jacobin.com/2025/12/bernie-sanders-socialists-elections-aiOver the weekend of December, 5-7 Bernie Sanders spoke to the How We Win conference, a gathering of democratic socialist elected officials and their staff in New Orleans sponsored by the Democratic Socialists of America Fund, Jacobin, the Nation, and other partners. Below is a transcript of his remarks.

"Thank you for inviting me to say a few words. Let me begin by thanking all of you for having the guts to run for public office. It’s a lot harder to go out and knock on doors to represent constituents with the problems they face seven days a week, so I want to thank you very much for that. Despite the horror in the White House right now, they’re out there all across this country. We’re seeing strong progressive growth. It is not just Zohran Mamdani in New York or Katie Wilson in Seattle. From coast to coast, you are seeing progressive democratic socialists standing up, taking on the establishment, and winning elections.

And one of the great secrets of the corporate media is that right now in the House of Representatives, the Congressional Progressive Caucus has about one hundred members, including dozens and dozens of very strong progressives. That is the result of the hard work all of us have done over the last number of years.

I’ve been asked to give you some advice. What I’m gonna tell you is probably what you already know. Number one, here is a radical idea: do your job that you were elected to do. Now, I’ll tell you a story. I was elected to be mayor of Burlington, Vermont, and won it by ten votes way back in 1981. We had a strong foreign policy. We had exchange programs. We dealt with national issues. But I’ll never forget, there was an article in the local newspaper, and the report asked some guy, “But what does it mean? What do you think about having a socialist as your mayor?” And the guy said, “Well, I don’t know much about socialism, but I do know they’re getting the snow off of the streets a lot faster than they used to.”

You gotta do your job. If you’re on the city council, the school board, the state legislature, you gotta do it. And if you do your job well, people will give you the latitude to talk about many, many other issues. But don’t lose focus regarding the job that you are elected to do.

Second of all, establishment Democrats have the brilliant idea that the only people they can talk to are establishment Democrats. They literally have lists of people: “Don’t knock on this door; don’t knock on that door. Only on these.” I strongly disagree with that suggestion. Knock on every door in your district. And what you’ll find when you do that is you’ll have the right-wing people slam the door in your face. You’ll have some unpleasantness. But by and large, what you’ll find is that there is a lot more commonality of interest than you might have appreciated. In my view, the reason Donald Trump is president of the United States today is not because people voted for a trillion dollars in tax breaks for the 1 percent or massive cuts in health care. He is the president of the United States because of Democratic establishment candidates’ failure to provide a real analysis and agenda that meets the crises that we face today

Establishment Democrats believe that you can tinker around the edges, you can tell the world how terrible Donald Trump is, and that’s fine. But right now, what the American people understand is that übercapitalism — an oligarchic form of society, which is what we have today — is a disaster for the working class of this country. We don’t have to tinker around the edges. We have to create a very new form of society.
So for just your average person out there, you are in many cases going nowhere in a hurry. You understand that with real inflation accounted for, wages are basically the same as they were fifty years ago, despite a huge increase in worker productivity as a result of all of the expansion of technology. And almost all of the gains of that new technology have gone to the 1 percent. And ordinary workers know that there’s something wrong with 60 percent of our people living paycheck to paycheck while Elon Musk owns more wealth himself than about the bottom 52 percent of American society. They know that.

Here is a radical idea — do your job that you were elected to do.They know that there’s something wrong when we have a campaign finance system that is totally corrupt and allows billionaires in both political parties to buy elections. That’s a broken system. I say these things because you’re gonna have Republicans who understand this as well. They understand if you look at the basic necessities of life — just think for a moment: you’re living in the richest country in the history of the world, and it cannot even provide the basic necessities of life for working people.

Just take a look at the health care in your community. Talk about health care. Everybody will tell you that despite spending twice as much per capita on health care as any other nation, the health care system is totally broken. Everybody knows that. The educational system is largely broken, and the childcare system is a disaster. Kids can’t afford to go to college, or they’re leaving school deeply in debt. Public schools are under enormous pressure. Teachers are underpaid. They’re dealing with all kinds of disciplinary issues, kids who come from troubled families or are acting out in school. We are dealing with a situation where our food system, just nutrition . . . we are the most obese and unhealthy nation on earth because you have a food industry that makes huge profit by selling our kids crap, and the price of groceries is soaring.

People understand that. I flew in from the National Airport in Washington; there was a four-hour delay because they couldn’t figure out how to de-ice the plane. All over the country, you are looking at basic problems people are struggling with. The system is failing. Our job is not to run away from that reality but to offer a real alternative. Because in my view, what the future is gonna be about isn’t establishment Democrats. All over Europe, for example, the establishment parties are fading away. The struggle is going to be between the Trumpists of the world — right-wing extremism — and a democratic socialist alternative, which recognizes the problems that we face and provides concrete and real and bold solutions for working families.

So what Donald Trump does is go, “Yeah, we got a lot of problems. And the problem is undocumented people, the problem is the trans community, the problem is that we have Somalians who are ‘garbage.’” That’s what demagogues do. They take the problems that we face — often that they cause — and then they blame a powerless minority. Our job is to recognize the problems are real and to put the finger on the real cause of the problem, which is the greed of the oligarchs in this country. So that’s where we’re at now. And it ain’t gonna be easy. Especially with Trump in the White House.

To summarize, the American people know the system is broken. They are hurting. They can’t afford groceries. They can’t afford health care. They can’t afford education. They can’t afford a lot of things. And at the same time, the billionaire class has never had it so good. The establishment Democrats cannot talk about these things because, very often, they’re getting funded by the billionaire class. So what we have gotta do right now is get out into the streets. We gotta talk to our people — all people, not just people within our zone of comfort. And we’re gonna be providing real solutions to the crises that we face. So once again, what you have done is extraordinary. I thank you so much and congratulate you for getting out on the streets, for winning elections, and for standing up for working people."

Originally published in Jacobin.

By  Robert Pollin

Robert Pollin is Distinguished University Professor of Economics and Co-Director of the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.


Is stagflation—the toxic blend of high unemployment and high inflation—taking hold now in the U.S. economy? The most recent evidence mostly signals “yes.” If stagflation is on the way, we can mainly thank President Donald Trump’s imposition of unprecedented tariffs—that is, taxes on the products we import from more than 90 countries. The latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that only 106,000 jobs had been added to the U.S. labor market between May and July.

This represents a nearly 80% drop in job growth relative to the 474,000 jobs created over the same three-month period last year. Meanwhile, wholesale prices spiked by 0.9% in July, the largest monthly wholesale inflation increase since May 2022. It was in response to the dismal May-July job report that Trump fired BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer, after claiming, without evidence, that she had “rigged” the numbers to make him look bad.  

How could Trump’s tariff polices produce stagflation? According to the Yale Budget Lab, as of July 30, U.S. consumers are facing an average import tax/tariff rate of 17.5%, the highest since 1934. At the same time, imports account for 14%of overall purchases in the U.S. economy. Therefore, if the average 17.5% tariff rate were simply passed on, dollar for dollar, to U.S. consumers, this alone would raise average prices in the United States by 2.5% (that’s 17.5% x 0.14 = 2.5%). But price increases resulting from the tariffs don’t need to be confined to imported products only. This is because higher prices for imports create cover for businesses to raise prices on domestically produced goods and services as well, enabling them to boost their profit margins.

Of course, nobody forces businesses that sell imported products to raise their prices. The alternative is for them to pay the tariffs to the U.S. Treasury and then just eat their average 17.5% cost increases by cutting their profits. Obviously, businesses would much rather raise prices before letting their profit margins shrivel.    

Why should employment conditions also get worse in this situation? This is because businesses worry that the tariffs will cut into their profits. They therefore hold off on plans to expand their operations and hire new people.  

To date, the Trump program to combat stagflation has two prongs. First, cook the government data to make reality disappear. Second, lambast Jerome Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve (which is the U.S. central bank, and commonly referred to as “the Fed”), into cutting interest rates. Trump regularly ridicules Powell as a “stiff,” “numbskull,” or “moron” for not having cut interest rates so far.  

Most recently, Trump also began attacking and demanding the resignation of Lisa Cook, the first Black woman to serve as a member of the Fed Board of Governors and a Biden appointee.  Trump and company claim that Cook committed mortgage fraud in 2021, before she joined the Fed. Cook vehemently denies the charges and insists that she will not resign. Trump’s real purpose here is to replace independent voices at the Fed with loyalists who will toe his policy line, whatever that line happens to be.  

In fact, by maintaining relatively high interest rates to fight inflation, Powell, Cook, and the other Fed policymakers are only following the standard Fed playbook. The aim with high interest rates is to slow the economy and increase unemployment. The higher unemployment rate then weakens workers’ bargaining power, which lowers labor costs for businesses, enabling businesses to maintain their profit margins without raising prices. Thus, it is baked into the standard Fed inflation control program that working people are the designated sacrificial lambs, even if their wage increases have not caused the inflation in the first place.

Trump’s tantrums aside, there are indeed major problems with this standard Fed approach. To begin with, workers gaining excessive bargaining power has never been the driver of stagflation in the United States. In the 1970s and early 1980s, stagflation resulted because global crude oil prices rose roughly tenfold between 1973 and 1980, from $3.56 to $39.50 a barrel. The only other bout of stagflation was after the COVID lockdown was lifted. In this case, stagflation resulted because the production of major items, like new cars, had been cut during the lockdown conditions. Demand for cars then returned quickly when lockdown conditions lifted, but with new cars in short supply, used car prices roseby 40%.  

From a longer-term perspective, we also have to remember how the U.S. working class has fared, on average, under the 50 years of neoliberalism that preceded Trump. The most central facts are that average wages for nonsupervisory workers are basically where they were 50 years ago, at roughly $50,000 per year (in 2024 dollars), even while average worker productivity has increased by 150%. Meanwhile, over this same 50-year period, average CEO compensation has risen nearly tenfold, from $1.5 million to almost $15 million.   

In fact, in a major August 22 speech, Powell signaled that, at its next official meeting in September, the Fed is likely to modestly reduce the main interest rate that it controls (the federal funds rate), due to mounting evidence of worsening employment conditions. As Powell knows well, this will accomplish nothing to reduce the inflationary pressures created by Trump’s tariffs. In other words, through deploying the Fed’s main policy tool of manipulating interest rates, you can either reduce inflation through raising unemployment or reduce unemployment at the cost of higher inflation. What you can’t do is combat both sides of stagflation—inflation and unemployment—at the same time.    

The first obvious step right now for fighting stagflation is for Trump to dump his tariff policies. We shouldn’t rule that option out. Trump didn’t earn the nickname TACO—“Trump Always Chickens Out”—for nothing. But even if Trump does chicken out on the tariffs, we will still be stuck at square one in terms of advancing inflation control policies that also enable U.S. workers to get the long-overdue raises they deserve. 
     
Published in: Left Hook Economics

Originally published by Metro DC DSA's newsletter.

Washington, occupied city: Popular front emerges to fight fascist invasion — rally and mass cop watch this Saturday, August 23 at 6pm

“There is no takeover,” Mayor Muriel Bowser uttered in a press conference on the night of Monday, August 18. By Wednesday evening, the mayor and MPD Police Chief Pamela Smith were smiling and shaking hands with Trump’s favorite pet, Stephen Miller.

The initial invasion of DC, launched last week by President Trump in a naked power grab, flooded DC’s streets with armed federal agents. Their stated objective was to stop crime. In reality, the forces escorted agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement around the city to attack the vulnerable and launch a shock and awe campaign designed to pacify the city through fear. Throughout the week, the nation watched harrowing videos emerge from the District: a disabled immigrant rammed with a vehicle; parishioners abducted on their way to mass; a delivery driver sucker punched on their way to work; homeless folks ripped from encampments and marched to shelters already at capacity; checkpoints erected spontaneously to grow and develop an unaccountable dragnet; messages of solidarity ripped down and mocked; and bystanders threatened with arrest and assault.

Senseless violence. State torture. Force as spectacle. This is fascism. The occupying forces' hit-squad tactics may be overlooked to a certain kind of upper class resident of the city. But there is no escaping the cost of this outrageous terrorism. As increasingly audacious methods of state violence are normalized, nihilism and sadism will grow across the government and society, creating a despondent and sociopathic population. Materially, these wasteful incursions reduce state capacity to address the actual sources of poverty and violence that plague American life. This unchecked rot will spread with time, bearing increasingly high costs to the life of working-class people. This is the nature of all austerity regimes, which require compounding levels of violence and corruption to maintain.

Mutual aid networks, tenant and labor unions, immigrant rights groups, and homeless advocacy organizations rapidly initiated defense protocols to fascist repression. But many were left wondering: where is the DC government? An expose published by the Washington Post answered that question. Despite secret discussions held by the Council, Mayor Bowser, Attorney General Brian Schwalb and senior administrators, the DC government failed to cohere a response to Trump's attack on DC autonomy. Police Chief Smith seemed to disappear entirely, shocking even MPD officers. Although the DC government eventually filed a lawsuit to contest Trump’s formal sequester of the police department, no steps have been taken to functionally limit federal control. Several councilmembers have even mused open collaboration with the occupying forces. On national radio, at-large Councilmember Henderson openly welcomed coordination with the occupying forces. The sacrifice of immigrants, civil liberties, the poor and District autonomy are all seen as fair tributes in the eyes of DC's myopic political elite.

Locally, hope lies in the popular front summoned from DC's working-class enclaves. In reaction to federal assault, organizer networks have formed communication chains to rapidly coordinate neighborhood response to federal attack and intervention. These networks have culminated in ripostes against federal assault, producing several heroic maneuvers over the past week. Just a few spotted:

• Columbia Heights: A rapid mobilization chased ICE out of the neighborhood on Tuesday night. After notice was issued of ICE presence, the community mounted sustained pressure against the officers patrolling our streets, shouting and following the feds until they fled the scene.
• The movement surged to DC Jail to rally support for local activist Afeni, who stood up to police harassment of youth and was pepper sprayed, slammed to the ground, and arrested before being released last Saturday.
• Locals are rooting out undercover agents.
• Vice President JD Vance and Defense Sec. Pete Hegseth were booed and showered with chants of “Free DC” during a craven photo-op at Union Station.
• Several rallies on U Street have demonstrated mass opposition to the occupying forces.
• Behind the scenes, clandestine anti-fascist networks have developed community patrols to identify, communicate and document federal activity.

This federal assault must not be normalized; the time to get involved is now. 

MORE RESOURCES AND ACTIONS: Councilmember Janeese Lewis George, one of the few voices in DC government trying to stop political collaboration with the occupying forces, has created a Federal Enforcement Incident Report form for Ward 4. DC Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid has a hotline for ICE sightings, know your rights materials, and resources for community members. The DC Safety Squad is running We Keep Us Safe Wednesdays, sharing political education information on Instagram and has issued guidance for travel together.

Metro DC DSA statement on ICE harassment of chapter member

Metro DC DSA issued the following statement on Thursday, August 21:

“Earlier this week, DC police collaborating with ICE agents stopped a longtime Metro DC DSA member while he was driving his work vehicle in northwest DC. Falsely claiming the stop was for a vehicle violation, the police racially profiled our member and his colleague, both of whom are Latino landscape workers. They ripped the colleague out of the vehicle and tackled him to the ground, eventually handing him over to ICE, where he remains in custody. A bystander who filmed the incident was also arrested. Our member, a US citizen, briefly filmed the encounter before being handcuffed and eventually released.

Metro DC DSA declares full solidarity with our member, his colleague, and everyone who is under attack from this fascist administration.

The occupation of DC has nothing to do with keeping our city safe. It’s a spectacle intended to obscure the fact that Trump and his local collaborators are destroying the programs working-class people depend on to survive — all for the sake of enriching oligarchs who profit from our suffering. This is a brutal class war on working people waged by the rich and their political puppets.

The law will not protect us. We know that from this most recent outrage, as well as the long history of state brutality in communities across the US. Rights are meaningless without a strong political movement to give them substance. Our safety as a community depends above all on our ability to organize and build solidarity. Our solidarity especially extends to our immigrant neighbors, who are an essential part of our collective working-class family. We call for the abolition of ICE. We call on everyone to actively join the movement to end the occupation of DC, the condition of DC statelessness that enables it, and the predatory capitalist system that underpins them both..."


We must not give up on the fight for a democratic future. There are guides on North Star's Fight Fascism pages for where to start.  Defeat Fascism/Fight for Democracy. List of opportunities:  https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cRIJsSJwtF72ckJ8QLQu5cDCGnoeh5OIIjwqRkDKdBg/edit?usp=sharing

 

Republished from Portside.

Max Böhnel
August 12, 2025
nd - journalismus von links

DSA's 2025 convention was, in many ways, a snapshot of the American socialist movement itself: energized, diverse, and ambitious — but also fragmented, insular, and unsure of how to seize the political moment staring it in the face. 

The big moment came on Sunday afternoon. Delegates to the Democratic Socialists of America’s biennial convention had been waiting all weekend for the announcement: Who would be elected to the organization’s 23-member National Political Committee (NPC)?
One by one, names and portrait photos of the winners flashed across two giant screens in the cavernous Chicago Convention Center. Cheers erupted in pockets around the hall — here, then there — as more than 1,200 delegates celebrated victories for their respective factions. The seating arrangements themselves told the story: Delegates had clustered by political affiliation, so the joy was as geographically concentrated as the disappointment. Just before, they had all stood together, fists raised, to sing The Internationale.
When the last name was read, applause rippled across the room. Then phones came out. Delegates began tallying up the results: Reformers versus revolutionaries, sectarians versus pragmatists, advocates of broad-based socialist organizing versus believers in a tightly disciplined workers’ party. The day before, delegates had re-elected Megan Romer and Ashik Siddique as co-chairs.
A movement stuck in place

The new NPC lineup suggested a rough stalemate between the two dominant blocs, with no clear power center emerging. Compared with the 2023 convention, not much had shifted. At the national level, DSA — the largest left-wing membership organization in the country — still seems unlikely to wield significant political clout. In certain cities and regions, however, the organization remains a meaningful force.
Siddique, a member of the Groundwork caucus, which champions mass politics, was quick to argue that the election results didn’t match the mood inside the organization. “The composition of the new NPC doesn’t reflect the balance of forces in DSA,” he told reporters, noting that the candidate slate had been finalized before Zohran Mamdani’s headline-grabbing victory in the New York mayoral primary. The excitement around Mamdani’s win, Siddique said, had not been translated into representation at the top.

Big tent, big problems

The factionalism was hard to miss — even for international guests. Pelle Dragsted, leader of Denmark’s Red-Green Alliance (Enhedslisten), had come to Chicago to observe what he called “the other America.” He was inspired by the sight of so many young socialists in one place, and stressed that the U.S. left “has an enormous responsibility” to build an alternative to Trumpism, something he believes the Democratic Party establishment is incapable of doing. Still, he admitted, DSA’s “very big tent” comes with internal divisions that are "perhaps a little concerning." The movement, he argued, needed a unifying purpose.
Those divisions were on full display outside the plenary hall, where factional activists handed out flyers, pamphlets, and stickers to push their preferred resolutions and NPC candidates. In the evenings, separate parties were held in different neighborhoods. A pre-convention tally had identified more than 20 caucuses represented among the delegates; only about 20 percent of delegates were unaffiliated.

Trump? Not the main topic

On day one, a majority rejected a motion from the “moderates” to prioritize debate on anti-Trump strategy. Instead, the convention focused largely on internal organizational questions. Nearly every caucus supports, in principle, the creation of a U.S. socialist party. Yet there was little appetite for discussing why past third-party experiments — from the Green Party to smaller socialist formations — had failed.
Delegates did spend several hours debating anti-Zionism, eventually passing a resolution calling for the expulsion of members who make “pro-Zionist” statements or engage in “pro-Zionist” activity.
For some, this was a missed opportunity. Paul Garver, a veteran member of DSA’s International Committee, agreed that factionalism and the absence of a coherent strategy to confront Trumpism were the convention’s defining features. Still, he pointed to bright spots: DSA chapters across the country are mobilizing in defense of immigrant rights and against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). He cited a boycott campaign against the low-cost airline Avelo, which had signed a contract with the Department of Homeland Security to transport detained migrants to facilities inside and outside the U.S. In July, Avelo announced it would close its base for “financial reasons” — a decision organizers took as an early victory.

A warning from within

One longtime DSA member, speaking on condition of anonymity, warned that nearly all caucuses share an “idealism-based” assumption that “DSA should be the core of a third party.” Without a coherent, organized push for socialist mass politics, they cautioned, the organization risks devolving into “a swamp of competing sects” — with or without Zohran Mamdani’s leadership.
The 2025 convention was, in many ways, a snapshot of the American socialist movement itself: energized, diverse, and ambitious — but also fragmented, insular, and unsure of how to seize the political moment staring it in the face.

Max Bohnel is a U.S. based freelance journalist working for German-speaking media, among them nd - journalismus von links (independent socialist daily newspaper, formerly Neues Deutschland) 

The following is a statement on behalf of the North Star Caucus Steering Committee

No Kings Day turned out to be an event of massive historical as well as political import. With estimates of participation ranging from 3 to 5 million in communities large and small across the US, it was both the largest demonstration in US history and a truly national mass mobilization. While many DSA Chapters across country turned out in support, they did so without the endorsement or support of their own national leadership. Amid the near unanimous chorus of endorsements for the action DSA was conspicuous by its absence. While it seems the NPC did indeed take up the question of endorsing/supporting No Kings Day, it was defeated by a narrow majority comprised of Red Star, MUG and Bread and Roses who argued that the call encouraging people participating in No Kings Day to display US flags meant that DSA would be endorsing a demonstration where the US flag, symbolizing US imperialism, would be displayed. This was taken to mean that endorsing the demonstration would be tantamount to endorsing imperialism.

Apart from the argument that could be made in support of the idea of “taking back” the symbol from the Right--as in declaring the flag to represent equally the flag of anti-Monarchism, abolition and emancipation,  and the modern War Against Fascism--what strikes us about this decision is that it implicitly elevates symbolism (symbolic politics) over consideration of the actual political context (real politics). This seems to reflect 1) a shockingly faulty analysis of the current political context and 2) a problematic or non-existent idea regarding the political strategy and action required to address it.

The political context is the rise of a fascist movement and the election of its leaders to power, bringing dire threats of authoritarian suppression of what remains of democratic protections and rights for our people as well as massive transfer of wealth and power to an oligarchic, kleptocratic ruling class. The situation is urgent both because of the immediate harm being done to multiple vulnerable groups as well as working people as a whole and because of the long term prospect of an entrenched right wing authoritarian power that will do untold damage to people and the environment throughout the planet. The urgency of opposing this outcome seems to have been completely ignored by the NPC.

The political strategy that seems obvious at this moment, and has been articulated by other DSA members as well, is the need to be part of the broad coalition/movement to defeat MAGA and oppose the 60 years of growing reactionary Right roll back of liberal reforms and movements. DSA would need to constitute an organized radical force within that movement that grasps the deep roots of the problem and has a more comprehensive vision of the necessary social transformation required. This is necessary not only in order to fight for that transformation in the long term, but to prevent in the short term the Democratic party engaging in a superficial and opportunistic defeat of the Right electorally while offering nothing to the people that would modify the nihilism and despair regarding democracy and prospects for change that has seized a large part of our population and made them vulnerable to fascist ideas.

As shown by the recent campaign and success of Zohran Mamdani in New York, a broad-based political strategy is necessary, one that directly confronts this failed strategy of the Democratic Party. Our campaign having demonstrated our power to inspire the larger population regarding the possibility of a better life for all, it is now critical  for our organization to assume a leading role as the voice of radical transformation. Without this voice the movement against MAGA may fail and we may also lose an historically vital opportunity to advance a socialist agenda. Avoiding both such outcomes must be held in awareness and inform of our current strategy and action.

No Kings Day was an event of massive historical and political import. With estimates of participation ranging from 3 to 5 million in communities across the US, it was both the largest demonstration in US history and a truly national mass mobilization. An event in which DSA Chapters across country turned out in support. The curious point being that they did so without the endorsement or support of their own National leadership. Amid the near unanimous chorus of endorsements for the action the DSA National Political Committee was conspicuous by its silence.

In the wake of events the question as to why this was so naturally arises. Obviously not because DSA's national leadership has any sympathy with the Trump regime. So why did the NPC effectively ignore this mobilization?  Well now it can be told. It seems the NPC did indeed take up the question of endorsing/supporting No Kings Day. It was reportedly defeated by a narrow majority. That majority, comprised by Red Star, MUG and Bread and Roses, took alarm at a call encouraging people participating in No Kings Day to display US flags. The argument seems to be that since the US flag symbolizes US imperialism, endorsing a demonstration where the flag is displayed is tantamount to endorsing imperialism.

So now we know. DSA as a national organization was AWOL from the largest single day popular mobilization US history because of a matter of political symbolism. In this instance highly contested symbolism. Symbols by definition are open to multiple sometimes conflicting, paradoxical readings. The US flag may indeed be the flag of US imperialism but is equally the flag of anti-Monarchism, abolition and emancipation and a flag of the War Against Fascism. It is emblematic of all these things and more. Good and bad, for good or ill. This because symbols do not have intrinsic, material meanings but draw their associations from the context in which they are presented. 

It would seem obvious that US flags displayed at No Kings Day protests would have a far different symbolic impact than flags displayed at Trump's ego driven Military parade but not, evidently, to the majority on the NPC. For them it seems that symbolic meanings are fixed ideas, unalterably embodied in a chosen symbol and excluding all other readings.  Consequently this narrow reading dictates their tactics and strategy.

To be fair, Bread and Roses didn't actually take a firm position but argued that the question needed to be debated by the entire organization. However, having opposed endorsement on those grounds they then issued a public statement some two days before the event calling for chapters to support local actions for No Kings Day. One has to wonder at such a pivot.

In sum what we have seen is a classic case of obstructionism by a narrow majority of the NPC more concerned with theoretical abstractions than practical effect. Something to be kept in mind as the next National Convention and its elections approaches.

Walter Reeves, Atlanta DSA

 The following article is reposted from Chartist https://www.chartist.org.uk/

Original Sin and the Road to Redemption

By Paul Garver on 02/07/2025

Paul Garver on the Democratic Party cover-up and denial of Biden’s incapacity and the rise of the left in the shape of Zohran Mamdani

Original Sin* is a depressing book to read and review. Tapper and Thompson narrate in excruciating detail how Democratic Party operatives collaborated to cover up and deny the increasing cognitive decline of President Biden in the final years of his presidency.    Their misguided actions denied the base of the Democratic Party any opportunity to select a more viable candidate in open Democratic primaries.  Thereby, they helped facilitate the election of a sociopathic demagogue, together with the dangerous schemes of his followers to establish a White Nationalist neo-fascist regime over the USA.

The authors conducted some 200 interviews of Democratic Party insiders and strategists. Many of them admit that they were aware of Biden’s incapacities, but for one reason or another, did not speak out publicly until it was too late to unwind the damage caused by their silence.  Their motives are many, including personal loyalty to Joe Biden and his family, coupled with the belief that only even a diminished Biden could defeat Trump in the 2024 election.

It is hard to prove a counterfactual. It is quite possible that Trump would have steamrolled over even a more viable Democratic opponent than Kamala Harris.    Harris was badly advised by the Democratic Party insiders, who focused on winning over a handful of Republican defectors rather than shaping a message to the traditional base constituencies of the Democratic Party - working class, young voters, people of colour, etc.  About 10 million of these did not vote at all.   A smaller but noticeable number in Michigan defected over Biden’s and Harris’s kowtowing to Netanyahu’s genocidal war in Gaza. 

Media pundits have been playing the blame game since the election.   However, many Democratic leaders in the House and Senate, and some Democratic state governors, persist in the hope for a normal electoral correction in the midterm elections of 2026.  I call this the “lying flat” or the “head-in-the-sand” strategy.   Why would the electorate reward the Democratic Party for its cowardice and calculated inaction in the face of the grave threat to the fundamentals of the American constitutional order?    Polling indicates that a large majority of normally Democratic constituencies are frustrated with the feeble response of the Democratic Party to creeping fascism.

I am writing this on the day after the heartening Democratic primary victory of democratic socialist candidate Zohran Mamdani running for mayor of New York City.   A Muslim immigrant and only a U.S. citizen for a few years, Mamdani campaigned around bread-and-butter issues like transit and housing, with the support of New York City DSA, the Working Families Party and nationally known democratic socialists Bernie Sanders and AOC.   We had hoped that Mamdani might squeeze through by picking up votes in a ranked-choice voting system through his alliances with other progressive candidates like Brad Lander.  In fact, Mamdani got over 43% of the total first-round votes, while Lander got another 11% [boosted by his arrest by ICE agents for daring to ask them to show a judicial warrant].  Discredited former NY governor Andrew Cuomo, backed by major corporate donors, Bill Clinton and most Democratic officeholders in New York City, got only 36% of the vote on the first round, and not enough second choices to overcome Mamdani’s large lead.  Cuomo may run as an Independent in November.  He would join disgraced incumbent mayor Eric Adams, who had to be pardoned by President Trump for his flagrant corruption in return for a highly unpopular collaboration with Trump’s ICE raids, as well as a feeble Republican candidate, to contest Mamdani in November.

Panicking large donors, billionaire businessmen, and Democratic Party insiders are already lining up to support either Cuomo or Adams, running as independents.  Mamdani frightens them because he is a Muslim, a democratic socialist, and a charismatic campaigner with simple populist social democratic messages that appeal to the majority of New Yorkers - rent control, free transit, etc., while threatening to slightly raise taxes on the ultra-rich.

Those same interests futilely spent some $25 million in negative advertising against Mamdani in the primary.  He was libelled as anti-Semitic and communistic, as well as being called inexperienced and impractical.  These negative ads against Mamdani were not very successful, since Zohran had consistently been upfront with his views on immigration, free transit, higher taxes on the rich, and support for Gazans and Palestinians, and his opposition to ICE raids.

We expect that Mamdani’s opponents will receive much more extensive funding to run scurrilous attacks on him between now and the November election.

Mamdani will counter mainly by further amping up his extensive campaigning network that carried him to his primary victory.  Some 40,000 volunteer canvassers had come not only from the organized Left (DSA, Working Families Party, etc.), but also from dozens of progressive organisations, community and neighbourhood associations representing the full spectrum of NYC.  In the fall, Mamdani will rely even more heavily on volunteer canvassers and small donors as well as on his own creative social media and personal appearances.  Hopefully, they will be reinforced by labour union activists, even though most union leaders endorsed Cuomo in the primary.

As a member of DSA’s International Committee, I have been scanning the congratulations to DSA flooding in from international socialist organisations on Mamdani’s victory.  I have also noticed that Mamdani is being hailed in social media by a wide spectrum of progressive organisations in the USA.   So far, I have seen only a trickle of congratulations from Democratic Party officeholders outside NYC.  Could it be that many Democrats in office still fear retaliation by the Democratic National Committee in their own districts in 2026 and beyond if they support    Mamdani?

I would like to believe, hope against hope, that the Democratic Party will not double down on the original sin so well highlighted by Tepper and Thompson.   Their revised version of original sin will be to try to stop Mamdani at all costs. For many Democratic operatives, the victory of the Left in the Democratic Party, now represented by Sanders, the Squad, and Mamdani, would be a catastrophic blow, at least as obnoxious as MAGA and Project 2025. 

Will we be able to overcome these reactionary Democratic diehards at the same time we creatively battle the creeping Fascist takeover that will close most space for political resistance? The odds remain long, but not insurmountable.  Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will!





Comment

To: NPC
From: North Star Caucus for Socialism and Democracy Steering Committee
 
Dear Comrades:
In view of the current political crisis, we have some observations about the current position of DSA at the national level that we would like to share with you. We ask that you take them into serious consideration:
 
Given the capture of our government and institutions by dangerous right-wing forces, we believe there is a need for the broadest possible movement -- not only to defeat the MAGA forces in the immediate moment but also to reverse the tide of reactionary rollback of all the reforms and social protection begun in the New Deal. For this to succeed, an organized radical force within the movement is needed, one that grasps the deep historical roots of this rollback and offers a more comprehensive vision of the necessary social transformation. This movement is developing, but we believe it needs a radical analysis and vision to succeed. It must, in effect, do what the Democratic Party has failed to do, indeed even prevented: inspire in the larger population a belief that change is possible, and a better life can be had. This is essential to ensure that the Right is actually defeated, not momentarily held at bay by an electoral win by the Democrats that allows the reactionary forces to spring back unharmed in the next electoral cycle.
 
It appears that DSA has been reluctant to identify with the necessity of becoming that radical force within the current mass movement to resist MAGA. There is no other socialist organization on a national level that can play this role. Therefore we urge you to consider how DSA can become fully engaged with the current mass movement.  To begin, as we urged on our letter of June 1, 2025, please endorse the  “No Kings” demonstrations planned to take place throughout the country on June 14.


Barbara Joye and Bill Barclay, Co-Chairs, North Star Caucus for Socialism and Democracy

DSA’s North Star Caucus for Democracy and Socialism has resolved to endorse the June 14th,   2025 No Kings Day of Action, and we urge national DSA as a whole to endorse it as well. 
 
The Trump administration continues to execute the Project 2025 playbook, both domestically and globally. However, both domestically and globally the largest anti-fascist mobilization is also emerging.  We believe it is crucial that DSA join this growing mass resistance and do everything possible to help build the broadest and strongest resistance movement possible.  The stakes are extremely high. Uncounted lives are literally in the balance.  The courts and Congress alone are incapable of halting this rapidly unfolding disaster that endangers the freedoms and lives of more and more people -- and even the future of life on our planet -- daily . Only a broad-based mass resistance movement can stop it.
 
DSA cannot afford to absent itself from this struggle. Working people will remember who stood with them in this fight and who did not. Please:
 
(1)            Endorse the June 14th, 2025 No Kings Day of Action;
(2)            Publicize this endorsement both to DSA chapters and to the larger public as soon as possible. 
 
Bill Barclay and Barbara Joye, Co-Chairs,
North Star Caucus for Democracy and Socialism

  Trump’s Authoritarian Power Grab in Los Angeles Is an Attack on Democracy—and on ImmigrantsBy Carlos Alcala, California Democratic Council.  Media Director

  Donald Trump’s decision to unilaterally deploy the National Guard to Los Angeles—over the objections of California Governor Gavin Newsom and Mayor Karen Bass—isn’t just a dangerous abuse of power. It’s an authoritarian stunt aimed at silencing protest, undermining democratic governance, and scapegoating immigrants while cutting off every legal avenue they’re supposed to use.
Let’s not mince words. The people of California overwhelmingly elected Newsom and Bass to lead their communities, manage public safety, and reflect their values. These leaders made it clear: they did not want or need military troops flooding their streets. But Trump—true to form—ignored that democratic mandate. In doing so, he revealed exactly what kind of governance he supports: one where force overrides consent, and the will of voters is trampled by federal intimidation.
This move fits into a broader, deeply cynical strategy. Trump has spent years dismantling legal pathways to immigration—shutting down asylum processes, gutting refugee programs, and imposing cruel and arbitrary barriers to lawful entry. Then, when people flee violence and poverty and arrive at the border seeking help, he turns around and blames them for not “doing it legally.” It’s a rigged system by design: close the door, then punish people for knocking.
Now, he’s bringing that same hypocrisy to the streets of Los Angeles, conflating protest, immigration, and public disorder to justify militarized crackdowns. It’s not about security. It’s about optics, fear, and division.
What Trump is really doing is targeting communities who dare to stand up—for immigrant rights, racial justice, and democracy itself. The people in the streets are demanding an end to police violence, an end to xenophobia, and a government that actually listens to them. Trump’s answer? Send in troops. Silence dissent. Pretend it’s about “law and order.”
Let’s be clear: true law and order comes from justice, not occupation. It comes from investing in communities, not militarizing them. And it absolutely comes from respecting the democratic will of the people—not overriding it with tanks and troops.
This is not just a local issue. It’s a national crisis of democracy. If a president can ignore elected leaders and flood cities with soldiers, where does it end? What happens the next time a protest erupts in a city that doesn’t share his politics—or his prejudices?
The answer lies in collective resistance. Progressives, immigrants, organizers, and everyday citizens must speak with one voice: we will not allow fear to replace freedom. And we will not allow a twice-impeached former president to rewrite the rules of democracy to serve his authoritarian ambitions.
This is our fight—not just for Los Angeles, but for every city, every immigrant, and every person who believes in democracy over dictatorship.
California Democratic Council. Representing 420 Democratic Clubs in the California Democratic Party.  Carlos Alcala is Chair of the Chicano Caucus.

HERE’S THREE THINGS YOU CAN DO ABOUT ICE RAIDS IN LOS ANGELES RIGHT NOW
This weekend’s shocking and violent raids in Los Angeles are meant to be a show of force from the Trump regime. This is about instilling fear and terrorizing Angelenos. But we can fight back.
Given the latest news about National Guard Deployment, we expect raids to continue and encourage community members to be safe and thoughtful.
The Trump regime’s raids have terrorized our community this weekend. Students and parents targeted at schools. Lawyers illegally denied access to speak to those detained. Protestors and observers brutalized.
The LAPD has abetted the raids in the name of “preserving public safety”, in violation of the spirit if not the letter of LA’s Sanctuary City Ordinance. Angelenos protecting our communities are not a threat to public safety, militarized agents kidnapping our neighbors is. DSA-LA opposed the appointment of Jim McDonnell as police chief precisely because of his history of collusion with ICE.

1. CALL THE COMMUNITY HOTLINE

888-624-4752
If you see federal agents in your neighborhood, call the LA Rapid Response Network. Community groups rely on these calls to deploy trained volunteers to document and monitor immigration actions.

1. ATTEND AN ACTION

 Citizens who know their rights can disrupt and slow ICE incursions, as well as pressure local authorities to take action. Here are two upcoming events - stay tuned for more details:

• TODAY 6/8, 2pm, LA City Hall, ICE Out of LA / National Guard Go Away
• Monday 6/9, 11am, Gloria Molina Grand Park, 200 N Grand Ave. Los Angeles 90012 - Local unions are organizing a rally during the arraignment of detained union leader David Huerta.
• Tuesday 6/10, 6pm, Glendale City Hall- Glendale City Council has a contract to lease their jail beds to ICE. Attend their meeting and make your voice heard at general public comment to demand this contract be terminated.

 Use best protest practices. Here are resources from the National Lawyers Guild - Los Angeles.
Do you know of any other actions? Share them by replying to this e-mail! We will continue to broadcast other events at which DSA members will have an organized presence.

1. CONNECT WITH YOUR COMRADES

“These raids are freaking me out. Are you doing okay?”
 Now is the time to reconnect with friends and family, fellow DSA members, union siblings, and members of other community organizations resisting ICE like the Community Self-Defense Coalition. Online tools can help spread the word, but we can only fight fascism through real community. Don’t just scroll - talk to someone!
 If you aren’t a member of an organization, now is the time to join one.
Los Angeles DSA

"Most of the time it makes sense to skip past Donald Trump’s rantings on social media to examine the underlying material dynamics that shape US politics: The crisis of the neoliberal economic model. The erosion of US global hegemony. The 60-year right-wing backlash against the gains of the 1960s. The persistence of economic inequality, racial injustice, and patriarchy. The impact on the US working class of deindustrialization, COVID, and post-COVID inflation. The anti-democratic features built into the US electoral system.

The Left’s assessment of the moment and our strategies for transformative change need to be grounded in these realities. But a periodic check on Trump’s messages on Truth Social is also warranted. It tells us a lot about the way this aspiring dictator thinks and what appeals to a MAGA base consisting of 70% of Republican voters and 35% of the electorate overall. Left assessments and strategies will be mechanical and one-sided if this dimension of class struggle—what Marx calls “the ideological forms in which men (sic) become conscious of conflict and fight it out”— is neglected."

Read the full article here.

Bill Barclay 
On September 2, 1987, a full-page ad appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Boston Globedenouncing the failure of U.S. political leaders to stand up against the countries – Japan and Saudi Arabia  were named – that were “ripping us off.”  The answer: tariffs.  
 
The ad was signed by Donald J Trump.
 
Today Trump’s tariff tantrum’s target is, of course, China.  And the ostensible reason for China tariffs is to bring manufacturing – and maybe coal mining – back to the United States.   Today he has – or at least has assumed in the face of a flaccid Congress – the power to throw various tariffs against the wall, 50% one day, 100% another, then retreat the next day.  The back-and-forth pattern has created what financial markets are calling the TACO trade (“Trump Always Chickens Out,” an epithet that enrages Trump).  
 
In 2000 U.S. manufacturing represented 25% of the global total; China was only 6%.  Today the United States, with 4.2% of global population, accounts for 16% of global manufacturing by value and China, with 17% of global population, produces almost 32%.  More significantly, in 2000 China’s leading manufactured export was textiles; today textiles are not even in the top 10.  (For a deeper analysis of China’s rapid rise in the global political economy, see Bill Barclay, “Dangerous Inflection Point: Is China's Growth Model Exhausted?.”
Is this a reason for concern?  And, if so, what should/could be done about it?
 
We can begin by looking in greater detail both at manufacturing itself and at the components of the U.S. manufacturing trade deficit with China. The United States is not the only country where manufacturing has been declining. The manufacturing share of  GDP and employment has dropped in both Germany and Japan (although it remains above that of the Unites States), and the global GDP share of manufacturing at about 20%.  .   
 
Manufacturing jobs are at stake in Trump’s trade war with China – in both countries,  While the US employs only 12.7 million workers in manufacturing to the more than 100 million in China, productivity in US manufacturing is more than 6 times that of China.
 
This productivity disparity is primarily driven by the large labor-intensive manufacturing sector in China – textiles, furniture, footwear, etc.  Although Commerce Secretary Lutnick claimed that Trump’s tariffs would result in US workers producing shoes, t-shirts and more, this is extremely unlikely: average textile worker wages in the US, as low as they may be, are 3 – 4 times those in China, and more than 30 times that of a Bangladesh textile worker, the second largest textile exporter.  The US textile trade deficit with China was about  $100 billion in 2023.  
 
No, nothing Trump can do will bring large scale textile manufacturing back to the U.S. – nor should we want it to.
 
So, let’s look at some examples of more advanced manufacturing – like the ubiquitous cell phone. In 2024 the US trade deficit with China in goods was $295 billion – and almost 15% of that was Apple with 90% of its products assembled in China. Trump has recently raised the possibility of a 25% tariff on China-assembled iPhones. We’ve seen this movie  before – in 2017, during his first term, he Trumpeted that Foxconn, the iPhone Apple iPhone assembler in  China, would build a $10 billion plant in Wisconsin. The only result was a short-lived mask pandemic-era production facility, now mostly unused and never built. 
 
Could we make -  or more accurately, assemble - iProducts in the US?  Probably, if we were willing to pay 2 – 4 times their current price. And even then, the parts, largely manufactured in Germany, South Korea and elsewhere would be subject to Trumps tariffs. 
 
But manufacturing is important for commercial innovation, technological progress and long-term environmental sustainability.  There are other types of leading-edge manufacturing that contribute to these goals and in which the US could actually be competitive – with the right industrial policies. For example, remaking our transport system – cars, trucks and trains – into a driver of the energy transition.   But that would require acknowledging the reality of climate change.  Today China produces 70% of all EVs and over 60% of Li-ion batteries essential to EVs.  We have a long way to go.
 
And the question, especially for advanced manufacturing, is how the facility will be operated?  Trump sees large numbers of men (“manly jobs”) working on the factory floor. But high-tech manufacturing demands high-tech skill capabilities – including robots. The United States ranks only seventh in robot manufacturing density, behind Japan, China, and Germany.  One last point: it is  often argued that manufacturing provides high wage jobs, but that confuses correlation and causation.  There is nothing inherent in manufacturing jobs that dictate high pay: today a Danish worker at MacDonald’s is paid more than a Kia auto assembly line worked in Alabama.  The difference? The Danish worker is in a union.
 
The possibility for a manufacturing renaissance in the US is real – but very unlikely to be realized  by Trump’s approach to tariffs.  In fact, his rejection of climate change and unwillingness to understand the  thrust of high-tech manufacturing will likely cost the US manufacturing industry, especially the auto production and parts sector going forward.  
 
Oh, I forgot – we’ll be the crypto capital of the world – crypto plus coal –a vision for the future.  
 
Think I’ll make some TACOs for dinner.
​
Bill Barclay is a political economist and lives in  Ventura, CA.  He was a founding member of DSA and the Chicago Political Economy Group (cpegonline.org) and is on the steering committee of the North Star Caucus of DSA. 

 
 
 
 
 
 

At its May 25, 2025 meeting, the NS SC took the following actions.

 (1)   NS endorses the June 14th No Kings Day of Action; and

(2)   NS will urge that the NPC also endorse the No Kings Day of Action 

(3)   NS will urge other caucuses to also endorse the  No Kings Day of Action.    
 The No Kings Day of Action is a mobilization against the Musk/Trump political and economic attack on all of us.  Please join – or help organize – one of the many events near you.

 

More information on June 14th No Kings Day can be found here:  

https://indivisible.org/statements/indivisible-and-partners-announce-no-kings-nationwide-day-defiance-flag-day-during;
Here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/50501movement/posts/1036778238059505/;

Here: https://www.nokings.org/partners; and 
Here: https://www.mobilize.us/aft/event/792871/
 
 

Bill Barclay and Barbara Joye, 
NS SC co-chairs

open.substack.com/pub/robertreich/p/what-should-we-do-now-live-with-rev?What Should We Do Now?  with Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II
ROBERT REICH
 AND 
WILLIAM J. BARBER, II
HTTPS://ROBERTREICH.SUBSTACK.COM/P/WHAT-SHOULD-WE-DO-NOW-LIVE-WITH-REV?
 

Yesterday, Kristi Noem, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, notified Harvard University that “effective immediately, Harvard University’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification is revoked.” 
Harvard can no longer enroll foreign students. Existing foreign students must transfer to another university or lose their legal status. 
This could affect more than a quarter of Harvard’s student body. 
Noem said she did this because of the university’s “failure to comply with simple reporting requirements.” 
Rubbish. There was nothing simple about the trove of information Noem demanded from Harvard — including the coursework of every international student and information on any student visa holder who had been involved in “illegal” activity — information beyond what Harvard is legally allowed to share with the government. 
We are in deep authoritarian fascist territory, friends. 
Trump is escalating his war against American higher education and against the rest of the world. 
We will be the worse for this. 
To Trump, the only useful non-Americans are those who invest in his crypto schemes and global resorts, or gift him jumbo “palace in the sky” aircraft. 
Yet global brains have been crucial sources of our scientific and economic advances. Since the end of World War II in particular, we have benefitted enormously from talented students and faculty drawn here from all over the planet to learn, study, research, and innovate. 
Once again, it will be up to the federal courts to stop this idiocy. The rest of us must speak out loudly and clearly against what is being done. 
Here’s what I told the graduates from U. Cal. Berkeley’s School of Education at their commencement ceremony earlier this week (before I learned of the Trump regime’s latest move): 
Throughout history, tyrants have understood that their major enemy is an educated citizenry. Slaveholders prohibited the enslaved from learning to read. Nazis burned books. Putin and Xi censor the media.
Ignorance is the handmaiden of tyranny.
America’s founders knew this. They saw how easily emperors and kings could mislead uneducated publics. The survival of the new nation required a public wise enough to keep power within bounds. People imbued, in the language of the time, with civic virtue.
Jefferson assured Americans that if they could “enlighten the people generally … tyranny and the oppressions of mind and body will vanish, like evil spirits at the dawn of day.”
So America became the cradle of free, universal, public education.
I don’t have any easy answers to the many challenges we’re experiencing today in classrooms across the land, but we must never give up on these three basic educational ideals: free, universal, and public.
If we stop thinking about education solely as a private investment on the way to a good-paying job and see it as a public good, we’d give every child an understanding of the Constitution, the meaning and importance of the rule of law, and why no one should be above it.
This is, after all, what we demand of people who want to become naturalized citizens: They have to pass a civics test covering the organization of the U.S. government and the Constitution. 
Civic education should instill in young people a passion for truth — enabling them to think critically, be skeptical (but not cynical) about what they hear and read, find reliable sources of information, apply basic logic and analysis, and know enough about history and the physical world to differentiate fact from fiction.
Such an education would also urge young people to communicate with others. With people of different races, classes, creeds, nationalities. 
Teach them how to listen, to open their minds to the possibility their own views and preconceptions may be wrong, to discover why people with opposing views believe what they do.
Yet the current president of the United States does not appear to have learned any of this.
On the campaign trail, he vowed to “liberate our children from the Marxist lunatics and perverts who have infested our educational system.” 
He has canceled federal exams that measure student progress and ordered his wrestling executive-turned-Education Secretary to shut most of her department.
He is attacking the freedom of speech of university students and professors, trying to deport international students and faculty solely because of what they say or write, and threatening to halt federal funds to universities that practice DEI.
He has gutted the funding of the National Institutes of Health, which provides a large portion of biomedical research, and the National Science Foundation, responsible for much of America’s engineering and computer research.
Along with certain governors, he is attacking the teaching in our schools of America’s shameful histories of slavery and Native American genocide.
He has cut funding for libraries around the country — which will jeopardize literacy development and reading programs, and reliable internet access for those without it at home.
I keep hearing that all this amounts to an “attack on the liberal state” or “the culmination of our culture wars.”
No. What’s really occurring is an attack on the American mind.
You who are soon to graduate from this wonderful school of education have chosen instead to enhance the American mind, to broaden it, to enlighten our young people, to expose them to a world of possibility. 
May you educate like democracy depends on it. 

​

The Brennan Center May 2, 2025. 
The first hundred days of Donald Trump’s presidency have been marked by power grabs, aggressive if chaotic attempts to upend the Constitution’s checks and balances. Now another strategy has begun to more clearly come into view: an unprecedented drive to undermine elections, just in time for the 2026 midterms.
Also emerging: a fierce response, a defense of voting rights that won an important early victory. How this fight unfolds will shape whether we have free and fair elections in 2026 and beyond.
On March 25, Trump signed an executive order purporting to take personal control over federal elections. Henceforth, he declared, American citizens would have to produce a passport or other citizenship document to register using the federal voter registration form. But roughly half of Americans don’t have passports. The “order” was stuffed with other misguided notions. For example, it instructed an independent agency to strip federal certification from previously certified voting machines, and it even ordered states to give Elon Musk’s DOGE team access to the voter rolls to search for “fraud.” (Hmm, what could possibly go wrong with that?!)
The Brennan Center went to federal court. Representing the League of Women Voters, together with allies, our attorneys argued that this was illegal and unconstitutional. Last week, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly agreed. In a powerful 120-page opinion, she wrote, “Our Constitution entrusts Congress and the States — not the President — with the authority to regulate federal elections.” She issued a preliminary injunction blocking the key part of the executive order. (Other elements are still being litigated.)
The judge focused on the Constitution’s Elections Clause, which gives states the duty to set rules for the “times, places, and manner” of elections — and gives Congress the power to make national voting laws. That provision is the basis for the Freedom to Vote Act, the sweeping pro-democracy legislation that came within two votes of passing three years ago. It does not give a president any personal authority over elections, and certainly not the writ to act like a king.
The executive order came as part of a wide-ranging effort to undermine the vote. As my colleagues Sean Morales-Doyle and Lauren Miller Karalunas note, much of this strategy is set out in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 policy blueprint — and it’s right on schedule. Next on the agenda is using the Justice Department to chill future efforts to safeguard elections.
The Guardian reported Monday that Justice Department leaders “have removed all of the senior civil servants working as managers in the department’s voting section and directed attorneys to dismiss all active cases, part of a broader attack on the department’s civil rights division.” The department itself was founded in large measure to protect the voting rights of Black formerly enslaved people after the Civil War, and the Civil Rights Division is considered a crown jewel. Now the cop has been pulled off the beat.
Already, the administration had purged the cybersecurity experts at the Department of Homeland Security who worked to protect voting systems. Trump even directed the Justice Department to investigate Chris Krebs, the esteemed expert he appointed to lead the cybersecurity office during his first term. Krebs’s infraction? He had affirmed the integrity of the 2020 election.
Krebs spoke out to raucous applause at a packed technology conference in San Francisco, his first public comment since being targeted. “Cybersecurity is national security,” he declared, adding, “To see what’s happening to the cybersecurity community inside the federal government, we should be outraged. Absolutely outraged.”
These efforts are reflected in the SAVE Act, which if enacted would be the worst voting law ever passed by Congress. It would require citizens to produce a passport or birth certificate to register or even to re-register — and as the Brennan Center’s research shows, 21 million Americans don’t have ready access to those documents.
The SAVE Act passed the House on a nearly party-line vote. Now it is before the Senate. Encouragingly, senators have vowed to block the measure, and if they stand firm, they have the votes to do so. Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) called it a “bad faith bill cynically intended to disenfranchise millions of eligible voters.” Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) reiterated her opposition on Fox News, saying, “It makes it harder to have women vote, it makes it harder if you don’t have a passport.”
If the SAVE Act is defeated — if, in fact, it never comes to a vote — let’s not just move on. This would be a signal victory.
History doesn’t repeat, but it rhymes. The fight to vote has been a defining struggle throughout American history. Always, people have had to press to get or keep access to our democracy, and just as consistently, some have tried to shrink the circle.
We at the Brennan Center will take a moment next week to celebrate our work and the organization’s 30th anniversary. Our annual Brennan Legacy Awards dinner will honor Gov. Wes Moore of Maryland. And we will honor and hear from the Broadway musical Suffs, which tells the story of how women won the right to vote in the United States. Presenting our awards will be Celina Stewart, CEO of the League of Women Voters, our client in the recent lawsuit.
For most of the play, we see the contest between insider strategies and street protests, backstage strategists and charismatic public figures such as Inez Milholland. The racism that tried to keep Ida B. Wells from marching with her fellow suffragists down Pennsylvania Avenue and the powerful political leaders who tried to stop the expansion of the franchise.
The musical ends on a contemporary note. Today’s activists join with the suffragists, recognizing the need to fight for equality even when “you won’t live to see the future that you fight for/Maybe no one gets to reach that perfect day.” That song’s title is a good reminder of what we must continue to do at this moment of challenge: “Keep Marching.”
Michael Waldman
April 29, 2025
Brennan Center for Justice
​
Posted by Duane Campbell
 
Defeat Fascism/Fight for Democracy 
List of opportunities:  https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cRIJsSJwtF72ckJ8QLQu5cDCGnoeh5OIIjwqRkDKdBg/edit?usp=sharing

​












​


From the National Political Committee — May Day Solidarity
​May Day is a uniquely international holiday, where workers of the world unite to celebrate our history and demands for our future — and it’s a holiday with deep American roots. A May Day 1886 protest demanding 8-hour work days (something we so often take for granted) led to the Chicago police brutalizing a crowd of protestors in Haymarket Square, and a series of violent events which led to the unjust state executions of 7 “Apostles of Labor.”
Socialists must remember these roots. This fight has never been easy, but we stand on the shoulders of giants, arm in arm with our comrades across our own organization — over 70,000 strong — and our siblings in the labor movement, the renters’ rights movement, the Palestinian liberation movement, the migrants’ rights movement, and so many more. 
Because of this solidarity, we have incredible opportunities to organize and exert our collective strength, working locally and nationally in unison with mass movements around the world, to pick big fights against the boss class, and to win. We are stronger every day, even as the forces of capital work to slow us down, because we continue to build this solidarity.
We’ve witnessed the strength of this solidarity in the last few weeks, as hundreds of thousands of people have come out to the “Fighting Oligarchy” tour to see democratic socialists like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speak out against the system that oppresses us, even in deep red parts of the country like Idaho and Bakersfield, California. The rallies feature labor organizers representing people who form the backbone of our economy, from rideshare workers to farmworkers, and socialist electeds building the bench downballot, like DSA city councilmember Eunisses Hernandez in Los Angeles. The message is clear: a better world is possible, and we need class solidarity to win it. DSA members are showing up in force at local stops of this tour to canvass attendees and show how we are ready to give people the chance to be protagonists of their own history and build the working class power we need at scale to take on the oligarchy.
DSA chapters all across the country are planning May Day events, and we have officially joined the May Day Strong movement, organized with the Chicago Teachers Union and Bargaining for the Common Good. We’re encouraging DSA members everywhere to plug in — check out our May Day toolkit for ways to get involved. You can find your nearest chapter and their contact info here, and check the May Day Strong Map to find an event near you!
This year, mobilizing on May Day is even more urgent:

• In spite of the objections of the Supreme Court, members of Congress, and millions of working class people, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a father and union worker, is still being detained illegally in El Salvador.
• Pro-Palestine organizer and former UAW member Mahmoud Khalil is being held illegally in ICE detention in Louisiana.
• Over two hundred thousand federal workers have lost their jobs and nearly a million more have been told that their right to bargain over working conditions no longer exists.

And before you hit the streets on May 1, please join us for a mass call on April 29. On this call — Fight Oligarchy: Build to May Day 2025 — you’ll hear from labor organizers, immigrants’ rights activists, and DSA chapter leaders on how you can fight back this May Day against attacks on our unions, rights, and essential services. 

 
Over 30,000 attended  the Folsom, California, Fighting Oligarchy Tour event  on April 15.
The video below is a very close repeat of the speech by Bernie Sanders on the tour given in over 15 cities and locations.
He clearly states the goals of the tour, to which we should pay attention.
​

​Trump and his MAGA movement are conspiring with oligarchs to turn the U.S. into a rightwing authoritarian state. The labor movement can play a key role in fighting back.
 Bill Fletcher Jr. 

In These Times.
 
One of the principal difficulties facing the Democratic Party establishment and most leaders of organized labor is a failure to accept a fundamental reality: there is no normality. The failure to grasp this state of affairs has led to strategic paralysis and a tendency to believe that by being the ​“adults in the room,” the Democrats — or the trade union leadership — can embarrass the Republicans and force them to engage in good faith behavior. That is not the case.
The rise of President Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement has represented the morphing of a broad, rightwing populist movement into a fascist movement that seeks to destroy constitutional democracy. The current purging of the federal government, through Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), aims at both opening the doors to a kleptocracy as well as ensuring loyalty to the MAGA vision and its retrograde goals.
Yet while MAGA can be defined as fascist (or postfascist), what we do not yet see is full fascism in power. Rather what we are now witnessing appears to be something along the lines of Viktor Orbán’s regime in Hungary and, ultimately, a Putinesque regime, i.e., increased rightwing authoritarianism. Still, the aim of the Trump regime remains to destabilize all real and potential opposition.
MAGA, as a movement, has converged with the objectives of that segment of the capitalist class often referenced as ​“oligarchs.” Particularly situated in high tech, this group of capitalists has become very influential through their control over critical online and communications systems. Initially aligned, for the most part, with Democrats, the oligarchs appear to have decided that they are nothing short of superior beings that must seize the reins of government in order to operate it much like a business, and for their own ends. This includes expanding their wealth, but also for those, such as Musk, who have a quasi-science fiction vision of a future where the elite abandon Earth and settle Mars or some artificial satellite, there is the need for direct governmental involvement in such projects. Along with the oligarchs are those in the business class who simply wish to ravage the federal kitty, leading to the emergence of kleptocracy.

Read more.
https://inthesetimes.com/article/unions-labor-trump-oligarchy-fascism?