Leaving Conservatism Behind
How I renounced the God-and-guns conservatism of my blue-collar roots and embraced class politics.
Winter 2025
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Unequal Lives
If there’s one issue that has dominated the left in recent years, it’s our belated recognition of the explosion of economic inequality in the United States. Most of us were aware of its growth through the Clinton and Bush years, …
Spring 2016
To access Dissent’s full Spring issue, please click here. This page is a placeholder.
Protest Politics: Introduction
This fall’s election campaign may be the most tumultuous one since 1968, and with good reason. How did we get here? And what’s next?
Introducing our Summer special section.
A Politics of Ambition
Politics cannot just be about consensus. It must also be about conflict. More important, it must always be about asking for more.
Big Philanthropy Takes the Bus
Since the early 2000s, when the Shell-backed EMBARQ began promoting bus rapid transit (BRT), a wide range of philanthropists and transit advocates have seized on the “technical fix,” which promises to solve a recognized problem without challenging the power relationships that created it.
War Porn 
whenever possible, you should avoid kill zones such as streets, alleys, and parks Driving the edge of Sadr City through bumper-to-bumper afternoon jam, I heard Lieutenant Krauss behind me yell, “Weapon on the left.” “What, where?” the BC shouted. …
Ripped from the Headlines
Hollywood has always had a strong appetite for fact yet a curiously lax attitude in adhering to it. The typical biopic, for example, focused on celebrated figures, from Abraham Lincoln to Cole Porter, and tended to be sloppy and selective, …
The Women of the Easter Rising
“No one likes a woman who yells loudly about revolution,” wrote Rebecca Traister in February. She was writing about the presidential election, of course, but the words stuck with me for months, especially when I was in Ireland this March …
Drone Art
Drones offer the most compact, iconic representation of the new image of warfare: sanitary, sleek, almost post-human.
Spring 2016 – Mobile Editions
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Game Over for the Tar Sands?
Plunging oil prices, indigenous-led protests, and a new, liberal government have called the future of the tar sands into question. But will all this be enough to defuse Canada’s “climate bomb” for good?
Department of Climate Defense
The U.S. military is one of the world’s top consumers of fossil fuels. But it has also done pioneering research on climate change, revealing how deeply connected climate disruption is with other forms of social and political turmoil. Michael Kazin interviews climate scientist and longtime Pentagon official Jeffrey Marqusee.
Not Safe for Work: Why Feminist Pornography Matters
Since the sex wars, women have become more visible as producers and consumers of pornography, but many debates about working conditions and content remain stuck in the past. How should feminists, both within and outside the industry, engage with pornography today?
Bargaining for the Common Good
From Los Angeles to Minneapolis to Washington, D.C., workers are finding new approaches to bargaining for a greater good, aligning their demands with those of their community allies.
