Love Me, Ferguson, I’m a Liberal
How liberals brought an anticommunist slur from America’s past back to life.
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Trump’s First Moves: Toward More War, Nothing for Workers
Donald Trump’s first executive orders should dispel any fantasy of him as either a noninterventionist or an economic populist.
What Bernie Sees in the New Deal
Bernie Sanders’s embrace of the New Deal legacy is an opportunity to dispel some pernicious historical myths about the New Deal’s relationship with socialism and its attitude toward the struggle for racial equality.
Barack Obama, the Hollow Icon
The Obama presidency gave rise to a uniquely powerful iconography that projected a sense of hope and radical possibility. But behind the president’s messianic imagery was a country unraveling at the seams — and a president who stood for nothing.
American Socialists: Study the Civil Rights Movement
Socialists in the US are more likely to be experts on the Russian Revolution than the American civil rights movement. That’s a mistake: this homegrown revolution is a strategic guidebook for winning social change today.
The Radical Harry Belafonte
From the struggle for civil rights to opposing apartheid in South Africa and the war against Cuba, Harry Belafonte was a fighter for justice both at home and abroad.
Stop Cop City Activists Want a Democratic Process. The City of Atlanta Doesn’t.
Activists with Atlanta’s Stop Cop City movement, which seeks to prevent the construction of a massive police militarization complex, want to put the issue to a popular vote. But city officials are hostile to the democratic initiative.
Don’t Fall for the Myth of the “Outside Agitator” in Racial Justice Protests
Whenever mass protests of any kind kick off, defenders of the status quo immediately accuse protesters as being duped by “outside agitators.” Don’t fall for it — the lie of the outside agitator is designed to weaken protests and downplay our widespread anger at injustice.
Lorraine Hansberry Was an Unapologetic Radical
Lorraine Hansberry is best known for her classic play A Raisin in the Sun. But she was also a committed radical who insisted that black workers must be at the heart of the struggle for liberation.
Beating Nuclear Arms Into Plowshares
The US nuclear arsenal gobbles up massive resources for death that should be used for human life. For decades, Catholic activists have put their bodies on the line to insist we dismantle that arsenal.
Accumulation by Lockout
Companies are increasingly turning to lockouts to break labor. How should unions respond?
To Make Unions Resonate Again, Study the CIO’s History
Declining union density has diminished American workers’ awareness of labor organizing, pride in union status, and sense of belonging to a tradition of collective struggle. The history of the CIO can teach us how to embed unions in the working class again.
Out of Left Field
Major league baseball has a long but little-known history of rebels, reformers, and radicals.
Gene Sharp, the Cold War Intellectual Whose Ideas Seduced the Left
Gene Sharp has been called the most important American political figure you’ve never heard of. How did a militant Cold Warrior come to wield so much influence in protest movements from Venezuela to the Middle East?
Sectarianism Has Never Ended a War
Amid the horrors of war, it’s always tempting for some on the Left to stake out more and more radical sloganeering. This was a dead end during the Vietnam War — mass action was not.
Why Did White Workers Leave the Democratic Party?
A historian debunks liberal myths about racism, the New Deal, and why the Democrats moved right.
Against Literary Nationalism
Writers in the US must embrace traditions of radical dissent — not American exceptionalism — if they want to resist Trump.
Medicare Turns Fifty-Four Today. We Need to Defend and Expand It
Fifty-four years ago today, Medicare became the law of the land. The program has been massively successful despite continued efforts to destroy it. While defending Medicare, our next step is clear: Medicare for All.
A People’s Church?
Pope Francis may be inspiring hope in the church, but Catholic radicals point the way toward an even brighter future.