After Donald Trump, the Last Thing We Need Is Unity
Joe Biden has long prized bipartisanship above all, and some of his early actions indicate he simply wants to restore the country to its pre-Trump form. That would be a disaster.
21047 Article(s) by: Julia Goodman
The PRO Act Could Transform the Labor Landscape
Joe Biden promised to be the most pro-union president in modern history. He has a chance to prove it by passing the PRO Act, a sweeping labor law reform bill.
Israeli NGO: Israel Is an Apartheid Regime
B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights organization, has taken an extraordinary step — following many Palestinian and human rights groups around the world — in calling the state of Israel what it is: an apartheid regime and thus anything but a democracy.
Bernie Sanders Is Right, and Joe Biden Is Wrong. We Still Need Medicare for All.
Joe Biden and the Democratic establishment refuse to push Medicare for All even as COVID-19 continues to ravage the country. That’s all the more reason for us to demand, alongside Bernie Sanders, that everyone get the health care they need free of charge until the pandemic is over.
Joe Biden Wants to Make Health Care “Secure for All.” He Should Just Make It Free.
In his inauguration speech Wednesday, Joe Biden promised health care that will be “secure for all.” But no amount of rhetorical triangulation can erase the fact that a single-payer system is the only viable alternative to the status quo.
Remembering Margo St James, a Pioneering Sex Worker Organizer
The legacy of Margo St James, the trailblazing sex worker organizer who died earlier this month at 83, is more than her brazen personality, more than her bold and flamboyant tactics. She recognized that economic exploitation and gendered harassment are inextricably linked to police violence.
Joe Biden Has Preserved Key Ethics Loopholes for New Appointees
Joe Biden’s new ethics order will limit one revolving door loophole between government and lobbying — but not the loopholes Biden’s own cabinet picks used to make their fortunes.
As Joe Biden Takes Office, Labor Marches On
In the first 24 hours of the Joe Biden administration, Teamsters are on strike in the Bronx, Chicago teachers are preparing to stop work, and even the staff of the New Yorker are engaged in a work stoppage.
Joe Biden Was Right About the Lies in Our Politics. But He’s Repeatedly Been One of the Liars.
In his inauguration speech yesterday, Joe Biden rightly identified a crisis of ignored truth and unending lies in American politics. Donald Trump enflamed that crisis, but the political class, the media industry, and Biden himself helped create it.
How the Italian Communists Fought the Rise of Fascism
Founded 100 years ago today, the Italian Communist Party immediately faced a violent wave of repression, killing hundreds of militants. As policemen, business elites, and even liberal politicians swung behind Benito Mussolini, no party resisted the Fascist threat more than the Communists.
The Many Lives of Ignazio Silone
Inspired by the hardships faced by peasants in his native Abruzzo, Ignazio Silone’s Fontamara was one of the great anti-fascist novels of the twentieth century. But his own political journey was deeply conflicted, as he left behind his Bolshevik past to become a strident anti-communist.
Francesco Misiano, the Italian Communist Who Brought Battleship Potemkin to the West
The Italian Communist Party was founded 100 years ago today. One of its most remarkable early militants was Francesco Misiano — a keen internationalist who fought gun in hand in the German Revolution before becoming a leading light of Soviet cinema.
When Italy’s Communists Painted Naples Red
Founded 100 years ago today, the Italian Communist Party fought its most famous battles in the country’s Northern industrial heartlands. But in the Southern city of Naples, it had to tailor its activity to a more complex reality — a city whose large informal economy reflected the deep inequalities on which the Italian state was founded.
If Joe Biden Moves Left, You Can Thank the Left
Joe Biden has issued a raft of executive orders that are surprisingly progressive. But we know who to thank: the organized left, which has helped transform US politics.
The Door Has Been Opened to a More Democratic UAW
The United Auto Workers has fallen far from its postwar glory as the most important union in America. Flagrant leadership corruption has made things worse. But a recent settlement with the Justice Department opens up the possibility of democratizing the union, writes labor historian Nelson Lichtenstein.
Donald Trump Was a Warning Shot
In the end, Donald Trump didn’t destroy the American political system. He showed the world how corrupt, undemocratic, and reactionary it already was.
The Business Class Has Never Liked Democracy
Today, on Inauguration Day, we shouldn’t forget that the business class has long stoked fears of democracy — and bankrolled the conservative movement that gave us the events of January 6.
Donald Trump Was Always a Plutocratic Fraud
Donald Trump won the presidency claiming he was a radical opponent of the political establishment. That was always a lie — and his four years in the White House revealed he was just another reactionary, capitalist billionaire.
Joe Biden Is Not Ready to Confront Corporate America
Joe Biden will likely govern to the left of Barack Obama. But his willingness to spend has everything to do with capital’s relaxation of deficit worries — and where capital says “no,” no one should expect Biden to say “yes.”
If Biden Is to Succeed Where Obama Failed, He’ll Have to Fight the GOP
President Joe Biden now has a choice: make friends with congressional Republicans or actually make progress on the multiple overlapping crises facing the United States. He can’t do both.