Portside

Portside readers have weighed in, as you often do, on the issue of Trump, Putin, Russia, the revival of a new-Cold War, and foreign interference in our electoral process. Here a number of readers, including some Portside moderators, express their individual views, on what they feel should be the position of the left, for democracy, and opposed to militarism, increases in the military budget, and re-vamped calls for a new-nuclear laden Cold War against Russia.

The great American radical showed how ordinary people mattered more than stars - a lesson today's celebrities could do with learning. These are strange times for popular music and politics. On the one hand, the opposition to Donald Trump now extends so deeply into the entertainment industry that the president struggled to find any real talent willing to play his inauguration.

President Donald Trump wants to impose a police state on undocumented immigrants. Workplace raids - sometimes called 'silent raids' - have been a mainstay of immigration enforcement, will likely ramp up. Now - predawn raids, arrests and deportation of undocumented immigrants who have been convicted of the most minor criminal offenses, and stops of dark-complexioned motorists and pedestrians - will become the norm, in the new anti-immigrant policy to be soon rolled out.

If and when a twenty-first-century left comes into being, immigrants—whether freshly arrived or one or two generations in—will be at the heart of it. A path to citizenship for all those now rendered vulnerable by their resident status is essential to building a more pluralistic, multicultural society. Yet a new left must go further, not merely defending the civil liberties of these new Americans but seeking to give them a new power and a new voice.

Groups like the American Civil Liberties Union have focused on challenging voter ID mandates in court. That’s essential, but it’s not enough. As court battles proceed, we must acknowledge our collective obligation to voters by investing in on-the-ground, in-person support.

By running for the D.N.C. chair, the Minnesota congressman hopes to lead a populist opposition against Trump.

French fascism looks familiar; Eat fist, Nazi; Now you see it; Assessing the damage; Alt.right culture horror show

Instead of falling to the Nazi party, Norway broke through to a social democracy. Their history shows us polarization is nothing to despair over.

The official guidelines, signed by DHS Secretary John Kelly, "expand raids and the definition of criminal aliens, while diminishing sanctuary areas and enlisting local law enforcement to execute federal immigration policy," The Hill reported.

“It doesn’t work for organizations to bigfoot strategy; it’s not the way organizing happens now,” said Kelley Robinson, the deputy national organizing director for Planned Parenthood, which is fighting the defunding of its health clinics. “There are bigger ideas coming out of the grass roots than the traditional organizations.”