Portside

Only by understanding how Trump fits within our recent history will the left be able to figure out where we go from here. We are once again at a moment of consequential political realignment. Both major parties are deeply divided. We need to engage in shaping the newly emerging parties. The Democrats may or may not move left; they, like the Republicans, may split.

Populism is an ideological chameleon—often supplemented with whatever authoritarian, nationalist or socialist inclinations held by those leading the particular movement—populist victories can (and often do) manifest in all manner of terrible ways around the world. Other times, they change the political realm for the better.

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.

The exploitation of Black convict labor by the penal system and industrialists was central to southern politics and economics of the era. It was a carefully crafted answer to Black progress during Reconstruction – highly visible and widely known.

As we build a movement to thwart Trump and win genuine social change, the activist life of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn is instructive.

Angela Davis: ""We recognize that we are collective agents of history and that history cannot be deleted like web pages."

Many US historians have advanced the theory that Lincoln spoke against the war for political reasons, subsequent speeches disprove that theory as do his letters to his law partner, William Herndon. He railed against the war a second time a month after his famous “spot resolutions” over objections of the younger members of his party, and even voted for an amendment condemning the war which was tacked on to a resolution honoring war hero Zachary Taylor, who would be next

After the election, many on the Black Left are once again grappling with the “race vs. class” debate.