New Deal — Bunk History

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Recently freed African Americans receive rations.

The Origins of the Socialist Slur

Reconstruction-era opponents of racial equality popularized the charge that protecting civil rights would amount to the end of capitalism.

by Heather Cox Richardson via The Atlantic on September 26, 2023

Protesters and tenants facing displacement hold placards as they attend a rally against private equity-backed firm Greenbrook Partners in Brooklyn, New York on October 15, 2021.

Shared Terrain

The neoliberal order has been exposed as fraudulent, inefficient, and inequitable. Yet it hardly lies in the dustbin of history.

by Julia Ott via Dissent on September 19, 2023

A ballot from Ireland’s 2020 general election.

Avoiding the PR Mistakes of the Past

The proportional representation (PR) vs. single transferable vote (STV) battle in local elections.

by Jack Santucci via Democracy Journal on September 12, 2023

Wood engraving of streets and buildings in a city scene.

The World That Municipal Socialists Built

Urban socialists blazed a path toward social democracy. Leftists who want to reclaim this tradition face a whole new set of obstacles.

by Justin H. Vassallo via Dissent on September 5, 2023

Isaiah Berlin

Cold War Liberalism Returns

A left that is ambivalent about liberalism can still seek to engage it.

by Patrick Iber via Dissent on September 5, 2023

A Yale University student labeling and sorting Army recruitment posters on campus during World War I.

This Forgotten American Orwell Had a Lot to Tell Us

Malcolm Ross is unknown today. That’s too bad. This son of privilege has much to teach us about labor and civic leadership.

by Jim Sleeper via The New Republic on September 4, 2023

The Life of the Party

In his latest book, Michael Kazin argues that the Democrats have long sought to build a “moral capitalism.” Have they ever succeeded?

by Osita Nwanevu via New York Review of Books on August 29, 2023

Black and white photo of the dressmaker union on strike

Strike Waves Across the US Seem Big, but the Number of People on Strike Remains Historically Low

Many of the reasons for strikes now mirror the motives that workers had for walking off the job in decades past.

by Judith Stepan-Norris, Jasmine Kerrissey via The Conversation on August 24, 2023

A man and a dog walk among blighted buildings in the Bronx.

The Persistence of American Poverty

“We could afford to end poverty,” Matthew Desmond tells us. That we don’t is a choice.

by Marcia Chatelain via The Nation on August 21, 2023

Large public pool

Why America Stopped Building Public Pools

“If the public pool isn’t available and open, you don’t swim.”

by Nathaniel Meyersohn via CNN on July 22, 2023

Axe chopping down columns

The Rise and Fall of Neoliberalism

The free market used to be touted as the cure for all our problems; now it’s taken to be the cause of them.

by Louis Menand via The New Yorker on July 17, 2023

Child laborers cleaning fruit.

The Child Labor of Early Capitalism Is Making a Big Comeback in the US

Child labor was common in urban, industrial America for most of the country’s history. Now lawmakers are making concerted efforts to repeal statutes that prohibit it.

by Steve Fraser via Jacobin on July 7, 2023

Black and white photograph of a man. The main has his hair styled to point upwards, and a tattoo of the word Mississippi on his back.

Where Does the South Begin?

A new history cuts against stereotypes, to show a region constantly changing—and whose future is up for grabs.

by Scott Wasserman Stern via The New Republic on June 26, 2023

United States Capitol

America Is Headed Toward Collapse

How has America slid into its current age of discord? Why has our trust in institutions collapsed, and why have our democratic norms unraveled?

by Peter Turchin via The Atlantic on June 2, 2023

American flag sign that reads "NWRO," "I support a guaranteed adequate income for all Americans"

Escape from the Market

Far from spelling the end of anti-market politics, basic income proposals are one place where it can and has flourished.

by Simon Torracinta via Boston Review on May 19, 2023

Bill Clinton in the background, another man in the foreground.

What the 1990s Did to America

The Law and Economics movement was one front in the decades-long advance of a revived free-market ideology that became the new American consensus.

by Henry M. J. Tonks via Public Books on May 17, 2023

Prominent writers Billy Wilder and Gore Vidal (right and second from right) join a writers’ picket line at 20th Century Fox in Los Angeles, June 25, 1981. (Bettmann / Getty Images)

Hollywood Screenwriters Have Always Known That Moviemaking Is a Form of Labor

Stretching back to Hollywood’s Golden Age, writers and many others in the industry have fought for their rights as workers.

by Ronny Regev via Jacobin on May 14, 2023

Black college students at Morgan State University, 1955.

No, the GI Bill Did Not Make Racial Inequality Worse

Popular narratives say that black veterans got no real benefits from the GI Bill. In truth, the GI Bill provided a rare positive experience with government.

by Paul Prescod via Jacobin on April 1, 2023

Man at the wheel of a ship.

The Safe Harbor

Harry Bridges may no longer be widely known, but his philosophy of inclusive, democratic unionism imbues much of today’s most ambitious organizing campaigns.

by E. Tammy Kim via New York Review of Books on March 30, 2023

Political cartoon of Franklin Roosevelt pulling the Democratic Party donkey with Uncle Sam, Congress, and Republicans behind them.

Pitching the Big Tent

The secret, often missing ingredient to building a majoritarian progressive coalition.

by Nicole Hemmer via Democracy Journal on March 22, 2023

Trump speaking to a crowd; Robert Welch at a podium.

How Far-Right Movements Die

The decline of the John Birch Society offers possible strategies for containing the MAGA movement.

by Matthew Dallek via The Atlantic on March 16, 2023

Naomi Oreskes, sitting with her hands resting on her knees

America's Toxic Romance With the Free Market

How market fundamentalists convinced Americans to loathe government.

by Naomi Oreskes, Claudia Dreifus via The Nation on February 17, 2023

Helen Hall (R, front), chair of the Consumers’ National Federation, with a committee at the White House making demands for a "new deal" for consumers, 1938.

“Ethical Consumption” Used to Mean Something More Than Feeling Smug About Your Purchases

A century ago, it was once motivated by the goal of economic reorganization.

by Nick French via Jacobin on January 31, 2023

Then–Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama in Mitchell, S.D.

What Does It Take to Win?

A new history of American politics examines the past and future of political realignments.

by Kim Phillips-Fein via The Nation on January 24, 2023

Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson at his desk in November 1957.

When Lyndon B. Johnson Chose the Middle Ground on Civil Rights—and Disappointed Everyone

Always a dealmaker, then-senator LBJ negotiated with segregationists to pass a bill that cautiously advanced racial equality.

by Zachary Clary via Smithsonian on January 23, 2023

Brazilla Carroll Reece, Joseph McCarthy and Harry S. Truman with democratic donkeys in word bubbles.

The Real Origins of the “Democrat Party” Troll

We can’t blame Joe McCarthy for this one. (Though he was a fan.)

by Lawrence B. Glickman via Slate on January 21, 2023

The cover of "Sectionalism and American Political Development: 1880-1980"

Sectional Industrialization

Political scientist Richard Bensel explains the feedback loops between policy commitments of political elites and the regional distribution of political power.

by Justin H. Vassallo, Richard Franklin Bensel via Phenomenal World on January 7, 2023

Illustration depicting workmen and firemen dragging a fireman and engineer from a Baltimore freight train during the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad strike.

The Railway Labor Act Allowed Congress to Break the Rail Strike. We Should Get Rid of It.

Congress was able to break the rail strike last week because of a century-old law designed to weaken the disruptive power of unions.

by Nelson Lichtenstein, Andrew Yamakawa Elrod via Jacobin on December 7, 2022

J. Edgar Hoover (center) with President John F. Kennedy and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, February 23, 1961.

J. Edgar Hoover Tried to Destroy the Left — and Liberals Enabled Him

The author of a new biography explains how liberals played an important role in enabling Hoover’s antidemocratic crusade.

by Beverly Gage, Michael Brenes via Jacobin on November 28, 2022

Hand tossing a coin.

Why Is America Always Divided 50–50?

Despite wrenching economic and political changes in the country, Democrats and Republicans keep finding themselves nearly tied in election after election.

by Annie Lowrey via The Atlantic on November 8, 2022

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