North America Archives - Page 13 of 22

North America

Lessons from the History of the Left

A network of SDS veterans reflects on the importance of elections

May 28, 2020 • by Robert J. S. Ross

On Monday, April 13, the Democratic nomination contest de facto over, I learned that Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), would refuse to endorse Biden, in accord with a contentious decision DSA made during the summer of 2019 not to endorse any other Democrat for president if Bernie Sanders was not ...

North America

An Open Letter to the New New Left From the Old New Left

Now it is time for all those who yearn for a more equal and just social order to face facts

May 28, 2020 • by Former leaders of the Students for a Democratic Society

“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country.…“…[L]ay your shoulders to the wheel; … Let it be told to the future world, that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope ...

An Open Letter to the New New Left From the Old New Left

North America

A Letter to the Bernie-or-Bust People

Why I’m voting for Biden

May 28, 2020 • by Sarah Newman

In 2000, I was a member of the Green Party and working for its presidential candidate, Ralph Nader. A twenty-something living in San Francisco, I took the bus every day to the Green Party’s campaign office in the city’s Mission District. It was a cavernous, dusty old store-front with political ...

North America

The Two-Party System is Toast

What the socialist path to power looks like

May 28, 2020 • by Honda Wang

During the early stages of the 2019–20 Democratic primary, Bernie Sanders was a persistent progressive thorn in the side of the Democratic establishment. He regularly maintained a solid second place in the horse race, polling between 15–18 percent once Joe Biden officially announced his candidacy in April 2019. In June, ...

North America

The DSA, Left-Bashing, and Joe Biden

We are about as interested in endorsing Biden as Biden’s campaign is interested in our endorsement

May 28, 2020 • by Annie Levin

The decision by Democratic Socialists of America to not endorse Joe Biden in the general election has been met with cries of alarm by some of our progressive friends. We are told that we are living through a second Weimar era and electing a Democrat to the presidency is our ...

North America

Why Socialists Should Support the Democratic Ticket in November…

… Even if it is led by Joe Biden

May 28, 2020 • by Max B. Sawicky

Enthused by the wave of support for the Bernie Sanders campaign in 2016, I joined DSA shortly after leaving the federal government the following year. The group seemed well-positioned to take that wave of support and turn it into something enduring. My optimism has been elevated by the emergence of ...

Why Socialists Should Support the Democratic Ticket in November…

Democracy

Misinformation in a Moment of Crisis is Incredibly Dangerous

May 26, 2020 • by Jonathan Beale

It’s madness. But it’s not difficult to imagine people resorting to similar actions now, influenced by misinformation about how to stave off the novel coronavirus. Most of us would also take desperate measures to evade death. And indeed, unreasonable desperate measures are multiplying during the Covid-19 pandemic. Gary and Wanda Lenius, ...

Misinformation in a Moment of Crisis is Incredibly Dangerous

North America

Do Not Presume a Fair Election

“Obamagate” reveals the skulduggery still to come.

May 15, 2020 • by John Stoehr

The president and his confederates in the United States Congress have spent the last several days manufacturing a controversy for the press corps to report and debate. Donald Trump has dubbed it “Obamagate.” It seems to have something to do with the previous administration’s lawful handling of the case of former ...

Democracy

Who Is Trump Really Protecting During the Coronavirus Crisis?

May 12, 2020 • by Rogers M. Smith and Desmond King

Will Trump’s response to the Covid-19 crisis at last damage his claim to be his constituents’ Great Protector? The answer is not obvious. While Trump’s approval ratings first surged, then dropped, as the crisis grew, he has not fallen below where he has been through most of his term. Most ...

Who Is Trump Really Protecting During the Coronavirus Crisis?

Democracy

The GOP’s Anti-American Animus

Trump is the culmination of 40 years of sabotage.

May 7, 2020 • by John Stoehr

I suppose we should give the president a round of applause. Donald Trump has done something no Democrat (and no liberal) could have done -- demonstrate to a voting majority the anti-American animus of the “conservative” project of the last 40 years. “Anti-American” might sound strange. This is, after all, the same president who vowed in 2016 to ...

Democracy

Donald Trump’s Daily Briefings: Personal and Political Reflections

April 30, 2020 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

My friend and Democracy Seminar co-chair, Jeff Isaac, keeps on promising his friends that he won’t watch the briefings anymore, but he can’t help himself. Just about every day, I read his cursing of Trump and his enablers on Facebook. Jeff can’t take his eyes off Trump, even as he ...

Donald Trump’s Daily Briefings: Personal and Political Reflections

Democracy

Mitch McConnell’s Betrayal of Democracy

McConnell is happy to let a pandemic weaken and impoverish his political rivals

April 28, 2020 • by John Stoehr

Nearly 50,000 Americans have died in the last five weeks from COVID-19, the disease caused by a new strain of the coronavirus. The death toll would almost certainly be higher had not good-faith governors (both Democrats and Republicans) taken aggressive measures to force people to isolate or distance themselves from ...