
An Opportunity in Disguise
Last Tuesday, Trump celebrated killing the ACA's individual mandate. The Democrats should let it stay dead.

Last Tuesday, Trump celebrated killing the ACA's individual mandate. The Democrats should let it stay dead.

On this day in 1981, Bernie Sanders became Burlington’s first socialist mayor by a margin of just ten votes. Here’s a definitive history of how Bernie beat the political establishment with a working-class coalition behind him and how we can do the same today.

To fulfill his campaign promise of raising the minimum wage and safeguard the most basic elements of democracy, Joe Biden must publicly and vocally support scrapping the filibuster.

Last week brought signs that the balance of power in New York state politics is shifting left.

Chuck Schumer knows how to hold a press conference and he knows how to raise money from Wall Street. Those skills got him reelected to Senate leadership today. But when it comes to the take-no-prisoners, polarized politics of the twenty-first century, he’s completely out of his depth.

Joe Biden’s empty campaign may well have won over some suburban Republican voters. But the fragile majority he has likely eked out this time should have been many times larger, and without a more serious reorientation, it won’t hold for long.

Robert Taft would have felt at home among today's Senate reactionaries.

Joe Biden has repeatedly pushed to cut Social Security in the past. But a proposal to end the payroll tax exemption for the rich would bolster the crucial government service and even has Joe Manchin’s support. The president has no excuse not to support it.

Bernie Sanders will soon use his new role as chair of a key Senate committee to put CEOs in the hot seat. Progressive elected officials should look to Sanders for how to keep public attention laser-focused on the crimes of the executive class.

The Biden administration’s preemptive surrender on the $15 minimum wage is nothing like its guns-blazing approach to getting union-buster Neera Tanden confirmed for a White House job. The contrast demonstrates Biden’s lack of sincerity when he claims to be a working-class fighter.

The DNC is the four-yearly apotheosis of the Democratic Party's love of progressive symbolism and empty rhetoric in place of real political vision. This year, it's not even committing to that.

While Joe Biden cedes the ground to Donald Trump, other campaigns are learning that canvassers, properly masked, can have safe conversation with voters more than six feet away. The Biden approach could help put the election in jeopardy.

Recent polls show Republican voters now reject many of the old GOP shibboleths that Donald Trump trashed — and that they continue to rally around their new leader, indictments and all. Joe Biden can’t just base his campaign on being “not Trump.”

There’s no natural law that says the Democrats have to lose next year’s midterm elections. But if Democrats can’t fundamentally improve the quality of life for working-class voters, there’s good reason to think they will lose.

Hillary Clinton has been talking about economic inequality lately, but there’s a reason Wall Street isn’t worried.

A New York State commission moved yesterday to make changes to ballot access laws, and through those changes to destroy the Working Families Party. Make no mistake, this is about protecting the rich from even modest challenges to wealth and privilege.

Democrats refused to seize a rare opportunity to outmaneuver Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell. They settled for a COVID relief bill that skimps on benefits, provides tax breaks to the rich, and pulls us toward austerity extremism.

Democratic Party leaders want the benefits of an engaged activist base like the one currently challenging Donald Trump without actually having to listen to or engage with it.

Teamster president Sean O’Brien’s speech at the Republican National Convention may represent a return to nonpartisan realpolitik for unions. But does that reflect labor's strength or its decline?