Here is a taste of Jacobin‘s Daniel Denvir’s interview with Yale labor historian Michael Denning: DANIEL DENVIR: This argument has implications for what has often been called “false consciousness”: the question of what to make of people holding beliefs that...
socialism
“Socialism has been as impossible to separate from the narrative of the nation’s history as the capitalist economy itself”
Over at Literary Hub, Georgetown historian Michael Kazin offers a “Brief History of American Socialism.” Here is a taste: “America will never be a socialist country,” declared Donald Trump in his 2019 State of the Union Address, given to a...
Do we need a national rail system?
Jacobin writer Luke Savage thinks so. I am sympathetic to his argument. Here is Savage’s recent piece: Earlier this year, the federal board charged with overseeing America’s rail network called a hearing to discuss widespread complaints about higher costs and poor service....
A socialist reminds Charlie Kirk that Joe Biden is not a socialist
The MAGA right, including right-wing pundit Charlie Kirk (he’ll be at an evangelical megachurch near you this weekend) is fond of saying that Joe Biden is bringing socialism to the United States. This is laughable. Ben Burgis of Jacobin is...
The hope of socialism
Here is a taste of Katha Pollit’s recent piece at Dissent: On the other hand, if you have open elections, with a free press and organized political parties that can compete on equal terms with the governing party, people can...
More on Christian socialism
Last weekend we dropped Episode 103 of The Way of Improvement Leads Home Podcast with historian Vaneesa Cook, author of Spiritual Socialists: Religion and the American Left. I hope you enjoy this episode. If you are interested in learning more...
Episode 103: Spiritual Socialists
Does the American Left have religion problem? What can progressives learn from people like Dorothy Day, Ignazio Silone, Henry Wallace, Staughton Lynd, and Cornel West? Many of these thinkers and activists offered a powerful vision for a moral and just...
World Socialist Web Site on the James Sweet “presentism” controversy
Historian Thomas Mackaman, writing at the publication of the world Trotskyist movement, has some pointed words for the American Historical Association president James Sweet and his critics. Get up to speed on the controversy here and here. Here is a...
When Eugene Debs eulogized John Brown
While he was campaigning for president in 1908, the candidate of the Socialist Party of America stopped in Harper’s Ferry and eulogized John Brown. Jacobin has published Debs’s remarks. Here is a taste: As I stand here on this spot...
The Marxist scholar who believes anti-racism is a cover for capitalism
If you listen to some folks on the Right these days you might conclude that there is little difference between the anti-racism and Marxism. But as Benjamin Wallace-Wells reveals in his recent piece on political scientist Adolph Reed, there are...
The Jacobin editors on the “commonsense solidarity” of the American working class
The socialist magazine Jacobin recently published a study on the political views of the American working-class. The editors offer several takeaways: “Working-class voters prefer progressive candidates who focus primarily on bread-and-butter economic issues, and who frame those issues in universal...
Words with no meaning
“Cancel culture.” “Wokness.” “Critical Race Theory.” “Socialism.” We are debating these issues and we have no idea what they mean. Here is a taste of Hamilton Nolan at In These Times: To attempt to have any kind of good faith...
Is Democratic Socialism anti-Christian?
Here is a taste of Stephen Mattson‘s piece at Sojourners: “Why Democratic Socialism Isn’t Anti-Christian“: Contemporary Christians are among those who have embraced the democratic socialist platform as a necessary check against an economy and political system they view as...
Bruce Springsteen’s embrace of liberalism
Yesterday we published Tony Norman’s piece on Renegades: Born in the U.S.A., the much acclaimed Obama-Springsteen podcast. Check it out here. Read Norman’s piece alongside Dennis M. Hogan’s essay at The Baffler. In “Runaway American Dreams,” Hogan traces Springsteen’s move...
World Socialist Web Site publishes its critique of the 1619 Project
Learn more about David North and Thomas Mackaman’s edited collection, The New York Times’ 1619 Project and the Racialist Falsification of History. The book includes essays or interviews with Victoria Bynum, James McPherson, James Oakes, Gordon Wood, Adolph Reed Jr.,...
What the Oprah interview with Meghan and Harry revealed
I have been fascinated with the responses to the article I posted about here. (What follows assumes you have read Brendan O’Neill’s piece). It is interesting to watch how the British royal family elicits such strong responses from Americans. Nothing...
A socialist defense of Abraham Lincoln monuments in Chicago
The city of Chicago recently launched a group called The Chicago Monuments Project. Here is the project’s mission statement: The Chicago Monuments Project intends to grapple with the often unacknowledged – or forgotten – history associated with the City’s various municipal...
CPAC 2021 is over. Let’s check-in with the MAGA evangelicals
On Saturday night I published a post on the Trump evangelical response to the former president’s speech at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference. You can read it here. Let’s check-in on them today: The Liberty University Falkirk Center crowd...
The CPAC vocabulary. Defining terms.
I am teaching the American Revolution this semester. The other day, as we were reading and interpreting some primary documents, I asked the students to notice how the writers of these documents all seemed to use a similar political language....