Nithya Raman is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America who is running for city council in Los Angeles. In an interview with Jacobin, she describes her history organizing around sexual harassment and homelessness, the need to stop gentrification in LA, and why a homes guarantee is a critical demand.
Conservative Democrat Eliot Engel’s grip on New York’s 16th congressional district appears to be slipping. We talk to Justice Democrats–endorsed contender Jamaal Bowman about the need to break with establishment politics.
Elizabeth Warren bills herself as the candidate with policy chops. But her Medicare for All financing plan is an unworkable mess.
In both his campaigns, Trump has run ads aimed at killing black voters’ enthusiasm for the Democratic nominee and lowering their turnout. The strategy is craven, but the ads exploit real disillusionment. Without a sharp break from their history of failing black constituents, Democrats will remain vulnerable to such opportunistic gambits in the future.
Americans are aging, and millions will be unable to afford long-term care. The only way to avert social catastrophe is to implement a Medicare-for-All system with comprehensive long-term care benefits.
The teachers’ strike wave that has swept the nation since last year hasn’t just reinvigorated working-class militancy — it’s also produced some excellent picket line music and dancing. On the occasion of the teachers’ strike in Chicago, we rounded up the best of them.
Before the resurgence of socialist activism in the United States, Jacobin Reading Groups provided a halfway house between passive, primarily intellectual engagement with the socialist project and full-fledged organizational commitment for thousands of people. They played a real role in resurrecting the US left.
Lula’s release will not change the course of Brazilian politics by itself. But the leftist leader has already said his time in prison further radicalized him — and that can only bode well for the popular movement resisting Bolsonaro’s reactionary politics.
Whatever happens today in Iowa, we must think beyond one campaign. Our aim is to deliver on what W. E. B. Du Bois championed so many decades ago: breaking capital’s dictatorial power over our society, so all can flourish and all can control the forces that shape their lives.
Bill Gates has managed to craft a reputation as a billionaire with a social conscience. But his recent comments on proposals for a wealth tax leave no room for doubt about whose side he’s on.
Pete Buttigieg is this election’s poster child for “progressive neoliberalism” — offering up platitudes about diversity while leaving untouched the very structures that oppress people. It’s time we left this kind of politics in the past.
Will the work ethic decline under socialism? No — socialism empowers ordinary people to be active participants in shaping the economy. And that’s a lot more motivating than fear of losing your job.
For all the Democratic Party’s warnings about Trump’s far-right friends, it’s home to an alarming number of supporters of India’s quasi-fascist prime minister Narenda Modi. One of them is a top staffer to Joe Biden. That’s a big problem.
Rashida Tlaib doesn’t like Hillary Clinton, and Hillary Clinton certainly doesn’t like Rashida Tlaib. But the conflict isn’t just about personalities. It’s the inevitable result of the fact that the Democratic Party coalition contains forces whose interests are diametrically opposed to each other.
Today, Portugal votes on whether to reelect a government influenced by the radical left — or else turn back toward the failed austerity policies of the neoliberal center.
The Supreme Court should rule in favor of LGBTQ workers. But whether it does or doesn’t, those workers need unions and stronger labor laws to fight discrimination.
The Democratic National Committee may be able to tip the scales a bit in a presidential primary, but that doesn’t mean the Left can’t harness the Democratic ballot line to challenge corporate politicians and elect democratic socialists like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
From rent strikes to the fight for DC statehood, Aparna Raj is bringing a movement‑driven socialist politics to a city council race defined by displacement and inequality.
Impeachment has failed, but Democrats are still trying to defeat Trump by focusing on process over policy. They're going to keep failing — the only way to get rid of Trump is to beat him at the polls.
Pundits analyzing the “populist threat” often assume an audience that wants to defend the status quo. Presenting all political “outsiders” as merely dangerous, anti-populist literature tells us more about the role of public intellectuals than the movements it is meant to describe.