Portside

Three big films were set in Los Angeles this year but none casts light on the city’s millions of Latinos

What could emerge from an understanding of the struggle between the two proletariats and its connection to US democracy and institutions is a more powerful and forward-looking narrative of class and race than either a utopian universalist liberalism or a narrow-minded working class incapable of advancing democracy.

On the eve of the election, in a deeply red state, the city of Little Rock, Arkansas, took a small but significant step in furtherance of this goal by dedicating a memorial bench to a victim of police violence named Eugene Ellison.

The pro-Republican bias of the Electoral College derives from two main dynamics: it overweights the impact of mostly conservative voters in small population states and it negates entirely the mostly progressive votes of nearly half of African American voters, more than half of Native American voters and a major swath of Latino voters.

More and more working-age men in the United States aren’t working at all. The number of nonworking white men grew from about 8 percent in 1960 to 17 percent in 2014. The numbers look still worse among black men: In 1960, 19 percent of black men were not working; in 2014, that number had grown to 35 percent of black men. That includes men who are incarcerated as well those who can’t find jobs.

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).

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.