United States

California, the breadbasket of the United States, is facing devastation as a centuries-long drought cycle coincides with the ongoing effects of man-made climate change. Rather than mitigating the catastrophe through rational planning, the short-term profiteering of capitalism – and agribusiness in particular – threatens to create an even greater catastrophe. It will be workers, in California and far beyond, who will be made to pay. It has never been clearer that if our planet is to remain habitable for human beings, capitalism must die.

Last summer, tens of millions of people in the US participated in the Black Lives Matter movement sparked by the racist police murder of George Floyd. Nearly one year later, on 20 April 2021, his killer Derek Chauvin was convicted of three charges: second-degree unintentional felony murder; third-degree “depraved mind” murder; and second-degree manslaughter. Chauvin’s conviction is a far cry from justice for George Floyd and all those constantly facing police brutality.

There is a debate in the US left about building a mass workers' party. Some argue for the so-called dirty break, in which left-wingers within the Democrats split off at some point in the future. Others argue that socialist candidates should remain with the Democrats and establish a surrogate "party within a party". Our US comrades argue that the party of Wall Street is a dead end. Only a mass, independent political party of labour presents any road forward for the working class.

On Tuesday, March 16, eight people, including six women of East Asian descent, were shot and killed at three separate spas in the Atlanta, Georgia area. The suspect, Robert Aaron Long, is a white man who had a history of frequenting Asian massage parlors, including the site of his first attack, to obtain sexual services. Although Georgia law enforcement and the FBI are reluctant to label this atrocity as a hate crime, these attacks highlight how racism, sexism, and all the ills of capitalism have intensified during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The crisis that began in 2008 exposed capitalism. It started a process in which millions of young people and workers began to challenge, not just so-called ‘neoliberalism’, but capitalism itself. Yet this crisis of capitalism, rather than propelling the left to power, has pushed the left into crisis. Superficially, this is a contradiction, but if we look beyond the surface, we see it flows from the limitations of reformist politics in a period such as the one we are living through.

Joe Biden beating Donald Trump in the race for the White House shouldn’t come as a surprise. After all, his opponent was an incompetent reality TV star presiding over a devastated economy and an uncontrolled pandemic. Just a few months earlier, the Commander in Chief had been forced to hide in a bunker in the face of the most massive protest movement in the country’s history. What is surprising is that the result was ever anything but a foregone conclusion.

For months, the bourgeois press has gushed over Joe Biden’s supposedly progressive climate plans. A headline in the New York Times tells us, “Biden Plans to Move Fast with a ‘Climate Administration.’” The article goes on to paint a glowing picture of a visionary “Climate President” boldly changing course after four years of Trump’s climate denial and environmental rollbacks. Taking the Biden campaign at face value, many climate ...

Joe Biden has been named president-elect, though Donald Trump is still refusing to concede. What will the 2020 election results mean for the US working class? What should socialists be doing in the aftermath? Join our US comrades at Socialist Revolution for a two-day online event, providing a Marxist analysis of the elections and the path to revolution in the USA. International participants welcome! Register now using the form on this page or by visiting our US comrades' registration site!

Joe Biden has won the 2020 presidential elections, to the delight of the establishment, and the relief of millions of ordinary Americans fed up with Donald Trump. However, US society remains polarised, and Biden represents the same bourgeois politics that led to Trump’s rise to begin with. Workers and youth need a real, class-based alternative to the rotten Democratic Party.

The following resolution was proposed last month by IMT supporters in the Phoenix Democratic Socialists of America. In it, they argue against so-called lesser evilism, for an immediate and total break with the Democrats, and for a mass working-class socialist party. In the context of the ongoing electoral chaos, the arguments presented are more relevant than ever.

Fred Weston, editor for marxist.com, discusses the most polarised US election in living memory. With little genuine enthusiasm for Joe Biden, the highest number of people in a century turned out to essentially vote either for or against Donald Trump. At the time of writing, it appears as if Biden has narrowly scraped through to take the presidency, in an election that has thoroughly exposed the rottenness of US ‘democracy’.

Election night has come and gone and, as expected, there are still no clear results. The general picture is one of utter polarization, and the threat of a descent into an unholy mess of bourgeois democracy. Last night, Socialist Revolution editor John Peterson provided an analysis of where things stood one day into the post-election chaos. Also available in a podcast format at socialistrevolution.tv. Make sure you read the US comrades' night

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Election night has come and gone and, as expected, there are no clear results. Trump has all but declared victory, while the Biden camp calls for patience. The general picture is one of utter polarization, and the threat of a descent into an unholy mess of bourgeois democracy. Socialist Revolution (USA) Editor John Peterson will provide an analysis of where things stand one day into the post-election chaos—coming up at around 5PM ET (10PM GMT)!

This year's US presidential elections are a repulsive demonstration of the utter bankruptcy of American bourgeois democracy, at a time of unprecedented crisis and polarisation. No matter who wins, American workers and youth lose. Given the nightmare US capitalism has foisted on the country and the entire world, what is needed above all is a mass socialist party that will fight for the interests of working people.

Fred Weston, editor for marxist.com, explains how the Italian left wrecked itself on the rocks of 'lesser-evilism', starting in the 1970s. With early voting for the US elections underway, and huge pressure on the left to vote for Joe Biden in order to kick out Donald Trump, there are valuable lessons to be learned from the Italian experience.