Joe Biden and the Democrats have steadfastly refused to articulate a compelling alternative political vision to Donald Trump’s reactionary right-wing politics. Trump looks likely to have lost, but without creating an alternative to defeat it, Trumpism could return with a vengeance four years from now.
The corruption of British politics by corporate “dark money” is part of a global phenomenon. But we can’t make sense of that trend without recognizing that capitalist oligarchies have always sought to undermine genuine democracy.
With the Trump presidency thankfully in its death throes, Joe Biden and the Democratic leadership are in thrall to a dangerous illusion that they can take the country back to the political world of 2015 as if nothing happened. They’re about to learn that they’ve won a Pyrrhic victory.
After winning the election on a “listen to the scientists” message, Joe Biden is actually rejecting the global scientific consensus on how to handle the pandemic.
Socialists in the United States are stuck. How do we become masters of our own fate?
The renowned physicist and mathematician Freeman Dyson died early this year and would have turned ninety-seven today. His eternal and unshakable sense of optimism about the world despite its myriad miseries is desperately needed right now.
From William Morris to Ursula K. Le Guin and Iain M. Banks, science fiction has provided an outlet for socialist thinkers — offering readers a break from capitalist realism and allowing us to imagine a vastly different world.
With 18,000 dead out of a population smaller than Ohio's, Belgium has suffered the world's worst rate of coronavirus deaths. Belgian Workers' Party leader Peter Mertens told Jacobin how the population has been abandoned by the country's elites — and why things didn't have to be this way.
Russian president Vladimir Putin has sent tanks into the Donbas on dubious pretexts. But a far bigger danger awaits if the West seeks an escalation that will only pour fuel on the fire.
The software on Boeing’s 737 MAX was designed to override human controls — but ended up smashing the planes into the ground. Netflix’s Downfall shows how the firm's obsessive cost-cutting ignored safety concerns and killed hundreds of people.
The pandemic has exposed some terminal defects in Canada’s deregulated, privately owned airline industry. Nationalization is the best way to make air travel viable, environmentally sustainable, and in tune with social needs.
The Brazilian film Bacurau received international acclaim as one of the best films of 2020. In Brazil, however, it has unleashed the ire of a far-right government, intent on smashing the country’s film industry. Bacurau’s directors speak to Jacobin about the Lula government’s revitalization of the Brazilian cultural scene and what Bolsonaro has been doing since to destroy it.
The Republican Party is frozen in place, unable to move beyond Donald Trump but unsure of what to do even if it could. The Democratic establishment is firmly in charge of their party. We’re stuck in a bankrupt interregnum — with little chance of breaking free one way or the other anytime soon.
The movement led by Gandhi is a touchstone for advocates of non-violent resistance today. But the conventional view overlooks the limitations of Gandhi’s political philosophy, and the importance of insurrectionary struggles that he opposed in the fight for Indian independence.
The ALP’s right faction is riddled with corruption and cover-ups that are holding the party back. We can’t rely on the legal system to clean out the ALP’s stables — empowering Labor members through real party democracy is the only way to break the cycle.
From his new memoir, it’s clear that Barack Obama believes process is politics. But no amount of “process” will solve the problems that plague us — for that, we need the political will he could never muster as president.
Andrés Manuel López Obrador has wagered that he needs the support of the military in order to execute his progressive agenda. But the Mexican army is a conservative organization looking after its own interests, and it is no substitute for the mass base that AMLO must mobilize if he is to achieve true transformation.
The American military has long been fertile ground for the far right. To weaken the radical right’s power, we need to dismantle the warfare state — and build in its place a humane welfare state that provides for all.
The Write Stuff, a recent collection of essays from the ALP’s conservative wing, argues that Labor must shift even further to the right to become electorally successful. The book’s authors couldn’t be more wrong — to win, Labor must ditch the neoliberal policies they celebrate.
Cyberpunk once stood out as a vital genre of anti-capitalist fiction. Today, it’s been reduced to a cool retro aesthetic easily appropriated by the world’s second-richest man to market ugly Blade Runner–inspired trucks to nostalgia-drenched Gen Xers.