Portside

As the anniversary of President Kennedy's assassination returns in a month of political trauma, Peter Neil Carroll's "JFK" reflects on the loss of possibility and the hope for renewal.

Rising inequality is largely to blame for this electoral upset. Continuing with business as usual is not an option. People have lost their sense of security, status and even identity. This result is the scream of an America desperate for radical change. People have a right to be angry, and a powerful, intersectional left agenda can direct that anger where it belongs. Thomas Piketty and Naomi Klein offer up interesting analysis.

Outrage? AIPAC and the Conference of Presidents can summon it on behalf of Israel's government, on BDS, on the Iran Deal - but not for the American minorities targeted by Trump. Not even its Jews. Add your name to the Joint Petition from American Jews and Muslims on Stephen Bannon (see below).

The working class - who are they, what are their interests, aspirations, fears. One little-known element of the 'class cultural gap' is that the white workers resent professionals but admire the rich. Class migrants (white-collar professionals born to blue-collar families) report that 'professional people were generally suspect' and that managers are college kids 'who don't know shit about how to do anything but are full of ideas about how I have to do my job.'

Resentment won this election. It was a middle-finger, throw-caution-to-the-wind, damn-the-consequences vote - cast overwhelmingly by white people. Only white people had the luxury and the safety to ignore Trump's promises to restore law and order, to deport millions of immigrants and to endanger Americans who practice the world's second most popular religion. In their anger and their desire for change, Trump voters elected a racist and sexist president.

With neoliberalism discredited and the political establishments of both parties defeated, we must offer real solutions on employment, economic inequality, and labor rights by organizing a grass roots, democratic rank-and-file movement, larger and more powerful than Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign. It’s time to build broader, unite stronger, and fight harder than we’ve ever done before.

Reader Comments: Analyzing a Very Close Election; What Now, What Next?; Revenge of the Forgotten Class - What Impacted How White Workers Voted?; A Message from the Past for us Today - from A.J. Muste; Announcements: 2016 Election Debrief; Announcing the AltoTrump.com Website; The Spanish Civil War & the Abraham Lincoln Brigade: 80 Years Later; Puerto Rico: Facts and Realities of Living Under PROMESA; Clemency for Leonard Peltier - week of actions; and more...

Leaders of the Jewish Labor Committee compare Trump's victory to the rise of the Third Reich in German. Stuart Appelbaum, executive vice president of the United food and Commercial, noted that “back in the 1930s, our founders saw the importance of building alliances and coalitions that could stand together for their values, and stand up against anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry.”