There’s a book on the history of union-busting in the USA called “From Blackjacks to Briefcases.” That about sums it up.

I wrote something short on the recent UK elections, I hope it’s of interest and potentially even some use jacobin.com/2026/05/uk-e...

Here’s the great labor historian Nelson Lichtenstein on the UAW situation ahead of the union’s constitutional convention and leadership elections, for @cunyslu.bsky.social’s New Labor Forum: newlaborforum.cuny.edu/2026/05/15/s...

All I will say is that today's results are the very predictable outcome of Labour's strategic decisions. Most of them without any pressure to do so. This is true for both the big losses to the Greens and the normalization and legitimation of Reform.

Center-left parties have been obsessed with “winning back” voters from radical right-wing parties like Reform UK, but the more they try to do so the more they undermine themselves: www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Important lessons on how to interpret the local election results in the UK next week. Especially - saying this from experience - Reform winning in places that used to be Labour strongholds does not mean that Labour has actually lost voters to Reform. That‘s an ecological fallacy.

Strikes in America - they don’t happen very often, and when they do they’re usually in California. Useful and sobering research here.

The dilemma facing all center-left parties: turn right on social-cultural issues and turn off progressive voters you need to win (while failing to stem the radical right’s appeal). Or turn to the left on economics, and pick a fight with powerful interests you don’t want to have. (1/2)

🚨LABOR PODCAST CONTENT🚨 What can we learn from the UAW’s efforts to organize in higer ed and manufacturing? @micahuetricht.bsky.social and I talked to @chactivist.bsky.social for @cunyslu.bsky.social’s Reinventing Solidarity to find out on.soundcloud.com/GGU59U6ge3LS...

Good stuff by Puya Gerami on Iranian workers and their long fight for democracy in @cunyslu.bsky.social’s New Labor Forum newlaborforum.cuny.edu/2026/04/22/l...

Sunday afternoon vinyl selection

“…notice how Mets fans, more than any other team, are drawn to the breakdowns, neurosis, weirdness, and humor of the game…The Mets are a team bursting with all the desperation, psychosis, pain, chaos, and cruel optimism for a better future that persists through civilization’s sunset.”

🚨ATTN: Labor People 🚨 we’ve got a nice debate going at @cunyslu.bsky.social’s New Labor Forum on the UAW’s recent efforts to scale up new worker organizing. First up is @chactivist.bsky.social with his take on organizing in higher ed and Southern auto (1/2) newlaborforum.cuny.edu/2026/01/15/s...

Just finished this excellent book on Kwame Nkrumah and the largely forgotten global impact of pan-Africanism. Ranges from Ghana, to the US and West Indies, to Congo and Tanzania, making a convincing case for Nkrumah’s central place in the era of decolonization. Loved it. wwnorton.com/books/978132...

Many thanks to @drodrik.bsky.social for joining me on the @cunyslu.bsky.social podcast Reinventing Solidarity to talk about his new book and how to deal with climate change, global poverty, and creating good jobs for workers in a services-based economy. soundcloud.com/cunyslu/epis...

Worth a read for anyone who want to makes sense of the rapidly shifting contours of UK politics. Also relevant to similar debates and discussions regarding Democratic Party electoral strategies in the US.

I learned a lot from @philiprathgeb.bsky.social’s excellent book on how the radical right in the USA and Europe uses economic policy to advance its cultural and ideological goals, so I spoke to him for @cunyslu.bsky.social’s Reinventing Solidarity podcast. soundcloud.com/cunyslu/epis...

Heaven help me, I am a Podcaster now. I recently talked to @katharinapistor.bsky.social about capitalist law and its discontents (with a particular eye toward the law’s impact on labor and worker organizing) for @cunyslu.bsky.social’s Reinventing Solidarity podcast: soundcloud.com/cunyslu/epis...

What a loss. To me, Werckmeister Harmonies is arguably the greatest film yet made in the 2000s, a beautiful, terrifying, too-prescient film. Precisely the sort of art we need in a world of brain-dead, heartless “content.” RIP.

Very nice appreciation of Rosi’s incredible run of films from Salvatore Giuliano throughb Illustrious Corpses. Too hard on Christ Stopped at Eboli, though, which is a remarkable book and film adaptation.

I’m not sure if the current practice of fusion voting in NY bears out the argument for expanding it further. But totally agreed that the pundits’ debate over the electoral value of issue/ideological moderation (driven primarily by advocates of moderation) is tedious and largely beside the point.

This is the America I believe in. The neo-Confederates will never, ever win.

My family has been here for less than a century, all four of my grandparents and my dad were born abroad. The GOP's embrace of Blut-und-Boden ideology is an attack on the actually existing USA, an embrace of neo-Confederatism and the most reactionary strands of European-style nationalism too.

It’s a trip to see “Andrew Cuomo (I)” complaining about the Democratic Party on a Fox News chryon. It’s like watching realignment happening in real time.

Some bleak worldviews on display here. Apparently our choices are production for industrial and military warfare or “an economy centered around McKinsey and DoorDash,” as if there were no other possibilities available to us. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/20/u...

“A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy Birthday - and may every day be another wonderful secret.”

What if it’s not “the groups” or progressive activists who are the big problem but uninspiring centrists who don’t have a credible economic program and triangulate on social questions base voters really care about?

This is Josh Hawley’s whole routine, encapsulated. He’s a run of the mill Republican with a fake “populist” shtick that way too many people fall for.

This study was conducted in 6 European countries, and I'd love to see this kind of research reproduced in the US, but I think this conclusion would hold here as well. There's no necessary tradeoff between economics and culture so long as the economic program has a credible working class appeal.

Trump’s big ugly bill perfectly crystallizes Melinda Cooper’s conception of the neoliberal counterrevolution. Fiscal extravagance for the rich (and the repressive state apparatus), punishing austerity for everyone else. press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

I think this piece I wrote a couple years ago holds up pretty well in light of @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social’s historic performance among under-45 voters. Our collective experiences have perfectly primed us for the kind of politics he represents. jacobin.com/2023/10/the-...

The Republican Party, in a single image. This is what Democratic leaders in Congress should spend their time talking about and rallying people to oppose, not spreading lies and innuendo about @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social for things he never said and doesn’t think.

Three months ago today, plain-clothes ICE agents abducted Mahmoud Khalil in his apartment building lobby after they'd followed him home. Free Mahmoud.

Wow. So you’re telling me this guy constantly lies about everything. I’m hearing about this for the first time.

Canada seems to have effectively imported America's polarized, two-party presidential system despite having a parliamentary system. It's a big reason why third, fourth, fifth, etc. parties have so much trouble catching on in the US, a dynamic the Electoral College strengthens and reinforces.

Your average GOP voter had no idea what Critical Race Theory or DEI or "gender ideology" was before their propaganda apparatus started talking about it nonstop. Maybe Slotkin and other centrist Democrats don't want people talking about oligarchy because they don't actually have a problem with it.

Our mayor is telling New Yorkers that if you happen to be kidnapped and sent to an overseas gulag, too bad! You're on your own, and you're probably a gang member anyway. This man's political career can't end fast enough. gothamist.com/news/mayor-a...

Excellent piece by @abenanav.bsky.social making the case for public investment and redistribution, not AI or natalism or fantasies of mass manufacturing employment, in a low growth world: www.nytimes.com/2025/04/21/o...

BREAKING: Over 50,000 New Yorkers shut down Madison Ave to demand “Hands Off Migrants, Hands Off the Planet”, in the lead up to Earth Day. Free Mahmoud, Free Kilmar, Free Mohsen, Free Rumeysa, free them all! #HandsOffMigrants #HandsoffthePlanet

@jamellebouie.net if it’s possible to share this mutual aid request it would really help - a working-class community leader in the Bronx lost everything in a fire and needs support to help get her family back on their feet. More details and donation link here: www.gofundme.com/f/help-drum-...

With the Supreme Court set to take up a birthright citizenship case, this article I wrote a couple of years ago has, very unfortunately, become timely once again.

Which party turned out more in 2024? Official turnout records show registered Republicans had higher turnout rates than Democrats everywhere but DC (avg gap R+7 pts). That’s hard to square with the narrative that Democrats now benefit when fewer people vote.

Remarkable quotes here from a soybean farmer who says the industry is "still reeling" the first Trump trade war, "lost nearly 10 percent of market share to China that we never regained," and "certainly not thrilled about an extended" second one, but is a 3-time Trump voter anyway. on.ft.com/42nAAkY

Social democratic parties losing their voters to the far right really is the zombie theory of contemporary European politics. It didn't happen to Labour. It didn't happen to the SPD. It didn't happen to the PvdA. We know it's false. We communicate this non-stop. And yet, it somehow survives.

Finally watched WERCKMEISTER HARMONIES by Béla Tarr and Ágnes Hranitzky on Criterion 4K. It's hard to think of a film that speaks more directly to this moment in time, with such unsettling beauty. There are just so many astonishing images and sequences in it, it's hard to do it justice with words.

If the Dems have a persistent turnout problem, it stands to reason that shifting GOP-ward on key issues will make the problem worse and offset potential gains among GOP-leaning voters. Let's craft a consistently progressive program and invest in base-building organizing in places we need it most.

This whole thing really does smack of gender

Really great interview with @quinnslobodian.com - makes clear how the radical right isn't opposed to neoliberalism so much as it's a dissident strain within it. Also underlines why not to give in to the temptation to triangulate on questions like immigration. Can't wait to read the book!

Hold on a sec - I was assured that liberals and progressives and city slickers were the out of touch ones. Living in a bubble, even!