Ten Jacobin Articles That Shaped My Thinking
On Jacobin’s tenth anniversary, staff writer Meagan Day reflects on ten Jacobin articles that heavily influenced the way she thinks about politics.
351 Articles by: Meagan Day
Meagan Day is an associate editor and former staff writer at Jacobin. She is the coauthor of Bigger than Bernie: How We Go from the Sanders Campaign to Democratic Socialism.
The Pandemic Has Totally Undermined Any Argument for Means-Tested Policies
For decades, austerity-minded politicians have bashed universal programs by concern trolling about the danger that a handful of rich people would get them. The urgency of the pandemic is helping people realize just how inconsequential this hang-up is compared to the advantages of universal benefits.
A School District Tried to Stifle COVID-19 Organizing by Suspending a Teacher. It Backfired.
San Antonio teacher Luke Amphlett says his administration punished him for organizing against an unsafe school reopening plan. But a campaign led by teachers, students, and community supporters drew on bonds of solidarity developed through years of organizing — and quickly got Amphlett back to work.
In South Dakota, a Young Labor Leader Wants to Rebuild a Culture of Solidarity
Kooper Caraway, the 29-year-old new president of South Dakota’s AFL-CIO, grew up in a working-class family and cut his teeth fighting ICE as a high schooler. Now his vision for labor includes union-run housing and childcare: “It’s all about building a working-class culture of solidarity.”
Uber and Lyft Are Trying to Cancel Pro-Worker Activism
Uber, Lyft, Instacart, and DoorDash are paying expensive campaign consultants to incite social media users to hound their critics. These are online mobs in the service of the elite.
The Mill Was Good Socialist TV. Let’s Make More.
We need high-quality, entertaining class-struggle television. The BBC’s period drama The Mill, which was ahead of its time when it debuted in 2013, shows us how it’s done.
Corporations Like Amazon Hire Union-Busting Labor Spies All the Time
Amazon was recently busted hiring intelligence experts to spy on Amazon workers. The practice is unfortunately common — most major multinational corporations have surveillance divisions which overlap with government intelligence agencies, creating a single, powerful security apparatus at the disposal of both the federal government and private corporations to use against workers.
Alex Morse: “I Would Be One of the Few Democrats That Stands Up To the Democratic Party”
The progressive congressional candidate talks to Jacobin about the smear campaign he’s endured, the limitations of a Joe Biden presidency plus Richard Neal chairmanship, his record on policing, his personal relationship to the opioid crisis, and democratic socialism.
From QAnon to Kyle Rittenhouse, the Right Is Sinking Deeper Into an Alternate Reality
Instability is a permanent feature of capitalism, but the coronavirus pandemic has introduced a whole new level of volatility. Amid the turmoil, the American right is dreaming more feverishly than ever of apocalypse and heroism.
New Orleans Sanitation Workers Are On Strike for a Raise, Hazard Pay, and PPE
Sanitation workers for Metro Services Group in New Orleans are currently in week sixteen of a strike. They say their working conditions are abysmal, deeply unsafe in the middle of a pandemic — and that they’re paid only $10.25 an hour.
How Class-Conscious Women Garment Workers Shaped the Movement for Women’s Suffrage
On the one-hundredth anniversary of American women’s right to vote, let’s remember the working-class socialist suffragists who struggled for the franchise. And let’s devote the next hundred years to realizing their vision.
Most Politicians Don’t Care About Workers. But Unions Can Make Them.
New research finds that strong unions are pretty effective at making politicians pay attention to the interests of ordinary people. In order to pursue a real pro-worker agenda in government, we need an emboldened labor movement.
Meet the Leftist Philosopher Running for Senate in Georgia
Philosopher Richard Dien Winfield has spent his career studying concepts like truth, justice, and freedom. Now he wants to put these principles into practice by bringing an agenda of Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, and full employment to the nation’s capital.
Medicare for All Is Better Than Union Health Care
A new report shows that union health plans, while better than employer-sponsored health care, pale in comparison to Medicare for All. The labor movement should take notice: union members would be better off with M4A than the health plans they have to fight so hard to protect.
Kamala Harris Is Joe Biden’s VP Pick, Despite Everything
Joe Biden’s choice of running mate Kamala Harris reveals a bleak truth: nothing the Left has done, from two Bernie Sanders campaigns to the biggest uprising in US history against police brutality, influenced his thinking at all. Big-money donors, on the other hand, did.
Capitalism Made Gay Identity Possible. Now We Must Destroy Capitalism.
Gay identity became possible thanks to capitalism’s emancipatory side: its liberation of the individual from material dependence on the family. But that sexual freedom wasn’t automatic — it required decades of militant struggle. Today, we need more such struggles to combat the oppressive aspects of capitalism, which keep gay and straight people alike from living fully free lives.
The Senate Just Abandoned the Working Class Without a COVID-19 Relief Package
Federal unemployment has dried up, rent is past due, evictions are proceeding, the cupboards are bare, and the Senate has adjourned without passing a new coronavirus relief package. Their abandonment of the working class is shameless, but hardly shocking.
We Won’t Forget the Questions Bernie Asked
After half a decade of Bernie Sanders, the genie doesn’t go back in the bottle.
Cori Bush on How She Took on the Political Establishment and Won
Cori Bush, the Ferguson activist and nurse running for Congress in St Louis, caused a political earthquake this week, unseating a powerful centrist incumbent. Yesterday, she sat down with Jacobin to talk about how she took on the political establishment’s big money and won.
We Deserve Better Than Trump Versus Biden
In the past week, two separate and very painful videos have circulated showing Donald Trump and Joe Biden the presidential nominees of the two major US political parties in action. Watching them, there’s only one conclusion we can reach: we’re so screwed.