pueblos se resisten a dar la pulseada por perdida, y los ejemplos de resistencia y construcciones alternativas proliferan por toda la región.
Los meses de agosto y septiembre registraron nuevas embestidas contra el medioambiente por parte del gobierno brasileño, confirmando que sus políticas de ecocidio no conocen límites.
Netflix’s The Social Dilemma tells a horror story about how social media is creating political extremism and driving children into depression and addiction. But it never even hints that these ills have causes outside of our use of Facebook and Snapchat — and the possibility that what we see on these platforms portrays the reality of a sick society.
Rossana Rossanda, who died on Sunday at age 96, was an anti-fascist partisan and cofounder of Italy’s il manifesto newspaper. A communist till the last, she insisted that the Left must defend its own identity — and unflinchingly take sides with the exploited and oppressed.
This month, Joe Kennedy III became the first Kennedy ever to lose an election in Massachusetts. In light of the occasion, a Masshole reflects on the awfulness of the Kennedy clan and celebrates the end of Kennedy hegemony.
Donald Trump tries to portray himself as pro-worker. Nowhere is this absurdity better exposed than in the decisions of his National Labor Relations Board, which have over and over again favored bosses rather than workers.