Swing Voters Want Kitchen-Table Populism, Not a Sermon
A new survey of 6,100 voters finds that persuadable voters respond to plain talk about rent, groceries, and corruption — and tune out when Democrats lecture them about who’s dividing them.
Blog
We Rely on Cleaners’ Work, So Cleaners Should Be Paid More
Cleaning work is often called low-skilled, perhaps because it’s usually done by low-waged women. In an interview, a cleaner in the European Parliament and a hospital cleaner explain why their work should be more valued and better paid.
When the Market Destroys a Community
Steelworks 80, a planned steel expansion that brought workers to northern Sweden, was derailed by a global downturn. Its story shows how communities built around the promise of investment are left with the consequences when it disappears.
Film Workers Should Fight for Good Movies, Not Just Jobs
Hollywood’s unions fight for tax credits and jobs but not for the movies themselves. That has to change. Unions can take up policies that could save American cinema not only as a way to make a living but as a vital art form.
The AfD's Economic Populism Could Hardly Be Shallower
Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany party styles itself as populist and anti-elite. Yet it maintains close relationships with tech elites like Elon Musk, who was among the first to congratulate the party on Sunday’s election win.
25 Years After 9/11, the Zombie War on Terror Stumbles On
Nobody seems to care anymore about the fears and threats that originally motivated the war on terror. Yet 25 years after September 11, 2001, that war continues to infect American life at home and abroad, more violently and menacingly than ever.
Why Is It So Hard to Imagine the End of American Empire?
Americans’ muted reaction to the quarter-century anniversary of 9/11 reveals a waning zeal for the American imperial project. We tolerate it only because we believe it can’t end. But it can.
The GOP’s Enemy #1 for the Midterms: Socialism
Donald Trump and the Republicans want you to be terrified of socialists. But they really don’t want to talk about our core economic policies, because the moment you spell those policies out, they sound pretty good.
Universities Are Teaching the Virtue of Overwork
At American universities, nap pods and meditation apps paper over backbreaking workloads. As higher education increasingly conforms to corporate logic, its most durable product becomes a student with a proven capacity for overwork.
The Discreet Charm of John Berger
Art critic, novelist, Marxist, lover, exile, storyteller: John Berger resisted every easy definition. His new biography embraces the contradictions he left behind.
The Really, Really Short Twenty-First Century
Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s Empire became a campus sensation because it offered a master theory for globalization at a moment when old Marxist categories seemed exhausted. But the capitalist internationalism they saw as permanent has now crashed and burned.
