Ryan Switzer is a PhD candidate in sociology at Stockholm University. He researches right-wing politics in welfare states.
This presidential campaign, the Center for American Progress has been put in the comical position of having to promote policies that they just a few months ago claimed were insane and politically suicidal. But one constant remains — they can’t stand Bernie Sanders.
Labour’s policies were popular across the country, but we’ve learned it takes much more than good ideas to win an election. Whether in or out of office, Labour must be a force for good in people’s lives if we’re to win back the heartland seats.
The publication of the “Afghanistan Papers” has underscored what a bloody disaster the US occupation has been. Whether it’s Trump or Obama or Bush, we must oppose US imperialism no matter who is in the White House.
For Labour door-knockers, defeat was bitter, but the experience built skills and solidarities that will carry them into the next fights: preserving Labour as a vehicle for socialism, battling austerity and despair at the local level, and preparing the ground for victory at the next election.
Democrats and labor leaders are touting the renegotiated NAFTA deal as a win for workers and the planet. Don’t believe them: it’s a pro-corporate framework that will continue to bludgeon working people in Mexico, Canada, and the United States.
Amazon went all out to defeat Seattle’s socialist city council member Kshama Sawant in this year’s election — but Sawant emerged victorious. In an interview with Jacobin, she reflects on why it’s so important to pick fights with capitalists, and what every socialist running for office should know.
The concept of “emotional labor” can help us better understand work and exploitation. But when it’s used to keep score between friends and family rather than examine our relationship as workers, it doesn’t bring us any closer to liberation.
Jeff Bezos helped save the sci-fi TV show The Expanse because he wants to promote space colonization — on capitalist terms. But ironically, the show he saved depicts a grim and brutal life for workers on Earth and beyond.
This is not the time to abandon the socialist policies that would most improve lives in the very areas Labour lost. Instead, we must build a more effective movement that can win them.
It’s okay to talk to your kids about politics. In fact, it’s a good idea — if you do it the right way. Here’s how.
James Baldwin was many things: a brilliant writer, a trenchant social critic, a dogged activist. He was also an unapologetic radical.
Last night’s UK elections results point to a deep problem in world politics today: the gravitational pull of privileging cultural over economic combat — an outcome that consistently divides the Left and hands victory to the Right.
Most proposals to revive the labor movement focus on expanding labor’s rights. But the “rights” framework hampers working-class solidarity and makes unions subordinate to the state. To build working-class power, we should focus instead on labor freedoms.
To make the case against socialism, David Brooks reached into his timeworn bag of anti-radical clichés: humanity is too flawed, bureaucrats can’t get anything right, and the market’s efficiency is unmatched. Has he paid any attention to the last 30 years of neoliberalism?
Labour lost this election not because it was too much of a working-class party, but because it was too little of one in too many places. Our cause endures — and now is the time to steel ourselves for the next fight.
The exit polls from the British election are a devastating blow. Allowing the Tories to pose as the defenders of Brexit ensured defeat — and has handed historic Labour areas over to the party of bosses and landlords. But with resolute socialist organizing, we will have another shot at power.
The mainstream press loves attacking Bernie Sanders for either being too Jewish or not Jewish enough. It’s a cynical ploy to undermine his unapologetically left-wing campaign.
Just days after he was warmly applauded by a Zionist group for delivering a stunningly antisemitic speech, Donald Trump issued a cynical “antisemitism” decree meant to stamp out campus criticism of Israel. It’s just the latest episode in Zionism’s long history of allying with antisemites.
In 1981, Bernie Sanders achieved the unthinkable — dethroning a deeply entrenched city establishment in Burlington, Vermont, with an upset victory in the city’s mayoral race that no one saw coming. His methods were familiar: a populist, working-class message, door-to-door grassroots organization, and a dogged refusal to bow to elite pressure.
Political scientists are discovering something that today’s Democrats refuse to understand: social policy is about more than technocratic tinkering — it defines who counts as a full citizen. And means testing tears apart the very fabric of society.