But the rise of rightwing politics and authoritarianism and of armed groups preparing for violent action is an even greater problem than Biden’s speech suggests and neither mainstream Democrats, nor progressives, nor the left, seems to have a strategy to stop the rise of the right.
In October and November of 2019, clashes over the validity of presidential elections in Bolivia led to protests and the eventual ouster of the leftist Indigenous president Evo Morales, in what most observers characterized as a coup. In the year . . .
I give thanks that there’s a chance that in the coming year we can begin to build a mass working class movement and an independent working-class political party.
The Freedom in the World 2021 report has unveiled 2020 to be the 15th consecutive year of decline in democracy across the world.
Having arrested and jailed his most significant rivals weeks before the election, President Daniel Ortega was reelected on November 7 to a fourth consecutive term, his fifth altogether.
The elections in Ecuador earlier this year continue to inspire international debate among competing left currents over lessons to be learned.
The fragmentation of the left has led to an almost certain second-round dual between Macron and Le Pen in 2022, with grave implications for the future of an explicitly left mass movement.
The backdrop for the last two DSA conventions was resistance to Donald Trump and the anticipation of a second Sanders campaign. In 2021, that is gone: Trump is no longer president. Sanders lost. In the Biden era, what is DSA?
Without fear of Donald Trump and hope in Bernie Sanders, DSA seems to have lost some of its energy. There has been less membership participation in preparation for this convention.
The big surprise of the New York State election, was the victory of India B. Walton, a Black woman and a self-described socialist in the Democratic mayoral primary in Buffalo, New York, a poor city of 250,000 people, 37% Black.
Professional politicians are a relatively recent historical phenomenon and their lies are to a great extent a response to social structural imperatives that did not exist in precapitalist societies.
We should reject the argument made by some on the left that we have to support the dictator Ortega and his government because the U.S. is now opposed to it.
The social and economic crisis of capitalism has radicalized sections of the middle class. It has also driven sections of smaller corporate capital in a more desperate right wing direction.
Biden’s progressive domestic policy is motivated by a desire to rebuild America so as to reestablish the global hegemony of American imperialism.
The issues that gave rise to Trump still exist, and so far, they aren’t being adequately addressed by the Biden administration. Meanwhile, the Trump wing continues its domination of the Republican Party. The country is still deep in the woods.
Trump’s attempts to retain office despite losing the election failed for a simple reason: the complete absence of any interest among leading capitalists or state bureaucrats to eradicate or even weaken the Constitutional order in order to extend Trump’s presidency.
Scholars and activists respond to the spirited attacks by Jacobin and Monthly Review on Yaku Pérez, the indigenous candidate in Ecuador’s presidential election.
Twenty years ago, Republicans took over Texas’ governorship, house, and senate and then deregulated and neglected the state’s energy systems, leading to this catastrophe.
While Trump remains a major figure and his mass base a serious problem, today his party is weaker than ever. While Republican disarray benefits Democrats, Biden’s party still faces COVID, economic depression, climate change, and racism.
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.
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.
