Donald Trump’s reelection and the specter of Jair Bolsonaro’s return loom over the G20 summit in Brazil. But despite the country’s struggles, Lula da Silva’s leadership provides a playbook for battling the far right.
This fall, Panama has seen large “pro-democracy” and “anti-corruption” protests, backed by mainstream media and much of the country’s business elite. But corruption isn’t owed to a few “bad apple” politicians — it’s rooted in Panama’s ultra-privatized economy.
This week, Emmanuel Macron's higher education minister alarmed researchers and students by calling a formal investigation into the alleged “Islamo-leftist” atmosphere in France’s universities. The announced witch hunt is a worrying assault on critical inquiry — and shows the neoliberal government’s willingness to amplify baseless far-right talking points.
Through Angela Merkel’s reign, neoliberal European integration provided the scaffolding for Germany’s export-led growth. But war on the continent and a series of crises have tested this model’s limits, producing splits within Olaf Scholz’s government.
In one of Europe’s most unequal countries, Spain’s working class is particularly suffering during the pandemic. Unidas Podemos’s “COVID tax” on millionaires’ assets will help rebuild long-neglected public services — and end decades of bipartisan tax giveaways to the rich.
Italy’s far-right government has driven a wave of historical falsification. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s call to turn today’s anti-fascist resistance anniversary into a generic celebration of “freedom” shows how it is trying to erase opposition to fascism from history.
In Denmark, McDonald’s workers receive $22 per hour and 6 weeks of vacation. But it’s not because Danish capitalists are more enlightened — it’s because, when McDonald’s entered the country in the 1980s, unions launched mass strikes and boycotts.
Giorgia Meloni’s far-right party is on course to victory in next month’s Italian election. She’s benefiting from indulgent media — and the center left’s failure to explain how it can break Italy out of its long stagnation.
In Russia’s general election, the Communist Party surged to a strong second place. But the party’s rise has also made it a target for Vladimir Putin’s government — including through Putin's massive interference in the electoral process.
The problem with Donald Trump’s recent firing of six members of Puerto Rico’s Financial Oversight and Management Board isn’t who he decided to fire — it’s the board’s very existence as a tool of colonial rule over Puerto Rico.
The problem with Ta-Nehisi Coates’s recent grilling on Palestine by CBS News’s Tony Dokoupil isn’t that it was rude. It’s that Dokoupil’s questioning betrays a fundamental lack of concern for Palestinians’ basic humanity, shared across mainstream media.
Reading the Washington Post’s recent profile of Howard Schultz, you might be convinced of the Starbucks CEO’s benevolent, liberal image. But his unrelenting drive to smash the Starbucks union shows he’s no different from any other greedy corporate leader.
Donald Trump’s separation of children from their families at the border was a centerpiece of his migration policy. Errol Morris’s new documentary, Separated, chronicles the cruel policy during Trump’s first term that would likely return in a second.
Chicago’s criminal justice system has long been brutal and racist. State’s Attorney Kim Foxx has tried to change that in the last four years — which is precisely why she’s under attack right now.
Even after Spain’s late 1970s transition to democracy, its political establishment maintained a tactful silence over the record of Franco’s dictatorship. But a bill advanced by the left-wing government insists on the need to acknowledge the dictator’s crimes — and identify the estimated 112,000 people lying in unmarked graves across Spain.
Let's say we accept capitalism's defenders' claims that their system created mass economic growth and pulled countless people out of poverty. Even if that's true, we have clearly reached a point in human development where we can rid ourselves of capitalism's relations of hierarchy and domination — without inviting immiseration.
Class shapes our social world — not just through the economy, but through our personal networks. Whether it’s Kamala Harris’s corporate lawyer husband or Elizabeth Warren’s McKinsey alum daughter, it’s legitimate to ask how a politician’s class connections might influence the decisions they make in office.
In the wake of Chile’s popular uprising, the country’s right-wing government is carrying out a ruthless legal crackdown against all forms of protest. Some call it “law-and-order populism” but there’s nothing populist about it — it’s inspired by the penal practices of twentieth-century fascism.
The political situation in Brazil remains quite reactionary, even after Jair Bolsonaro’s party lost ground in Sunday’s election. But the far-right president’s violent agenda took a hit — and that’s worth celebrating.
Ahead of today’s German election, all the main parties have emphasized the need to green the auto industry. But the state’s strategic support for electric cars isn’t an attempt to save the planet — it’s about enhancing German capital’s supremacy over its foreign competition.