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History

How Jimmy Carter paved the way for Reagan

When socialists look at the Carter years, we should reject the shallow score-keeping that obsesses the Washington elite. For us, Carter was a terrible president—but not because he was ineffective or preachy in his public pronouncements. He was terrible when he was effective because much of what we have come to call the “neoliberal” era began under Carter, rather than Reagan.

Analysis Middle East World

The Syrian imbroglio

The regime was saturated with corruption, patronage, and inefficiency. It had almost no support outside of the Alawite community, the grouping which the Assads belonged to. Even there, the support was often motivated by fear of the alternatives and being blamed by guilt by association for Assad’s crimes.

Analysis Politics United States

Lessons of election 2024

The liberals—the leaders of the Democratic Party and its associated non-governmental organizations (NGOs), intellectuals, media and fundraisers—said the 2024 election was a referendum on U.S. democracy. Maybe even the last ditch effort to stop “fascism” riding in on Trump’s coattails. Yet despite the heated rhetoric, they ran an uninspired campaign in defense of a status quo that most Americans had already rejected.

Analysis Middle East World

Where is Syria headed?

The plain fact is that once external support dried up, the regime collapsed like any “puppet regime” that is abandoned by the power that used to hold its strings. The latest striking example of such a collapse was what happened to the puppet regime in Kabul in the face of the Taliban’s advance, after US forces gave up propping it in 2021.

Women

Abortion bans always kill women

The U.S. already has the highest maternal death rate among wealthy nations, and pregnant Black women already die at twice the national rate—and three times more that the rate of white women. Since Dobbs, states with abortion bans have experienced a mass exodus of OB-GYNs, resulting in “maternity care deserts”—with no available prenatal care in one-third of U.S. counties. Roughly 100 hospitals have shut down their maternity care departments.

Analysis Politics United States

A Trump “mandate”?

Millions of Americans are avid supporters of Trump, and, at the very least, don’t consider Trump’s racism and misogyny disqualifying. But it’s harder to extend those observations to all Americans, or even to the around 64 percent of eligible voters who voted.

Analysis Middle East World

No respite in Gaza genocide

It’s now clear that the “General’s Plan” of depopulating northern Gaza is not a possible policy operation but is being vigorously implemented in real life. The Plan’s objective is to clear an area north of the Netzarim corridor, a horizontal line across Gaza just south of Gaza City, of all Palestinians. It’s estimated that 400,000 Palestinians will be affected.

Analysis Politics United States

“It’s the economy, stupid.”

In 2016, Hillary Clinton demonstrated her contempt for Trump’s then-overwhelmingly white supporters by labeling them “the deplorables”— rather than trying to acknowledge the source of their anger: the gross inequality of the economic status quo. Eight years later, with Trump’s support bigger in virtually every demographic group, it is impossible to ignore the economic despair that drove voters away from the Democrats…