Party Lines
From Socialism to Populism and Back
Bhaskar Sunkara
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From Socialism
to Populism
and Back
The tenacity of the Yankees, who are even rehashing the Greenback humbug, is a result of their theoretical backwardness and their Anglo-Saxon contempt for all theory. They are punished for this by a superstitious belief in every philosophical and economic absurdity, by religious sectarianism, and by idiotic economic experiments, out of which, however, certain bourgeois cliques profit.
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Front Matters
The populist front.
The Soapbox
Letters + The Internet Speaks
Because communication is at the heart of any good relationship.
Struggle Session
Fear of a Populist Planet
“Populism” is today employed as a bogeyman by liberals and centrists alike. Is there anything worth salvaging in the concept?
A Conversation with Sheri Berman, Jonathan Chait, Yasha Mounk, and Adaner Usmani. Moderated by Seth Ackerman.
Struggle Session
Winning the Battle, Not the War
Pink Tide populism was built in the context of two decades of deindustrialization and industrial fragmentation. But we need a socialist left that can reverse those very trends.
An Interview with René Rojas.
Friends & Foes
Adam McKay Is Mad as Hell
From Will Ferrell comedies to The Big Short, Vice, and Succession, Hollywood’s greatest populist is taking aim at oligarchy — from the hard left.
Connor Kilpatrick
Matt Karp
Is this the Future Liberals Want?
In a 2020 campaign against Donald Trump, a bet on Elizabeth Warren is a risky wager on its own terms. But over the next twenty years, a turn toward progressive technocracy is not a bet at all — it’s an unconditional surrender to class dealignment.
Means of Deduction
We don’t live here anymore.
Vulgar Empiricist
Into the Void
Over the past 40 years, working-class parties have slid rightward toward neoliberalism and workers have increasingly dropped out of the political process.
Uneven & Combined
The Geography of Resentment
Deindustrialized areas that were once bastions of working-class politics are now playgrounds of the revanchist right.
Transitions
The Right-Populist Advance
Throughout Europe, right-wing populists captured voters from the collapsing center-left, winning legislative seats at 利来国标娱乐老牌w66下载home and in the European Parliament.
Reading Materiel
Something, something, hegemony.
Dossier
Expert Wisdom
Too often just a term of abuse, some academics have attempted coherent definitions of populism.
Canon Fodder
Bootstrap Populism
Rallying behind “free enterprise” mythology, American capitalists have long claimed to be gritty underdogs facing off against a rising statism.
Nicole Aschoff
Canon Fodder
“Populism” and the Significance of Left and Right
In the United States, the Populist tradition has always defined left-wing and egalitarian politics, unfairly maligned by bosses and intellectuals alike.
Charles Postel
Field Notes
Halfway Between Jefferson and Marx
A close look at the 1892 Omaha Platform, the program of the Populist Party.
Dawn Foster
At Age 83, Ken Loach Is Still Dangerous
After years in the wilderness, first with Thatcherism, then with New Labour, both the Left and British director Ken Loach are just hitting their prime.
Cultural Capital
Sorry, no Joker content here.
Red Channels
The Little Man on the Big Screen
Everyone knows Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life, but it was director Preston Sturges who captured the volatile reality of success, failure, and the American dream.
Eileen Jones
Bass & Superstructure
A Forgotten Country
Country music doesn’t deserve its right-wing reputation — its roots lie with the hopes and travails of working people.
Alexander Billet
Red Channels
I Want My BBC
British television has increasingly become an arm of the Conservative Party — yet many on the Left nostalgically remember an earlier, more open media landscape. Was the BBC ever ours?
Owen Hatherley
We Bet the House on Left Populism — and Lost
Anton Jäger
Four years ago, we celebrated Europe’s left-populist push. Now we have to look seriously at how little was accomplished and what might have been lost.
The Tumbrel
Sharpening the pitchforks.
Girondins
Abolish Iowa
The Iowa State Fair is a depraved showcase of how vacuous and pointless US politics is today.
Matt Christman
The Worst Estate
Is Bernie “Trumpian”?
Only to frightened elites.
Liza Featherstone
Thermidor
The Preppy Populist
Fox News host Tucker Carlson has transformed himself from bow-tied libertarian to economic populist. But his hostility to the politics of solidarity remains intact.
Meagan Day
Leftovers
All good things must end.
Popular Front
The Left Is Back (Sort Of)
But we’re nothing without our universal subject — the international working class.
David Broder
Popular Front
Why Aufstehen Failed
After drawing a flurry of attention last fall, Sahra Wagenknecht’s Aufstehen movement has run out of steam. Yet its call for the German left to reconnect with working-class voters remains unanswered — and is the far right is taking advantage.
Adam Baltner
Means & Ends
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