Living in the USA

Harold Meyerson on the labor breakthrough in California: a statewide panel to set standards for wages and working conditions for the 550,000 fast food workers in the state. Also: Republicans are making plans if they win control of the House in November--Chris Lehmann reports that their top targets include the NLRB and the Department of Labor. Chris is The Nation’s new D.C. Bureau Chief. Plus: Patr...

The fight for abortion rights and against a resurgent Donald Trump are mobilizing Democrats for the midterms; student debt cancellation helps. Harold Meyerson reports. Also: The Supreme Court next term will take up a case that could make Trump’s fake electors scheme the law of the land. Daniel Squadron explains the situation – and how winning majorities in state legislatures in swing states is the...

Liz Cheney's big loss in Wyoming marks the end of the traditional GOP, says Harold Meyerson; also: Amazon workers on strike in the Inland Empire. Plus: Some surprising abortion rights victories in red states: Katha Pollitt reports. And what is to be done about the gangs in Port-au-Prince - send in the marines? Amy Wilentz comments.

Harold Meyerson explains Biden's big achievement--it's mainly a climate change bill with a side helping of health reform and some additional taxation of corporations. Also: Liz Cheney is way behind in the polls leading up to next week’s Wyoming primary. John Nichols went to Wyoming to see her in action, and reports that she’s “fighting to outlast and replace Trump as the manager of the right-wing...

Pramila Jayapal is head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and represents Seattle in the House. She will explain how, as a young immigrant from India, she went from being an investment banker to a lifelong organizer. Her book, “Use the Power You Have: A Brown Woman's Guide to Politics and Political Change,” is out now. Also historian Eric Foner talks about about voting rights and voter suppre...

Jordan Peterson’s books of advice for men have sold five million copies – he says men should work hard, be responsible, demand more of themselves—and make their beds. Katha Pollitt has some comments about that. Also: The synergy between politics and popular culture has never been clearer or stronger than in the Age of Reagan. J. Hoberman, author of “Make My Day: Film Culture in the Age of Reagan,"...

Biden's clean energy plan was our best chance for addressing the climate emergency for the next several years; but Joe Manchin killed it, he says, because he's concerned about inflation. Harold Meyerson comments. Also: Addressing Climate Despair: how taking action is an act of hope. Thelma Young Lutunatabua and Rebecca Solnit talk about their new project @NotTooLate_Hope https://www.nottoolateclim...

On Tuesday the January 6 committee held yet another dramatic hearing, this one on the origins of the ‘Stop the Steal” rally and the events that provoked that 1:30 am tweet of Trump’s urging supporters to come to Washington, where it “will be wild.” Harold Meyerson has our analysis. Also: the people who say “America is a Christian Nation” had some big victories at the Supreme Court this term: on sc...

Biden’s weak responses to the end of abortion rights and the Supreme Court majority’s obstacles to gun control have been disastrous for Democrats. Harold Meyerson comments, and on the Georgia races with Rev. Raphael Warnock and Stacey Abrams. Also: The end of abortion in 26 states will be deadly for many poor women, especially poor women of color. Law professor Michele Goodwin explains, reviewing...

Harold Meyerson comments on Tuesday's historic testimony by Cassidy Hutchinson - and on the Supreme Court and abortion. Also: In understanding the January 6 insurrection, much of the focus has been on white nationalist militias like the Proud Boys. But white evangelicals also played a big part on January 6. Sarah Posner, author of Unholy: How White Christian Nationalists Powered the Trump Presiden...

This week's hearings of the Jan. 6 committee have been powerful and devastating in laying out the evidence of Trump's crimes, first in pressuring state officials to alter election results, and then in pressuring the Justice Department to declare the elections corrupted. John Nichols comments. Plus: Republicans have opened another front in the culture war with the slogan “parental rights”--not just...

Harold Meyerson comments on the most striking revelation of the Jan. 6 hearings thus far, especially the Proud Boys going straight to the capitol instead of to Trump's speech at the 'Stop the Steal' rally. Also: The recall of Chesa Boudin, the progressive prosecutor in San Francisco, has been taken by pundits everywhere to require the Democrats to abandon their efforts to reform the police and the...

The results of Tuesday’s primaries in L.A. and San Francisco, according to the New York Times, were “a stark warning to the Democratic Party about the potency of law and order as a political message in 2022.” Harold Meyerson disagrees. Also: our preview of the live TV hearings of the House committee on the January 6 insurrection. Plus: Also: Abortion and its opponents. Do opponents of abortion rea...

Harold Meyerson comments on the LA Mayoral race, where the police union is spending millions to defeat Karen Bass. Also: the coming end of constitutional protection for abortion gives us a lot of work to do–Katha Pollitt explains. And Lynn Garafola talks about "an Amazon of the Avant-Garde," the ballet dancer who went from revolutionary Russia to Kiev to Hollywood in the 1930s – "La Nijinska," sis...

Reproductive rights initiatives and referendums on the ballot in November will boost Democratic turnout in swing states including Arizona and Michigan--Harold Meyerson reports. Also: Haiti is back on the front page–at least in the New York Times--and it’s not because of what’s happening there right now. The Times has published the results of a deep investigation into the history of Haiti’s forced...

Republicans in this week’s primaries: it’s sort like news from another planet. Harold Meyerson reports on Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Ohio, on opportunities and challenges now that the Republicans have chosen their candidates. Also: John Nichols on Progressive Democrats in Tuesday’ primaries – and the deluge of money from the Israel lobby paying for ads attacking them—especially in Pittsburg...

Repealing Roe v. Wade will be a disaster for women, but a gift to Democrats in the upcoming midterms--an opportunity to win close races in swing states. Harold Meyerson runs down the key races where Dems should be able to win. Also: It’s all up to the states now, where grassroots groups are preparing an enormous logistics operation to move people across entire regions of the country that are about...

The Democrats’ chances in the midterms depend on turnout, on door-to-door, face-to-face organizing—and “Democracy Summer” is their plan to join with allies in organizing that kind of effort in the swing states. Harold Meyerson explains. Also: the disgraceful policy of America toward refugees from Ukraine – historian David Nasaw comments. And the wonderful writer Margo Jefferson talks about her new...

Progressive Democrats will be challenging incumbent moderate Democrats across America this spring and summer—starting in Ohio as Nina Turner has a rematch with Shontel Brown for Ohio's 11th District on May 3rd, 2022—Alan Minsky comments. Next: The Amazon workers on Staten Island have won a historic victory—but now they must prepare to strike, and to win support for their strike from the community...

What the Democrats have done wrong, and what they’ve done right: Michael Kazin on the party’s history, and its future. His new book is “What It Took to Win: A History of the Democratic Party.” Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson won’t be seated on the Supreme Court until late June, but we’re still thinking about the significance of her confirmation as America’s first Black female supreme court justice and...

Inflation is a world-wide phenomenon right now- what can Biden do about prices in America? Harold Meyerson comments. Also: the French elections. Plus: The sheriff of LA County: he’s got 10,000 deputies, in America’s biggest county, with 10 million people – and he’s become LA’s biggest political problem as he faces reelection. LA Times columnist Gustavo Arellano comments. Also: How could the war in...

It’s been a week since workers at the Amazon fulfillment center on Staten Island voted to form a union – what’s the next step for the first union ever at the second biggest employer in America, and for the rest of the labor movement? Harold Meyerson has our analysis. Also: What if everybody voted? What if voting was a duty, not just a right; an obligation, something like jury duty? E.J. Dionne and...

Build Back Better never made it through congress. So, what's in Biden's new budget proposal? Harold Meyerson of The prospect comments. Plus: Monday April 4 is the Day Of Action to Abolish Student Debt, when thousands of young people will gather in Washington D.C. to say "Pick Up the Pen, Joe" -- and abolish student debt via executive action. Astra Taylor will explain; she’s co-founder of the Debt...

Since the demise of Biden’s Build Back Better bill, the Democrats need other achievements to run on in the midterm campaigns. That means Biden should start using executive action. Harold Meyerson talks about the most politically important possibilities: student debt cancellation and action on prescription drug prices. Also: the Senate confirmation hearings for Biden’s Supreme Court nominee Ketanji...

After Zelensky's speech to Congress: Harold Meyerson analyzes the forces at work in Ukraine. Also: news of the class struggle in America. Plus: Bhaskar Sunkara, the new president of The Nation magazine, talks about what independent media should do during wartime. And Katha Pollitt takes up the question, "is there a right to sex?"