The rationale for Bernie Sanders’s brand of politics has always been that it’s better to aim at shifting the basic parameters of American politics — however difficult that may be — than accepting those parameters and trying to maneuver within them.
This week’s all-women-moderated presidential debate is being lauded as a feminist victory in the press. But it was hardly that. The candidates were just fed inane questions meant to defend the benevolence of US empire and marginalize political positions deemed too far left.
In a 2020 campaign against Donald Trump, a bet on Elizabeth Warren is a risky wager on its own terms. But over the next twenty years, a turn toward progressive technocracy is not a bet at all — it’s an unconditional surrender to class dealignment.
Should Bernie Sanders be the Left’s presidential candidate in 2020? Hamilton Nolan and Bhaskar Sunkara revive the great American tradition of arguing about Bernie online.
Bernie Sanders is the only choice on climate. He is getting it right because his plan is better, and his plan is better because of specific and substantial ideological differences with Elizabeth Warren.
Kamala Harris’s student debt forgiveness plan is a joke. But it won’t be the last time she puts out policy proposals that masquerade as social justice initiatives but accomplish little. It’s what Obama and many Democrats before him did — only now, millions of people aren’t buying it.
Pundits love to narrate progressive politics as a story of “dreamers” like Bernie Sanders versus “realists” who understand the political constraints they face. They may be right about those roles — but they’ve got the casting backward. Sanders is the realist in this election.
Two years after forcing Al Franken’s resignation from the Senate over sexual misconduct allegations, prominent Democrats now have to decide whether to stand on principle or keep silent about the latest assault accusations against Joe Biden. We asked them — and so far, most are choosing to keep silent.
Private monopolies are rightly criticized for being inefficient and unaccountable. But public monopolies are a different story — we should loudly and proudly say that democratically controlled public monopolies are a positive good.
Mainstream Democrats never tire of smearing the socialist senator from Vermont. Hillary Clinton is calling Bernie Sanders a sexist yet again. But his feminist credentials are solid — neoliberals like her are the ones failing women.
Bernie Sanders didn’t attend Netroots Nation last weekend. That’s because he knows who the real audience for his democratic-socialist politics is (working people, not the Daily Kos crowd).
Elizabeth Warren wants to “hold insurers accountable for providing adequate mental health benefits.” We want to eliminate private insurers and provide mental health service as a right.
Warrencare and Petecare are, as proposed, structurally identical. Why do pundits insist on calling Elizabeth Warren’s health care plan “Medicare for All”?
Rival campaigns and hostile journalists are scraping the bottom of the barrel with their latest attacks on Bernie Sanders supporters. Now, apparently, getting owned on Twitter is “harassment,” and when a nurses’ union donates to Bernie, it’s “dark money.”
Electing Bernie Sanders president wouldn’t be enough to fight climate change. But his class-struggle politics give us the best chance we have to take on the fossil fuel companies.
Medicare for All had its big moment in last night’s debate, with several candidates clamoring to show their support. Yet just three years ago, the Beltway consensus was that it would “never, ever” happen. We have Bernie Sanders to thank for that.
Bernie Sanders probably does have a plan for that. But he also has something more important: a willingness to name the enemy and mobilize a mass movement to get those plans through.
Pundits are declaring Joe Biden the winner of last night’s debate. They’re conveniently ignoring the lies he told about his civil rights and immigration record.
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.
If the Democrats really believed the science on climate change, they'd be offering far more radical proposals. We have to make them.