A Left That Matters

Our still small but growing socialist movement now has a chance to make a real impact.

Issue 40: Letters + Internet Speaks

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The Indifferent and the Defiant

Battered by poverty and coronavirus, South Texas should have been deep blue turf for Joe Biden. It wasn’t. But in the Rio Grande Valley, the story is less about growing conservatism than about the rise of nonvoting — and despair.

The 2020 Presidential Election and Working-Class Voters

Our findings suggest that the 2020 presidential election represented a continued shift in the base of the Democratic Party from one rooted in working-class voters to a coalition that’s highly concentrated in high-income suburbs.

Trump’s Surprising Working-Class Success

In November, the Right continued to lose wealthy suburbs but made inroads in working-class counties.

The Barack Obama Memoir: Don’t Trust the Process

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.

Secession Planning

A looser union with more room for state and regional autonomy, as two recent books advocate, would cede much of America to the mercies of the Right.

When Biden Met Hillarycare

Records from the Clinton presidential archive give a revealing — and unflattering — look at the triangulating politics of Senator Joe Biden.

Trumpism After Trump

Don’t count right-wing populism out. While technocrats have seen their fortunes rise under lockdown, the sense of national decline and disarray that first brought leaders like Donald Trump to power still has a bright future.

Where Boomers Party Till They Drop — Dead

Welcome to The Villages, where not even the coronavirus can keep retirees from their steady diet of sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll, and Donald Trump.

The Biden Doctrine

As president, Donald Trump launched broadsides against the liberal international order. Will Joe Biden be able to put America “back at the head of the table” once in office?

The Politics of a Second Gilded Age

The mass inequality of America’s first Gilded Age thrived on identity-based partisanship, helping extinguish the fires of class rage. In 2021, we’re headed down the same path.

Nomads in Search of a Villain

The new film Nomadland is a heartfelt look at the lives of itinerant Americans cast aside by the Great Recession. But it ignores how employers like Amazon are raking in profits off this new class of worker.

Bob Dylan’s American Apocalypse

Dylan’s latest album, Rough and Rowdy Ways, is a fitting capstone for our end times.

Cyberpunk Needs a Reboot

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.

Everyone Hates the Democrats

Progressives and moderates accuse each other of being unable to appeal to working-class voters — and maybe they’re both right.

Why the Alt-Right Will Lose

Thankfully, almost nobody likes a Nazi, and even fewer still like a Nazi steeped in a creepy online subculture.

The Year Twitter Tried to Dictate an Election

If you want to see the future, imagine a finger clicking “mute” on anything criticizing an establishment presidential candidate, forever.

Thank Socialism for the Vaccine. Blame Capitalism for Its Distribution.

The jaw-dropping speed of COVID-19 vaccine development is a glorious marvel of science, cooperation, and economic planning. But the lifeboat ethics of vaccine rollout is a horrifying display of the cruelty of capitalism.

Building From the Ruins

The Left needs a revived labor movement, and a revived labor movement needs the Left.

Medicare for All: No Victory in Sight

As the Trump era draws to a close and yesteryear’s centrist, Joe Biden, takes office, can the Medicare for All movement build the momentum it needs to win?

Your Quarterly Horoscope

Looking forward to 2021? Read this horoscope first.

Leo Panitch (1945–2020)

We’ve suffered an irreparable loss with the passing of our friend and comrade Leo Panitch.