Editor’s Page

We are in the middle of the most politically gripping Democratic primary campaign in recent memory, and, with a lead time of almost two months, there is nothing that we can say about it that will be readable or relevant when this issue of Dissent reaches our subscribers. Needless to say, the editorial board is divided between supporters of Clinton and of Obama (some in each camp started out as supporters of Edwards). We are not permitted by the rules of tax-exempt educational foundations to endorse a candidate, but we wouldn’t be capable of doing that anyway. Still, we are not hostile to electoral engagement in the way the old, old left was, when militants thought that elections were a bourgeois trick. It does make a difference who wins, even if we can’t agree on what precisely the difference is.

When the primary season is over, we will attempt to analyze the character and extent of the divisions that it has produced—in the feminist movement, in the labor movement, and among civil rights activists and African American politicians and intellectuals. Although Dissent cannot participate in the campaigns, it can reflect upon them after the fact, which is the best way of preparing for campaigns to come.

Meanwhile, we are looking further back, to 1968, a crucial year in the history of the left—and also of the right, which has been in power almost continuously since that time. What aspects of ’60s politics should we celebrate? What aspects should we crit...