Best of 2021

Connie Razza, Deepak Bhargava, and Jamila Michener on how the right is better at prioritizing a long-term agenda, why the left needs to make policy feedback loops central to our strategic plans, and the most exciting frontiers in this work today. 

The stakes are as high as they have ever been for our people and our planet. We can no longer afford a narrow focus on winning incremental policies, elections, and public opinion.

What I’ve learned about how to move workers in an initial organizing conversation

Last summer’s protests have exposed a gilded philanthropy wholly out of step with the causes it purports to support and lacking in imagination about how to cede power to support Black-led movements. 

A conversation with Barbara Ransby 

Too often, leaders magnify the voices of a very small group of members, if they even cite members’ views. This reality reflects significant weaknesses in unions and their organizing practices, and illustrates how shallow and limited our understanding of democracy is. 

Now is the time to build on the grassroots organizing of teachers unions and grow a more militant labor movement across the country.

Without a deeper understanding of antisemitism and its relationship to white supremacy more broadly, our movements for justice can easily be undermined and weakened. Our enemies have an analysis of how we were connected; we are a step behind.

Or, “You can’t turn a rattlesnake into a puppy dog"

A recent essay lays out a framework for assessing two leftist strategies: coalition and confrontation. The liberal-left Winning Primaries alliance shows that this is an unnecessary choice — confrontation is necessary to win and coalition is necessary to effectively govern.