Democratic majorities in Washington and a renewed U.S. left?

The Left under Biden (part 1)

Authors

  • Margit Mayer

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.32387/prokla.v51i203.1944

Keywords:

US Left, Biden-Harris administration, Democratic Socialists of America, Black Lives Matter

Abstract

This article sets out to assess both opportunities and challenges for the US Left after the wins of the Democratic Party last November. It first sketches the terrain structured as it is by the legacies of four years of Trump, the frailty of the Democratic majorities in Congress and in many of the states, and the tenuous relations between the centrist/corporate leadership of the Party and its progressive and leftist elements inside and outside of parliaments. It then focuses on the two most visible currents of left activism at the national level: the Democratic Socialists of America, and the Black Lives Matter movement. A third part (in a next PROKLA issue) addresses some of the new policies of the new administration and the leverage and potentials they imply for progressive action.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Arbetter, Susan (2020): WFP’s Sochie Nnaemeka Discusses Elections and the Future (3.12.2020). URL: https://spectrumlocalnews.com.

Arena, Jay (2019): Only a class politics can save us from police violence and fascism. In: New Politics 17(2): 38-42. URL: https://newpol.org/.

Baird, Addy (2020): There is no Democratic Reckoning Coming over their Election Misses (24.11.2020). URL: https://www.buzzfeednews.com.

Baker, Mike / Eligon, John (2021): They’re breaking glass and criticizing Biden. From the Left. In: New York Times, 21.1.2021. URL: https://www.nytimes.com/.

Baraka, Ajamu (2020): Will this be the radicalization of Black Lives Matter? (4.12.2020). URL: https://www.counterpunch.org/.

Bauer, Lauren (2020): The Covid crisis has already left too many children hungry in America (6.5.2020). URL: https://www.brookings.edu/.

Berman, Ari (2021): The Insurrection was put down. The GOP Plan for Minority Rule marches on (march/april). URL: https://www.motherjones.com/.

Biden, Joseph (2021): Full transcript of President Biden’s address to the nation. In: Washington Post, 12.3.2021. URL: https://www.washingtonpost.com.

Blanc, Eric (2019): Red State Revolt. London.

Brookings (2021): Amazon’s union battle in Bessemer, Alabama, is about dignity, racial justice, and the future of the American worker (16.3.2021). URL: https://www.brookings.edu.

Buchanan, Larry / Bui, Quoctrung / Patel, Jugal K. (2020): Black Lives Matter may be the Largest Movement in U.S. History. In: New York Times, 3.7.2020.

Cass, Oren (2021): The Rise of Wall Street and the Fall of American Investment (25.3.2021). URL: https://americancompass.org/.

Charles, Justin, James, Maikiko, Midiri, Natalie (2021): DSA after Trump. In: Socialist Forum (Winter). URL: https://socialistforum.dsausa.org/.

Cochrane, Emily (2019): Justice Democrats helped make Ocasio-Cortez. They’re already eying their next targets. In: New York Times, 23.2.2019.

Collins, Chuck (2021): A Year of Billionaire Pandemic Gains. Institute for Policy Studies (23.3.2021). URL: https://ips-dc.org/.

Cullors-Brignac, Patrice Marie (2016) We Didn’t Start a Movement. We Started a Network (22.2.2016). URL: https://medium.com.

Day, Elisabeth (2020): #BlackLivesMatter: The birth of a new civil rights movement. In: The Guardian, 19.7.2020. URL: https://www.theguardian.com/.

Day, Meagan / Uetricht, Micah (2020): Bigger than Bernie. How we go from the Sanders campaign to Democratic Socialism. London.

Eligon, John (2015): One Slogan, Many Methods: Black Lives Matter Enters Politics. In: The New York Times, 18.11.2015. URL: https://www.nytimes.com/.

Ford Foundation (Kelly-Green, Brook / Yasui, Luna) (2016): Why Black Lives matter to philanthropy (19.7.2016). URL: https://www.fordfoundation.org/.

Gardner, Amy / Rabinowitz, Kate / Stevens, Harry (2021): How GOP-backed voting measures could create hurdles for tens of millions of voters. In: Washington Post, 11.3.2021. URL: https://www.washingtonpost.com/.

Gardner, Amy / Wang, Amy B. (2021): Georgia governor signs into law sweeping voting bill that curtails the use of drop boxes and imposes new ID requirements for mail voting. In: Washington Post, 25.3.2021. URL: https://www.washingtonpost.com/.

Garza, Alicia (2014): A Herstory of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement. In: The Feminist Wire (7.10.2014). URL: https://thefeministwire.com/.

Grim, Ryan (2020): Populism versus the Consulting Class, Deconstructed (13.11.2020). URL: https://theintercept.com/.

– (2021): Could the ›For the People Act‹ save American Democracy, Deconstructed (1.2.2021). URL: https://theintercept.com.

– / Lacy, Akela (2020): Biden wins, but now the hard part begins (6.11.2020) URL: https://theintercept.com/.

Guastella, Dustin (2021): Everybody hates the Democrats. In: Jacobin 40: 119-125.

Han, Jeehon / Meyer, Bruce D. / Sullivan, James X. (2020): Income and poverty in the Covid-19 pandemic (25.6.2020). URL: https://www.brookings.edu/.

Hogseth, Bill (2020): Why Democrats keep losing rural counties like mine. In: Politico, 1.12.2020. URL: https://www.politico.com/.

Irwin, Neil (2021): The most important thing Biden can learn from the Trump economy. In: New York Times, 11.1.2021. URL: https://www.nytimes.com/.

Jäger, Anton / Borriello, Arthur (2021): Trumpism after Trump. In: Jacobin 40: 68-77.

Johnson, Cedric (2017): The Panthers can’t save us now. In: Catalyst 1(1): 56-85. URL: https://catalyst-journal.com/.

– (2020a): The Triumph of Black Lives Matter and Neoliberal Redemption (9.6.2020). URL: https://nonsite.org/.

– (2020b): Don’t let Blackwashing save the investor class (24.6.2020). URL: https://jacobinmag.com/.

Johnson, Jake (2021): Progressive Takeover of Nevada Democratic Party sparks ‘mass exodus’ of staff and consultants (9.3.2021). URL: https://www.alternet.org/.

Judis, John (2020): The Socialist Awakening. New York.

Karp, Matt (2020): Der fünfjährige Kampf von Bernie Sanders. URL: https://www.zeitschrift-luxemburg.de.

– (2021): The politics of a second Gilded Age. In: Jacobin 40: 95-105.

Kelley, Robin G. (2016): What does Black Lives Matter Want? In: Boston Review, 17.8.2021. URL: http://bostonreview.net.

– (2020): The Rebellion against Racial Capitalism (24.6.2020). URL: https://theintercept.com/.

– (2021): Amazon Union Drive builds on decades of black radical labor activism in Alabama (29.3.2021). URL: https://www.democracynow.org/.

King, Maya (2020): Black Lives Matter power grab sets off internal revolt (10.12.2020). URL: https://www.politico.com/.

Klein, Naomi (2020): How the Transformative Power of Solidarity will beat Trump (22.12020). URL: https://theintercept.com/.

Kunkel, Benjamin (2021): Great Griefs: Notes on the US Election (10.3.2021). URL: https://salvage.zone/.

Lacy, Akela / Grim, Ryan (2021): Entire Staff of Nevada Democratic Party quits after Democratic Socialist Slate won every seat (9.3.2021). URL: https://theintercept.com/.

Maisano, Chris (2021): A Left that matters (Winter). URL: https://socialistforum.dsausa.org/.

Mason, Jason W. (2021): The American Rescue Plan as Economic Theory (15.3.2021). URL: https://jwmason.org/.

Mayer, Margit (1987): Städtische Bewegungen in USA: Gegenmacht und Inkorporierung. In: PROKLA 68 17(3): 73-89. DOI: https://doi.org/10.32387/prokla.v17i68.1331.

– (2016): Soziale Bewegungen in den USA: Zwischen kommunitärer Solidarität und Gleichheitsversprechen des Amerikanischen Traums. In: Lammert, Christian / Siewert, Markus/ Vormann, Boris (Hg.): Handbuch Politik USA. Wiesbaden: 305-323. DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-02642-4_19

– (2020): Wie verstehen wir die 2020 Wahl in den USA? (19.11.2020). URL: http://links-netz.de/.

– (2021a): Amerikas Progressive Bewegungen angesichts von Pandemie und rassistischer Polizeigewalt. In: Forschungsjournal Soziale Bewegungen 34(1): 76-102.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/fjsb-2021-0006

– (2021b): Deep Divides: The Fault Lines Actually Disrupting American Democracy. In: American Studies (Special Issue) 66(1): 155-161. DOI: https://doi.org/10.33675/AMST/2021/1/25

McAlevey, Jane (2021): Blowout in Bessemer: A Postmortem on the Amazon Campaign. In: The Nation, 9.4.2021. URL: https://www.thenation.com/.

McGirt, Ellen (2016): Who is funding Black Lives Matter? (9.8.2016). In: Fortune Magazine, 9.8.2016. URL: https://fortune.com/.

Morris, Aldon (2021): From Civil Rights to Black Lives Matter. In: Scientific America, 3.2.2021. URL: https://www.scientificamerican.com.

Mystal, Elie (2021): Can Biden fix the courts that Trump broke? In: The Nation, 7.4.2021. URL: https://www.thenation.com.

Neel, Phil A. (2018): Hinterland. America’s New Landscape of Class and Conflict. London.

Newkirk II, Vann R. (2016): The permanence of Black Lives Matter. In: The Atlantic, 3.8.2016. URL: https://www.theatlantic.com/.

Price, Carter C./Edwards, Kathryn A. (2020): Trends in Income from 1975 to 2018. RAND Corporation. URL: https://www.rand.org/.

Riley, Dylan (2020): Fault Lines. Political Logics of the US Party System. In: New Left Review 126. URL: https://newleftreview.org/.

Signer, David (2021): Hunger in Amerika: Einst waren sie Ärzte oder Elektrotechniker, heute stehen sie für eine kostenlose Mahlzeit an, In: Neue Züricher Zeitung, 7.4.2021. URL: https://www.nzz.ch/.

Sirota, David (2020): Before the dust has settled, Corporate Democrats are already attacking AOC and the Left (8.11.2020). URL: https://www.jacobinmag.com/.

Street, Paul (2017): What would the Black Panthers think of Black Lives Matter? (29.10.2017). URL: https://www.truthdig.com/.

Streitfeld, David (2021): How Amazon crushes unions. In: New York Times, 16.3.2021. URL: https://www.nytimes.com/.

Swasey, Benjamin / Hanzhang Jin, Connie (2020): Narrow Wins in these Key States Powered Biden to the Presidency«, NPR, 2.12.2020, https://www.npr.org/.

Downloads

Published

2021-05-27

How to Cite

Mayer, M. (2021). Democratic majorities in Washington and a renewed U.S. left? The Left under Biden (part 1). PROKLA. Journal of Critical Social Science, 51(203), 221–243. https://doi.org/10.32387/prokla.v51i203.1944

Issue

Section

Articles of the Special Issue

Most read articles by the same author(s)

Similar Articles

<< < 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 > >> 

You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.