Donald Trump’s candidacy may have peaked. But, from the United States to Britain and beyond, the discontent fueling the far right won’t fade so quickly. Can a new, left-wing populism seize on it—and rebuild democracy in the process?
Too many of us on the left treat the right as a monolith—and it’s keeping us from effectively fighting back.
As Latin America’s “pink tide” appears to ebb, Patrick Iber, Javier Buenrostro, Sujatha Fernandes, Bryan McCann, and Thea Riofrancos examine its lessons for democratic socialists in the region and abroad.
Targeted use of revenue from commodities can be an immediate and necessary salve against brutal levels of poverty and inequality, but Chavismo’s “extractivist” model has left Venezuela as vulnerable as ever to the whims of the international market.
Populism is extremely limited if it is not coupled with highly organized grassroots movements with the ability to shape politics from the ground up.
The central protagonists of Latin America’s profound shift away from the neoliberal policies of the 1980s and ‘90s were not strong leaders but social movements.
If there is any positive aspect to Brazil’s current crisis, it is the reemergence of non-partisan, civil-society mobilization in response to impeachment and its fallout.
Democratic socialism cannot emerge exclusively, or even primarily, from the grassroots—it implies the structuring of social resources in ways that require government action.
Does the conservative Law and Justice party’s victory represent the resurgence of populist nationalism in Eastern Europe? Perhaps. But it also represents something equally troubling about Polish politics: there are no left-wing alternatives.
Significant change to our political economy will require significant change to our structure of government. It is hard to see how to get there without some kind of “populist” moment, fraught with danger to other values we believe to be essential.
If one thing is clear, it is that Central Europeans will not come out onto the streets solely for an abstract idea of “more democracy in Europe.” The question therefore remains: how to inspire Central Europeans to mobilize for real reform?
Can the Latin American left really be divided into a moderate, social democratic “right left” and an authoritarian, populist “wrong” one?
Podemos has changed the vocabulary and style of the nation’s politics—and altered what it means to be a proud citizen of Spain.
In their efforts to smear Spain’s Podemos party as “populist,” pundits have only revealed the vacuousness of the term.
