Jacobin #38
After Bernie
£8.95
Issue 38 of Jacobin is here. In this issue:
PARTY LINES
MEAGAN DAY
We Won’t Forget the Questions Bernie Asked
What will decide the fate of neoliberalism today is not the extent of the economic damage the virus wreaks — it is the extent to which the virus transforms popular... Read More
Issue 38 of Jacobin is here. In this issue:
PARTY LINES
MEAGAN DAY
We Won’t Forget the Questions Bernie Asked
What will decide the fate of neoliberalism today is not the extent of the economic damage the virus wreaks — it is the extent to which the virus transforms popular expectations.
THE SOAPBOX
Letters & Internet Speaks
Send us your deepest thoughts — we’ll try to publish them.
STRUGGLE SESSION
BRIAHNA JOY GRAY, ARI RABIN-HAVT, DAVID SIROTA, AND JEFF WEAVER
The Oral History of the Bernie Campaign
Four key figures in Bernie Sanders’s quest for the White House on what really happened.
MEANS OF DEDUCTION
Numbers Don’t Lie
VULGAR EMPIRICIST
The Social Democracy Index
We looked at the best polling from the 2020 primary season. Turns out, you can spot a Bernie Sanders supporter not just by their age, but by their support for social-democratic policies.
UNEVEN & COMBINED
How We Lost Michigan
In 2016, Bernie won a major upset in Michigan, thanks in part to a groundswell of support in the state’s rural areas. In 2020, he lost every county in the state — and the numbers show he lost many of his rural supporters, too.
READING MATERIEL
Take a Look, It’s in a Book
CANON FODDER
ANTON JÄGER & DOMINIK LEUSDER
The Prophet of Inequality
Whatever its shortcomings, Thomas Piketty’s latest book, Capital and Ideology, is a serious attempt to map our social world without resorting to easy abstractions.
FIELD NOTES
The Enemy Within
Leaked messages from Labour Party staff littered with casual racism and sexism show that they worked against Jeremy Corbyn and wanted to keep the Tories in power.
CANON FODDER
HANNAH PROCTOR
Reading Victor Serge from the Depths of Defeat
Despite isolation, political defeat, and incalculable grief, the Russian revolutionary Victor Serge persisted in writing in collective rather than personal terms.
Bernie Sanders’s Five-Year War
FEATURE
MATT KARP
How he lost and where we go from here.
The Two Paths of Democratic Socialism: Coalition and Confrontation
FEATURE
JARED ABBOTT
After Bernie Sanders, democratic socialists in America face a vital strategic dilemma. Do we go the Justice Democrats route of winning gains by being the junior partner in a progressive coalition, or do we take a gamble on more independent class organization and struggle?
How the Labour Party Lost the Chance of a Lifetime
FEATURE
RONAN BURTENSHAW
Corbynism had a popular program — but not the popular insurgency it needed to fight for it.
CULTURAL CAPITAL
Capitalist Realism
BASS & SUPERSTRUCTURE
ALEX NIVEN
Don’t Look Back in Anger
Britpop is often dismissed as an embarrassing, retrograde moment in British culture. But at its best, it hinted at what might have happened if the working class had managed to regain its sense of power and pride after the defeats of the 1980s.
WAYS OF SEEING
PHOEBE BRAITHWAITE
Mark Fisher’s Popular Modernism
It’s been three years since we lost Mark Fisher, but his vision of a socialist future endures.
BEYOND A BOUNDARY
DANIEL FINN
Where Have All the Political Footballers Gone?
“Football gives meaning to life, yes. But life also gives meaning to football.”
THE TUMBREL
Still Roasting Liberals
GIRONDINS
DAVID SIROTA
Did Americans Want a Political Revolution?
Joe Biden told us there was an easy path. Reality will soon catch up to that fantasy.
WORST ESTATE
DAVID BRODER
We Don’t Live in Weimar Germany
Liberals say that socialists who don’t support Joe Biden are “like the German Communists who refused to fight Hitler.” The analogy doesn’t hold up — and it’s also historically illiterate.
LEFTOVERS
The Struggle Continues
POPULAR FRONT
MARILYN ARWOOD
We Knocked on a Million Doors for 45,000 Votes
I helped organize Bernie Sanders’s canvassing efforts in Iowa, and I learned that we can knock on as many doors as we want, but to make lasting change, we need to think beyond election day.
POPULAR FRONT
CEDRIC JOHNSON
Let’s Talk About South Carolina
Bernie Sanders didn’t lose because of the “black vote,” but winning places like South Carolina is crucial to building a left majority.
MEANS & ENDS
SETH ACKERMAN
The Victory to Come
Bernie critics seem to think they dodged a bullet. They haven’t — the bullet is still on its way.
Jacobin is a leading voice of the American left, offering socialist perspectives on politics, economics, and culture.