March 2020 is proving a world historical month for many reasons. One admittedly minor one: it seems to me this month has vindicated the importance of the PMC (Professional-Managerial Class). The great PMC debate raged in Fall 2019 in the height of clashes between supporters of Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. While some deny the importance of this concept of class analysis, it seems March 2020 has made it clearer than ever why this concept is important for understanding class and political dynamics in contemporary capitalism.

First, the pandemic economy intensifies the real divide between the PMC and the working…

Source: Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ (Wikicommons)

If you’re an objective analyst of U.S. society at the current moment, you can’t deny it is a society structured by division: a racial wealth gap where African-American wealth is about 7% of white wealth; a level of economic inequality not seen since the gilded age; a cultural “polarization” of identity based on geography, religion, and partisan attachment.

Despite these objective divisions, the main strategy of Democratic party establishment candidates has been to promise an alluring concept of unity. The latest version of this idea is the campaign Pete Buttigeig. In the days…

Serious question for all you so worried about Russia/Putin’s influence on our elections. Do you think it’s OK that this woman (Tara McGowan) is the CEO of a company that is the “sole investor” in the company that designed the app meant to *transmit* results of the Iowa Caucus? Are you OK that she is married to, Michael Halle, “a senior strategist with the [Pete] Buttigieg campaign”?

This screenshot is part of her long ‘defense’ thread on her involvement with her company Acronym (link in comments to whole thread). What is stunning about this tweet in particular is how she…

Source: Wikicommons

“The difference between Republicans and Democrats is that Republicans believe people are fundamentally bad, while Democrats see people as fundamentally good.”

This line from a New York Times Op-Ed “Why Rural American Voted for Trump” really stuck with me at the time. It was early January 2017 and this was just the latest of the onslaught of analyses of “Why Trump won.” But, I’ll admit I hadn’t really thought much about how the left-right divide also maps onto fundamental views of what it means to be human. The more I thought about it, the more I realized this…

This crystallized everything for me: at the end of the debate, Warren gave a friendly handshake to Joe Biden and patted him on the shoulder. Then, turning toward Bernie, he extended his hand, she refused, and a tense exchange followed. Although she once said “I’m with Bernie” she has now proven she’s with Biden and with the Democratic Party establishment.

But we knew this. It was this article “What Elizabeth Warren Is Quietly Telling Democratic Insiders” back in August that confirmed for me that Elizabeth Warren is not a ‘left’ candidate. She aims to be the ‘progressive’ candidate who can…

For those still on the fence in the Warren vs. Bernie debate, I highly recommend these two debates (links below — featuring, in separate debates, Meagan Day and Micah Uetricht of Jacobin who both do an amazing job). I think these debates — both extremely fair, calm, and respectful — really highlight the different visions of politics at stake in this primary. Both sides of each debate are really articulate in laying out their positions.

One thing that stuck with me listening to these: the Warren argument seems to hinge on one premise: Warren is more likely to “get things…

OK. So I am ALL IN. But, I know there a lot of doubters on here. So, if you’re one of them, I want to start by asking some basic questions. Are you part of the 33% of Americans that have a college education? Do you have some sort of “career” that you feel OK about and gives you a stable income? Also, what percent are you in the income distribution? Do you have secure health insurance?

If you have a college education, feel sorta good about your job, land in the top 20% of the income distribution, and have…

Well, it seems like the 2020 debate is upon us. And, it seems like many of the tropes and divisions of 2016 are coming back with a vengeance. I want to elaborate on a perceptive tweet I saw recently basically calling out a particular twitter style of “politics” as “basically fan culture.”

I want to differentiate this notion of politics as “fan culture” from what I want to call politics as politics. For me, politics is — or at least should be — a coordinated movement of people with a particular set of interests and principles who struggle to improve…