GUEST POST BY DAVID RYLANCE So, what might we expect out of a Trump presidency? For Trump to maintain his prime source of power, he will not only need to uphold his existing anti-political position — which only got him over the line; no more or less — but will have to augment and expand […]
19 Jan
Now, some have suggested these laws are really about moralising; they are right. —Mike Baird, responding to criticism of Sydney’s lockout laws on Facebook, 9 February 2016 It was all I could do to not choke on my dinner as I watched journalists and politicians fawn over outgoing NSW Premier Mike Baird on the TV […]
16 Nov
Guest post by JAMES ROBERTSON The general elections on 8 November 2016 were a massive vote of “no confidence” in the US political establishment. Whether measured in the active support for Trump’s populist campaign or in the passive refusal of millions of voters to turn out for Clinton, the message was clear: millions of Americans […]
10 Nov
When I wrote my first Left Flank piece on Trump back in January, I concluded: All this suggests it is way too early to be sure that a Democratic nominee can easily beat Trump. Equally, a Trump victory should not be considered hard proof of a deeper right-wing shift in US society, or even a […]
18 Sep
As the Pet Shop Boys acutely observed, “love is a bourgeois construct,” so same-sex marriage (or “marriage equality”) has always seemed to me to be a bit of a double-edged sword — both the removal of one of the last legal forms of discrimination against LGBTIQ people and the integration of same-sex couples into a historically […]
26 Jun
It seems pretty clear now that even the leaders of the Leave campaign in the UK’s referendum on the European Union didn’t believe that Brexit could win. UKIP’s leader Nigel Farage not once but twice conceded a narrow defeat on election night before the results for Sunderland indicated a much bigger Leave vote than predicted […]
15 Jun
Labor, unsurprisingly, refuses to concede any policy mandate for a Turnbull victory. Nor do the Greens, the Nick Xenophon Team or most of the independents. The mandate theory, once applying to an elected government’s program, has been corrupted to mean every party and independent has a mandate against the government. This year’s policy contest may […]
02 Mar
GUEST POST BY SIMON COPLAND Last weekend dealt a blow to the Bernie Sanders juggernaut. Pipped at the post by rival Hillary Clinton in Nevada and crushed by her in South Carolina, Sanders’s route to the Democratic nomination is looking tougher than ever. Many will mourn this potential loss. Yet I am not feeling the […]
25 Jan
Racist … fascist … Islamophobe … a racist piece of shit … immigrant hater … a right-wing nativist populist … bigot … racist asshole … an ugly and dangerous force in American politics … full fascist —Recent descriptions of Donald Trump from various sections of the US liberal and socialist Left We’re at that stage […]
05 Oct
Following on from Part 1 and Part 2 of my analysis — which were first published in abridged form as a single article at Jacobin Magazine — I bring the Greek tragedy up to date with why the Syriza breakaway Popular Unity failed its first electoral test, as well as delving deeper into the dead-end of trying […]
21 Jan
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