For Democrats, the main issue in the shutdown wasn’t electoral backlash — it was the filibuster. Leadership feared its removal, viewing it as a safeguard to keep the party's rising left wing in check.(Daniel Heuer / Bloomberg via Getty ImagesWhy did the Democrats cave...
Catherine Connolly takes office as Ireland’s president today. Her left-wing insurgent campaign took the Irish political establishment by surprise, winning a record number of votes and proving the Left can still triumph even in a bleak political landscape.Catherine...
Fifty years ago today, Angola gained its dependence after centuries of Portuguese domination. But US officials like Henry Kissinger were already working hard to orchestrate a devastating proxy war that snuffed out the hopes of national liberation.The United States...
As Angola gained its independence, Cuba sent a military force to help its new government beat back a South African invasion. Cuba’s long-term role in Angola transformed the politics of Southern Africa and reshaped its own national identity.(Pascal Guyot / AFP via...
The government shutdown was a test showing where progressive forces are strong and where they’re weak. The results are in after last night’s Democratic capitulation to the GOP: most top union leaders are failing to meet the moment.Countless Americans are rightfully...
Donald Trump’s attacks on the Federal Reserve have been met with ardent defenses of central bank independence. Yet the Fed has always been vulnerable to political pressure, something that calls for returning to a pre-Trump status quo elide.The Federal Reserve, for...
The early-20th-century socialist and New York mayoral candidate Morris Hillquit saw liberalism and democracy as providing a foundation for a transition to socialism. Alongside Eugene Debs, he helped to forge a distinct American socialist tradition.Portrait of Morris...
A decade ago, Western governments pitched the green transition as a solution to reindustrialization and economic decline. The failure of these policies to produce well-paying jobs has triggered a right-wing backlash in both the UK and the US. From glaziers and...
The US sanctions against Francesca Albanese are testament to her courage speaking up for the Palestinians. If international law lies buried underneath the rubble of Gaza, truth-tellers like Albanese have implacably defended basic universalist principles.Francesca...
Monuments, museums, and cultural institutions were often created in the image of “militarist realism,” presenting colonialism and enslavement as eternal. Undoing this legacy is not erasing the past but combating a pernicious ideology.Long-standing attempts to suppress...
Before socialism even had a name, the poet and painter William Blake saw how the Industrial Revolution’s "dark Satanic mills" harmed humanity. His visionary work condemned the forces of commodification and cold calculation in emergent capitalism.An 1807 portrait of...
From The Godfather to Reds to Something's Gotta Give, Diane Keaton moved between comedy and drama with ease, turning self-doubt and control into the twin engines of her art. Across decades of self-invention, she built a career that was unmistakably her own.Diane...