It’s very difficult to predict where the resistance will expand in the future–because it has been a very, very long time since US workers have actually been combative. And during that long time, not only unions but traditions of struggle have been crushed and need to be rebuilt.
In line with other authoritarian politicians, Trump has leveraged his position to turn the state into a cash machine for him and his cronies, using his position of power to extract wealth through various means, including extortion based on legal threats, sales of Trump-themed trinkets, lavish gifts, and crypto-currency trading.
In virtually every election held in every district and every state, Democrats improved on their performance in the November 2024 presidential election. And in many places, they exceeded their most optimistic predictions.
In the global context of authoritarianism becoming the new normal of capitalist democracy, a victorious far right will double down on every channel of exploitation (pushing down wages, pensions and social spending) with a confidence that will not spare state repression, aiming to isolate the more politically advanced sections of the working class.
It is true that the big tech companies have mostly financed their AI investments out of free cash flow. But the huge cash reserves of the Magnificent Seven are being drained and AI companies are increasingly turning to equity and debt issuance.
The people who filled streets across the country on October 18 were those described above—many new to activism, urgently motivated by the authoritarianism rapidly descending on U.S. society.
Beyond a handful of commitments, mostly revolving around ways to boost his own power and to line his pockets, Trump is completely mercurial. Perhaps this is part of his projection of a “strongman” image, but it can also produce a situation where, among his minions, “the knives are out for everyone,” as Trump biographer Michael Wolff said.
Governments that truly wish to support the Palestinian cause must begin by recognizing the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination — before recognizing a hypothetical state, and without designating the Ramallah PA, which is rejected by most Palestinians, as the model for the state they call for.
Developments since Kirk’s death should clarify some points amid the noise and social media vitriol. They have exposed the lie that conservatives and the far right are somehow champions of “free speech” against a censorious left “cancel culture.” When billionaires like X’s Elon Musk and Fox’s Rupert Murdoch own massive communications platforms from which they spread conservative and far-right ideology into the body politic, it’s hard to take the claim seriously. With few exceptions, the right’s pretensions to “free speech” were always phony and mostly raised when others used their free speech to criticize the right’s bigotry.
The basic problem is that a lack of demand is not the constraining factor in American manufacturing; it’s the workforce. The number of workers who are able and willing to work on a factory floor is shrinking. Almost 400,000 manufacturing jobs are currently unfilled, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
On Saturday, September 13, well over 100,000 “Unite the Kingdom” anti-migrant protesters marched in London—vastly outnumbering (and surrounding) the counter-protest, which drew just 15,000. Here we reprint two articles from Counterfire, based in London, analyzing the urgent need for the left to mobilize and organize against the far-right.
Trump has been ideologically committed to tariffs and an autarchic or nationalist view of the U.S.’s role in the world economy for decades. In recent decades, economic nationalism has been rising across the entire U.S. ruling class, as administrations of both major capitalist parties seek to compete with China and to prod the European Union to increase its military spending.
Overall, the “phase classification” data indicates that the entire population of the Gaza Strip and nearly half of Sudan’s population are suffering from food insecurity, requiring urgent action to prevent their condition from worsening.
It’s clear that the left and the labor and social movements are in a very precarious state today, and debates about how to fight back against Trumpian authoritarianism will be crucial. But elections and the courts won’t save us…
From the very beginning, nature itself has been among the victims of the capital, alongside oppressed humanity. Driven by the logic of the market and the lust for profit, capitalism has treated nature not as a living entity bound to humanity by countless inseparable ties, but merely as a source of raw material and a dumping ground for industrial waste.
