
Finding the Lesser Evil
Taking stock of the Democratic field on US empire.

Taking stock of the Democratic field on US empire.

We’ve read Chasing Hillary so you didn’t have to. The Clinton campaign was even worse than we thought.

What are the 2020 candidates proposing to do about inequality, one of the defining issues of our time and a proxy for the class struggle? We've scoured their campaign websites and tallied up the pros and cons.

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.

After her woeful Super Tuesday results, Elizabeth Warren has next to no chance of winning more delegates than Bernie Sanders. But she has a plan for that — only it’s the opposite of everything she once stood for. (And it won’t even work.)

Voter shaming has never been an effective tactic, but the fact that it’s being discussed as one by the likes of Pod Save America’s hosts speaks to the increasingly post-democratic sentiments that have become common among elite liberals.

If we view the problems of poverty, health care, and criminal justice through a lens that filters out the political-economic underpinnings of these injustices — informed by the language of moral reckoning — we may just end up with modest reforms at best and symbolic gestures at worst, when what we need is fundamental structural change.

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.

Palestinian writer Mohammed el-Kurd spoke to Jacobin about Israel’s vicious war on Gaza and the daily humiliations and frequent killing that Israel has long inflicted on Palestinians. “We are told time and time again that our death is business as usual.”

The Israeli government spent months obstructing a cease-fire deal in Gaza while the US refused to apply pressure. Israel’s leaders are keen to resume the onslaught while ramping up violence in the West Bank if Washington allows it.

Jacobin troll Donald Hughes sent in 18,000 words grading major events in 2021. What follows are brief selections from his treatise. The verdict: 2021 sent in some poor work, but he's letting it through.

Because communication is at the heart of any good relationship.

Oh, what a tangled web we weave . . .

Ranking the most consequential libs for war of the early 21st century.

The US invaded Iraq 20 years ago this spring. From killing hundreds of thousands of civilians to redistributing wealth to the rich and powerful, it was an unmitigated disaster. These charts show how.

Hunter Biden, the president’s problematic son, has finally been indicted for his years of tax evasion. Only in an egregiously unequal society like ours do the children of the rich and powerful get away with corruption for as long as Hunter Biden has.

This week, Nina Turner announced a second run for Congress in Ohio’s 11th District. She spoke with Jacobin about fighting pro-corporate Democrats, frustrations with the Biden administration, and why “evil never sleeps, so good can never take a vacation.”

There’s only one candidate left in the presidential race committed to fighting corporate power and reining in Wall Street. Elizabeth Warren should endorse Bernie Sanders.

Do you want to see Donald Trump defeated in 2020? Of course you do. The candidate who is best positioned to do exactly that: Bernie Sanders.

On Palestinian rights, Bernie Sanders was a progressive outlier in 2020, sandwiched among Israel hawks and imperialists. But in the coming decades, his candidacy won’t be an outlier at all: progressives are forcing a reckoning on Israel.