Democratic Party

August 16, 2022

The Long Shadow of Michael Harrington: A Review of A Failure of Vision

Doug Greene’s new biography of Michael Harrington brings crucial historical context to debates on the socialist Left today. It is essential reading for newly minted socialists and seasoned activists alike.
Even among socialists, Michael Harrington is an obscure figure, but his work has enormous relevance today, for better and for worse. Harrington rose to national prominence as “the man who discovered poverty” with his 1962 book The Other America, a moving expose on poverty in the United States. In today’s context, his most important contribution is his role as the prominent founder and ideologue of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). The DSA has in the last few years become the largest self-described socialist organization in the U.S., since the heyday of the Socialist Party in the early 20th century.

March 22, 2022

by Atlee McFellin

Left Conformity to the Settler Cult

In his book, Fascism: Theory and History, lawyer and historian David Renton outlined what he called “the anti-fascist wager.” It was a gamble the German left made against Hitler, the extent to which the social democratic (SPD) and communist (KPD) parties accurately perceived the uniquely dangerous threat the Nazi’s posed. This is like the gamble we make within settler Amerikkka against resurgent fascism today. Lives hang in the balance, which is why we start with the above quote from an April 2020 interview Noam Chomsky did with Medhi Hasan, who was then still at The Intercept.

January 7, 2022

by Zack Frailey Escobar

What kind of party do we need?

This is a crucial moment for the socialist movement. There has been substantial growth of socialist organization in the last four years and the highest point of public support for socialism since the 1970s. But it would be a mistake to believe that socialism’s popularity will simply continue along this trajectory indefinitely, or that this necessarily translates to a fundamental shift towards class struggle. Membership in the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), largest U.S. socialist group in the US, has recently plateaued. The second largest group, the International Socialist Organization, collapsed 2 years ago. To make matters worse, the trend within DSA which had been moving toward a break with the Democrats and the formation of an independent party has undergone a reversal. If this trend becomes dominant within the socialist movement, the trajectory towards socialist party building will become stunted, and a new generation of potential revolutionaries will be funneled back into the Democratic Party like so many before them.

December 14, 2021

by Justin Akers Chacón

Rebellion and Reaction: behind the attack on Critical Race Theory

The orchestrated attack on Critical Race Theory (CRT) is one facet of the racist and reactionary response to the decade-long Black Lives Matter struggle and the tremorous uprising of summer 2020. The surges of protest and revolt, taking distinct and elaborating form since the 2012 murder of Trayvon Martin, have grown in size, scope, and militancy. These movements have shifted anti-racist class politics and consciousness to the left, culminating into abolitionist cadence at its most organized and advanced points. Over one year on, the unified call for radical justice has been countered by the foul, cacophonous, and rage-induced dysphoria of the rattled ranks of the reactionary right.

December 12, 2021

by Bill V. Mullen

Under Siege: why socialists must fight for Palestine and BDS

The struggle for Palestinian liberation from Israel’s U.S.-backed settler-colonial regime has become a cornerstone of most radical and progressive political platforms. Especially since Palestinian Civil Society launched the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions campaign (BDS) in 2004, modeled closely on the South African campaign to end Apartheid; the broad U.S. and global Left have made the struggle to end Israel’s occupation part of a wider critique of U.S. imperialism.

Yet recent events have challenged the unity and momentum of both the struggle for Palestinian liberation on the Left, and its primary global weapon, the BDS campaign. One of those challenges has come from the reformist wing of the Left, the Democratic Socialists of America. Another, even more potentially threatening to Palestinian liberation unity, has come from within the ranks of the U.S. Arab political class and its institutions.

December 3, 2021

by Kim Gasper-Rabuck

The Aftermath of the Rittenhouse Acquittal: Report from Wisconsin

After the murder of George Floyd May 25, 2020, millions of people protested—most for the first time in their lives—to say that “Black Lives Matter”. Thousands demonstrated dozens of times across the urban centers of Wisconsin. in Madison, the protests were called by large not-for-profits as well as new, young groups of African- American activists. Hundreds of national guard members were called up by Democratic Party Governor Tony Evers—and supported by Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway—to teargas and arrest Black and white protesters on the street. Much of State Street experienced fires and graffiti as peoples’ rightful rage against overwhelming police and National guard violence erupted.

October 1, 2021

by Puntorojo Editorial Collective

Serious about Systemic Change: an interview with Marco Amaral

Marco Amaral is a progressive candidate running as an Independent for the position of California Superintendent of Public Instruction in 2022. He is Chicano educator and long-time activist who teaches high school Special Education in a low-income area. Amaral lives and works in a community near the US-Mexico border in San Diego, a largely working-class Mexican community and is currently a Board of Trustees member at the South Bay Union School District. He spoke to Puntorojo about activism, education, politics and his campaign.

June 18, 2021

by Héctor Reyes

The U.S. Far-Right: poised to extend its reach and scale of violence

The January 6th storming of the U.S. Capitol by elements of the far-right—amateurish and pursued by a coalition of activists that grossly overestimated the extent of their power and support—constituted a breakthrough by far-right political forces. As conceived, it was destined to be easily repelled from the outset, and contrary to corporate and social media hyperbole, it fell profoundly short of constituting a viable coup attempt. Yet, it is in the reverberations of its political symbolism that it amounts to a victory for the far-right, for it constitutes a “proof of concept.”

March 29, 2021

by Michael Brown

Black Struggle is Class Struggle

Whether or not Amazon, a global behemoth and now trillion-dollar corporation, will be forced to eventually collectively bargain with a unionized workforce at its fulfillment center warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama hinges upon the votes of nearly 6,000 workers. Despite its characterization as a Red State in the Deep South, the workers in Alabama are at the forefront of a new effort to re-build the U.S. labor movement.

If successful, the union drive by mail-in vote concluding on March 29th would mark the first time an Amazon facility in the U.S. is successfully unionized. A pro-union vote would be a win for the entire of the working

March 4, 2021

by Justin Akers Chacón

Biden’s immigration proposal: a path to nowhere

The election of Joe Biden and the return of Democratic Party control of Congress has raised hope that Trump’s disastrous immigration policies could be undone. Separated and incarcerated families long to be reunited and freed, refugees blocked into deadly camps at the border wait for legal channels to be reopened, undocumented workers cut out of pandemic relief efforts endure dangerous working conditions and economic devastation, and all Trump’s other orders designed to be cruel and inhumane urgently need to be reversed.