Why Mexico’s New President Is Nothing Like Trump
Rolling Stone
Only a handful of European states are currently governed by left-wing governments, and several of the traditionally largest left-wing parties, such as the Socialist Party in France, have experienced substantial drops in support. Jan Rovny argues that while many commentators have linked the left’s decline to the late-2000s financial crisis, the weakening of Europe’s left reflects deep structural and technological changes that have reshaped European society, leaving left-wing parties out in the cold.
Shortly before his death, James Baldwin wrote that in the U.S., “White is a metaphor for power,” an observation that is deep background for much of the discussion in the masterly book under review, where race and class are intertwined, yet surface differences are used to split the labor force and maintain capital’s hegemony. The book can usefully inform debate on race and class and aid in reconstructing a revolutionary project in the context of Trumpworld.
The author enlivens a type of working-class society where capitalism compensates poor men with the role of tough guy, all in the writer's effort to "bring the left to life."The End of Eddy does so in a style both plainspoken and visceral, using Louis's own childhood trials--like his protagonist much abused as a gay kid in a dead-end factory town --as a window onto the pathologies of a cloistered working-class existence.
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