Jair Bolsonaro Is Weaker Than He Looks
Despite his authoritarian bravado, Bolsonaro is having a hard time overcoming a weak economy, mounting scandals, and mass mobilization against his program. He can be beaten.
Search Result(s) for: “defund”
Defend Your Clinics
It’s time for an abortion rights movement that’s not directed from the top-down by the Democratic Party and big nonprofits. Clinic defense is a crucial part of that mass, democratic, and militant movement.
The 1776 Unites Project Is an Exercise in Empty Capitalist Boosterism
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.
How Sean McElwee’s “Normie-Progressive Theory of Change” Doomed Samelys López
The story of how one extremely wrong Data for Progress poll kneecapped a socialist congressional candidate in the Bronx.
How Capitalism Underdeveloped Rural America
A toxic brew of economic suffering, racism, and community decline prepared the ground for authoritarian populism in America’s devastated rural areas. Trumpism will not be defeated unless the Left can promote a progressive agenda to rebuild rural America.
Tech Workers for Bernie
Bernie Sanders wants to rein in Big Tech, but tech workers love him anyway. Why? Because tech workers, like all workers, recognize the impact that policies such as Medicare for All and student loan debt relief could have on their well-being.
Joe Biden’s Budget-Cutting Dogma Is a Threat to Public Health
Joe Biden is now pledging to “spend whatever it takes” to overcome this pandemic. But he’s spent his career putting public health programs on the chopping block as part of a decades-long crusade against government spending.
The American Federation of Teachers’ Endorsement of Joe Biden Was Blatantly Undemocratic
The American Federation of Teachers recently announced its endorsement of Joe Biden for president. Even by the dismal standards set by the rest of the labor movement, the AFT’s endorsement was comically undemocratic.
US Military Bases Are Key Pieces of the Global War Machine
We don’t hear about them very often, but the estimated 800 US military bases around the globe have played an essential role in turning the whole world into a bloody battlefield. Any effort to roll back US empire has to include dismantling the machinery of US military bases.
A Joe Biden Presidency Will Require Mass Protests, Too
Donald Trump’s dangerous and unhinged response to the George Floyd protests shows why he must be defeated in November. But Joe Biden’s policy proposals and disturbing record on criminal justice suggests the era of resistance will have to continue with Biden in the White House.
Joe Biden Wants to Be the Anti-Trump — So Why Does He Support Building Trump’s Signature Border Wall?
Professional Democrats used to paint Donald Trump’s border wall as the symbol of everything that was grotesque about him. But now that Joe Biden has come out in favor of it, they’ve offered barely a whisper of protest.
Polls Showed Many Americans Opposed to Civil Rights Protests in the 1960s. But That Changed.
Don't let opponents of the current racial justice protests fool you by citing public opinion polls — such polls often showed the majority of American opposed to the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. Public opinion is not immovable through protest.
Black Lives Matter Is More Popular Than Donald Trump
National support for Black Lives Matter has soared — while President Donald Trump’s approval rating has plunged ten points in a single month. The movement for racial justice is more popular than Trump's presidency.
Police Brutality Against Protesters Only Stoked the Anti–Police Brutality Movement
Credit for the unprecedented wave of mass protests should go to anti-police brutality activists, movement journalists, and politicized young people. But let’s not forget the boys in blue themselves: cops' vicious treatment of protesters proved to millions around the world that the protesters were right.
The Left Loses a Lot. But Sometimes, We Win.
It's a dark time in the US and across the world, but the last two weeks actually give us some cause for hope. Cities are pledging to shift money from cops to public services, violent officers are being disciplined and fired, and a wave of left victories came in last week’s primaries.
The Police Will Do Everything They Can to Resist Accountability — They Have to Be Defunded and Demilitarized
Cops in New York have responded to pressure for reform with a targeted slowdown, while they continue to dish out violence on the streets. We need to be as determined in forcing change upon the police as they are in resisting it.
The Freedom Rides Made the Most of a Multiracial Activist Base
Today’s protests for racial justice are strikingly multiracial. Civil rights organizers have historically considered this an asset and often used it creatively and strategically to their advantage, as they did during the Freedom Rides through the American South in 1961.
Donald Trump Is a Menace to American Democracy. But He Didn’t Come Out of Nowhere.
Liberals are right to condemn Donald Trump for his disastrous mismanagement of the coronavirus pandemic and his undisguised contempt for democracy. But Trump is no aberration: his rise was only possible because of a Republican and Democratic political consensus that has ravaged American politics and society for a generation.
“The Union Has to Be About Social Justice”
Incoming LA teachers' union president Cecily Myart-Cruz was a leader of the city’s landmark 2019 strike. Now she explains why it’s important to get police out of schools and what the labor movement can do about it.
Sweden’s Shameful Record on Racism Shows Why We Need Black Lives Matter
Liberal pundits in Sweden are quick to assert the country's Black Lives Matter protests are an “import of American racial discourse,” at odds with local realities. Yet neoliberal welfare reforms and a racialized war on drugs are eroding the egalitarian policies that have long made Sweden so distinct.