Dean Spade on How Mutual Aid Will Help Us Survive

FROM STUDENT DEBTOR WHITE SUPREMACY’S A GREEN NEW DEAL LABOR NEEDS POWER, TO SOLDIER P. 7 DEEP ROOTS P. 34 FOR THE SOUTH P. 6 NOT BIDEN P. 12

ALL EYES ON BIDEN Barbara Ransby, Rick Perlstein and Shireen Al-Adeimi talk strategy

+ Dean Spade on how mutual aid will help us survive

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ELECTION 2020

ON THE COVER How to Seize the Moment 14

A Green New Deal They’re Organizing It’s Together That for the South Like Their Lives We Survive Disaster Amid devastating hurricanes, the Depend on It A conversation about mutual Gulf South pushes for a climate aid with law professor and plan that puts the community first Healthcare workers see on-the- activist Dean Spade job solidarity as essential work BY CASEY WILLIAMS BY CLARA LIANG BY ALICE HERMAN 6 30 22

DECEMBER 2020 = IN THESE TIMES 1 No political movement can be healthy unless it has its own press to inform it, educate it and orient it. “ — IN THESE TIMES FOUNDER JAMES WEINSTEIN ” TABLE OF CONTENTS

FOUNDING EDITOR & PUBLISHER JAMES WEINSTEIN (1926–2005)

DISPATCHES FEATURES EDITOR & PUBLISHER Joel Bleifuss EXECUTIVE EDITOR 6 A Green New Deal 22 LABOR (ON LEAVE) Jessica Stites EXECUTIVE EDITOR for the South Healthcare Workers Are (ACTING) Diana Babineau BY CASEY WILLIAMS Organizing Like Their EXECUTIVE PUBLISHER Christopher Hass Lives Depend on It WEB EDITORS Miles Kampf-Lassin, From Student 7 BY ALICE HERMAN Sarah Lazare Debtor to Soldier GUEST EDITORS Jack Mirkinson, BY ANNA ATTIE 30 It’s Together That We Susan Rinkunas LABOR REPORTER Hamilton Nolan Survive Disaster INVESTIGATIVE FELLOWS 9 LABOR A conversation about mutual Alice Herman, Indigo Olivier This Is What Solidarity COPY EDITOR Bob Miller aid with law professor and Sounds Like PROOFREADERS Sharon Bloyd-Peshkin, activist Dean Spade Rochelle Lodder, Lindsay Muscato BY LIZ PELLY BY CLARA LIANG SENIOR EDITORS Patricia Aufderheide, Susan J. Douglas, David Moberg, Salim Muwakkil, Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) VIEWPOINT CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Kate Aronoff, CULTURE Theo Anderson, Michael Atkinson, Frida Berrigan, Michelle Chen, Sady Doyle, Pete 12 LABOR Karman, Kari Lydersen, Moshe Z. Marvit, 34 The Violent Story of Power Comes From Jane Miller, Shaun Richman, Slavoj Žižek American Whiteness CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Dean Baker, Class War, Not Biden BY KIM KELLY Rebecca Burns, Barbara Ehrenreich, BY HAMILTON NOLAN Jeremy Gantz, Leonard C. Goodman, Mindy Isser, Naomi Klein, Chris Lehmann, John 38 Comics Nichols, Rick Perlstein, Micah Uetricht EDITORIAL INTERNS Frank Carber, ELECTION 2020 40 In Those Times: Hannah Faris, Clara Liang, Janea Wilson Last Gasps for the GOP? CREATIVE DIRECTOR Rachel K. Dooley How to Seize the Moment DESIGN ASSISTANT Matt Whitt CARTOONS EDITOR Matt Bors 14 Introduction DEPARTMENTS CARTOONISTS Terry LaBan, Dan Perkins BY DIANA BABINEAU DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR 4 In Conversation Lauren Kostoglanis 16 Beware the Neoliberal DEVELOPMENT COORDINATOR Jamie Hendry Backlash 7 This Month in PUBLISHING ASSISTANT Caroline Reid BY BARBARA RANSBY Late Capitalism CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Rebecca Sterner 18 Biden’s First Priority: IN THESE TIMES BOARD OF DIRECTORS 9 By the Numbers: M. Nieves Bolaños, Tobita Chow, Kevin Undo the Damage Mental Health Creighan, Dan Dineen, James Harkin, BY RICK PERLSTEIN Robert Kraig, Paul Olsen, Rick Perlstein, 10 In Case You Missed It Margaret Rung, Steven Saltzman, Stacy 20 Biden Must End the 13 The Big Idea: Sutton, David Taber, William Weaver War He Helped Start Boycott, Divestment, BY SHIREEN AL-ADEIMI The work of In These Times Sanctions (BDS) writers is supported by the Puffin Foundation.

pms 3015 pms 130 ON THE COVER Our staff and Illustration by Rachel K. Dooley writers are represented by Photos via Getty Images these unions:

2 IN THESE TIMES + DECEMBER 2020 EDITORIAL Inside-Outside, a Winning Strategy ne of the big wins for progres- benefactors might turn off the money spigot. His sives in 2020 is not electoral but post-election campaign coffers, which include organizational. significant corporate donations, have ballooned Since its founding in 1976, In These to $2 million cash on hand. Times has championed a political orga- The Friday before the election, Sen. Bernie Onizing principle known as the “inside-outside Sanders (I-Vt.) joined an online public discussion strategy.” It posits that, to effectively build pow- hosted by the Squad—Democratic Reps. Alexan- er and enact policy, progressives should work in- dria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Rashida Tlaib (Mich.), side the political system, building footholds in Ilhan Omar (Minn.) and Ayanna Pressley (Mass.). the system of representative government. Pressley thanked Sanders for “ushering [in]” Simultaneously, to challenge power from the outside, they should build popular It is essential that our insiders be movements in the streets, on the shop strategic and aggressive. Meanwhile, floors and on the National Mall. those on the outside must organize the We first wrote about the inside-outside strategy in a June 1977 story about the unorganized and build a movement. Congressional Black Caucus (CBC). Caucus members, initially lacking the inside-outside strategy. “Forever, power in Congress, worked on the there was the movement versus elect- outside as a kind of leadership group for ed officials,” Pressley said. “The truth the Black community. As their seniority is, there is an inside-outside [strategy], but in the House increased, so too did their in- if you are getting it right, it’s all one movement.” fluence within the Democratic House leadership. Ocasio-Cortez thanked Sanders for “normaliz- As CBC members have gained rank and picked ing” the “ruckus on the Democratic Party.” “Every up committees, however, their focus has increas- single one of us got our seats challenging the Dem- ingly turned toward raising corporate donations to ocratic establishment,” she said. “And now, from fund Caucus infrastructure. Today, for example, a grassroots perspective, people are realizing, ‘Oh, one of the most powerful members in the House is we can hold our party accountable and we can put CBC member Majority Whip James Clyburn (D- the fire on our own party. It doesn’t just have to S.C.), a darling of Big Pharma who, in the past 10 be Republicans.’ And in that way we prevent the years, has taken more pharma money than anyone rightward drift of the Democratic Party.” else in Congress. All told, 33 corporations are rep- Let us hope this commitment to the inside-out- resented on the CBC Foundation’s Corporate Ad- side strategy is replicated in the soon-to be-restruc- visory Council, including Exxon Mobil, Walmart, tured Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC). Eli Lilly and JPMorgan Chase. Long a caucus with many members but little cohe- With all this corporate backing, is it any won- sion, the CPC is set to centralize leadership behind der that Clyburn has become a leading knock- Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and require its er of the progressive reps who remain committed members to vote as a bloc more regularly. to playing inside-outside politics? Two days af- At a time of crisis for our nation, it is essential ter the election, the New York Times reported that, that insiders be strategic and aggressive. Mean- during a Democratic House caucus meeting, Cly- while, those on the outside must organize the burn “cautioned against running on ‘Medicare unorganized and build a movement to apply nec- for All or defunding police or socialized medi- essary external pressure. This commitment to cine,’ adding that if Democrats pursued such poli- championing progressive values is not just the cies, ‘we’re not going to win.’ ” moral choice—it is the effective one. One that just Perhaps it would have been more accurate for might save the Democratic Party from its electoral Clyburn to say that if Democrats continue advo- misdiagnoses and corporate inclinations. cating things like Medicare for All, his corporate — JOEL BLEIFUSS

DECEMBER 2020 = IN THESE TIMES 3 IN CONVERSATION

GROWING UP FIGHT FASCISM WITH WHY THE NATIVE HOW TO REACH BEHIND BARS P. 26 LITERATURE P. 34 VOTE MATTERS P. 9 TRUMP VOTERS P. 12 THE POPULAR VOTE a place of understanding the labor movement and I don’t think our founders and bringing together the lived in a family of people huge divide that was cre- Make could ever have foreseen who have never known the Room in the huge demograph- ated well before Trump security of family wealth THE HOUSE came into power. BY NATALIE SHURE ic changes in the 233 years and to whom “inheri- since the Constitution was How can we make this tance” means quilts and created (“Supreme but Ille- a much larger movement photographs, not stocks gitimate,” November). And that can change this coun- and bonds. the reasons for the Elec- try’s trajectory from one I have watched my rel- + toral College were quite of division to unity with- atives and other people I Sunrise Movement on Biden vs. Trump questionable from the get- out politicizing every is- knew become increasing- NOVEMBER 2020 go. Since the presidency sue imaginable just to ly hostile to “liberals.” Ev- is the one position that’s stay in power? I definitely ery year, their hostility has AN EARLY WARNING SIGN supposed to represent all want to see more of these increased. And every year, Apoorva Tadepalli’s book Americans, the selection types of articles: real so- there has been no response review, “Fighting Fascism needs to be by popular lutions, rather than sto- from the Democrats. It has Through Literature” (No- vote, where the majori- ries that feed on fears and been a heartbreaking pro- vember), which juxtaposes ty of Americans make the stoke fires. cess to watch. I share their the thoughts of Arundhati choice. Every American’s —Kathleen Schmitt anger; I just went more left Roy and Natalia Ginzburg, vote must be equal. Via InTheseTimes.com instead of right. is very timely. It is imper- —JoAnne McIntire Donald Trump is a de- ative that we be actively Via Facebook spicable human being, alert to the early warning I live in rural Oregon. No- but he didn’t start this. I signs of this creeping po- body had to write an article am absolutely convinced litical movement. I just read the editorial, to tell me Democrats have that the owners of Ameri- Unfortunately, such then went online to find largely ignored and forgot- ca are afraid of a coalition demagoguery is nothing out more about where my ten our role in America. I of people of color, blue-col- new. In ancient Greece, state of Minnesota stood was born and raised here. lar, lower-income white- Aristophanes, a comic on the two National Pop- My family history in- collar, and rural citizens. poet, addressed this is- ular Vote bills (one in the cludes miners, tenant And those owners are not sue with political satire in state House, one in the farmers, shipbuilders, all right-wing Republicans. his play, The Knights (424 state Senate). In the end, lumbermen, restaurant Until we all feel heard, the B.C.). In the United States, nothing was done. The Na- workers, probably just hostility will not dissipate. in 1935, Sinclair Lew- tional Popular Vote web- about every blue-collar oc- It cannot be controlled or is wrote his classic satiri- site offered a template cupation you could think necessarily predicted, and cal novel, It Can’t Happen letter I could use and I im- of. I was lucky, because both parties need to under- Here (“it” being fascism). mediately sent it to my my parents were well-read stand the cost of failing to A few years later, profes- state legislators in support. even though they weren’t consider and respond ef- sor Halford E. Luccock of —Michelle Knutson well-educated. That may fectively to our needs. the Divinity School of Yale Randolf, Minn. explain my left-leaning —Stacey Daniel University stated, “When political ideology, as I un- Via InTheseTimes.com and if fascism comes LISTEN, LIBERALS derstood the struggles of to America … it will not This is what we need to even be called fascism; it see more of (“How We will be called, of course, Are Flipping Trump Vot- Q TELL US HOW YOU REALLY FEEL ‘Americanism.’ ” ers,” November). Talking Tell us what you like, what you hate and what you’d like to —Richard Laybourn to one of another, cut- see more of by emailing [email protected] or tweeting Bloomington, Minn. ting through the misin- @inthesetimesmag, or reach us by post at 2040 N. Milwaukee formation, coming from Ave., Chicago, IL 60647.

4 IN THESE TIMES + DECEMBER 2020 IN CONVERSATION

ɯ ITT GOES TO WASHINGTON LETTER FROM THE EDITOR The night before Election Day, I received an email from a prominent activist with the subject line: “Tomorrow, everything changes.” I no longer believe elections alone change anything, but they do reveal what was already true. In this case, the election revealed a majority of voters never supported President Donald Trump—and that a vast number still do. Trump received the second-highest vote total of any U.S. candidate in history. What has changed since Election Day are the conditions in which political battles can be fought. That’s where In These

VIA YOUTUBE Times comes in. Consider this issue an opening salvo. In our cover story, Barbara Ransby explains why the pro- “Something is not right around groups like the big-money gressive movement should not delay in pushing back against the Court,” Sen. Sheldon slush fund Donors Trust, President-elect Joe Biden’s neoliberalism (p. 16). Rick Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said at the which allows right-wing apol- Perlstein makes the case for Biden to act quickly and unilat- Senate confirmation hear- ogists to fund their pet proj- erally to undo the damage of the Trump years (p. 18). And ings for Amy Coney Barrett in ects while taking tax breaks Shireen Al-Adeimi highlights one promise that Biden could October. “And dark money has and staying anonymous. fulfill even if Republicans are able to control the Senate: end- a lot to do with it.” (Whitehouse’s Judicial Ads ing U.S. support for the war on Yemen (p. 20). Through his half-hour ar- Act, introduced in July, would Jared Bernstein, a top economic adviser to Biden, recently gument, Whitehouse laid out require groups influencing told Vox, “The word ‘politician’ has become a bad word. But if the effect dark money has on federal judicial nominations you think of a politician as someone who recognizes the pol- the federal courts—from to disclose their donors.) icy zeitgeist and has the chops to implement it, that’s a good voter suppression laws to ju- Our reporting was a team skillset. And that’s Biden.” This issue’s cover story is a first dicial nominations—with a effort by our staff (supported step at making the case to the new Biden administration that, little help from a chart de- by the Leonard C. Goodman not only has the “policy zeitgeist” changed, but there is an ur- signed by Creative Director Institute for Investigative gent need to implement it. Rachel K. Dooley for our Reporting), the Center for We are the same country today that March 2018 cover story, Media and Democracy, we were on November 2. We haven’t “The Two Faces of Janus.” SourceWatch and changed because of one elec- Our cover story follows the ProPublica. And we couldn’t tion. What is different now, after same paper trail Whitehouse do this work without readers Election Day, is that we have the Christopher Hass is chasing down, identifying like you. Thank you! opportunity to change. Executive Publisher

IN THESE TIMES PUBLISHING CONSORTIUM SUBSCRIPTION QUESTIONS For subscription inquiries, address changes, back issues or classroom rates, call 800-827-0270 or email CHAMPIONS Grant Abert, Leonard C. Goodman, Collier Hands, James Harkin, [email protected]. Polly Howells and Eric Werthman, Samantha Kooney-Collins and Daniel Collins, ADVERTISING For advertising inquiries, contact Christopher Hass Chris Lloyd, Beth Maschinot, A. Paul Olsen, The Park Foundation, The Puffin Foundation at [email protected]. (Neal Rosenstein, Gladys Miller Rosenstein and Perry Rosenstein), David Rathke, Abby SPONSORSHIPS & PLANNED GIVING For information on Rockefeller and Lee Halprin, Jenny and Trevor Tomkins, The Estate of David Schwartz sponsorships or including In These Times in your will, contact Joel Bleifuss at 773-772-0100 or [email protected]. PARTNERS Elizabeth Brackett and Fred Olson, Nancy Fleck Myers, Leslie Noblitt, Alex Payne, The Peggy Meyerhoff Pearlstone Foundation, Lois Sontag, In These Times (ISSN 0160-5992) is published monthly Institute for Public Affairs, a 501(c)3 nonprofit. Nothing Ellen Stone Belic, The Warner Fund (Kitty and Lewis Steel), The Libra Foundation by the Institute for Public Affairs, 2040 North Milwaukee in this magazine should be construed as In These Times Avenue, Chicago, IL 60647. 773-772-0100. Periodicals supporting or opposing a candidate for political office. COLLEAGUES Theresa Alt and Wayles Browne, The Bella S. and Benjamin H. postage paid at Chicago, IL and at additional mailing offices. None of this magazine’s content may be reproduced in any Garb Foundation (Maggie Garb), Ralph Edgar Eakins, Francis Hagan, The Victor and Postmaster: Send address changes to In These Times, P.O. manner, either in whole or in part, without permission of Box 6347, Harlan, IA 51593. This issue (Vol. 44, No. 12) the publisher. Subscriptions are $36.95 a year ($59 for Lorraine Honig Fund (Lorraine Honig), Betsy Kreiger and David Kandel, Terry Rogers went to press on November 12, 2020, for newsstand sales institutions; $61.95 Canada; $75.95 overseas). News- and Stephen Kosokoff, Robert McChesney, Robert Nixon, Judith Rhinestine and Michael from November 24, 2020 to December 29, 2020. The entire stand circulation through Disticor Magazine Distribution Stein, Alisse Waterston and Howard Horowitz contents of In These Times are copyright © 2020 by the Services, at 905-619-6565. Printed in the United States.

DECEMBER 2020 = IN THESE TIMES 5 DISPATCHES

longer-term plans, like the Gulf South for a Green New Deal. Like the national Green New Deal (GND) resolution, the Gulf South GND proposes slash- ing planet-warming emissions through an energy transition with well-paying union jobs, housing, transportation and healthcare for all. But the Gulf South platform goes further, calling for an end to pipeline construction, divestment from regional military installations and repurposing fossil fuel infrastructure for renewable energy. It also demands food sovereignty, reparations for Black, Brown and Indigenous people, and the redis- tribution of unpolluted lands to marginalized groups. The platform “outlines what the Green New Deal would need to succeed in the South and, therefore, nationally,” says

JOE RAEDLE/GETTY IMAGES Emma Collin, director of programs for the not-for-profit Gulf conference in August. Minor be- Coast Center for Law & Policy A Green gan coordinating relief before (GCCLP), which coordinates the Laura hit, providing residents initiative. No climate plan can New Deal for with gas money to evacuate. Oth- win material gains without leaders matched her contributions, ership from “people who work in the South and “$5 turned into $1,000,” the energy industry, who have LAKE CHARLES, LA.—After Hur- which Minor distributed through lived through climate disasters, ricane Laura hit in late August, Forever Calcasieu, a mutual aid and who have been on the front a local chemical plant erupt- network. Minor is still helping lines of a lot of America’s darkest ed in flames. The fire, one of people get assistance as hurri- histories,” she says. 31 post-Laura oil and chemical canes batter the region. Local farmworkers, fisherfolk, leaks reported, sent up plumes Laura wasn’t the first storm to labor groups and Indigenous na- of smoke and chlorine gas. Lou- expose overlapping vulnerabil- tions created the platform, meet- Above: isiana officials told residents ities in the Gulf South—where ing over six months in 2019 to Hurricane (many of whom had lost pow- thousands of oil and gas wells, re- decide what they liked about Laura—the er or their homes) to shelter in fineries and petrochemical plants the national GND and what was strongest place and turn off their air con- sit in a storm path supercharged missing from it. The result lays hurricane to hit ditioning in the summer heat to by the emissions of the fossil fuel out a long-term vision that the Louisiana since 1856—landed avoid the fumes. industry—nor will it be the last. platform’s more than 150 signa- in Lake Charles “How do you shelter in place While residents of Texas, Loui- tories, including Sunrise Move- on August 28, with no shelter?” KD Minor, a siana, Mississippi, Alabama and ment, are organizing around. causing exten- community organizer from Lake Florida are building mutual aid The GCCLP submitted the sive damage. Charles, asked during a virtual networks, they’re also making platform to the House Select

6 IN THESE TIMES + DECEMBER 2020 DISPATCHES THIS MONTH Committee on the Climate Cri- local community organizer Hil- sis and other policy-making bod- ton Kelley. Weeks later, a nearby ies, but signatories are planning Valero refinery caught fire. IN LATE CAPITALISM state and regional campaigns. “We have to get real about Nurses, teachers and other front- changing the dynamics around line workers—many non-union— how we get energy,” Kelley ? GOOD NEWS FOR LOVERS OF have led much of the organizing, says. “Because the old way is FAST-FOOD DINING. Chains while industrial unions have killing people.” like McDonald’s and been more reluctant. Gulf states supply 75% of Domino’s are expanding with record pandemic “How do you sell the refin- the country’s liquid fuel and profits, while 75% of 2020 ery hole watcher” on the Green 125,000 miles of pipeline snake restaurant closures have New Deal, Minor asks. “They across Louisiana alone, but far been local neighborhood joints, starved hear ‘change’ and what that real- fewer people work in fossil fuel of revenue and government assistance. The ly says to them is ‘cut.’ ” than the industry claims. “It’s ambience might not be the same, but at least But change is inevitable. With sort of this mythology ... that the you can always cry over your slave-wage Big nearly 4,300 orphaned oil and petrochemical industry is what Mac while you imagine a different world. gas wells in Louisiana (and more makes Louisiana work,” says infrastructure to be abandoned Darryl Malek-Wiley, an organiz- ? TWO-THIRDS OF OFFICE WORKERS ARE BURNT as Covid-19 slashes oil revenues), er with Sierra Club’s Environ- OUT from working at home, but with the pan- the Green New Deal’s wager is mental Justice and Community demic (and crushing debt), an actual vacation that a planned, democratically Partnerships Program. In re- is often not in the cards. Thanks to “worka- managed transition will be better ality, polluting industries have tions,” however, you can now attend meetings for working people than a chaot- “taken most of the wealth and and pound away at emails in unusual locales! ic, corporate retreat. shipped it someplace else.” Companies like Digital Nomads are offering “I use that old union phrase, In Lake Charles, people are on-the-go data support so you can blissfully ‘If you’re not at the table, you’re “slowly but steadily” connecting work all day—literally—from anywhere. on the menu,’ ” says Ryan Pol- the dots between extractive in- ? FOR THE PERFECT SCHOOL FOR YOUR OVER- lock, an electrician and organizer dustry and climate disaster, Mi- ACHIEVING CAPITALIST OFFSPRING, look with IBEW 520 in Austin, Texas. nor says. Collin hopes the Gulf no further than Bezos Academy, the new In 2019, Pollock persuaded the South GND can make those con- educational venture from the richest person Texas AFL-CIO to pass a Green nections clearer, adding that the on the planet, where “the child will be the New Deal-style resolution. While GND branding is less important customer”—because that’s apparently what industrial workers are warming than what it hopes to do. education is about now. No word yet on to GND proposals, he says, they “The win,” Collin says, “is ma- whether Objectivist acolyte Jeff Bezos was need to get much more militant. terial change.” inspired by The Simpsons and its draconian “We’ve let ourselves be on the Ayn Rand School for Tots. CASEY WILLIAMS is a researcher menu far too often.” and freelance writer in New Orleans. Climate disaster raises the ? FIRING WORKERS CAN JUST BE SO EMOTION- stakes. After Hurricane Ivan ALLY TRAUMATIZING FOR POOR OLD BOSSES. struck a Louisiana drilling plat- Luckily, the virtual reality studio Talespin form in 2004, oil poured into the From Student has new tech to practice sacking employees over and over again until you become even Gulf for 16 years. Katrina spilled more of an emotionless, steely robot-person. 8 million gallons of oil. When Debtor to Imagine: layoffs with all the human touch and Harvey hit Texas in 2017, mil- none of the feelings! With 30% of U.S. jobs to lions of gallons of chemicals en- Soldier be lost to automation in the next tered waterways. In Port Arthur, CHICAGO—When James Gardner decade, the time is now to Texas, refinery operators burned got injured playing basketball as a invest in the human- what was left in their pipes to DePaul University freshman, he centered shitcan prevent clogging, sending tox- lost his financial aid package and economy. ic gas over the city, according to was dropped from his classes.

DECEMBER 2020 = IN THESE TIMES 7 RESIST

LONDON—Hundreds rallied outside the Nigerian High Commission in London to protest police brutality in Lagos on October 21. On October 20, the Nigerian military opened fire on #EndSARS protesters in Lagos. Nigeria’s “Special Anti-Robbery Squad,” created in 1992, was supposedly disbanded earlier in October—after a nearly three-year #EndSARS campaign and a SARS police shooting video went viral—but similar government promises have previously gone unfulfilled and SARS officers were simply “redeployed,” according to the Nigeria Police Force. (Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP via Getty Images)

To stay in school, he took out a tion.” When DSA colleagues Army credited the student debt $10,000 loan. learn about his military back- crisis with helping it surpass its Soon, Gardner (a pseudonym ground, he says there is a “little recruitment goals. requested in fear of reprisal) and bit of a gasp.” “One of the national crises his family realized they couldn’t “Would I be in the same pre- right now is student loans,” Maj. afford the university. Instead, he dicament,” he wonders, “if Gen. Frank Muth, head of Army transferred to a public universi- college and university were tu- Recruiting Command, said in ty outside Chicago and enrolled ition-free? Would I have gone 2019. While wars in the Middle in the Reserve Officer Training through ROTC? I don’t know.” East were “not really part of the Corps (ROTC) of the Air Force. Gardner’s situation isn’t discussion” during his visits to The military paid for his entire unique. Americans owe more recruiting stations, he said edu- college education—on the con- than $1.67 trillion in student cational benefits were a strong dition he serve at least four years debt, and the cost of college has selling point. after graduation. increased by more than 25% in The pull of the military has Gardner is a member of the the past 10 years. According to even withstood Covid-19. Though Democratic Socialists of Amer- a 2017 poll by the Department the pandemic has hindered mili- ica (DSA) and says the military of Defense, paying for education tary enrollment because of the is geared toward “resource exis the top reason young people lack of in-person sites, Army re- traction and resource alloca- consider enlisting. In 2019, the cruiters are confident they will

8 IN THESE TIMES + DECEMBER 2020 mental health meet their recruitment and reten- joining the military], it was … free tion goals, and are making student college,” Lofton says, not “being BY THE NUMBERS loan payments central to their ef- really passionate about going to forts. Military benefits include the military.” more calls were received ROTC scholarships, loan repay- At Lofton’s school, military in- 891% by the U.S. suicide hot- ment programs and the GI Bill. volvement fell along color lines line this March than last March “I’m guessing about 60% of with few (if any) white students people wouldn’t join the military joining the Army’s Junior ROTC of Americans have reported a if they already had their education program for teens. Central High 40% pandemic-related mental health paid for,” says Matt Drennan, who School is almost 90% Black and condition, according to a June CDC survey just began his first year at the Vir- 99% of students are from poor ginia Military Institute. While col- families. Junior ROTC programs lege money wasn’t Drennan’s only are especially common in poor, of survey takers aged 18–24 motivator, he says joining the mil- majority-minority school districts. 49% reported anxiety symptoms and itary will help him “not be a bur- And they have been expanding for 26% had seriously considered suicide den” on his parents. His father still decades. The Army Junior ROTC has his own student debt to pay. website boasts that around 40% of of survey takers who are essential The student debt crisis dispro- all the programs are in “inner city 22% workers had considered suicide, portionately affects people of col- schools, serving a student popula- compared with 7.8% of nonessential workers or, with Black women owing more tion of 50% minorities.” than any other demographic. Not “These students are seen as dis- coincidentally, Black women are posable and easy to recruit,” says times as many people reported possible de- heavily overrepresented in the Asha Edwards, a University of Il- 4 pression this June compared with last June military. In 2018, Black women linois sophomore who co-founded accounted for almost 30% of all a chapter of the anti-war organiza- of all adults with a mental illness active-duty women, despite com- tion Dissenters. She says anti-mil- % this year were not able to prising only 13.7% of U.S. women. itary organizers must introduce 22.3 receive treatment because they Gardner acknowledges that alternatives to the military and lacked insurance or resources many Black families, like his dissuade youth involvement with own, have a military legacy. But ROTC programs, which “prey on overall, he says, the answer to poor Black students.” of adults strug- why Black people are overrep- “If we divest from the Penta- 89% gling with sub- resented in the military is “the gon and the war industry,” Ed- stance use did not receive same reason why anyone else wards says, “we could afford free professional help in 2019 goes: It’s the economics.” college.” Children are often pushed to- ANNA ATTIE is a writer, community or- of Black Americans were expe- ward the military long before ganizer, former In These Times intern % they consider college applications and a University of Chicago graduate. 41 riencing symptoms of anxiety or or graduate high school. In fact, depression one week after the murder 2001’s No Child Left Behind Act of George Floyd, up from 36% prior to his requires public schools to give mili- murder, according to the Census Bureau tary recruiters unfettered access to This Is students. Recruiters then dispro- was requested portionately target schools in poor What Solidarity to fund the De- and working-class neighborhoods. $87.1 Billion partment of Health and Human Services Nika Lofton, now a junior at the Sounds Like for 2020, a 4% decrease from 2019 (ex- University of Chicago, graduated LOS ANGELES—Musician Jose- cluding Covid-19 emergency relief) in 2018 from Central High School phine Shetty, aka Kohinoorgasm, in Macon, Ga. She remembers was preparing for her West Coast military recruiters as early as mid- spring tour in March when the of the federal money approved dle school. “Any time I ever heard pandemic-related cancellations 0.01% for Covid-19 emergency relief was anyone talk about [why they were started rolling in. designated to address mental health concerns.

DECEMBER 2020 = IN THESE TIMES 9 Like many musicians, Shetty’s a few weeks into the pandemic, ing and venue relations to police livelihood is pieced together from about unionizing musicians and abolition. More than 1,000 mu- part-time work. She performs at related music workers, Shetty sicians have expressed interest underground spaces and small signed up. On April 22, a group of through the group’s website and clubs, releases her own music about 20 musicians met virtually petitions. Members are located in and teaches middle school mu- to discuss solidarity and how to Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, sic classes. “When you’re a per- build a more just industry, inau- Portland, Ore., Boston and be- son who works so many jobs, gurating the Union of Musicians yond. So far, the organizing has that’s already a very unstable sit- and Allied Workers (UMAW). happened entirely online. uation,” Shetty says. With live “Very quickly, everyone had On March 25, hundreds of mu- shows being cancelled, it became all of these different visions of sicians circulated a letter to Con- clear how difficult the road ahead what a different music industry gress demanding the expansion would be. The independent ven- could look like when it was be- of unemployment benefits un- ues that most working musicians ing built collectively by the work- der the CARES Act. The letter rely on were some of the first to ers involved,” says DeFrancesco, also demanded relief regardless close (and will surely be some of who is based in Providence, R.I. of immigration status, national the last to reopen). UMAW already boasts about 25 rent and mortgage cancellation, When fellow musician and or- steering committee members Medicare for All and funding for ganizer Joey La Neve DeFran- and 80 subcommittee members, the Postal Service and the Na- cesco reached out to Shetty, just with topics ranging from stream- tional Endowment for the Arts.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT ALL THE NEWS THAT WAS FIT TO PRINT— HYPED AND WHAT GOT PRINTED INSTEAD

Another day, another semi-famous person accidentally exposing their Facebook is expected to face antitrust charges genitals during a Zoom meeting. from federal and state regulators. We’re still dreaming about nationalizing Amazon.

Trump’s “peace deals” The Trump administration can’t find between Israel and Arab the parents of more than 500 countries (that have never children it snatched at the border. been at war with Israel) are Perhaps it should look wherever a dangerous distraction. it puts other things it doesn’t care Meanwhile, the war about, like healthcare plans and

in Yemen rages on. climate science. VITAL

TRIVIAL A hacker said he correctly guessed Thousands of workers in Trump’s Twitter password, slaughterhouses, known hot “maga2020!” If you need to get in spots for the coronavirus, are there next, maybe try “racism123.” getting sick—but meatpacking companies are denying their workers’ comp claims.

One year after a U.S.-supported coup, the socialist party of leftist Having failed in all other politi- former president Evo Morales cal endeavors, Steve Bannon is has returned to power in free cozying up to QAnon. and fair elections in Bolivia. IGNORED

10 IN THESE TIMES + DECEMBER 2020 UMAW grew out of that mo- mentum. For UMAW’s first organized day of action, May 14, musicians across the country made nearly 1,000 calls to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D- Calif.), Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and local representatives. “That was how we started— thinking, ‘How are music workers and gig workers going to be protected during this time?’ ” Shetty says. But the very first seeds were planted years earlier. Some members were involved in the 2017 effort to force the South by Musician Josephine Shetty, known on stage as Kohinoorgasm, performs at the 2017 South by Southwest festival to remove a Southwest Music Festival. Shetty attended the inaugural meeting of the Union of Musicians and “deportation clause” from its Allied Workers during the pandemic. artist contract. Others are as- sociated with the No Music for now,” DeFrancesco says. “There AFM member, is participating ICE coalition, which encourag- [are] so many similarities if you in UMAW’s political education es the industry to cut ties with look at [efforts to] organize Uber, committee. It aims to help mu- Amazon unless it cancels con- freelance writers, adjuncts. ... sicians develop a political contracts with Immigration and It’s the same problem, where it’s text around the labor of music. “I Customs Enforcement. These so hard to organize because you want to be involved in those types campaigns created a blueprint have so many employers.” of centrally important ques- for “how you could do actions Shetty agrees. “If musicians tions,” Takarabe says. collectively as musicians,” De- are the original gig workers ... we UMAW is currently planning a Francesco says, providing a have a responsibility to organize campaign to pressure streaming foundation for UMAW to come within that realm,” she says. giant Spotify to treat artists more together quickly. Cody Fitzgerald, a film score fairly. The publicly traded com- UMAW differentiates itself composer and member of the pany is valued at more than $40 from similar unions through Brooklyn-based band Stolen billion, but infamously pays art- its vast scope, seeking system- Jars, says UMAW stands in sol- ists about half-a-cent per stream. ic shifts industry-wide, inclusive idarity with members of other UMAW members also hope to of various genres and practic- unions, such as the AFM. But, help democratize information re- es. Traditional union organizing Fitzgerald adds, those organiza- lated to music contracts. would be difficult for UMAW’s tions don’t fulfill the needs of all “I’m excited about the idea of independent musicians because working musicians because they a world where people come to they often make a living through cater to session and orchestra this union to look for information numerous contracts and employ- players, not independents. about how to not be exploited as ers. In that sense, UMAW’s work “UMAW represents the musi- an artist,” Fitzgerald says. is more comparable to efforts by cians that the AFM just doesn’t For many, just having UMAW the National Writers Union’s care about,” says bassoonist Pat- as a space for solidarity is a ben- Freelance Solidarity Project rick Johnson-Whitty, a member efit. As Shetty puts it, “The exis- than, say, the American Federa- of the AFM and of a UMAW clas- tence of our campaigns, and our tion of Musicians (AFM). sical music subcommittee fo- union, feels like a huge win.” “We’re just trying to organize cused on confronting the legacy the unorganized, which is the of white supremacy in the genre. LIZ PELLY is a music and culture writ-

PHOTO BY JASDEEP KANG vast majority of musicians right Violist Clara Takarabe, another er based in Brooklyn, N.Y.

DECEMBER 2020 = IN THESE TIMES 11 VIEWPOINT

HAMILTON NOLAN and your private healthcare. Trump’s pitch came with racism. Biden’s came with over- Power Comes From weening empathy. But both came with implicit assurance Class War, Not Biden that the lefties would remain locked outside the White t may have been pour their hopes. After a fren- House gates. the biggest mislabeled zied early primary surge by This reality is what the Left celebration in Amer- Sen. Bernie Sanders, the en- must face. Though infinite- ican history. By mid- tire Democratic Party seemed ly better than the alternative of Iday Saturday, November 7, to coalesce around Biden creeping fascism, the 2020 elec- when the election was final- overnight, based on the the- tion—a close Biden victory, likely called, hordes of ecstatic ory that the most mediocre ly without Democratic control people poured into the streets candidate would be the safest of Congress—is a poisonous po- across the country, honking bet against Trump. That bet litical situation for progressive and cheering and weeping paid off—with the help of the activists. They now find them- with joy. This was wide- selves without Trump’s rad- ly referred to as a celebra- icalizing influence on the tion of President-elect Joe public and frozen out by a Biden. But it really wasn’t Democratic establishment about Biden at all. that will cite the need to I was in Philadelphia moderate their positions to when the news came, and get anything passed. a major Count Every Vote When the Left shows up rally hosted by unions to be repaid for their work and community groups of getting Biden elect- instantly turned into a ed, they will run into John Thank God That’s Over Kasich and the disaffect- rally. There was a forest of ed Republicans who are waving signs promoting there for the same reason. unions, and the Green New party’s left wing, whose activ- It is not hard to imagine that Deal, and democracy itself. ists did as much as anyone to these groups will more or less Biden-Harris signs were rel- elect Biden. When the eupho- cancel each other out, leaving atively hard to find. Because ria of Trump’s downfall wears the centrists to feast on their even Joe Biden’s own victory off, the Left must wake up to favorite food, the status quo. party was not about Joe Biden. one thing that will not have For the millionth time, the It was, first, about the end changed: The president-elect, Left will see its political util- HAMILTON of the Trump nightmare. And like the sitting president, won ity to the Democrats evapo- NOLAN second, about the possibility by explicitly running against rate after Election Day. Hope of something good happening progressives. springs eternal, but the raw is a labor again, one day. Biden himself For Trump, crazy carica- logic of our two-party system reporter for In These had little to do with it. No one tures of socialists and im- devastates us anew, again and Times. He has has ever been excited enough migrants served as his again. The way out of this trap spent the past about Joe Biden to party in boogeyman. For Biden, it is to build a power center that decade writing the streets. was the Green New Deal and is not locked into the elector- about labor In fact, Biden’s entire cam- Medicare for All. Their styles al system, where it is virtually and politics paign rested on the idea of are different, but both men impossible for the Left to con- for Gawker, him not so much as a vision- won by casting themselves sistently win. Splinter and ary leader but as a vessel into as walls to stop the tide of Where can such power be The Guardian. which an incredibly broad wild-eyed leftists rushing in built? The rich build it on Wall spectrum of Americans could to take away your fossil fuels Street and in the corporate

12 IN THESE TIMES + DECEMBER 2020 THE BIG IDEA world. For the Left, it is the la- such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez bor movement, the sole insti- Boy•cott, (D-N.Y.) speaking out more forcefully for tution that enables working Palestinian rights. In September, AOC people to build and exercise Di•vest•ment, pulled out of an event celebrating the lega- real economic and politi- Sanc•tions cy of former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak cal power not beholden to Rabin, known to some as a peacemaker but to others as “the bone-crusher,” antag- the veto of big companies or (BDS) onistic toward Palestinians. politicians. noun The arc of the moral uni- + What’s the deal with the “anti- verse may bend toward jus- 1. An international, nonvio- boycott” law in my state? As tice, but it is very, very long. lent movement to advance the BDS movement grows, so too Longer than a lifetime. Pro- the rights of Palestinian has its backlash. Since 2014, state gressives—the class of people people and local legislatures and the U.S. Congress have enacted more than who are best able to diag- What’s behind the BDS + 100 measures penalizing groups and nose society’s problems but movement? Israel took the least able to solve them— control of the West Bank and They’re trying to say [BDS is] will continue to be disappoint- the Gaza Strip in 1967. Since “ ed until they turn the bulk of its occupation, numerous hu- anti-Semitism. That’s the way their attention away from the man rights violations (mostly they’re trying to discredit the inherently hostile electoral targeting Palestinians) have system and toward building been documented, includ- fact that ... under Netanyahu’s unions, the only things able to ing the prosecution and regime, human rights violations make socialism real without imprisonment of protesters and the military targeting asking for permission. have gotten worse. of unarmed civilians. Many ” Unfortunately, the estab- —U.S. REP. RASHIDA TLAIB (D-MICH.) Palestinians have fled Israel, lishment of the union world seeking refuge elsewhere. has become just as maniacal- businesses that boycott Israel. Thirty states By 2005, a hodgepodge now have so-called anti-boycott laws. Legal ly focused on electoral poli- of boycott movements (organized as a re- challenges to some anti-boycott bills are still tics as the establishment of sponse to these human rights violations and pending, on the grounds that boycotting is a the Democratic Party. It is not inspired by the anti-apartheid movement constitutional right and a key part of Ameri- easy to organize an enormous in South Africa) coalesced under the newly can history. (Hello, Boston Tea Party.) revitalization of union pow- formed Palestinian BDS National Committee. er when so many unions are The BDS movement seeks to end the occu- + What impact has the Trump admin- themselves more interested in pation, win back rights for Palestinians and istration had on BDS? A bad one, not congressional campaigns than allow refugees to go back home—by pres- surprisingly! Following a January 2020 union campaigns. suring outside groups to end their support executive order, for example, Education But 2020 has brought us of Israel until Israel complies. Secretary Betsy DeVos now has authority the most vital ingredient of to investigate (and, potentially, halt) federal Is it working? BDS counts more funding for universities with active BDS all: an energized and radical- + than 250 “wins” in the United States campaigns on campus. The Trump admin- ized nation of workers in dire since 2004—such as college campuses istration is justifying these moves by criti- need, who are about to be dis- divesting their endowments from Israeli cizing BDS as anti-Semitic—an arguably appointed by how the system companies—but the bigger victories seem transparent smokescreen for a president delivers on its big promises. to be in terms of public relations. A 2019 with a well-known record of Islamophobia, This election wasn’t about University of Maryland poll reveals, for ex- and who relies on Christian voting blocs Joe Biden. It was about get- ample, that 45% of Americans (and 66% of known for their support of Israel. ting back to a baseline of nor- Democrats) would now support sanctions Now that Trump has lost, however, the malcy. That normalcy means or more serious actions against Israel to BDS movement will still likely face an uphill class war. If we focus on giv- halt the expansion of new settlements, campaign. Turning a blind eye to Israeli hu- ing the working class an ade- trending up from 39% support in 2014. man rights abuses has long been a biparti- quate weapon, we won’t be in And while criticism of Israel has long san tradition. for quite so much disappoint- been considered an untouchable third rail ment by 2024. in U.S. politics, we now see progressives LEFT: ILLUSTRATION BY TERRY LABAN

DECEMBER 2020 = IN THESE TIMES 13 How to Seize THE MOMENT With Trump on his way out, now is the time to push for bold action under a President Biden

14 IN THESE TIMES + DECEMBER 2020

A electoral process, to provide opportunity for stops. all—never toelectoral provide process, opportunity to reduce takeover to rights, end inequality, corporate sic of the our human foreignhopes for policy. U.S. Yemenis accounts from about their offers firsthand helped start—and Senate. the or without with da, to “undo” agenways own Biden his push Trump office wield and the can but who neoliberal sensibility. Democrats repudiateRepublicans leftist any not against only battle faces uphill an Left the aprogressive—and trist—not help from to accept defeat alittle reality, (and alternative propagation with of an his unwillingness his Through election rigged. was the insisting results, of the credibility about the Trumpcede. continues fact, to disinformation spew In vote President by about Trump 5million, popular yet Donald has to con counted). to be remain (and votes many still 64% of eligible voters 150 Americans, whopping million 2020—a lots in could be possible. possible. be could on what views their advocate anti-war Al-Adeimi—share and Shireen Perlstein, Yemen-born and Rick memberboard historian and professor for mean progressives? administration Trump’s reasons. for balloon myriad hot air voters, who have simply stayed silent or who have even scrambled aboard members who actively suppress Party Republican do those mocracy—as The neoliberal status quo will return. The work of the Left—to ensure ba The work ensure Left—to of the return. quo will The status neoliberal on Biden calls on Yemen—a to Al-Adeimi end war the And Biden war Perlstein context offers to presidential a historical power, suggesting reminderBiden quo cen provides that asobering astatus is Ransby First, however, pressAt time, even President-elect with Joe Biden the leading Three scholars—activist and historian Barbara Ransby, Barbara historian and scholars—activist Three over. be soon aBiden what of might Trump reign So will the Regardless, Fox Friends and n all-time record number of voters cast bal cast of voters number record n all-time ), Trump jeopardizes the foundation of our de foundation of the our ), Trump jeopardizes DECEMBER 2 020

— DIANA BABINEAU =

IN THESE TIMES IN THESE In These Times ------

DREW ANGERER/GETTY IMAGES Thousands of New Yorkers flood the streets November 7, four days after Election Day, as news outlets project a Joe Biden presidential victory. Similar events erupted in cities nationwide organized by various community groups, including the New York City Protect the Results Coalition.

BY BARBARA RANSBY Beware the Neoliberal Backlash Grassroots organizers and Black voters led Biden to victory. Our concerns and demands must be taken seriously. merican voters have given the for- them and compromise, you cannot please centrist liberals mer slumlord President Donald Trump an eviction unless you shut up and disappear. notice to vacate 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. He We will not shut up or disappear, and progressive organiz- will not leave without a fight, but he will eventually ers have no apologies to make in this electoral season. Rep. leave. For many of us, the past four years have been Rashida Tlaib (Mich.) indicated as much on the call when Aa hellish eternity. So, we should allow ourselves a little cel- she said, “Don’t blame myself and others who are fighting ebratory relief. for issues that matter to our communities.” But after the party, we have to prepare for a neoliber- The fact is that a massive get-out-the-vote effort, fueled al backlash. The corporate Democrats are already talking by progressives and BIPOC organizers, created the largest “reconciliation” and “normalization” at the expense of the voter turnout in history, despite a weak Democratic nomi- Left and the Black Lives Matter movement. Rather than nee and a worsening pandemic. Groups such as The Front- thanking grassroots groups and Black women voters for line, Protect the Vote, United We Dream and the Fight Back showing up in large numbers, the centrists within the party Table waged pragmatic, strategic and relentless campaigns (backed by liberal media pundits) are blaming the Left for to successfully oust Trump. Biden must know he owes his shortfalls in down-ballot races. victory to the Left and Black voters, and as such, we will not In a contentious three-hour phone call among House be silenced or relegated to the margins. Democrats on November 5, former CIA officer Rep. Abi- Despite the Left’s instrumental role in Biden’s victory, cen- gail Spanberger (Va.) and South Carolina’s kingmaker Rep. trists and liberal media are calling for Biden to reach out, in- James Clyburn blamed “defund the police” and “social- stead, to the Right. In his victory speech November 7, Biden ism” for the lackluster showing in House races across the foregrounded the importance of unity and reaching across country. A lesson for the Left: No matter how much you help the aisle—but that “aisle” is now an alligator-filled moat, and

16 IN THESE TIMES + DECEMBER 2020 ELECTION 2020

Biden is more likely to throw left forces and marginalized communities to the alligators than give us a seat at the table. It would not be surprising if Biden starts building a profile as Closed-door “tough on the radical Left” with a conciliatory tone toward the anti-Trump, so-called mainstream of the GOP. negotiations will CNN hosts Van Jones and Republican Rick Santorum said not press Biden to do as much on a post-election roundtable. “I think Joe Biden wants us to reset,” and “sit down at the same table,” Jones the right thing, but said. Biden-supporting Republican poster boy John Kasich went further, saying the “far Left … almost cost [Biden] this marches, direct action election” and calling for Biden to reject the Left and embrace the center (i.e., the Right). Historian Mark Updegrove, and labor strikes could. speaking on ABC, made the outrageous assertion that Biden should model himself after President Abraham Lincoln, who I extended his hand to former Confederates after the Civ- killed Black Lives Matter protesters in Kenosha and Char- il War. Lincoln “set so many presidential standards,” Upde- lotte, who support Steve Bannon calling for infectious dis- grove said. “He reached out to the vanquished South, to the ease expert Anthony Fauci to be beheaded. There is no former Confederates … with malice toward none, with char- Kumbaya moment with people like that. ity for all … and brought them back into the fold.” (Trans- Biden was elected to undo as much damage from the lation: Lincoln’s first impulse was to make amends with Trump regime as possible and pave a new way. Obama those who kidnapped, enslaved and terrorized Black people squandered too much of his time in office trying to get rac- throughout the South from 1619 to 1865 and fought a bloody ist Republicans to love him, which they never did. Biden has war trying to preserve their privilege to do so. What would to be pressured to use the power of the office immediately. the 21st-century version of that leadership look like?) What we need is an aggressive racial and economic jus- But this stance should be no surprise, given this coun- tice agenda that rights longstanding wrongs, dethrones try’s historical precedents. In the heated and contested the billionaires, spreads the wealth, creates a sturdier na- presidential election of 1876, (former Confederate) Demo- tional infrastructure and reverses our dangerous climate crats agreed to support abolitionist Republican Rutherford policies. Biden’s cabinet appointments should be bold, not B. Hayes over their nominee, Samuel Tilden—on the condi- the usual insider cronyism. We have to push for tough and tion that the last vestiges of Reconstruction be abandoned. committed movement representatives, not politicians in- U.S. troops, protecting a fragile Black freedom, would soon clined to suck up to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) to be pulled out of the South. Essentially, Black people were advance their careers. not thrown under a bus so much as in front of a fast-moving Closed-door negotiations will not press Biden to do the train. That scenario is what a liberal-conservative compro- right thing, but unrelenting organizing could: marches, mise looked like in the 19th century. Let’s make sure we are vigils, direct action and labor strikes. Police reform and not the sacrificial lambs in the 21st. accountability is on the front burner of municipalities Juan Williams insisted rightly on Fox News that the Dem- across the country because a mass movement put it there, ocrats have elected a moderate, not a progressive. And it’s forcing politicians to respond. Trump’s four-year reign true: Biden opposed bussing for school desegregation, re- has led to enormous pain and suffering, with more than jects Medicare for All and the Green New Deal, defends the 238,000 U.S. deaths from a virus that could have been bet- environmentally destructive practice of fracking and boasts ter contained, immigrant children locked in cages (who of his relationship with Republican conservative segrega- may never see their families again because of inhumane tionist colleagues in the Senate. These markers reveal the border policies) and an evisceration of key government de- person Biden is. Biden is also a person who humiliated Anita partments and programs designed to protect and serve the Hill when she stepped forward with sexual harassment alle- public good, such as the National Institutes of Health and gations against Clarence Thomas, who supported the racist Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. Trump 1994 crime bill, who helped usher in the disastrous war in and his accomplices need to be put on trial for their harm- Iraq, and who told Black people we “ain’t” Black if we don’t ful actions, rather than embraced. support him. And he was still the better candidate. So, what do our movement organizations need to do? But Biden was not elected to make friends with the First, we must continue the work to defeat Trumpism. The spineless Republicans who took our country to the brink seeds of animus and racism Trump has sown are still grow- of fascism, and embracing oligarchs and white nationalists ing, and he is now likely to take his bile and venom on the is not “unity.” Remember the vileness of Trump’s hardcore road, albeit without the weight of state power. Second, we

ERIK MCGREGOR/LIGHTROCKETERIK VIA GETTY IMAGES supporters—those who plotted to kidnap a governor, who must aggressively push Biden to enact as progressive an

DECEMBER 2020 = IN THESE TIMES 17 ELECTION 2020

agenda as possible, with clear-eyed understanding that his electoral arena (not as a career but in service to the cause). inclination will instead be to placate the Republicans who I am talking about a more coordinated, overall left strate- jumped off the sinking GOP ship to support him. And third, gy—not a dogmatic party line—to advance our movement we must build a strong, ideologically grounded mass left goals through party politics as well as movement building. movement—and possibly left party—that includes electoral We should celebrate Trump’s defeat. We should also ac- work but extends beyond that, such as standing in solidar- knowledge the limits and pitfalls of Biden’s victory. As ity with the Movement for Black Lives and working closely Guinean revolutionary Amílcar Cabral reminds us: “Tell with organizers and activists to build working-class coali- no lies. … Claim no easy [even if hard-fought] victories.” tions. With a Biden administration in Washington and a few Our work continues. strong left voices in Congress (and Republicans potentially losing control of the Senate), progressives need to embrace BARBARA RANSBY is a professor of history at the University an inside-outside strategy—which looks like movement of Illinois-Chicago and the author of Ella Baker and the Black people doing some of their work inside government and the Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision.

BY RICK PERLSTEIN Biden’s First Priority: Undo the Damage Biden can blaze full steam ahead with progressive appointments and executive actions— no matter who has the Senate. n 1978, when a law was about to pass ex- by presidents of both parties” to appoint administrators on a panding the size of the federal judiciary, President Jimmy temporary basis without Senate approval. According to the Carter complained in his diary. He would have “150 new Congressional Research Service, the intent of the law is to judges to appoint, which I certainly don’t want. In this prevent the “business of government” from being “serious- four-year term I will have appointed more than half the ly impaired” by a lack of personnel leading key departments. Itotal federal judges in the United States.” Carter’s complaint President Donald Trump badly distorted this intent by helps explain why he was such an ineffectual president: In a appointing innumerable “acting” administrators to top constitutional system that throws up bottlenecks in the path positions—such as Secretary of Homeland Security Chad of change at every turn, a president must welcome every legit- Wolf and Drug Enforcement Administration head Timothy imate avenue for maximizing power if they want to get any- Shea—but not because he couldn’t confirm permanent ones. thing done. This lesson is one President-elect Joe Biden must (Trump had a friendly Senate, after all.) No, Trump did it heed as he enters the Oval Office with, at best, a 50-50 tie in the Senate (pending Georgia’s runoff elections) and virtually no chance of passing meaningful legislation. For instance, current Senate Majority Leader Mitch Mc- Connell is signaling his intent to shred the 230-year-old precedent granting new presidents the wide latitude to staff the government. Though Cabinet appointments have only been blocked nine times in Senate history, the Republicans, according to Axios, intend to limit Biden appointments to only those “Mitch McConnell can live with.” So what should Biden do? Blaze full steam ahead with progressive appointments anyway. The Revolving Door Project, an anti-corruption group, notes that, thanks to the Vacancies Act, Biden has “an indisputably legal channel to fill Senate- confirmed positions”—there are more than 1,200 of them— “on a temporary basis when confirmations are delayed.” The law was first passed in 1868 and has been “used extensively

President-elect Joe Biden urges Americans to wear masks to mitigate the coronavirus November 9 in Wilmington, Del., wielding influence away from a sitting lame duck president. Inauguration Day is January 20, 2021.

18 IN THESE TIMES + DECEMBER 2020 ELECTION 2020 because, he says, it gives him “more flexibility,” which is to like that.” Warren snapped her fingers. say, his appointees become vassals who owe their loyalty Biden undoing Trump’s executive actions—and deploying only to him. If used by Biden, the Vacancies Act would work his own—comprises another reservoir of power. The presi- as intended: to make government more responsive, not less. dent has a lot of discretionary power to enforce the law and Another measure Biden could use to delouse the federal allocate (or not allocate) managerial resources—but that government with even greater efficiency is Article II, Sec- power lasts only as long as they are president. The Migra- tion 2 of the Constitution. It allows the president to adjourn tion Policy Institute has documented more than 400 Trump Congress, then, after 10 days of recess, the president can executive actions limiting immigration, for instance. Fixing make recess appointments, another kind of temporary ap- those should keep the Biden administration busy for some pointment that does not require Senate approval. Given a time—filling the time freed up by not having to propose Republican Senate determined to hold the entire administra- new legislation that likely wouldn’t pass the Senate until af- tive state hostage (as it did with Merrick Garland’s Supreme ter the 2022 midterms anyway. Court nomination)—and with Covid-19’s raging second wave The Revolving Door Project scoured the proposals of the imperiling public health and global warming threatening Unity Task Force (which brought together officials from human existence, to cite only two cataclysms bequeathed Biden’s and Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaigns) by Biden’s predecessor—Biden has a moral obligation not to and found 277 recommendations upon which, according subject executive appointments to the veto of an anti-demo- to Revolving Door’s Max Moran, “leaders in the moderate cratic, inhumane, anti-science reactionary like McConnell. and progressive wings of the party broadly agree, that Biden “Personnel,” the strategists of the Reagan administration should have no excuse not to enact, save for his own poli- liked to say, “is policy.” Daniel Biss, a former state senator cy preferences.” Not one requires Congress, and many are in Illinois, tells a story. A few years back, he talked to Sen. most definitely not the old 1990s New Democrat bromides Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) about a bill he was passionate of safe, staid moderation. Three examples: reclassifying about, to close an absurdly corruption-enabling loophole marijuana with the Drug Enforcement Administration in Illinois (and several other states). Fees paid to firms in- (which could effectively decriminalize pot and finally al- vesting public pension funds are the only state expenditure low dispensaries to have bank accounts), transitioning all 3 not required to be publicly disclosed. Warren responded million government vehicles to zero-emissions models, and that the law would be all well and good, “but know this: you turning America into a safe harbor for refugees. shouldn’t have to pass that law, because the Securities and Here is my own recommendation, number 278: Biden can Exchange Commission already has the power to solve the encourage his Justice Department to reverse the pathetic problem you’re trying to solve, but they’re too cowardly to 45-year-old tradition of letting Republican administrations do it. And if only we had a president who appointed the right get away with crimes. President Richard Nixon paid off bur- people to serve on the SEC, the problem would go away glars to perjure themselves, and President Gerald Ford pardoned him. Reagan officials broke the law to fund right-wing paramilitary insurgents in Nicaragua (and paid for it by selling arms to Iran), and President George H.W. Bush (Reagan’s former vice president) pardoned them. Bush’s son, President George W. Bush, supervised a torture and spying regime, and President Barack Obama refused to investigate, saying, “We need to look forward as opposed to looking backward.” Now, the Trump administration is guilty of crime after crime, from the president’s own serial obstructions of justice to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross lying to Congress about sabotaging the 2020 census. It’s a pattern: each Re- publican administration more contemptuous of the law than the last. Imagine how the next one will act if this norm of elite non-accountability is allowed to continue. Biden can do all of these things whether he has 50 sena- tors or none. He can begin the work, much of which he says he wants to do, if he is serious about power—and if our re- public, not to mention our planet, is to endure.

RICK PERLSTEIN is the author most recently of Reaganland: America’s Right Turn 1976-1980. He is an In These Times board

DEMETRIUS FREEMAN/THE WASHINGTON POST VIA GETTY IMAGES member.

DECEMBER 2020 = IN THESE TIMES 19 ELECTION 2020

BY SHIREEN AL-ADEIMI Biden Must End the War He Helped Start Yemenis call on the president-elect to stop the onslaught.

he end of President Donald Trump’s ically targeted Yemeni civilians, infrastructure and food tenure may mark the reversal of some brutal do- supplies. An aerial, naval and land blockade has halted mestic U.S. policies. The Muslim ban, for example, trade (upon which the country relied almost exclusively could be reversed by an executive order from Presi- prior to 2015) and severely restricts food, medicine and dent-elect Joe Biden. When it comes to foreign policy, fuel. Though almost certainly an underestimate, at least Thowever, support for U.S. wars has long been a bipartisan 100,000 people have been killed in the violence. Tens of achievement, evidenced by decades of invasions, occupa- thousands have perished from starvation and preventable tions and coups. illness. Trump escalated the situation by greenlighting a In Yemen, Trump escalated the “war” he inherited from UAE-led invasion of Hodeida in the summer of 2018, a par- the Obama-Biden administration, compounding the extraor- ticularly cruel turn in the war given the importance of the dinary suffering Yemenis face today. (Though called a war, port city as a lifeline to millions. the situation in Yemen is, more accurately, a unilateral at- Biden’s election is a paradox for Yemenis: As Obama’s tack by powerful Arab and Western countries.) Since 2015, vice president, Biden is complicit in the havoc. Yet, after Yemenis have been victimized by a bombardment, block- years of organizing by anti-war groups and individuals, ade and occupation led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Biden said on the campaign trail he is against continuing Emirates, which rely heavily on U.S. military support. U.S. support for the war. Because their lives are so tremen- In late 2014, after the Yemeni rebel group the Houthis dously impacted by the U.S. president, Yemenis deserve a took Yemen’s capital, Sana’a, Saudi Arabia and the UAE led voice in the political discourse about the incoming adminis- a bombardment campaign with the stated goal of restor- tration. In These Times asked three Yemenis what they think ing Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. While a Biden presidency could mean. the Saudi-U.S.-UAE coalition managed to capture regions Mohammed Mohsen Bahjooj is a teacher and education- in former South Yemen (South and North unified in 1990), al supervisor from Al-Jawf, a northern Yemeni province Houthis remain in control of much of former North Yemen, considered a “high-intensity battlefront” on the border where approximately 70% of Yemenis live. with Saudi Arabia. Though Bahjooj notes the war is “being With vital logistics, intelligence, arms and other assis- waged by the U.S. and in accordance with U.S. policy and tance from the United States, the coalition has systemat- interests,” he underscores the “current humanitarian situation [in Yemen] is completely different compared to the beginning of the war” and notes “famine, diseases and the blockade have exhausted Yemenis.” As Mohammed Mohsen Bahjooj urges Biden to “look with humanity toward Ye- men” and end the war “as soon as possible.” As he watched Bahjooj watched Biden Biden give his victory speech, Bahjooj noted, “Biden is now embracing his grandchildren. … We hope that he will remem- give his victory speech, ber the poor children of Yemen who are dying every day because of U.S. weapons and the oppressive blockade.” Bahjooj he noted, “We hope believes Biden’s policies will contrast with Trump’s “policy of hatred and racism,” evidenced by Biden’s pledge to lift the [Biden] will remember Muslim ban (which includes Yemen). Bahjooj also worries a potential Republican-controlled Senate would present obsta- the poor children of cles to ending the war. Nahla Fuad Tarmoom is from the city of Aden and distin- Yemen who are dying guishes between the former South Yemen (which she calls “South Arabia”) and North Yemen (which she calls “Ye- every day because of men”). Her distinction reflects the position taken by many in the South who hope to secede. The country united in 1990, U.S. weapons.” though the unity has been tenuous, and tested (most recently) by competing separatist sympathizers, including the

I20 IN THESE TIMES + DECEMBER 2020 New Yorkers protest U.S. involvement in the Saudi-led war on Yemen on March 20, 2018. The same day, the GOP-controlled U.S. Senate killed a bipartisan bill to end U.S. military support for the war, and President Donald Trump met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the White House.

Southern Transitional Council, supported by the UAE. Therefore, I do not differentiate between Trump and Biden.” Tarmoom followed the U.S. election with eager anticipa- Abdulkareem’s story gained some public attention af- tion, hoping for a Biden victory. She describes the dire situ- ter a photo of him holding Zainab’s body circulated on so- ation in the South after years of war: Resources have been cial media. He continues to seek justice for children killed plundered, the infrastructure has been destroyed and the by the coalition. country lacks security. Bahjooj, Tarmoom and Abdulkareem all want to see their Tarmoom believes Biden will work toward “stopping the country free from destruction. Biden will be positioned to Emirati and Saudi oppression that is supported by President follow through on his stated opposition to U.S. support of the Trump,” who enabled “corruption, war, killing of children coalition—not just by stopping weapon sales to Saudi Ara- and civilians … without any accountability” or deterrence. bia and the UAE but by ending all cooperation, and signing a She characterizes Biden as “balanced” and says he operates new War Powers Resolution to end the war, if the new Con- with the “spirit of justice and democracy.” These character- gress were to pass one. (Trump vetoed the last such effort.) istics, Tarmoom hopes, will ensure safety and security not While the onslaught in Yemen is one of many horrors only in the South but in the North and in all Middle East- inflicted on people due to U.S. intervention, and Biden’s ern countries undergoing wars and conflict. Tarmoom also history of supporting interventions (such as the wars in Af- hopes Biden will “unite the American people and end par- ghanistan and Iraq) is deeply worrying, the conflict in Ye- tisan struggles” in U.S. society. men is one that Biden can—and should—end as soon as he Unlike Bahjooj’s cautious optimism and Tarmoom’s eager takes office. The suffering of the people of Yemen must be anticipation, Ibrahim Abdulkareem does not expect change. at the forefront of the Biden-Harris administration. Abdulkareem introduces himself as the “father of the child As Bahjooj notes, he hopes Biden will “end the war on my who was killed by the U.S.-supported Saudi coalition.” His country and lift the siege” so that “we can live in peace and 11-month-old daughter, Zainab, was killed by a coalition air- give our children the simplest necessities of life.” strike at home in her sleep on July 3, 2015. He says “all Amer- ican presidents serve their interests” and sees “no difference SHIREEN AL-ADEIMI is an assistant professor of education at between Biden and Trump,” except that “Trump is outspo- Michigan State University. Since 2015, she has played an active ken” and “candidly says anything publicly through social me- role in raising awareness about the Saudi-led war on her coun- dia.” Biden, Abdulkareem adds, “is one of the architects of try of birth, Yemen, and works to encourage political action to end

ERIK MCGREGOR/LIGHTROCKETERIK VIA GETTY IMAGES the war on Yemen during the time of Obama the Democrat. U.S. support.

DECEMBER 2020 = IN THESE TIMES 21 HEALTHCARE WORKERS ARE ORGANIZING LIKE THEIR — LIVES— DEPEND ON IT

Faced with ongoing PPE shortages and employer obfuscation about deadly outbreaks, more hospital staff are seeing on-the-job solidarity as essential work

BY ALICE HERMAN CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTYCHIP IMAGES

egistered nurse Sandra Old- the hospital. She joined co-workers who complained to field died of Covid-19 in May. Since management, demanding access to N95 respirators. March, she and fellow nurses had That same month, one of Oldfield’s patients, initial- been sounding the pandemic alarm ly admitted with gastrointestinal symptoms, became about dangerous conditions at the acutely ill with a respiratory infection and tested posi- Kaiser Permanente Fresno Medical tive for Covid-19. Oldfield went home to isolate March Center, the California hospital where 26. Within two months, Oldfield, 53, was dead. she worked for nearly 20 years. Other hospital staff scrambled to uncover who else After California declared a Cov- might have been exposed to the virus. By March 28, id-19 state of emergency on March 4, nurses were frantically texting Rachel Spray, a co- Oldfield didn’t feel safe working in worker of Oldfield’s in the telemetry unit, asking what just the surgical mask issued to her by they should do. Hospital management had no clear 22 INR THESE TIMES + DECEMBER 2020 answer, according to Spray, who also serves as a union The Fresno nurses staged two demonstrations outside representative at the hospital for the California Nurses the hospital in April and early May, demanding access Association (CNA). News of more confirmed cases circu- to adequate personal protective equipment (PPE). The lated by word of mouth. protests also alerted the public to the risk, which Kaiser Ultimately, 50 workers at the hospital were exposed to Permanente had not disclosed to patients or the wider Covid-19 by that first case. Ten people tested positive and community. On May 27, the nurses held a third demon- three of those developed a serious illness, according to stration, to mourn Oldfield. They believe hospital man- CNA, which documented the outbreak. agement should have prevented Oldfield’s death. “Losing a nurse, it really destroyed the morale,” Spray Above: National Nurses United staged shoes outside the White House says. “Having to go to work the day after your coworker— in May to mark nurses who have died from Covid-19. As of September, your friend—dies from Covid, and not having any resources the union says more than 1,700 healthcare workers have died. to help you to deal with that.”

DECEMBER 2020 = IN THESE TIMES 23 Because of the protests, the circumstances of Oldfield’s death were widely reported in local media. But many healthcare workers who have died of Covid-19 remain anonymous. In fact, no one knows exactly how many workers in hospitals, nursing homes and healthcare facilities have died of Covid-19. No public agency reliably tracks the data, and healthcare facilities are reluctant to volunteer it, sometimes withholding information about the extent of outbreaks until they become too severe to ignore. In the absence of official numbers, much of what we know about Covid-19’s toll on healthcare workers comes from whistleblowers like those at Fresno Medical Center. Poor working conditions—as well as long-standing concerns about patient safety issues, which have been exacer- bated by the pandemic—have prompted healthcare workers to launch a series of dramatic on-the-job actions. In These Times spoke with more than a dozen healthcare workers who have participated in strikes and protests, as well as field organizers with national and local healthcare unions. We also reviewed data from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on union elections and charges of unfair labor practices at private-sector healthcare employers (over which the NLRB has jurisdiction). While traditional unionization has slowed in 2020, including in the healthcare sector, there are indicators of growing interest in organizing within hospitals, nursing homes and other frontline healthcare facilities. Thousands of workers have gone on strike. And while it’s difficult to estimate how many workers have taken part in smaller on- the-job protests and pickets, healthcare workers are filing more NLRB complaints alleging retaliation for workplace organizing than in previous years. Meanwhile, several healthcare unions report they are making inroads with non-union workers. They especially see potential to improve the ratio of patients to staff, which has steadily deteriorated in the context of consolidated corporate healthcare systems. “Our phones are ringing in a way they haven’t in the past,” says Matthew Yarnell, president of SEIU Healthcare Penn- sylvania, which represents healthcare workers at three new facilities following successful union drives during the pandemic. Virtually every facility shares the same core issues, Yarnell says: “chronic short staffing, low wages, not being prepared for a highly contagious airborne pandemic virus.” The tragic situation has become a crucible for “enhanced workplace action and organizing.”

UNDERCOUNTS & OUTBREAKS In a September report, National Nurses United (NNU)—the largest U.S. union of registered nurses— estimated at least 1,718 healthcare workers had died of Co- vid-19 and related complications. That figure is more than twice as high as the 767 healthcare worker deaths reported

by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as COURTESY OF NATIONAL NURSES UNITED

24 IN THESE TIMES + DECEMBER 2020 of publication. NNU suggests its estimate—which relied on obituaries, union memorials, GoFundMe campaigns, social media posts and news reports—is an undercount. Most of the CDC’s data does not collect occupational status, creating an undercount of cases irreconcilable even with other federal data. The Centers for Medicare & Med- icaid Services, for example, reports higher fatalities for nursing home workers alone—more than 800 deaths as of August 30—than the CDC’s figure of 767 cases for all healthcare workers to date. Many state agencies are not tracking the data any better. As of mid-September, California’s health department reported 167 total deaths of healthcare workers, including 146 deaths of healthcare workers in nursing homes—suggesting just 21 healthcare workers had died outside of nursing homes. Meanwhile, NNU said it had confirmed at least 44 healthcare worker deaths outside of nursing homes as of mid-September, including Oldfield. The lack of adequate protective gear is a clear contributor to these deaths. In the first month of the pandemic, frontline healthcare workers’ risk of infection was at least three times higher than the general population’s, according to a study published this summer in The Lancet. Inadequate PPE further increased the risk. Non-white healthcare workers had a risk at least five times higher and were also more likely than their white counterparts to report inadequate or reused PPE. And the PPE shortages, detrimental at the outbreak of the pandemic, have not improved in many areas. “In many ways, things have only gotten worse,” American Medical Associa- tion President Susan Bailey said in an August statement. The federal government missed numerous opportunities to prevent the severe PPE shortage. Well before the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a pandemic on March 11, public health experts warned inadequate stockpiles and critical supply-chain shortages of PPE posed a threat to frontline workers. In early March, U.S. healthcare workers watched catastrophe unfold for their counterparts in Italy, where an estimated 2,500 doctors, nurses and hospital staff tested positive for Covid-19 in one six-day span in March. The Trump administration compounded nonexistent preparation with deliberate misinformation, leaving healthcare workers exposed as U.S. cases climbed. But healthcare unions say the government isn’t the only actor at fault. “The healthcare industry is also guilty of grievous misconduct,” according to the NNU report. The report contends that hospitals and nursing homes have widely failed to report workplace deaths from Covid-19. They are not required by law to do so, and they rarely self-report. Hospitals facing Covid-19 outbreaks in their facilities often fail to warn staff members who may have been exposed,

Top: National Nurses United organized actions across 13 states May 1, International Workers’ Day, including at Kaiser Permanente Fresno Medical Center in California. The union’s demands included access to adequate PPE. Left: Amy Arlund (far left) and other Fresno nurses act in solidarity on July 18.

DECEMBER 2020 = IN THESE TIMES 25 ai16043388669_RethinkingSchools_FullPageAd_2.pdf 1 11/2/20 11:41 AM

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haymarketbooks.org sometimes citing federal privacy laws restricting the release of medical information as a pretext for not disclosing crucial information. NNU alleges that healthcare employers As concern about contracting may instead be reluctant to acknowledge workplace deaths because of liability for workers’ compensation claims. Covid-19 at work increased, Instead of counting on their employer to warn workers of possible infections, hospital staff say they often rely on in- so did workers’ interest formal communication to track the spread. Tinny Abogado, a nurse at Kaiser Permanente Los An- in protesting conditions geles Medical Center, says nurses have relied on each other to track Covid-19 in the facility since March. “We have and forming unions a messenger group, just the nurses in our unit,” says Abo- gado. “And we [use it] to say, ‘Hey, I got Covid.’ … That’s how we find out.” to improve them. In multiple Kaiser Permanente facilities, nurses have reported that key supplies, including N95 masks, are locked ment. At Premier at Susquehanna, a nursing home named away and available only by request. Only if the request- after the river that passes through the town, a Covid-19 out- er can satisfy a particular list of criteria will they receive a break had infected at least 16 workers by mid-June. Trudy mask from the hospital. Klinger, a restorative nurse in the facility, died of Covid-19. Kaiser Permanente did not respond to In These Times’ re- “Workers organized [in] the course of three days,” Yar- quest for comment. In a statement following Oldfield’s death nell says. On June 10, the facility agreed to recognize their in May, Senior Vice President and Area Manager of Kaiser bargaining unit. Permanente Fresno Wade Nogy expressed condolences and That experience tracks with national data on how the said that staff and patient safety remained the top priority. pandemic has affected essential workers’ attitudes towards unionization. This spring, the Roosevelt Institute and You- Gov Blue surveyed more than 2,500 respondents in essen- SYMPATHY & SOLIDARITY tial occupations—ranging from healthcare to food service and transportation—about their working conditions and In the context of declining union member- willingness to take part in collective action at work. As ship in the United States, healthcare represents a high- concern about contracting Covid-19 at work increased, so ly organized sector—but the overwhelming majority of did workers’ interest in protesting conditions and forming healthcare workers still do not belong to a union. In 2019, unions to improve them. the healthcare sector saw the greatest increase in union “The pandemic may be shifting workers’ understanding membership of any U.S. industry. Union density in the in- of the benefits of workplace collective action, presenting dustry overall, however, remained relatively stagnant, given new opportunities for labor organization and action,” reads the simultaneous expansion of nonunion healthcare jobs. the report. According to data provided to In These Times by Between March and September, the most recent month for the survey’s researcher Adam Reich, the healthcare work- which NLRB election data was available, healthcare workers ers who responded reflected this trend—particularly in ar- had voted in 58 elections for union certification, winning 41 eas hardest hit by the virus. “Covid has actually been this of them. That’s a decrease from the number of union elec- kind of mobilizing moment,” Reich says. tions held by healthcare workers over the same period in Unionized healthcare workers have also been going on the 2019—not surprising given an overall drop in unionization ef- offense in new ways. In three southern California hospitals forts during the pandemic. Restrictive rules from the Trump owned by healthcare giant Hospital Corporation of America administration’s NLRB, currently filled with a majority of (HCA), union nurses launched radio ads this summer calling Trump appointees, did not help matters. Overall, the labor for adequate PPE and patient staffing. They are also fighting board has received fewer than 800 petitions for union elec- for pandemic safety measures to be included in their next tions since mid-March, compared to more than 1,100 over union contracts. the same period in each of the four previous years. In April, HCA suspended registered nurse Jhonna Porter But this data does not necessarily capture the full picture without pay after she used social media to warn colleagues of on-the-job organizing. Matthew Yarnell, president of at Los Angeles’ West Hills Hospital that their floor would SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania, reports an uptick in work- begin accepting Covid-19 patients without adequate protec- er interest, citing internal data that SEIU organizers in 18 tions in place. Porter was reinstated after an outpouring of states have been receiving more calls from healthcare work- support, but dozens of similar stories have surfaced. NLRB ers during the pandemic than prior to it. records show that, since mid-March, healthcare workers Yarnell says one union drive in particular, in Millersburg, have filed more than 200 unfair labor practice charges al- Pa., illustrates the urgency of collective action in this mo- leging violations of Section 8(a)(1) of the National Labor

DECEMBER 2020 = IN THESE TIMES 27 We’re investing in a sustainable future.

Before investing, considerWhat the Fund’s future investment areobjectives, you risks, investing charges and in? expenses. Contact us for a prospectus containing this information. Read it SM carefully. The DominiInvest Funds are not insured in andthe are subject Domini to market, market Impact segment, style and foreignEquity Fund . investing risks. You may lose money. DSIL Investment Services LLC, Distributor. 3/19

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Before investing, consider the Fund’s investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses. Contact us for a prospectus containing this information. Read it carefully. The Domini Funds are not insured and are subject to market, market segment, style and foreign investing risks. You may lose money. DSIL Investment Services LLC, Distributor, member FINRA. 5/19 Relations Act, which prohibits employers from retaliating against or otherwise interfering in legally protected organizing. In 2019, healthcare workers filed just 46 such charges over the same period; they filed 141 and 109 over the same periods in 2018 and 2017, respectively. The ongoing surge of Covid-19 cases has given one union campaign renewed energy. In early March, hasty prepa- rations for Covid-19 brought a union drive by nurses at a mid-size acute care hospital in Wisconsin to a grinding halt. As staff attention shifted to pandemic preparation, administrators im- plied that a union fight would be selfish and unfair under the circumstances. The nurses, who were spurred to organize because of chronic understaffing, have since restarted their campaign. One spoke to In These Times about the renewed push on the condition of an- onymity. To protect employees from retaliation, In These Times is also withholding the name of the hospital. “We routinely are short if not one, two, then three nurses a shift ... and the hospital really isn’t doing a whole heck of a lot to change that,” said the nurse. “I think people are realizing that things Nurses from the Illinois Nurses Association rally on the first day of their Chicago aren’t going to change. And that maybe strike September 12. Within a week, the union says progress was made “from we need to amp it up.” wages and staffing to essential safety issues like improved PPE.” Where workers have gone on strike against unsafe working conditions this year, public support has helped secure important wins. coming here, doing our job, but then we are going home, In September, 4,000 unionized workers related to the exposing our families, and so they had to do better so that University of Illinois-Chicago (UIC) Medical Center—in- we can protect our families. No one should work and still cluding workers in technical, building and maintenance, not be able to afford to pay their rent or to buy food.” and clerical positions—went on strike after filing 20 com- At Fresno Medical Center, union nurses still shaken from plaints with the city of Chicago. The complaints allege Oldfield’s death are bracing for another wave of Covid-19 the hospital had been paying workers less than minimum infections. Their protests this spring prompted small im- wage. In the same week, more than 800 nurses represent- provements, but they are still fighting for adequate PPE. ed by the Illinois Nurses Association went on strike amid Amid the prolonged crisis, Fresno nurse and CNA repre- contract negotiations that had stalled around the issue of sentative Amy Arlund says that collective action is crucial staffing. At least four workers at the hospital have died of to enlisting public support and sending a message about Covid-19 to date. the importance of safe workplaces for healthcare providers. Workers at the UIC hospital pushed their employer to “When you risk your nurses’ lives and you don’t protect agree to raise wages for hospital staff and increase staffing them,” Arlund asks, “who’s going to be around to take care by 160 nurse positions. of you when it’s your turn to be sick?” Vee Steward, represented by SEIU Local 73 as a clerical worker for the UIC hospital, says the pandemic has high- This article was supported by a grant from the Leonard C. lighted the necessity of fair wages throughout the hospital. Good man Institute for Investigative Reporting. Fact-checking “I work with the front desk staff, and I work with these was provided by Hannah Faris and Janea Wilson. people who put their lives on the line every day, coming to work without the proper equipment,” Steward says. “And ALICE HERMAN is a 2020-2021 Leonard C. Goodman Institute for

MAX HERMAN/NURPHOTO VIA ZUMA PRESS we demanded that UIC consider the fact that … we are Investigative Reporting Fellow with In These Times.

DECEMBER 2020 = IN THESE TIMES 29 It’s Together That We Survive Disaster A conversation about mutual aid with law professor and activist Dean Spade BY CLARA LIANG

mid the catastrophe of the pandemic, climate emergency and racist state violence, mutual aid has exploded. Ordinary people around the globe, from Seattle to Nigeria, are finding ways to support each other when the government won’t. 30 IN THESE TIMESA + DECEMBER 2020 Activist and law professor Dean Spade’s timely There’s been a significant set of shifts in left new book, Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During movements since the ’60s and ’70s, when move- This Crisis (And the Next), is a guide for surviving ment organizations doing powerful mutual aid disaster by taking matters into our own hands. It’s work were organizing themselves in very hi- at once a theory, history and step-by-step manu- erarchical models. The Black Panther Party is al on mutual aid, explaining how to radically re- one, with its almost militaristic model of cer- distribute care, avoid common organizing pitfalls tain leaders on top. Those models had really big and, ultimately, “heal ourselves and the world.” costs: They made it easier for the government to Spade’s message is philosophical and urgent. infiltrate them and take out one leader; they of- He argues that if we don’t fundamentally reimag- ten permitted more sexual and gender violence ine community, governance and power, we will and hierarchy inside groups. A lot of groups, face (to put it bluntly) “intensive, uneven suffer- from that time on, experimented much more ing followed by species extinction.” But the book extensively, often inspired by Latin American is hopeful, noting how many times humans have social movement organizations with more hor- survived and reminding us that, for most of our izontal forms. history, we didn’t live under exploitative capital- What challenges might the recent attention to ist conditions. mutual aid bring? In These Times spoke to Spade in early October about the importance of being ordinary, his vi- DS: A lot of media coverage indicates a pretty sion of utopia and more. Our conversation has thin understanding of mutual aid. One tenden- been edited for length and clarity. cy I’ve seen is an attempt to say, “Mutual aid goes hand in hand with state interventions.” People What’s the one thing you want people to walk will try to find examples that suggest that mutual away with after reading your book? aid is not actually oppositional to the status quo, DS: Mutual aid is something everyone can do is not actually a threat to government systems. right now. It simultaneously builds movements Similarly, I found some coverage during Hurri- and addresses survival conditions. People come cane Hugo [in 1989] saying, “Look at these people to movements because they need something who are using their own boats to rescue people. that’s not being provided, or because they desper- We don’t need state support.” There’s a sort of ately want to immediately help other people who right-wing read on mutual aid efforts that really may be struggling. Mutual aid is the doorway in, takes them out of context and tries to use them to and the more we can build mutual aid infrastruc- push for eliminating state safety infrastructure. ture, the fiercer and stronger and more powerful Mutual aid isn’t just that we help each other. our movements will become. We help each other based on a shared recognition that the systems aren’t delivering and are actu- You provide a great history of mutual aid, from ally making things worse. We’re simultaneously the Black Panther Party’s free breakfast program building a movement to address the root causes to Indigenous anticolonial projects. Mutual aid of the crisis we’re in. That’s really different from isn’t new. What new forms is it taking? the charity model, where some volunteers occa- DS: During a lot of disasters—storms, fires, sionally give some people some stuff. floods—we get attention to people’s mutual aid Can you talk more about the relationship be- activities. In the ’60s and ’70s, there was a lot tween mutual aid and transforming the root of attention brought to what the Black Panthers conditions—such as capitalism and racism—that called survival programs, which took form in are responsible for large-scale human suffering? so many different movements. In the feminist movement, for example, people were figuring out DS: The opposition has all the money and all the how to do their own contraception and abortions. weapons. All we have is people power. We need Covid-19 really lifted mutual aid to the surface, to build movements that aren’t based on trying to because Covid-19 is happening everywhere, to convince them to let go of the reins of power. We everyone, whereas most fires, storms and floods need to build movements that have enough power happen in particular regions. These obstacles of to throw a wrench in the way the systems are now not being able to get your groceries or pick up your and to stop the things that are harming people, meds—it was happening all at once, everywhere. for instance by defunding the police and stopping gas and oil companies from further extraction. ILLUSTRATION BY GALINE TUMASYAN Mutual aid work inevitably becomes deeply

DECEMBER 2020 = IN THESE TIMES 31 intersectional, because people’s lives are inter- are encouraged to fall into, where we build non- sectional. If we’re in a homeless encampment do- profit organizations that use elite strategies like ing direct work for people living there, we’re also policy change and very depoliticized services, joining the fight to defund the police because we where we partner with the police and the mil- see how the police harm the people in this en- itary. Feminist women of color brought these campment, and we’re also showing up at the mi- deep critiques of not only what’s wrong with that grant justice rally to close the detention center political agenda and how it didn’t work out, but because we know and love people who were tak- also what’s wrong with the ways it tells us to or- en out of this encampment and thrown into the ganize and the way it erases mutual aid and oth- detention center. er feminized care labor. I think a lot of my learning has come through The forces that keep the distribution of power participating in grassroots, unpaid mutual aid and resources so inequitable can feel insur- projects, and projects to stop prison expansion mountable. You write that “things are really and jail expansion. Doing this work is how we get terrifying and enraging right now, and feeling our politics, how we know what’s really going on, more rage, fear, sadness, grief and despair may be how we get an analysis of what it would mean to appropriate.” How do you sustain hope and trust actually dismantle these systems versus getting in the mutual aid process while also tuning into duped into reforms that expand, legitimize and grief, rage and despair? stabilize the current system. DS: In capitalism, we’re encouraged to actually There are so many people, like Andrea Ritchie, be numb to our own pain and to others’ pain. And who have been working for decades. They do their that is demobilizing. I think it’s mobilizing to be work whether it’s popular or not. To me, that rigor tuned into and caring about the harm and bru- and care and relentlessness in that work—they’ve tality that is our current system. We are literal- taught me how I want to be. ly facing the end of humanity because of climate Mutual aid is often hard, boring work: going to change. We are really staring fascism in the face. grocery stores, waiting in lines at welfare offices. We’re dipping into the next horrible economic cri- Tell me about your conviction that we might sis. People are dying, in huge numbers, of Cov- “cultivate a desire to be beautifully, exquisitely id-19. There’s no way to not be affected by that if ordinary just like everybody else.” you’re paying attention to suffering. I find that being in mutual aid groups with oth- DS: I meet a lot of young people who say, “I want er people who also are feeling that pain and ur- to make a difference in the world. I want to be an gency, and also trying to do things they think executive director of a nonprofit.” We’ve been might reduce suffering, is actually my greatest re- told that leadership is about being important, ex- lief. I hope to live out this incredibly transforma- ceptional. That causes a lot of people to act cap- tive, difficult period engaged with people about italist, white supremacist and patriarchal in our things that they care about, even if it’s the last leadership styles, regardless of our identity. thing we do. Mutual aid suggests that the work to immedi- It’s not about avoiding the pain; it’s about turn- ately help somebody make sure they have a mask ing toward the pain and engaging with principle, or hand sanitizer today is just as important as which I think is very de-numbing, and not easy, something somebody is doing in your state capi- but preferable to the capitalist numbing pattern. tol trying to close the detention center. When we show up with a lot of integrity, when Toni Cade Bambara’s call to “make revolution ir- we care about all the people around us, make of- resistible” comes up in your book. Who are some ferings, and expect to make mistakes and receive of your other teachers? feedback, the reward isn’t going to be some mo- DS: Probably the central intellectual tradition ment of fame or perfection. It’ll be the ongoing that has impacted me is the set of women of col- ups and downs of being connected to other people. or feminists deeply invested in prison abolition How do you understand mutual aid in relation who critiqued the idea that you can solve gen- to electoral politics? Do you view voting as harm der-based violence through criminalization. A reduction, or as antithetical to mutual aid’s belief lot of those thinkers—many of whom are includ- in emancipation from broken systems? ed in the wonderful INCITE! anthologies like Color of Violence and The Revolution Will Not Be DS: Regardless of what happens in this election, Funded—named this trap that social movements we’re going to need mutual aid more than we ever

32 IN THESE TIMES + DECEMBER 2020 A lot of my learning has come through participating in grassroots, unpaid mutual aid projects. Doing this work is how we get an analysis of what it would mean to actually dismantle these systems.

have. Our political culture tells us that voting is key piece is this deep desire to share well-being the most important political act. It really tries to with all, and make sure everybody has what they quell dissent and mobilization by telling us that need and nobody has a lot more than they need. this is the only place to act, in this orderly, state- I could see people living in a society where approved fashion. There are secondary ones, like they’ve grown a lot of capacity to not avoid con- it’s okay to post on social media, it’s okay to go flicts but instead have generative conflict, give to a permitted march once in a while. There are and receive feedback, and be aware of their own approved ways of dissenting, and then there are emotional landscapes. broadly disapproved of, and criminalized, ways. I can absolutely imagine a world without bor- I’m not an absolutist. I think there’s room for al- ders, prisons or wars. A world in which we’re most every kind of political action. So, absolutely not producing all of these weapons, where peo- vote, but I hope that’s not the beginning and end ple aren’t using them on each other or threaten- of anybody’s political activity. It’s really impor- ing each other with them. In most of the history tant for people to know that they can, in addition, of the world, there weren’t militarized borders, do more satisfying, more directly impactful polit- there weren’t millions of people in cages. ical activity with people, and break their own iso- I can imagine a world in which Indigenous peo- lation, and feel a sense of purpose. ple are restored sovereignty over the lands that have been taken from them, and deep process- You note that capitalism makes it difficult for es of repair and care and connection are led by people to imagine surviving any other way, even them—under their terms—to dismantle the set- though humans long lived outside that system. tler state and settler relations. You write that mutual aid is “inherently antiau- I can imagine a world where we don’t center thoritarian, demonstrating how we can do things fossil fuels. We can change what we’re using to together in ways we were told not to imagine.” transport ourselves, to produce our food. Can you indulge for a moment in your most free, There would be a lot of collective self-governance limitless imagining of what could be? on lots of different scales at the same time, complex DS: I can imagine a world based on the principles nets of coordination so that the people growing food of mutual aid in which everybody has what they are connected to the people eating food, and it’s all need to survive, and people are working on repro- connected to people doing healthcare. ducing the means of survival not because of a co- People are really afraid of this world I’m talk- ercive system where they’ll die or be criminalized ing about—that there wouldn’t be medicine or in- if they don’t have a wage job, but instead because novation or technology. I just really don’t believe of the pleasure of growing food that other people that. That’s one of the lies of capitalism. will eat, and making a sewer system that we’re all using. People doing the work because they CLARA LIANG is a writer based in San Francisco want everyone to have these things, not because and an In These Times editorial intern. She holds a de- if they didn’t do that work, they would starve. A gree in American Studies from Carleton College.

DECEMBER 2020 = IN THESE TIMES 33

CULTURE

The Violent Story of American Whiteness Three writers dive into the depths of white supremacy in America

BY KIM KELLY

he United States of is entrenched in this country. These writ- America is a white suprema- ers—a white man, a Jewish woman and a cist nation. It always has been. white woman—dig deep into the white su- Its white founders, venerated premacist culture wars, from 4chan’s neo- and lionized though they are in Nazi cesspools to the insidious tradwives textbooks and on courthouse movement to the battle-scarred heart of lawns, explicitly intended the Dixie. Their findings are all too timely. country to be this way. The In journalist Connor Towne O’Neill’s country’s founding documents make that book, Down Along with That Devil’s Bones, Tgoal clear. Through the centuries, the pre- the Civil War-era ghosts of dead racists dominantly white ruling class has worked (and the lost Southern cause) take center overtime to uphold this status quo, even as stage in this deeply reported, occasion- the goalposts periodically shift. ally personal, odyssey. O’Neill’s interest A trio of new books delve into this rotten was sparked on March 7, 2015—the an- heart of American whiteness and explore niversary of the Bloody Sunday march how its bloody footprints smudged the na- across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Sel- tion’s past and continue to influence its ma, Ala.—when he stumbled upon a uncertain future. Connor Towne O’Neill’s group of locals working to replace a stat- Down Along with That Devil’s Bones: A Reck- ue of Confederate general Nathan Bed- oning with Monuments, Memory, and the ford Forrest. The statue had been stolen Legacy of White Supremacy, Talia Lavin’s three years prior. Forrest, a former slave Culture Warlords: My Journey into the Dark trader, is known as the Butcher of Fort Pil- Web of White Supremacy, and Seyward low for overseeing the massacre of more Darby’s Sisters in Hate: American Wom- than 100 Black soldiers who had surren- en on the Front Lines of White Nationalism dered during the Civil War. After the fall take slightly different approaches but ulti- of the Confederacy, Forrest became the mately reveal how deeply white supremacy first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. He is one of history’s most contemptible ILLUSTRATION BY DAVID HOSKINS figures, yet O’Neill soon discovered, in

DECEMBER 2020 = IN THESE TIMES 35 some quarters, Forrest is still hailed as a hero. and has boiled over in cities like Charlottesville, As O’Neill travels through the South in search of Va., New Orleans, Durham, N.C., and as far north a deeper understanding, he passes through towns as Philadelphia (where a proud history of abolition- and cities studded with monuments to the blood- ism contrasts with the city’s former status as a slave thirsty Confederate general, and interviews locals trading outpost). These contradictions are every- who feel called to protect the statues as well as where in America, a country that has never truly those dead set on tearing them down. On one side reconciled with its racist legacy or offered justice to of the debate, there is the demand for justice and those who have borne the brunt of its evil. acknowledgement of this country’s sins, personi- Since the 2016 election of President Donald fied (in the book) by dedicated activists like Shelby Trump, those who cling to fabrications of this past County Commissioner Tami Sawyer, a Memphis glory have been publicly rewarded by the holder of organizer who founded the #TakeEmDown901 the country’s highest office with dog-whistled rec- movement to remove Confederate monuments. ognition. But America’s various racist movements On the other side is a stubborn allegiance to a vi- are not content with a mere wink-and-a-nod recep- cious heritage, exemplified by men like Lee Mil- tion from the White House. Today’s white suprem- lar, the spokesperson for the Memphis chapter of acists, as journalist Talia Lavin discovered during the Sons of Confederate Veterans. When O’Neill her research for Culture Warlords, find themselves encounters Millar after the city’s Forrest statue encouraged to violently impose their views on oth- was torn down in December 2017, Millar dismiss- ers, itching for a war. es those opposed to the statue as having “a mental Lavin goes undercover in online incel forums handicap.” Millar tells O’Neill, “They say [Forrest] (short for “involuntarily celibate,” a breeding was a slave owner. Well big deal, so were 11 of the ground for misogyny), encrypted neo-Nazi chat first 13 presidents. … You can’t blame him for that rooms, boogaloo meme factories (home to violent, because he was just in business.” far-right internet culture) and the toxic morass of The wider, national debate about the country’s racist YouTube, observing how social media giants many Confederate monuments (and other statues (including Twitter and Facebook) provide fertile of assorted racist monsters) continues to ferment ground for extremist movements and their violent

“For us to build power, we need to be able to tell our own stories.”

EDDIE CONWAY EXECUTIVE PRODUCER Marshall "Eddie" Conway, a former member of the Black Panther Party, was an internationally recognized political prisoner for over 43 years.

THEREALNEWS.COM

36 IN THESE TIMES +D ECEMBER 2020 apologists. In 2019, Lavin is chased out of a con- but they are ultimately part of the same story. Dar- ference full of far-right social media personalities, by’s book is a chilling document on its own but is es- then infiltrates chat rooms full of Ukrainian terror- pecially unsettling paired with Lavin’s findings on ists hungry to start a race war in the United States. the romantic yearnings of white supremacist men. Throughout her research, she uncovers a bottom- O’Neill’s self-reflection—on the ways he, as a white less well of bloodthirst against a host of perceived man, benefits from white supremacy—echoes the enemies, including Jewish people like herself. care taken by Darby and Lavin to examine their re- In one memorable excursion, dubbed Operation spective roles as white or white-passing women who Ashlynn, Lavin ventures into the sad, malevolent membership of a white nationalist dating site. She poses as a facsimile of white nationalism’s ideal woman—blonde, thin, committed to traditional White womanhood has gender roles, racist—offering a disturbing peek into the way white supremacist men think of women. long been weaponized Seyward Darby’s Sisters in Hate exposes the real- life white women counterparts to Operation Ash- against Black people, lynn’s online world. As Darby explains in the book, while white men have always been the far right’s used to drive injustice most recognizable faces (and are responsible for the lion’s share of the violence that propels the move- and violence. ment), “There is other work keeping the flames of hate alive. That work is often done by women.” have been alternately coddled and punished by the White womanhood has long been weaponized same white supremacist system (which happens to against Black people and people of color, used to place some of their more willing sisters on a swasti- drive injustice and violence. As a demographic, ka-emblazoned pedestal). All three emphasize the white women are often painted as innocents (or need to dismantle white supremacy. entirely kept out of the historical record), but they Their narratives even share some common geog- actively participated in (and profited from) the en- raphy, like the neo-Nazi terror attack at the Unite slavement of human beings. Acting as agents of the Right white supremacist rally in Charlottes- white supremacy, they later fought tooth and nail ville, Va., on August 12, 2017. O’Neill describes to uphold the systems that protected their white how Charlottesville’s Confederate statues became privilege. Now, long after slavery has mostly end- a cause célèbre for the neo-Confederates and neo- ed (the U.S. mass incarceration system is consid- Nazis who invaded the sleepy college town. Lavin ered modern-day slavery), the spiritual progeny of attends a 2019 memorial service for Heather Hey- those women continue to serve as willing foot sol- er—the woman who was killed at the rally when diers in the cause. a neo-Nazi ran his car into a crowd of peaceful Darby profiles three modern women, all born in counter-protesters—to collect stories from locals 1979, who make up a rogue’s gallery of virulent rac- who survived the attack. Darby explains how Ayla ism, willful obfuscation, dangerous propaganda Stewart, who was scheduled to speak at the rally, and pure hatred. Corinna Olsen is a depressed neo- rationalized away the events and conjured up ways Nazi who becomes an FBI informant. Ayla Stewart to blame Heyer for getting murdered. is a white nationalist tradwife (far-right shorthand These interlocking books offer a glimpse into the for a submissive, “traditional wife”) who gained a endless ways white supremacy enmeshes itself in following by preaching strict gender roles, white every facet of American society, but they also make pride and female submission to men. Lana Lokteff, the path forward clear and create space for opti- arguably the most odious of the lot, runs an influ- mism by highlighting the efforts of the activists, ential far-right media company called Red Ice and anti-fascists and organizers working to expose and serves as an eager propagandist, conspiracy theorist eradicate the weed of white supremacy. Only by and mouthpiece for the white supremacist move- pulling it up from the root can we stop its spread. ment. All three find ways to exploit their privilege as white women to further regressive, bigoted views. KIM KELLY is a freelance journalist based in Philadelphia. Darby’s approach, as an uneasy observer, gives Her work on labor, culture and politics can be found in Es- these women plenty of space to indict themselves. quire, Teen Vogue, The Baffler and the Washington Post. Each of these three books has a distinct focus, She is the author of the forthcoming book FIGHT LIKE HELL.

DECEMBER 2020 = IN THESE TIMES 37 COMICS

MATT BORS

38 IN THESE TIMES +D ECEMBER 2020 COMICS

JEN SORENSEN PIA GUERRA

NICCOLO PIZARRO

DECEMBER 2020 = IN THESE TIMES 39 THESE TIMES THOSE TIMES PERSON COMMUNITYLAST GASPS FOR THE GOP? t’s like déjà vu all over again. In 2020, the now unabashedly racist Republican THIS MONTHParty did its best to suppress the Black vote, just as it did in 2000. And despite the outcome of 2020, no one has learned their lesson. LATE CAPITALISMRecall the disaster that was the 2000 election. Thanks to voter suppression and a par- Right tisan intervention by Republican Supreme and below: Court justices, George W. Bush carried Florida by Rev. Jesse Ijust 537 votes, which made him the winner in the Jackson rallies Electoral College arithmetic. In These Times Senior protesters in Editor David Moberg, in “Keep Florida Alive,” fea- Florida after the tured in the January 8, 2001, issue, looked on the U.S. Supreme bright side. The election fiasco should lead to whole- Court halted some reform, he wrote: recount efforts important questions about what happened in the state, THE ELECTION CRISIS OPENS UP NEW POSSIBILI- in the Florida election to throw in the towel, handing the ties for challenging the legitimacy of some even if [Al] Gore is forced to concede. The ob- presidency to aspects of our inherited political institutions jective should not be simply further crippling George W. Bush and processes, and forcing a debate on what Bush, but rather opening a broad discussion in 2000. Invoking democracy could and should mean in the 21st about remaking democracy to guarantee pop- Jackson’s famous ular power, to reduce the power of monied in- “Keep Hope century. It is simply the latest, most dramatic development in a series of unfolding crises terests, and to protect the rights of individuals Alive” speech, and minorities. Senior Editor of American democracy that unfortunate- Democracy is—or should be—more than David Moberg ly so far have produced more cynicism and voting, but if votes aren’t even accurately wrote “Keep withdrawal than protest or demands for deep- Florida Alive” for seated reform. … counted, democracy is a fraud and there’s the January 8, There undoubtedly will be challenges to less reason for anyone to head to the polls. 2001, issue of In the Electoral College, which has been taint- This year’s balloting could have been a civ- These Times. ed by anti-popular elitism and the special ics lesson in how every vote can count; in- interests of the slaveholding states from stead it has showed how many votes don’t. ... its origins, and which no longer plausi- Like nearly everything else in the election, bly provides enough benefits to offset its the failure to invest in reliable voting technol- great disadvantages. … ogies was skewed. The Washington Post, New The institutional crisis, however, York Times and Miami Herald all reported goes far beyond the Electoral College that black voters, overwhelmingly Gore sup- to a broader sense that existing politics porters, were much more likely to use voting does not serve most people or demo- equipment that had far higher rates of rejec- cratic ideals. … tion and error than were white voters. Whatever happens in the courts and It’s 20 years later. Though the GOP continues to the counts, progressives should con- assault the right to vote, let’s hope that in 2040, we tinue, paraphrasing Jesse Jackson, to look back on this year’s shenanigans as the death ROBERT KING/NEWSMAKERSROBERT keep Florida alive. There are too many throes of a dying party.

40 IN THESE TIMES +D ECEMBER 2020 INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC AFFAIRS 2040 NORTH MILWAUKEE AVENUE • CHICAGO, IL 60647 PHONE (773) 772-0100 • WEB INTHESETIMES.COM

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