By Jerry Ianelli
Read the full article from The Appeal here.
“That police officers—who count massive numbers of Trump supporters in their ranks—treated a pro-Trump mob with kid gloves should surprise no one. Deeper than a question of policing, the event displayed American law enforcement’s centuries-long links to white supremacy.”
By Robin D. G. Kelley
Read the full article from Boston Review here.
“We keep telling ourselves that Trump was elected as a backlash to a Black president, but really he was elected as a backlash to a Black movement. President Obama presided during the killing of Mike Brown, Tamir Rice, Tanisha Anderson, Philando Castile, Alton Sterling, Freddie Gray, Sandra Bland—ad infinitum. It was the mass rebellion against the lawlessness of the state—in Ferguson, in Baltimore, in Chicago, in Dallas, in Baton Rouge, in New York, in Los Angeles, and elsewhere—that prompted Trumpian backlash.”
By Rachelle Hampton
Read the full article from Slate here.
“Getting cast as the political spokesman for all Black people requires exactly two qualifications: be Black and have an audience that is primarily Black. Whether or not your audience views you as a serious political thinker is irrelevant. It doesn’t matter whether your opinions are actually widely held in the community you claim to represent. For the politicians looking for campaign pit stops and the media outlets looking for sound bites, the only thing that really matters is a young Black audience.”
By Lichi D’Amelio
Read the full article from Jacobin here.
“Her strategy in responding to detractors has been threefold. First, she’s setting the record straight politically. Contrary to what the centrists would have us believe, left-wing stances aren’t electoral suicide. ‘Every single candidate that co-sponsored Medicare for All in a swing district kept their seat,’ she told the New York Times. ‘We also know that co-sponsoring the Green New Deal was not a sinker. [California representative] Mike Levin was an original co-sponsor of the legislation, and he kept his seat.'”
By James Hamblin
Read the full article from The Atlantic, here.
“To look on, inert, as Americans suffer and die is one thing; to deny that it is happening is another. This is a clear and ominous glimpse of how the pandemic will continue to play out if Trump remains in power. During America’s final lurch into the election, the president has become an even darker caricature of himself, laying bare his willingness to abandon Americans’ health and well-being for his own self-preservation. He is now even more dangerous as a vector of disease than when he was actively shedding the virus.”
By David Harvey
Read the full article from Jacobin, here.
“Right-wing propaganda claims that socialism is the enemy of individual freedom. The exact opposite is true: socialists work to create the material conditions under which people can truly be free, without the rigid constraints capitalism imposes on their lives.
The topic of freedom was raised when I was giving some talks in Peru. The students there were very interested in the question: ‘Does socialism require a surrender of individual freedom?'”
