Vol 8 No 4
Winter 2025The Democrats Embrace Dealignment
In the last 20 years, Democrats have worked diligently to bring their electoral strategy into line with their Clinton-era neoliberal economic program. Class dealignment was therefore no accident — it was the foreseeable (and foreseen) consequence of changes made by Democrats in their economic and electoral strategy.
Trump’s Takeover of the Republicans
While Donald Trump’s domination of the Republican Party is unprecedented in many ways, it has not altered the fundamental dynamics in the party, which predate his takeover. Since 2008, the party has been characterized by increasing internal conflict and institutional weakening. Far from counteracting these trends, Trump’s rule over the party has intensified both.
The Latino Rebuke
Latino voters’ decisive contribution to Donald Trump’s return to power has puzzled progressive analysts. An analysis of Latinos’ material insecurity and labor market vulnerability shows that rejecting the Democrats and exploring entry into the MAGA coalition, while alarming, was predictable. Like blue-collar white voters in 2016, working-class Latinos did not embrace Trump because they are sexist xenophobes but rather because they lack alternatives for effectively defending their interests.
The Futility of Hyperpolitics
Hyperpolitics seeks to politicize every space without prioritizing any particular one. While apparently left-wing, hyperpolitics is in fact a bourgeois radicalization with a distinctive social base and political culture. Progressives are wrong to think that it offers a pathway to social justice. It is in fact a symptom of middle-class hegemony in social movements, from which the Left must break out.
How Should We Work?
Axel Honneth’s recent book, The Working Sovereign, proposes a democratic alternative to Marxist and republican criticisms of the capitalist division of labor. Unfortunately, Honneth’s critique of contemporary capitalism suffers from false modesty, invalidly disqualifying more compelling, radical proposals for the transformation of work.
How Can Workers Organize Against Capital Today?
John Womack’s labor strategy is about workers finding the capacity to "wound capital to make it yield anything.” But the massive challenge in today’s deindustrialized economy is locating where that leverage actually lies.
New Labour Totally Subordinated Labour to Capital
Why was New Labour “intensely relaxed” about “people getting filthy rich”? The answer lies in a comprehensive analysis and critique of Labourism itself, which the new book Futures of Socialism fails to deliver.
Austerity Is an Antidemocratic Strategy to Boost Capital
Austerity policies have their roots in efforts by economic elites to crush working-class power after WWI and redistribute income upward. To reverse austerity, democratic control over economic policymaking is essential.
How Did the Paris Commune Shape British Culture?
British literary responses to the Paris Commune of 1871 expressed shock and fear about the collapse of the bourgeois social order. But they also registered sympathy with the Communards and their revolutionary aspirations.
Culture Can’t Explain the Arab Revolts
Violence and Representation in the Arab Uprising shows how the Arab revolts empowered democratic citizenship. But a focus on vibrant cultural creativity is no substitute for concrete analysis of political agency and economic structure.
“Settler Colonialism” Can’t Fully Explain Our World
Settler colonialism is often described as a singular, transnational mode of domination. But it’s impossible to understand colonialism without political economy and material interests.