DAN LA BOTZ is a Brooklyn-based teacher, writer and activist. He is a co-editor of New Politics.
President Joseph Biden, in office for less than a month, continued to move ahead with his plan to solve the American health and economic crises and to reassert U.S. global dominance. As he pushes ahead with his relief program, Republicans have lined up behind Trump.
America’s contemporary populist impulse that gave us both the Bernie Sanders progressive campaign and Donald Trump’s reactionary Make America Great Again, has now given us the small trader rebellion against the hedge funds.
The current celebratory mood of the Democrats and the honeymoon with the president is not likely to last long, given both who Biden is and the health and economic challenges that he faces.
Will the left be seen as jeopardizing the desire for a period of stability after the insurrection? Will Black Lives Mater demonstrations seem too extreme? Or might the depth of the crisis combined with pressure from the left push Biden to adopt more far-reaching progressive economic and social policies?
We have to call this a failed coup because the intent was to overturn the election of Joseph Biden by forcing vice-president Mike Pence and the Congress to declare Trump the president. It was an attempt to overthrow the incoming elected government by force.
Historically, workers made gains economically and politically during periods of labor upheaval. When workers used their power to strike, they were able to force employers and governments to make concessions.
Biden is committed to U.S. domination of world affairs and the wars necessary to ensure that. The left will have to rebuild an anti-war movement to resist Biden and to fight against U.S. imperialism, militarism and war when it erupts.
Already it is clear that progressives have had little impact on Biden and the far left will have to organize to confront a government incapable of passing any major reforms.
With the virus rampant, once again schools and businesses are closing, and more workers being laid off. We now have 20 million jobless, with ten million receiving federal unemployment benefits that will end with the New Year, as will protection for 30 million who face eviction. Not a happy Thanksgiving.
Having lost the election, what is Trump’s future? At the top of his agenda is arranging a pardon for himself, for crimes of which he has not been convicted. He might try to use the presidential pardon to pardon himself, which would almost surely end up in the Supreme Court.
While the electorate was deeply divided and the vote close in several states, still the election represents a rejection of Trump and his policies, a demonstration of confidence in democracy, and a deep desire to overcome the country’s several crises.
The contest between Republican President Donald Trump and Democratic Party challenger Joseph Biden has become a referendum on the coronavirus, now in the midst of the greatest upsurge so far.
Book Review: John B. Judis, The Socialist Awakening: What’s Different Now about the Left.
John Judis’ The Socialist Awakening is disappointing. He has rediscovered liberalism or progressivism, which were in some form always his politics.
Voters have turned against Trump because of his mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic. So the president is now trying to change the debate to law and order and the dangers of socialism.
We are now three weeks from the U.S. presidential election as the country sees a worsening of the pandemic, a continued economic crisis, threats of armed violence from the right, and an increasingly erratic President Donald Trump.
Early reactions to these events suggest that they will contribute to the continued downward spiral of Trump’s campaign, which has been losing support because of his poor handling of the pandemic. But it is too early to say for sure what the effect will be.
Almost any scenario we can imagine might well lead to armed conflicts in American streets between Trump’s supporters and his opponents on a scale much larger and more violent than anything we’ve seen so far.
For the first time in my life, in fifty years of voting in America, I am voting for a Democratic Party presidential candidate and urge others to do so as well.
Not only is AMLO’s government not socialist, it is not democratic, it is not competent, and it is not socially responsible. AMLO is a populist with a leftist image and rightist policies.
Remarkably polls show that Trump core supporters—about 40 percent of voters—have not been moved by either his handling of the coronavirus or his remarks about the military. Independent voters, however, may be turning from Trump.
Protest, sometimes with conflict between anti-racist and rightwing groups, continues in various U.S. cities—Portland, Louisville, and Rochester—over 100 days since the killing of George Floyd. America has not seen such street fighting since the 1960s.
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