[Editor’s note: As of publication, the Sacramento Mayor’s race remains undecided, with final ballots still being counted.]

It was April of 2023, and the mood was electric outside of Sacramento City Hall. I had received the text several days before. Flo was running and I and a few others were tasked with not letting the secret out. As far as most people knew, it was just an announcement by an important organizer and community member in the Sacramento Area.

Dr. Flojaune "Flo" Cofer announced her candidacy for mayor eighteen months ago, to a crowd of over one hundred supporters. She has been pushing hard ever since with a growing community of volunteers and supporters—people excited at the idea of a candidate that represents them, who actually addresses the problems, rather than just restating the problem with a noncommittal “and I’ll do something about that.” A mayor who knows the importance of listening and collaborating.

Many had implored her to run over the years.  Due to her executive leadership abilities she was eminently qualified. And she had the perfect disposition to engage meaningfully, including with communities that don’t look like her but are similarly frustrated with City leadership.

Dr. Flo has been in community for over two decades. In various spaces, she has consistently engaged robustly in advocacy and equity work, beginning while working as an epidemiologist, helping craft healthcare policy for the state of California, and nationally with Obamacare. As she has stated, "I began my career at the California Department of Public Health, where I built a statewide coalition that decreased infant mortality by 14% across the state. I worked successfully to expand women's health coverage under Obamacare with no copays."

Fact-based approach

Having that fact-based approach is exactly what she will bring to the mayorship of Sacramento. She doesn’t accept that the status quo is the best way to do things. Just because it’s been done forever, doesn’t mean it’s the most effective way to do things. Thus she is open to new ideas, new modes of operating that shake up the status quo and that are based in evidence. At multiple forums she articulated a similar sentiment toward all policy areas as she did in a campaign video discussing homelessness:   The numbers show that we're moving in the wrong direction on this issue, and I plan to take a different approach, that is preventative, people-oriented, and based on data and recommendations from experts in the field."

Inherent to how she works and how she will govern is her experience as an epidemiologist following the data:  if the data doesn’t support the policy, then the policy needs to be changed. And she has the requisite willingness to engage with the data and the humility that is necessary to go where it leads, rather than trying to justify an endpoint that has already been decided on.

This position requires a necessity to listen and know what you don’t know, but also a willingness to ask people who do know and engage meaningfully with the public, respecting their time and input. Previous mayors have given lip service to public participation and always made it more difficult rather than more engaging to make comments. They would allude to “checks and balances” without any enforcement mechanisms to ensure the council would take advantage of the community input and advice offered by community members. Flo wants to see those mechanisms in place to ensure community input is respected and always at the forefront of engagement in new policy, rather than an afterthought or a box to check.

From the other side of the dais

Flo truly knows what the community has been requesting as far as genuine engagement, because she has been on the other side of the dais. She has served on committees for years and seen recommendations disregarded by the council after community members had invested days and weeks of their lives into the research and outreach done. This is exemplified nowhere better than in her dressing down of the sitting mayor while she was Chair of the Measure U committee. 

Included in this election process were dozens of forums and debates. Every time, community members appreciated her holistic sense of what is happening and how she would like to see it addressed. Her analyses of the varied issues affecting Sacramento shone through, especially because the alternative being offered was the status quo sentiment merely reframing the problem rather than offering solutions.

DSA Sacramento members joined a wide swath of communities from all types of backgrounds, from all over the city, and even from elsewhere in the country in supporting Flo. They canvassed, phone banked, text banked, threw house parties, threw fundraising events, held forums, and donated. The campaign saw nearly seventy thousand doors knocked, including over eight thousand two hundred the weekend before election day; one hundred fifty thousand calls, including twenty thousand the weekend before election day; three hundred thousand texts, and nearly one hundred house parties. There were hundreds of community events with neighbors to talk about her, her platform, and what they needed to see in a mayor. The campaign saw nearly four hundred volunteers over the course of the eighteen months. And donations rolled in to the tune of over $800,000.

Waiting for the final count

Currently (11/21), she is down 49.14% to 50.86%. However, the late votes aren’t all in and they have been breaking for her. Each tranche, counted twice a week, has seen her receiving more votes than her rival, Assemblymember Kevin McCarty. The process at this point is similar to the primary, where she was down 47% to 53%. When all primary votes were in and counted, their percentage share of votes had swapped to 58% for her and 42% for him. Now we wait for the final count.

After several bargaining capitulations by the California Faculty Association (CFA) over the past three contracts, rank-and-file members across the 23-campuses of the California State University (CSU) system have had enough. The CFA represents faculty, coaches, counselors, and librarians in collective bargaining and purports to fight for them, but union leadership has become increasingly insular and bureaucratic. Many of us in the rank-and-file (including the author, who is a member of San Diego DSA) have complained for years that the CFA leadership only organizes faculty a few months prior to contract talks after already deciding their strategy with no input from members. This strategy failed in the last three contract talks, resulting in pitiful raises far below the rate of inflation. The previous contract bargaining occurred during a flush state budget period and the so-called bargaining team only asked for a 3-4% raise. What kind of negotiators start their ask on the low side, where the bosses want them? Not only did they start low, but they had 1% ($100 million) shaved off by the governor in a backroom deal because they didn’t get it in writing.

This was bad, but the straw that broke the camel’s back for many of the faculty came in the Fall 2023 bargaining session. This time, after considerable pressure, the CFA leadership allowed rank-and-file to join the now open bargaining team and it made an impact. The negotiators started high asking for 12% for the first year, to make up for wages lost to inflation during COVID, then 5% for the next two years. During the pandemic, the faculty worked overtime transitioning all courses online and keeping the university running while the administrators met safely over zoom, thanking faculty for their “service”. Naturally, the CSU administration, sitting comfortably in their $200 million/year Long Beach HQ, hired union busters and dismissively offered 5%.

Faculty were pissed

The administration refused to budge from this insulting offer, and with the backing and support of the fed-up faculty, we voted to strike (although the union leadership did not inform us of the percentage voting to strike). We were told we would fight for what was right and fair! The rank-and-file knew that there was plenty of money for raises. The CFA leadership told us how the administration consistently awarded themselves double-digit raises, including 30% to consecutive Chancellors, and had squirreled away $8 billion in “reserves”. We knew we had been screwed and faculty were pissed.

So, what happened? First, there was a one-day ULP strike in late Nov 23 on two campuses and later a one-day ULP Teamster strike. Then the faculty went out on the picket line and students went with us throughout all 23-campuses. However, before the end of the first day and without warning or polling the rank-and-file, the CFA ended the strike. In the middle of the night the CFA said they struck a deal! And what was the amazing deal they negotiated? Did they get us the 12% raise? Or maybe 10%? 8%? Nope. 5%. The same lousy deal the CSU already wanted to give us.

Formation of CREW

That’s when many of us, including the author and other DSA members in the CSU faculty, joined CREW, aka. the Caucus of Rank-and-File Education Workers. CREW began as a San Francisco State University (SFSU) listserv created by faculty frustrated by multiple lame contracts. This movement really got going after these SFSU faculty recruited across the CSU following the shock and disappointment of the third bad contract and the ludicrous one-day strikes. Faculty across the CSU organized online and in person to push the union to work for us instead of the other way around.

 CREW’s primary goal is to democratize the CFA and transform it into a fighting union in which the rank-and-file participate in all aspects of the union. Over the past year, our incredible and motivated caucus organized a “No Vote” campaign that increased the number of No votes by 500%, created a steering committee, drafted “Principles of Unity”, recruited participants on more than half the campuses of the CSU, wrote by-laws, created a membership system, and built a website. And the work is paying off. CREW is a force at the CFA assemblies, showing up uninvited and passing one democratizing resolution after another. 

In the CFA Spring 2024 Assembly, 7 of CREW's 10 resolutions passed. The fact that so many passed showed not only CREW’s dedication and organization, but also the clear desire for more democracy and transparency in the union overall. The resolutions that passed:

• Resolution to Encourage Participation in Statewide General Meetings

• Resolution to Conduct Power Structure Analysis 

• Resolution for a Big, Representative Bargaining Committee 

• Resolution for Mass Participation in Bargaining Sessions 

• Resolution to Create Article Committees 

• Resolution to Fight Severe Cutbacks in Instruction on CSU Campuses

• Resolution to Support Palestinians and Their Allies in the CSU

This Fall, we had another bumper crop of wins with 4 of CREW's 5 resolutions passing, including the resolution to establish a strike fund. Without such a fund, strikes are nearly impossible to pull off. And without the threat of a prolonged strike, unions lose the only leverage they truly have, namely the ability to withhold labor. The resolutions that passed:

• Resolution to Establish a Strike Fund

• Resolution to Add an Article Protecting Academic Freedom to the Collective Bargaining Agreement

• Resolution to Abolish the Two-Tier Faculty Labor System: Tenure for All

• Resolution for a New CBA Article Governing Use of AI

CREW is still working on the resolution to require a vote of the members to end a strike, so as not to repeat the one-day strike fiasco, but the first two votes were close and hope remains high.

There are still plenty of obstacles. Passing resolutions and enforcing them are two separate things. For example, despite passing a resolution to encourage participation in statewide CFA meetings, the CFA officers failed to email all members about the Fall Assembly. The CFA leadership also continues to ignore the plight of two faculty union members suspended for protecting student free speech rights in the Palestine solidarity encampments. CREW found out, showed up anyway, and dominated the agenda. 

Crucial to pressure CFA leadership

It will be crucial to pressure the CFA leadership to stick to their resolutions. There have also been off-the-record comments made that CREW is trying to “destroy the CFA,” which could not be further from the truth, and members have even been red-baited. Rank-and-file organized fighting unions win better contracts, and better contracts grow the union. And we need to grow the CREW membership and increase its diversity.

All in all, it’s an exciting time to be a member of the rank-and-file in the CREW. Higher education is in crisis. Neoliberal capitalists are gunning for higher ed, aiming to privatize every nook and cranny with the help of soulless MBAs and PMC careerists intent on enriching themselves, further indebting the system, and crushing labor and dissent. Union solidarity, especially rank-and-file participation and organizing will be critical in the fight to save higher education in California and beyond. CREW is a terrific step in this direction.

Amid all the post-election “What now?” haranguing and handwringing, no one offers a wiser voice for ecosocialists to heed than Omar Barghouti. Co-founder of the largest coalition in Palestinian civil society, the Boycott, Divest & Sanction National Committee, Barghouti urges commitment to the Boycott Chevron campaign:

“We are building a global and intersectional movement, in partnership with Climate Justice and Indigenous People around the world who are exposing and resisting the colonial violence of Chevron’s extractionism, environmental destruction, and grave human rights violations.”

The reasons for a focused priority campaign to Boycott Chevron are abundantly clear. Chevron is profiting from the U.S. and Israel’s ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people. 70% of Israel’s electricity is supplied by methane gas, nearly all of it sourced by Chevron, the largest natural gas supplier to Israel in the Eastern Mediterranean. That supply is crucial to Israel’s military bases, prisons, police stations, illegal settlements, and to Israel’s illegal siege of Gaza.  Israeli apartheid depends on Chevron.

In addition to being a strategic target for ending the genocide in Palestine, Chevron is the object of protest from the Philippines, to Nigeria, to Ecuador, with indigenous, environmental justice, and ecosocialist movements fighting the oil company’s ecocide, genocide and corruption, despite the brutal repression of those movements. DSA belongs in that global collaboration.

Our national DSA International Committee heard the call from Palestine and stepped up to endorse Boycott Chevron, earning Barghouti’s gratitude: “We are proud to have DSA as a partner in this important campaign!”  

Inspired by our national DSA campaign to Stop Fueling Genocide, DSA members across California are helping to organize Boycott Chevron actions. We’ve participated in gas station boycotts and other Boycott Chevron events in LA, the East Bay, Santa Cruz and San Diego. For the most part, our members have contributed as individuals in ad hoc coalitions. Let’s take a note from our petrostate comrades in Houston, and coordinate our DSA organizing! Let’s share the extensive and skillful work of our International Committee, get our chapters behind this boycott, work with and learn from the coalitions forming around this issue, and organize boycott events wherever we are.

DO THIS NOW!

• Sign the Boycott Chevron Pledge https://dsaic.org/boycottchevron and share this link with your chapter members.
  This helps the coalition reach the goal of over 100K individual signatures to demonstrate the serious organizing behind the Chevron Boycott. Your signature will help DSA learn where the boycott campaign has support, and will help us gain credibility as a leading coalition member.

• Join the CA DSA STOP FUELING GENOCIDE Signal Group .
  Meet CA comrades involved in chapter campaigns and find other CA DSA members looking to organize in their chapters and create gas station boycott events.

• Learn more and share with your chapter

• This resource link list is full of articles about the Chevron=Genocide connection, organizing and actions around the country, and campaign tool kits.

• Plan a watch party for your chapter to view and discuss DSA’s Stop Fueling Genocide launch video.

• Contact Bonnie@laborrise.org to request a 15-minute slide show about the campaign in Northern California, and to connect to the CA DSA Ecosocialist Working Group.

By Albert Daly

WORCESTER – This past Sunday, November 17, Worcester DSA, in collaboration with the WPI Graduate Workers Union (WPI-GWU), hosted a film screening and subsequent discussion of Harlan County, USA.

Harlan County, USA is a classic documentary that follows the 1973 Brookside Strike, a year-long struggle by coal miners in southeastern Kentucky to win their first union contract. After workers at a Harlan County mine unionized with the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), Duke Power Company refused to agree to a contract unless it had a no-strike clause. The mine workers held firm, and the film shows the efforts of their wives to support the strike, the health and safety issues in the mines, and the intervention of police and the courts to keep roads open to scabs while ignoring their acts of violence and even murder.

Union reformers may find especially interesting the storyline covering the downfall of corrupt UMWA President Tony Boyle and the rise of reform caucus-backed leader Arnold Miller. The film highlights some of the democratic reforms introduced by Miller, including a member ratification vote on the 1974 National Coal Wage Agreement, but also the lack of right-to-strike protections in the same contract.

As Maddie P, facilitator of Worcester DSA’s Labor Committee noted, “This film reminds us that the harsh realities of American labor history persist in the struggles workers face today. The miners’ fight for their rights is not as distant as it seems and is part of the ongoing class struggle. While the specifics of their working conditions may differ, the underlying dynamics of exploitation, inequality, and corporate power remain strikingly similar.”

Much of the discussion after the screening centered around violence. In the documentary, a scab worker murders one of the striking miners, in addition to scabs and strikebreakers shooting up houses and using guns and violence to intimidate picketers.

The capitalist state did nothing to deter or punish these acts of violence. The police and courts focus largely on the striking workers and their supporters. In effect, they double down on the violence of Duke Power Company, which as one attendee pointed out, forces their workers to suffer in mines and succumb to black lung disease all to live in shacks without hot water. And we see in the film a cameo of sorts from the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, who comments on the impact of the 1974 nationwide miners strike on the economy, a reference to President Gerald Ford’s threat to invoke a Taft-Hartley Act injunction to force the miners to return to work.

Ezra S, facilitator of Worcester DSA’s Political Education Committee, said, “I’m always blown away by the points that other chapter members raise in discussion because they change the way that I view these pieces we consume. My father first showed me this film many years ago, and it was before I knew much about labor or labor history. My second time watching it, the film made so much more sense to me and seemed so much more applicable.”

Worcester DSA’s Political Education Committee prepares presentations and discussions for the chapter’s General Meetings, as well as movie nights like this one — including recent screenings of Concerning Violence, Nae Pasaran, Pride, Union Maids, and A Very British Coup. The Poli Ed Committee also offers regular reading groups, with discussions every month of both short-form, standalone readings and multi-session discussions of books, most recently The Wretched of the Earth and starting in January, Class Struggle Unionism.

“Politicized, socialist union members are stronger, more effective trade unionists because we understand the nature of class struggle on and beyond the shop floor,” said Jake S, a Worcester DSA Steering Committee member who helps direct the Political Education Committee and who is a member of WPI-GWU.

Worcester DSA’s Labor Committee also assisted in putting on the event. The Labor Committee coordinates labor solidarity work across Central Mass and beyond, supports and initiates union drives, and hosts a bi-weekly Workers’ Circle, where DSA members can discuss organizing challenges in their workplaces and unions.

Shane Levett, a Worcester DSA Steering Committee member who helps direct the Labor Committee, said, “Watching this film I hope people see how the mine owners contribute nothing and yet take everything, how the capitalist state facilitates this and is putting its finger on the scale and not in our favor, and how the workers and oppressed peoples of this world have the power in our hands to change it all.”

Albert Daly is a Worcester DSA member.

In this episode, Aaron Stauffer (Associate Director, The Wendland-Cook Program in Religion and Justice) joins to discuss faith, the strategies of broad-based community organizing, and the role of sacred values in organizing work. For more on the topic, check out his book: Listening to the Spirit: The Radical Social Gospel, Sacred Value, and Broad-based Community Organizing.

Upcoming Events

Wednesday, November 20 (6:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.): What is DSA? (In person at 1916 McAllister)

Thursday, November 21 (6:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.): Palestine Solidarity and Anti-Imperialist Working Group (Zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister)

Thursday, November 21 (6:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.): Ecosocialist Monthly Meeting (In person at 1916 McAllister)

Friday, November 22 (12:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m): Office Hours (In person at 1916 McAllister)

Friday, November 22 (7:00 p.m. – 9:30 p.m.): Film Screening: Nihon Sekigun x PFLP Declaration of War (In person at 1916 McAllister)

Monday, November 25 (6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Homelessness Working Group Meeting (Zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister)

Monday, November 25 (6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Tenderloin Healing Circle (In person at 220 Golden Gate)

Monday, November 25 (7:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Labor Board Meeting (Zoom)

Check out https://dsasf.org/events for more events and updates.

Events & Actions

Tenderloin Healing Circle

We’d like to invite you (yes, you!) to join the Tenderloin Healing Circle every 2nd and 4th Monday of the month! We serve food right before the meeting at 6:00 p.m., and meet from 6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at 220 Golden Gate Avenue.

This is a free healing circle for the neighborhood. Join other Tenderloin folks for support, hope, and food. All are welcome. The venue is wheelchair accessible, bathrooms are available, and masks are encouraged.

Submit Photos of Your Pets for the 2025 DSA SF Pet Calendar!

We’re putting together a 2025 DSA SF pet calendar, and we want YOUR pet to be included! You can submit photos of your pet through this form. Make sure to submit soon – the calendar will fill up quickly, and we want to make sure your best friend gets a chance to shine!

No Appetite for Apartheid in SF!

Inspired by long-standing Palestinian boycott tactics and the BDS call, the Palestine Solidarity Anti-Imperialist Working Group are canvassing local stores and asking them to pledge to become Apartheid-Free by dropping products from companies complicit in the genocide of Palestinians and colonization of Palestine. It’s time to turn up the heat on this apartheid regime and take apartheid off our plates!

Want to show your support? Sign our Apartheid-Free Pledge so business owners know how popular this movement is with their local customers. After signing the pledge, we would love to see you at any of our upcoming campaign strategy sessions and canvassing days. Check dsasf.org/events for updates.

Behind the Scenes

The Chapter Coordination Committee (CCC) regularly rotates duties among chapter members. This allows us to train new members in key duties that help keep the chapter running like organizing chapter meetings, keeping records updated, office cleanup, updating the DSA SF website and newsletter, etc. Members can view current CCC rotations.

To help with the day-to-day tasks that keep the chapter running, fill out the CCC help form.

by Brent L.

People often refer to cities as “concrete jungles.” Well, Rochester is an asphalt prairie. Walking around our downtown I can’t help but think that what was once a bustling city of industry has now been largely flattened to accommodate personal vehicles.

Rochester is not alone in this way. The urban renewal of the 1950s and 1960s saw entire neighborhoods, mostly Black and Latine, bulldozed to build highways, parking lots, and sports stadiums. Downtowns were no longer places where people lived, worked, and shopped, but simply places where the suburbanites who moved as part of “white flight” could visit in their automobiles.

The best example of this is the construction of Interstate 490, a six lane freeway that carves directly through downtown Rochester, forming the southern border of “The Innerloop.” The Clarissa Street neighborhood was once a thriving Black neighborhood with several popular jazz clubs hosting musicians like Chuck Mangione and George Benson. The construction of 490 carved directly through this neighborhood, displacing countless people and businesses. The jazz scene that once existed is now commemorated by a mural where 490 crosses over Main Street. (Check out the documentary and organization Clarissa Uprooted for more information on this story.) In contrast, a plan to route 390 through the wealthier Swillburg neighborhood was never approved.

All these highways have been carved through our downtown so that suburbanites can visit without waiting in gridlocked traffic (though thanks to induced demand, they still do). So now, they need a place to put their cars!

Building, upon building, upon building, met their fate at the hands of construction crews wielding wrecking balls, bulldozers, and cutting torches. The iconic former Fire Dept headquarters and Waverly Hotel became an office building and its large parking lot.

Rochester and other American cities weren’t built for cars, they were bulldozed for them!

There’s more to lamenting about parking lots than just aesthetics and lifestyle preferences, though. Car centric infrastructure has a significant impact on both our health and the health of the planet.

We hear a lot about microplastics these days—from being found in our blood, brains, and other places. But where do they come from?

The biggest source is synthetic textiles such as polyester and nylon, and a close second is car tires. While tires are typically thought of as rubber, modern tires have a considerable amount of synthetic polymers in them as well. As these tires break down from use, the particles do more than leave black streaks on pavement. Rain washes them into storm drains where they enter the water cycle, and eventually our bodies. The effect of microplastics on our health is still being studied, but it is theorized that they could increase the risk of colon cancer and metabolic disorders.

I’m writing in the wake of two recent devastating hurricanes, Helene and Milton. Hurricanes are growing stronger and more common due to global warming. It seems we now have a “once in a lifetime storm” every couple years. Or in this case, twice in one month.

Handing over our cities to The Car has greatly accelerated the warming of the planet. The transportation sector accounts for 28% of greenhouse gas emissions, and of that 28% light duty cars and trucks account for 52% of greenhouse gasses generated. Shifting our transportation choices to public transit and active transportation like walking and biking would greatly reduce emissions and slow the warming of the planet.

It’s not all bad news, however! Rochester has made a few smart decisions to correct for some of the sins of its past. The Innerloop removal project has replaced what was once a deep moat around our downtown with new housing, businesses, and a separated cycletrack. Surface lots on Main Street and Andrews Street are being turned into affordable housing.

Best of all, public opinion is turning away from the cult of the car and embracing public transit and active transportation. If you too would like to reclaim our cities from the scourge of the car, join DSA, get involved with our City Vitality Solidarity Group, and check out Reconnect Rochester!

The post Cities Are For People, Not Cars first appeared on Rochester Red Star.

by Blair Goodman, MADSA member, co-chair of Equador Working Group on the DSA International Committee and chair of the Training Subcommittee of the DSA Growth and Development Committee

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As we urgently grapple with Trump’s return to the White House, it’s crucial to swiftly understand the economic and political factors that led to this outcome. The Democrats’ failure to promptly address the real economic concerns of working-class Americans has paved the way for Trump’s populist rhetoric to once again resonate with voters.

The Disconnect Between Wall Street and Main Street

Despite the rosy picture painted by macroeconomic indicators – a booming stock market, low unemployment, and steady GDP growth – the reality for average Americans has been starkly different. Under the Biden-Harris administration, we witnessed a shocking 20% increase in consumer prices, the biggest slump in living standards since the 1930s[1]. While the rich got richer, most Americans struggled to keep up with inflation.

The disconnect between official economic data and workers’ lived experiences is staggering. According to a recent poll, 62% of respondents rated the economy as “not so good” or “poor”[2]. This “vibecession” – where public sentiment doesn’t match official economic data – has been a critical factor in the Democrats’ downfall.

The Failure of Bidenomics and Harris’s Neoliberal Approach

Perhaps most damning is the decline in real wages for union workers under Biden. Using the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Employment Cost Index, we see that inflation-adjusted wages and salaries for union workers decreased during Biden’s term while increasing under Trump. No wonder 56% of Americans thought the country was in a recession, with 72% believing inflation was still rising.

Going back to Bill Clinton the Democrats’ embrace of austerity policies has deeply betrayed their working-class base. They’ve continued catering to Wall Street and big business instead of pushing for transformative economic policies that benefit the majority. Harris’s refusal to support a single-payer healthcare system, her backtracking on fracking, and the maintenance of Trump-era tax cuts for the wealthy all demonstrate the party’s shift away from progressive economic policies.

The Shift of Traditional Democratic Voters

One voter’s quote summarizes why sufficient numbers switched from Democrat to Republican: “I’ve been a Democrat my whole life, and I haven’t seen any benefits. Democrats have been sending funds to wars and resources to migrants rather than to Americans who are struggling. I trust Trump to put us first.”[2] This sentiment reflects a broader trend of disillusionment among traditionally Democratic voters, particularly regarding economic issues and the perception that the party wasn’t prioritizing struggling Americans.

The Immigration Paradox

Ironically, much of the US outperformance in economic growth results from a sharp increase in net immigration, twice as fast as in the Eurozone and three times as fast as in Japan. Yet, the Harris campaign failed to capitalize on this economic benefit, instead caving to anti-immigrant sentiment and supporting the continuation of border wall construction, which contradicted the economic benefits of immigration and alienated potential supporters.

The Looming Debt Crisis

Both candidates have ignored the elephant in the room: the ballooning public debt. Currently estimated at $35 trillion, or around 100% of GDP, the debt load is set to soar higher – potentially reaching $50 trillion within the next 10 years. This rising debt will inevitably lead to higher taxes and cuts in government spending, regardless of who is in power, posing a significant economic challenge for the future.

The Need for Socialist Policies is Urgent

Join a socialist organization. I prefer a mass multi-tendency organization like the Democratic Socialists of America, but if you need something more focused, go for it. Learn to be active in your organization and promote outward-facing, mass work.

To rebuild and move forward, we must embrace truly socialist policies that unite the working class:

• Implement a wealth tax on the ultra-rich to fund social programs and infrastructure investments.
• Establish a single-payer healthcare system to eliminate medical debt and ensure universal coverage.
• Enact a Green New Deal that creates millions of good-paying union jobs while addressing climate change.
• Raise the minimum wage to a living wage and strengthen workers’ rights to organize.
• Invest in affordable housing and public transportation to improve the quality of life for all.

The Road Ahead

While the Democratic Party has failed us, we must strategically consider whether it can still be a vehicle for progressive change. Our immediate focus should be building grassroots solid movements and labor organizations that can exert pressure on political institutions from the outside. Of course, we should use the Democratic line where it is strategically convenient and pursue reform that transfers power from the owning classes to the working classes. 

We must also concentrate our defenses against the coming onslaught of right-wing policies. Concentrating our defenses means making choices about where we can protect voting rights, defend reproductive freedom, and safeguard the rights of marginalized communities. We must recognize that unions will likely face a much more hostile environment under a Trump administration, forcing labor into a defensive position. We will need to find a strategy to resume the offensive. 

As we move forward, we must remember that the underlying forces of capitalist production, investment, and profit are much more powerful than any particular policy adopted and implemented by a government. However, this doesn’t mean we should give up on political action. Instead, we must work tirelessly to build a movement that can challenge the foundations of a system that continues to fail most Americans.

The road ahead is challenging, but we must channel our anger and sadness into organizing and action. Only by uniting the working class around a truly progressive economic agenda can we hope to reverse the tide of right-wing populism and build a more just and equitable society for all.

---

Sources: 

Kamala Harris Is Not Doing Well With Union Voters

How Bad Would a Trump Presidency Be for Labor? 

The US presidential election: part one – the economy – Michael Roberts Blog

The US election part two: Trump v Harris:  

NOTE: This review contains spoilers

In his latest film, Anora, director Sean Baker has broken through from indie credibility to mainstream success with a frenetic look at the layer of American workers that toil amongst the ultra-rich, doing their dirty work and cleaning up their messes. While the camera follows the arc of the title character, it lingers on the maids, hotel concierges, exotic dancers, and hired goons who bear witness to the realities of 21^st-century income inequality. Through the protagonist (and audience proxy), exotic dancer Anora, we wrestle with the hope we cannot seem to give up that maybe, if we play our cards right, we can gain access to the world of luxury and ease inhabited by people no better than us. 

As soon as we meet Anora (Mikey Madison), it becomes clear that she is an able and confident worker. Her job involves both physical and emotional labor that she navigates easily. Baker aims a nonjudgmental lens at the club where Anora works; the lighting is warm and sensual and the shots that linger on the dancers are sexy but not prurient or seedy. Anora’s club is a classy establishment that serves high-value clients, and Anora is assigned to Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn), the son of a Russian oligarch. What follows –flirting and touching, listening and laughing, deep stares – could look, from a distance, like two people falling in love; but those of us who have worked in the service industry know that performance is what we are paid for. 

When Ivan invites her to spend a week with him, it is a professional achievement more than a romantic one for Anora. She maintains her power and sets boundaries even as she enjoys the work and the perks, which include lavish parties and designer drugs. She dances for Ivan and holds him while he plays video games because her job is to fulfill the full range of his desires for companionship. They fly to Las Vegas and visit parts of it only seen by the ultra-rich, and when Ivan ‘jokingly’ screams at a hotel concierge, Anora laughs along with him — as does the concierge, because they both serve at his pleasure. 

When Ivan asks her to marry him, it is again proof of her skill at the job of companionship. The transactional nature of the proposal couldn’t be more clearly spelled out (she gets a ring, he gets a green card), yet we are all so wrapped up in the performance of romance and the ecstasy of a decadent lifestyle that it kind of feels like love. 

Then, as they always do, the drugs wear off, and reality sets in.

In the back half of the film, we meet a new set of characters and shift back into the world of people who must make a living doing what someone tells them to do. When word starts getting around that Ivan has married a ‘prostitute’, the fragile plans that he and Anora made during their honeymoon period immediately disintegrates. Men hired by Ivan’s family to keep an eye on him come knocking, and Ivan bolts, leaving her to (impressively) resist them until it becomes clear that she must ally with them to try to track him down. When they physically assault and restrain her, it is with visible reluctance and shame. These hired strongmen, especially the one who seems to be the sole caregiver to his grandmother, are driven by the paychecks they rely on, but also by the knowledge that their bosses are so powerful that disobedience could be punished with the destruction of their professional and personal lives. 

This looming power haunts the whole sad crew as they embark on an involuntary tour of Ivan’s favorite hangouts, wreaking havoc through their pursuit. The next hour of the film unfolds with a manic but humorous energy comparable to the Safdie Brothers film Good Time. Baker’s pacing pulls us from location to location with the driving force of economic anxiety, but skillfully inserts moments of humor and humanity. 

While the goons are fully aware from the outset that they are in a race for their lives, it only dawns on Anora slowly, piece by piece, as she comes to realize that any expectations she had of becoming part of Ivan’s family was a complete fantasy. After dozens of ignored calls and the ransacking of a candy shop, she realizes that Ivan is not a person she can rely on in even the most basic sense. Following a fight at the club where she met him, it becomes clear that he is a pathetic, dependent child completely unable to escape the authority of his parents. When Ivan’s mother (Darya Ekamasova) tells Anora that if she does not give him a divorce, they will destroy her life and the life of everyone she knows, she is just putting words to the feelings we have felt for the whole film. In a system where money buys power, the ultra-rich can make us all do whatever they want.

On her last night in the mansion she allowed herself to believe was hers, Anora attempts to restore some sense of her own power by belittling Igor (Yura Borisov), the henchman who has never stopped trying to show her his humanity. Anora is telling the truth when she calls him a thug and a kidnapper, but even as she says it, she knows that he, too, was just doing his job. They recognize each other as workers. 

The next day, Igor drops her off, carrying her bags to the door in a way that would never even occur to Ivan. When he gives her back her engagement ring — in a much less transactional way than when she first receives it — her instinct is to make good on his investment with her body. She responds with a sexual advance, because for her, the line between transactional sex and genuine attraction is even more blurred than it is for most women. In a moment when rejection would hurt her but enthusiasm would compromise her, Igor just lets things happen. His passivity is a sign of his care and a continuation of his efforts to support her that has been built up over the course of the film. 

In that moment, Anora struggles against her attraction to him. It is a response to what he has done to her, but also to the prospect of attaching herself to who she sees as a man of low status, as opposed to the elite husband she just lost. Their final encounter triggers an emotional release, and she breaks down when her need to be vulnerable momentarily overcomes her instinct to stay strong. This isn’t love any more than her relationship with Ivan was, but it is at least something real.

Anora is a movie with a sad ending, but it’s not a tragedy. It’s a movie about failing to achieve the American dream, but it’s not the story of a woman defeated. It’s about realizing that who gets to have money and who doesn’t is based not on merit or skill, but rather on luck and ruthlessness. Anora gets a taste of this unreal world, where power and pleasure are limitless. For an interloper like her, though, it has hard limits; it’s a sugar rush followed immediately by a crash. Because she is 25, this experience, though traumatizing, will fade; it isn’t the end for her, but a painful lesson that we all learn at some point.

The majority of American workers hold out hope that something will happen to ensure they won’t have to work anymore. This can be seen in the rise of sports betting, crypto prospecting, and voting for a presidential candidate who promises to magically make groceries cheaper. Anyone can see that those who work the hardest in our society tend to get paid the least, while a small minority at the top have nothing but time and endless resources; so why would anyone want to work hard? Unfortunately, none of us will be pulled out of a life of toil by a generous billionaire because the generous billionaire is a myth. For most of us, no amount of savvy speculation or cozying up to rich boys will ever get us into that stratospheric level of wealth. 

Instead, we have to work — not only at the wage jobs that keep food on the table, but at building working-class organizations to contest the power of the billionaire class. It sucks. It is nothing but the promise of hard work forever. But building something with our fellow workers is the only way out of this mess, and there is the potential to find dignity in the work we do, despite the scorn for hard work inculcated by capitalist culture. Sean Baker’s direction and editing allow us, the audience, to see the work of Anora and her coworkers for what it is: the provision of a service by professionals. By adopting this perspective, not only nonjudgmental but celebratory, on the work of exotic dancers, Baker opens the door for us to rediscover the dignity in the physical and emotional labor we all do.

The post (Sex) Work Won’t Love You Back: A Review of Sean Baker’s Anora appeared first on Midwest Socialist.