Portside

The president-elect slammed a Carrier union leader and then chose a fast-food executive to be labor secretary. The working-class will fight back

Did we do enough in 2016? And how can we build a broader electoral movement? I don't believe the Left bears the brunt of the blame for Hillary Clinton's defeat, and I reject arguments that try to score political points through guilt-tripping. Both long-term and short-term factors worked against a Clinton victory. Trump is not Reagan; 2016 is not 1980. But both elections were lost by tone-deaf Democratic elites who dismissed the economic anxieties of the working class.

Donald Trump was an outsider who boldly stormed the citadel of Washington DC and won. He has promised real change, but his infrastructure plan appears to be just more of the same – privatizing public assets and delivering unearned profits to investors at the expense of the people. He needs to try something new; and for this he could look to Abraham Lincoln, whose bold solution was very similar to one now being considered in Europe: just print the money.

Sanders believes that neoliberalism is the heart of our problem ― that it leads to runaway inequality, a rigged political system, an exploitative Wall Street, and the full-scale assault on the living and working conditions of working people ― black, brown, white, gay, trans and straight. That system, he believes, also leads to the dramatic rise of incarceration, urban and rural poverty, and the stalling of real wages for the vast majority of the population.

Donald Trump’s policy positions often seem incoherent. But those who surround him know just what they want, and his lack of clarity enhances their power. Many of his staffers are from opaque corporate misinformation networks, which masquerade as think tanks, but are in reality multinational corporate lobbying groups. They are created and funded to misinform, obfuscate, and create the anger and hate so prevalent on social media and so essential to Trump’s victory.

The platform is not obligated to serve as the president-elect’s bully pulpit

Without exception, Trump's foreign policy picks are members of the far right: aggressive, Islamophobic, and contemptuous of diplomacy.

Millions of Americans are starting to grasp that we can't politely stand by watching lives and liberties get slashed beyond repair. What are you going to do?

In 2012, President Obama passed DACA, a legislative policy to ensure that certain undocumented immigrants to the United States who entered the country before their 16th birthday and before June 2007 receive a renewable two-year work permit, a Social Security Number and exemption from deportation. Donald Trump has vowed to end DACA once he enters office, making hundreds of thousands of young people fearful of deportation and that their education could be in jeopardy.

Democracy depends on a free and independent press, which is why all tyrants try to squelch it.