The Socialist Revival

Can the Democratic Socialists of America claim to be a vanguard? Not yet

Could socialism be in the cards for the United States? Recall Senator John Edwards’s joke from 2008, “Objects in mirror may be closer than they appear.”  Socialism has become more familiar to Americans, thanks to the politician who has done more than anyone to render obsolete its traditional meaning. That would ...
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The Socialist Revival

The Power of Black Feminist Pragmatism

Why the Black Lives Matter movement is the best alternative to the anti-democratic, white supremacist, authoritarian capture of the United States

The Black Lives Matter movement is not a “new social movement” that focuses on cultural transformation while eschewing policy intervention, nor is it fashioned after “old style,” “traditional” social movements that attempt to move policy while deemphasizing the need for deep changes in public understandings of the problems facing polities ...
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The Power of Black Feminist Pragmatism

On Coming to Terms

What form should a “post #BlackLivesMatter” movement take?

BlackLivesMatter” world, it won’t be one where the current constellation of movement organizations simply disappear or become ineffective in their attempts to bring Black people closer to liberation....

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On Coming to Terms

Reckoning with Deva Woodly’s Reckoning

What kind of coalition must the Left forge in order to defeat Trumpism and whatever comes after it?

Black Lives Matter was not born in the streets, even if it sometimes moved there following the police murder of Michael Brown in 2014, and again after the killing of George Floyd in 2020. But the movement, after these intense episodes of protest and direct action has not stayed in ...
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Reckoning with Deva Woodly’s <em>Reckoning</em>

The Promise of Black Lives Matter

How to sustain a popular movement that can dismantle structural racism in America

How can BLM activists and other allied individuals and organizations capitalize on the outrage they are precipitating by bringing first-time protesters into the fold? Moreover, how can they help people who are concerned about racial inequality—motivated to do something about it and already thinking structurally—to also act structurally? ...

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The Promise of Black Lives Matter

We Are a Reckoning

Deva Woodly introduces her new book, Reckoning: Black Lives Matter and the Democratic Necessity of Social Movements

This nation is mine. Mine to claim. Mine to hold to account. Mine to participate in reshaping. So I tell an American story because it is my story to tell....

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We Are a Reckoning

Everything Associated with January 6 Is a Performance

Televised government hearings are political theater: make Americans watch by assembling a star-studded cast

January 6 was broadcast on live TV, bringing the performativity of Trump partisans to many Americans who had never experienced their theatrical quality. The costumes, the flags, the signage, and the face-paint compelled and stunned many viewers....

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Everything Associated with January 6 Is a Performance

At the Border

Going into Poland’s forests to help migrants gave me a sense of peace but the journey is far from over

Before leaving for Podlachia I naively assumed that my trip would have a beginning and an end, that I would gain a better understanding of the ongoing crisis and the role people such as myself could play in it. I seem to have reached some geographical and symbolic end. However, ...
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At the Border

Puerto Rican History Deserves More Than a Musical

West Side Story displaces the true story of the Young Lords Organization’s civil rights struggle

For many, West Side Story is simply an iconic musical with catchy tunes. For me, however, it became a critical entryway into political consciousness about when and how Puerto Ricans matter in United States history, and why popular representations are instrumental to that....

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Puerto Rican History Deserves More Than a Musical

The Blob and the Mob: On Grand Strategy and Social Change

In an excerpt from Rethinking American Grand Strategy, Beverly Gage examines how statecraft and social movements intersect

Means and Ends As other essays in this collection demonstrate, the idea of “grand strategy” emerged out of the world of military affairs. Under the famous rubric identified by British historian B. H. Liddell Hart, “strategy” was what generals did, while “grand strategy” fell to politicians and statesmen, charged not only with winning ...
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The Blob and the Mob: On Grand Strategy and Social Change