Peter Dreier - Dissent Magazine

Leonard Bernstein’s Radicalism

Peter Dreier ▪ February 2, 2024

Bernstein used his status as a public figure both to popularize classical music and to support civil rights, the antiwar movement, and other political causes.

Baseball’s Labor Wars

Peter Dreier ▪ March 28, 2022

MLB owners’ recent lockout was an effort to reverse the gains that players had won over decades of labor struggle. The owners failed.

S.M. “Mike” Miller, a Pioneering Scholar-Activist (1922–2021)

Peter Dreier ▪ November 4, 2021

A prolific writer and researcher for seven decades, Miller’s greatest talent was putting that knowledge to work on behalf of activist groups in the United States and around the world.

Will MLB Confront Its Racist History?

Peter Dreier ▪ July 22, 2020

The controversy over buildings, statues, and awards honoring racists has finally reached the baseball establishment.

Why Anti-Semitism Is on the Rise in the United States

Peter Dreier ▪ January 17, 2020

During the past decade, social media has amplified the voices of white supremacists and anti-Semites, but it is Trump who has lent them legitimacy and emboldened them to come out of the shadows.

What Milwaukee Can Teach the Democrats about Socialism

Peter Dreier ▪ May 8, 2019

The Democratic Party didn’t choose Milwaukee for its 2020 convention because of its radical past. But the city’s history shows how socialism worked in the United States—and could work again.

The Right-Wing Firestorm That Rages On

Peter Dreier ▪ July 27, 2018

A new documentary reveals how the right-wing attack on the national, grassroots anti-poverty group ACORN was a dress rehearsal for our current toxic political culture.

Trump’s Triangle Fire

Peter Dreier and Donald Cohen ▪ April 27, 2018

The blaze that killed a Trump Tower resident in early April recalls a long of history of developers and corporations putting profit over safety—an ethos that informs not only Trump’s business but his presidency.

Gloria Steinem Renews an Old Debate About Socialism and Feminism

Peter Dreier ▪ February 20, 2016

Radicals of many stripes—Steinem among them—have long understood issues of class and gender as intertwined.

Radicals in City Hall: An American Tradition

Peter Dreier ▪ December 19, 2013

Socialist Kshama Sawant’s election to the Seattle City Council in November 2013 made national news, a kind of “man bites dog” story that the media found shocking and irresistible. In fact, the United States has a long tradition of municipal socialism. One hundred years ago, about 1,200 socialists held public office in 340 cities.