"A Leftist Wave Is Cresting Across the Country"

"After the last month, Democratic leadership should be seriously taking stock of their position. The energy is on their left. The people are on their left. Democrats want fighters, and they want a politics rooted in the collective struggles of the masses, not decided in smoke-filled rooms. We still need moderate Democrats to win those pesky median voters, for now. But the party's leadership is deeply out of touch with its base."

Ben Davis at The Guardian considers the results of recent primary elections.

As does George Chidi.

"Progressive Boomers Are Making It Impossible For Cities To Fix The Housing Crisis"

"'Most of the abuse I got came from older suburban or retired folks, and always from people who considered themselves progressive,' said Rob Johnson, a Seattle City Council member who retired in April after three years in office. During his tenure, he supported proposals to increase housing density, expand public transit and establish safe use sites for drug addicts.
"Despite representing a constituency with bright-blue voting records on immigration, reproductive rights and LGBTQ equality, Johnson's progressive positions on local issues provoked a large and organized backlash."

Michael Hobbes at HuffPost writes that "just as previous generations of anti-change activists used procedural arguments ('states' rights,' 'local control') to oppose progressive policies, today's anti-growth advocates employ similar arguments about community participation and government processes."

"A Blue Wall" Rising

"Leading in the polls and anticipating victory, Democrats have sketched an aggressive agenda on issues where strong consensus appears to exist in the party, including new laws on gun control, contraception and environmental regulation. Ms. Nelson said she had met with the speaker of the Oregon Statehouse about enacting policy across state lines. The three states' Democratic governors have spoken regularly about policy collaboration, and over the summer began coordinated talks on climate change with foreign heads of state."

Alexander Burns and Kirk Johnson in The New York Times writes that the Washington State Senate may soon have a Democratic majority, as do Oregon and California to the south.

"Act Like You Love Each Other and Want to Work Together"

"What happened, happened. People don't like to be interrupted and shouted down. They don't like to have their agenda hijacked by someone with a different agenda. But sometimes, when you're not getting heard, and your needs aren't getting met, you have to interrupt and insist on your agenda. That's fine, and for #blackslivesmatter, it could be that a sleepy progressive convention in the middle of the summer was a good time to interject and demand recognition. We'll all recover. We'll survive. Perhaps we'll all be better off for it.
"But how about some recognition that you hijacked the agenda and interrupted and shouted people down and denied people the ability to have their needs and desires met? They didn't respond the way you wanted? Well, you own that, because people never respond well in those circumstances. And now you want to heap contempt on their heads on top of it?
"No, this is all wrong.
"And for the folks on the other side who traveled to Arizona to hear what Martin O'Malley and Bernie Sanders had to say and to maybe have the chance to engage them in a civil dialogue, maybe you should take that frustration you're feeling and try to understand what it's like to live in a country with mass incarceration and unaccountable murderous police. I think that’s a lot more frustrating for the communities most affected than not getting to hear a speech.
"The problem isn't how people reacted in the moment, which was natural, but how they are behaving now."


Martin Longman in The American Prospect reacts to the tumult at the Netroots Nation meeting in Phoenix.


In The Washington Monthly Longman reacts again after the contretemps in Seattle.

And Jonathan Chait in New York sums up the situation.

"It's Not Like Facebook Friends Replaced Real-Life Friends"

"It's not that streaming platforms aren't being curated—it's who's doing the curating. 'What’s passively happening, whether people realize it or not, is that corporations are deciding what we should watch,' adds Barr. 'The thing that made VHS catch on in the '80s was this great sense of emancipation; prior to that, the only way you were seeing a movie was just by going to a theater. With streaming we are regressing a little bit, because once again the sacrifice we are making in order to have the ease of streaming is that we are putting that decision-making process in the hands of Netflix, Amazon, or whatever service.' And more often than not, those decisions are financially motivated—which is fine for the company's coffers, but can also lead to that all-too-familiar fatigue that comes with scrolling past endless straight-to-video schlock and movies you've already seen but keep getting recommendations for."


Jennifer M. Wood in Wired visits surviving video stores, like Vidiots in Santa Monica.

From A to Z

Colin Robinson in The Nation and Ruth Franklin in The New Republic disagree when discussing the affects of Amazon.com's success.

Snap and Pop

Christian Wienberg in the Irish Independent marks the fiftieth anniversary of Lego, and Tom Scanlon of The Seattle Times looks back on twenty years of Sub Pop.