"We Continue to Live in the Wake of Mid- to Late-60s Developments"

"It's easy to look back at the Johnson administration, with the benefit of hindsight, and see little possibility for the revitalization of the New Deal coalition. But it's important to remember just what a moment of political sea change the mid-1960s was. With the exit of the Dixiecrats, the Democratic Party was in the midst of a profound transformation wherein its base did substantively shift. That [Bayard] Rustin saw an opening for the civil rights and organized labor coalition to take a driving seat within the party was not that fanciful, yet it was treated that way by a curious number of people on the Left then and still on the Left today. It's worth asking why that was and is. His critics on the Left are fine pillorying Rustin for his comments on anti-war protest tactics. But where are the similar condemnations of the New Left for sitting out the fight for the Freedom Budget for All Americans, arguably the last off-ramp from an imminent neoliberalism?"

Damage Magazine runs Benjamin Y. Fong's introduction to the new book Rustin's Challenge.

"Also Serves as a Reminder of the Need for a Wider Lens When Thinking About Enslavement and Freedom Throughout the Americas Today"

"Slavery shaped the Americas for four centuries, blighting the entire hemisphere. The long struggle to dismantle it did not happen only in the U.S. or only in the South; in fact, in Cuba, Puerto Rico and Brazil it continued for decades after the U.S. Civil War. Simple narratives such as 'California banned slavery at its founding' and 'slavery ended in 1865' obscure much of its connection to this larger story. What happened to California illuminates the unevenness of abolition and the many false promises of freedom. It also serves as a reminder of the need for a wider lens when thinking about enslavement and freedom throughout the Americas today."

Carrie Gibson at the Los Angeles Times discusses slavery in California.

"A New Generation of Democrats Needs to Recapture This Same Spirit"

"Democrats need to move away from the language of equity, which implies that it would be acceptable to close the racial gaps in health or education by helping members of the disadvantaged racial groups improve while denying any help to lower-income whites. Obama understood this reality instinctively, as he made clear in his 'A More Perfect Union' speech. He called on all Americans to 'realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.' Like the 44th president did, today's Democrats must talk along these lines regularly and weave these concepts into their communication about all kinds of issues, not just on special occasions."

Ian Reifowitz at The Liberal Patriot writes about "How Democrats Lost Obama's Vision of American Identity."

While Bridget Bowman, Ryan Nobles and Frank Thorp V at NBC News write that "Bernie Sanders makes his next moves to reshape the Democratic Party."

"Political Education Is Going to Take Place Mostly Outside of Universities Now"

"The term white privilege was invented in the 1960s by leftists, by Ted Allen and Noel Ignatiev. I was very sympathetic to that term. But then as it got into the universities and got to be spoken mostly in the universities, I think we forgot that it only really made sense inside of a social movement, that otherwise if you just go up and tell a poor white person you're privileged, that's not organizing, that's just labeling. It had to be part of a social movement. And even now I'm trying to say 'white advantage' instead of 'white privilege' for that very reason. But the main thing that your question points to is that over the long haul, we on the left in social movements lost out to a more therapeutic and individualistic approach to diversity training." 

Olivia Weeks at The Daily Yonder interviews historian David Roediger.

And at The Atlantic, Rose Horowitch writes about "The Elite University Presidents Who Despise One Another."

"Make America Manifest Destiny Again"

"It's why Trump and his agents respect no legal citizenship lines; some of them have called for the denaturalization and deportation of New York City's Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani. Trump’s State Department is creating an 'Office of Remigration,' employing a term favored by extremists who call for, as Mother Jones puts it, 'the forcible repatriation or mass expulsion of non-ethnically European immigrants and their descendants, regardless of immigration status or citizenship, and an end to multiculturalism.' And Trump wants the power to exile by personal fiat: 'We also have a lot of bad people that have been here for a long time. . . many of them were born in our country. I think we ought to get them the hell out of here, too.' Who is deciding, without due process, who the 'bad people' are?"

Douglas Sackman at The Bulwark argues that racial nationalism "grows darkly at the heart of MAGA."

"A Concept Highly Malleable in Meaning"

"As the firewall between the far right and the moderate right has eroded in recent years, many of these ideas have seeped into the mainstream. Racialised ideas of belonging and identity have become accepted even by many of those formally opposed to racism."

Kenan Malik at The Guardian discusses ideas of race and ethnicity.

Conor Friedersdorf at The Atlantic argues that "the DEI debate is defined by Americans talking past one another."

"Exposed a Deep Faultline Over How the History of the Community Should Be Understood"

"Much of the site remains–the visitors' center, architect's house and carriage house were not damaged. If the mansion cannot be rebuilt, Magliari anticipates a number of possibilities from a reconstruction to a Mechoopda cultural center or museum, or perhaps the return of the land to the tribe."

Dani Anguiano at The Guardian discusses the legacy of the founder of Chico, California, John Bidwell.

"The Idea of the Caucasian Race as a 'Haunting'"

"When Lewis traveled to the Caucasus in 2019, hardly anyone she met knew that 'Caucasian' could be a synonym for 'racially white.' Only the handful of Caucasians she met who had traveled to the United States understood their unintended recruitment into whiteness, and they learned of their status almost accidentally—filling out an immigration form, or in a chance encounter with a white supremacist who treated the visiting Caucasian 'like a god.' Lewis sees the idea of the Caucasian race as a 'haunting' that still manages to convince some Americans that there is some scientific validity to the idea of a unified white race. Her book aims to put that idea finally to rest."

Erin L. Thompson at The Nation reviews Sarah Lewis's The Unseen Truth: When Race Changed Sight in America.

"Rooted in the Blood of More Than 700,000 Americans Who Died in the Civil War"

"Section 1's origins lie deep in our past. It is rooted in the petitions of African Americans during and after the American Revolution that demanded freedom and natural rights for their service to the patriot cause. It stems from many ideas and strategies of the British and American abolition movements. It echoes Thomas Jefferson's inclusion of equality among 'these truths' in the Declaration of Independence and Abraham Lincoln's use of the same word in the Gettysburg Address, as well as his full-throated embrace of immigration well before the Civil War. Its most direct and powerful harbinger is the emancipation of nearly 4 million slaves in the midst of the war. Without that greatest transformation in American history, there would be no Fourteenth Amendment—no birthright citizenship and no equal-protection clause either, a codification just as sacred."

David W. Blight at The Atlantic responds to Donald Trump's attempt to end birthright citizenship.

"They Indeed Are Replaying the Shadow Side of the Revolution in Their Adherence to Conspiratorial, Violent, and Racist Views That Stemmed From Their Fear of Losing Power"

"Most liberals and many conservatives would recoil at the notion that the people who rampaged through the Capitol Building, injuring police officers and threatening to lynch the vice president and speaker of the House, deserve the label of patriot. Yet as we approach the 250th anniversary of the nation's founding, a candid consideration of some of the darker aspects our history, too often overlooked, supports the claims by rioters that they were following in many of our Founders' footsteps, as are millions of Trump supporters today—just not in the way they think."

Andrew Lawler at The Bulwark explains how January 6 insurrectionists connect to 1776.

"A Section of the Elite That Want to Keep Climbing the Ladder of Privilege but Don't Want to See Themselves as Part of the Elite"

"These works are important in helping make sense of the absurdities of contemporary politics. They explain, for instance, why the Democratic party in the US (and many social democratic parties in Europe) is increasingly a club for the rich and educated, while many working-class voters have abandoned it. They illuminate, too, our culture's obsession with the minutiae of symbolic representation and the policing of language but disregard for real material inequalities."

Kenan Malik at The Guardian discusses Musa al-Gharbi's We Have Never Been Woke.

"Less Interested in the Truth of the Past Than in Constructing an Alternative Future"

"It is no accident that the ideology of settler colonialism is flourishing today at the same time as right-wing populism. Both see our turbulent political moment as an opportunity to permanently change the way Americans think about their country. And as is often the case, the extremes of right and left are united in disparaging the compromises of liberalism, which they see as weakly evasive. In the case of settler colonialism, this means rejecting the understanding of American history that has been mainstream since the mid-20th century—that it is a story of slow progress toward fulfilling the nation's founding promise of freedom for all."

The Wall Street Journal publishes an essay by Adam Kirsch, based on his new book, On Settler Colonialism.

"A Philosophical Brief in Defense of Liberalism"

"Living this liberal vision, for Obama, means accepting the diversity inherent to a large society made up of people with all sorts of beliefs and worldviews: recognizing that 'our fellow citizens deserve the same grace we hope they'll extend to us.' It means understanding 'true freedom' as something that gives all of us the right 'to make decisions about our own life [and] requires us to recognize that other people have the right to make decisions that are different than ours.' And it means seeing democracy as more than 'just a bunch of abstract principles and a bunch of dusty laws in a book somewhere,' but rather 'the values we live by.'"

Zack Beauchamp at Vox reacts to Barack Obama's speech at the Democratic National Convention.

And Harold Meyerson at The American Prospect looks back to the Democrats' 1924 convention.

"The Two Political Parties Often Ignore the Complex Reality"

"Economic mobility for low-income children requires living environments with plenty of good jobs for working-age adults; stable families; solid schools; accessible transportation and health care; clean and safe neighborhoods; and thriving local businesses and job networks. We need these supportive conditions for low-income children of all racial and ethnic backgrounds across all 50 states—in small towns and big cities, alike."

John Halpin at The Liberal Patriot calls for "place-based approaches" to promote economic mobility.

"When the Public Distrusts Police Officers, Criminal Defendants Benefit"

"Whatever one thinks about Simpson's guilt or innocence in the double murder, it's easy to understand why jurors in the case would have questions—even doubts—about a case investigated by officers whose colleagues had beaten Rodney King and by a detective whose racism was something he bragged about. The LAPD had forfeited its presumption of honesty."

Jim Newton at the Los Angeles Times discusses the most significant aspect of O.J. Simpson's trial during the 1990s.

"We Presume We Understand It as Long as We're Not Asked to Explain It, but It Becomes Inexplicable as Soon as We're Put to the Test"

"As with climate change, however, the only thing more difficult than such an effort would be trying to live with the alternative. Whiteness may seem inevitable and implacable, and Toni Morrison surely had it right when she said that the world 'will not become unracialised by assertion'. (To wake up tomorrow and decide I am no longer white would help no one.) Even so, after 350 years, it remains the case, as Nell Irvin Painter argues, that whiteness 'is an idea, not a fact'. Not alone, and not without much work to repair the damage done in its name, it still must be possible to change our minds."

In a 2021 Guardian article, Robert P. Baird explores the "invention of whiteness."

"In the Early '70s, No One Could Have Predicted That a Combination of Social Upheaval, Economic Crisis, and Political Talent Was About to Usher in a Brand-New Economic Era"

"Three main theories have emerged, each with its own account of how we got here and what it might take to change course. One theory holds that the story is fundamentally about the white backlash to civil-rights legislation. Another pins more blame on the Democratic Party's cultural elitism. And the third focuses on the role of global crises beyond any political party's control. Each theory is incomplete on its own. Taken together, they go a long way toward making sense of the political and economic uncertainty we're living through."

Rogé Karma at The Atlantic asks, "Why did America abandon the New Deal so decisively? And why did so many voters and politicians embrace the free-market consensus that replaced it?"

"A Caricature, Zombie History"

"I always wondered about the leftist intellectuals who supported Stalin, and those aristocratic sympathizers and peace activists who excused Hitler. Today's Hamas apologists and atrocity-deniers, with their robotic denunciations of 'settler-colonialism,' belong to the same tradition but worse: They have abundant evidence of the slaughter of old people, teenagers, and children, but unlike those fools of the 1930s, who slowly came around to the truth, they have not changed their views an iota. The lack of decency and respect for human life is astonishing: Almost instantly after the Hamas attack, a legion of people emerged who downplayed the slaughter, or denied actual atrocities had even happened, as if Hamas had just carried out a traditional military operation against soldiers. October 7 deniers, like Holocaust deniers, exist in an especially dark place."

Simon Sebag Montefiore at The Atlantic criticizes "the ideology of decolonization."

As does Adam Kirsch at The Wall Street Journal.

"Far More Favorable Political Terrain Than They Have Had to Grapple With in the Past"

"As the argument shifts to class-based affirmative action, it is Republicans who will be on the defensive. A GOP that has gleefully exploited the unpopularity of racial preferences for its own political gain will watch as that issue fades into the background. Republicans will be torn between their instinct not to spend money on financial aid and the reality that if they strongly oppose class-based affirmative action their effort to win working-class white and Hispanic voters could falter."

Richard D. Kahlenberg at The Liberal Patriot advises Democrats about the potential end of affrimative action.

Ruy Teixeira also adds his opinion

And Stephen Handel and Eileen Strempel at the Los Angeles Times promote transfer students from community colleges.

"The Only Way Forward for the Left Is to Return to the Universalism It Had Historically Championed"

"Malik joins here with a small but growing number of leftwing thinkers, including Nancy Fraser and Walter Benn Michaels and Adolph Reed Jr., who view leftwing identitarianism as having been in an unholy, but perhaps unwitting, alliance with neoliberal capitalism over the past decades. As Malik puts it, by 'delinking race and class and obscuring the social and political roots of both working-class inequalities and racial injustices,' left identitarianism has made it harder to deal with both. 'Just as in the nineteenth century racial identity was used to break-up class alliances, and to persuade white workers that their interests lay in their whiteness, not in their class location, so today the language of identity leads to the same place, though without necessarily the conscious intention of doing so.'"

Sheri Berman at The Liberal Patriot reviews Kenan Malik's Not So Black and White: A History of Race from White Supremacy to Identity Politics.