Todd Gitlin, Author at Public Seminar

Politics

What Freud Would Say About Left-Wing Infighting

Sanders supporters and others need to resist the temptation to retreat into ideological purity

February 15, 2022 • by Todd Gitlin

At the 2008 reunion of veterans of the 1968 Columbia occupation, I remember sitting near him at one session and watching the abuse he patiently took from aging movement heavies who voiced their anger at him for having raised doubts, in his books, about the wisdom of their most violent ...

What Freud Would Say About Left-Wing Infighting

Media

A Reality-Show Coup with Real Fascists Inside

The MAGA insurrection will be a forever reality show for recruiting new right-wing activists

January 18, 2021 • by Todd Gitlin

On January 6, Donald Trump’s spectacular MAGA insurrection radiated far beyond Capitol Hill. It was screened everywhere, over every known medium—broadcast, social, antisocial, what have you. The events and their meanings have been stockpiled in a cornucopian arsenal of propaganda, digital weaponry that is not done ravaging the world. The videos ...

A Reality-Show Coup with Real Fascists Inside

Activism

What Will It Take for Black Lives to Matter?

Nonviolent, cross-racial coalitions are the way back to a decent America

July 9, 2020 • by Todd Gitlin

I wrote the article that follows three years ago. Since it first appeared in the American Prospect, Black Lives Matter (BLM) has generated the largest protest movement in American history. What has changed? And what hasn’t? It remains true that the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) is ill-defined. It has rough edges ...

What Will It Take for Black Lives to Matter?

Feature

The Right’s Walls and the Left’s Commons

Critical reflections on the long – running clash between left and right

December 16, 2016 • by Todd Gitlin

In a knife-edge election, many are the causes that tip the balance between victory and defeat. Politics is, as Branch Rickey memorably said of baseball, “a game of inches.” Minor changes in a campaign scenario produce major differences. Surely Donald Trump’s victory derived in no small part from his appeal ...