Skip to content

2020 Elections

Protect The Vote And End Privatization Of The Postal Service

August 16, 2020 Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, Popular Resistance. , , ,
As we were warned earlier in the year, the US Postal Service is failing due to a long term effort to weaken it plus the confluence of the COVID-19 pandemic, recession and intentional efforts by the Trump administration to suppress the vote. Members of Congress and state leaders are starting to take notice because of the magnitude of the crisis and public outcry, particularly over valid concerns that mail-in voting will be disrupted. Now is the time to not only protect the vote but to use this moment to end privatization and selling off of the US Postal Service and expand it as a critical public institution that provides high quality jobs and services to all communities, rich and poor, urban and rural, across the country.

Protesters Make Noise At Postmaster General’s Home Over Cuts

August 16, 2020 Phil McCausland, NBC News. , , ,
Protesters filled the streets outside the head of the U.S. Postal Service's home in Northwest Washington, D.C., on Saturday, some carrying signs that read "Don't mess with the USPS" and "Don't stamp out our democracy." The demonstrators blew airhorns and banged pots as a few of them walked to the front door of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy's building and pinned fake ballots to his front door, as protesters accused him and the White House of working together to undermine main-in ballots and the election. "Hey hey, Louis DeJoy, the Postal Service is not your toy!" the protesters chanted. It was not known if he was home.

Chris Hedges: The United State’s Death March

August 10, 2020 Chris Hedges, SheerPost.com. , , ,
The terminal decline of the United States will not be solved by elections. The political rot and depravity will continue to eat away at the soul of the nation, spawning what anthropologists call crisis cults — movements led by demagogues that prey on an unbearable psychological and financial distress. These crisis cults, already well established among followers of the Christian Right and Donald Trump, peddle magical thinking and an infantilism that promises — in exchange for all autonomy — prosperity, a return to a mythical past, order and security.

Neoliberal Centrists And The American Left

August 9, 2020 Rob Urie, Counterpunch. , , ,
The rapid end to the electoral fortunes of the Anglo-American left in 2020 was engineered by radical centrists for the benefit of capital. What was banished, in addition to vibrant and informed opposition to an atrophied political class, was the prospect of Federal government programs that are both desired and needed by the American people. Even if the agents of atrophy get it together in coming weeks to toss a few crumbs to those economically displaced by the pandemic, current woes arrived decades into engineered economic decline.

Preparing For A November Surprise

July 29, 2020 Maria J. Stephan, Candace Rondeaux, and Erica Chenoweth, Political Violence at a Glance. , , ,
Nationwide protests against police brutality following George Floyd’s murder are the broadest and most persistent in US history. They have laid bare the racism that pervades American society—and demonstrated the willingness of Americans to take to the streets and resist oppression, even in the midst of a pandemic. Americans must continue demanding an end to white supremacy and follow the lead of Black organizers to galvanize a similar flexing of civic muscle to help ensure democratic continuity come November. With elections four months away and the rule of law under steady attack, people power could prove decisive in ensuring a constitutional transfer of power without violence. Analysts have developed a number of doomsday scenarios for November. The election could be postponed or canceled. A state of emergency could be declared and polling stations shut down.

Consequences Of ‘New’ US- South China Escalation Unclear

July 28, 2020 By Mark Valencia, Asia Times. , , ,
Predicting US policy and actions in the South China Sea in the last stages of a dying administration is a crapshoot. Indeed, some think this may only be an election-year ploy to unite the country against the “China threat.” While the language will last beyond a change in US administrations, its implementation will vary with these changes. Most affected countries, including China, will probably wait for the next US administration to change their approach – if they decide to do so. All Southeast Asian countries, including China’s main protagonist, Vietnam, have been relatively muted in their responses to Pompeo’s statement. This indicates that none want to get drawn further into the tightening US-China tensions – at least right now. Moreover, they are not sure the US will have their backs – in the short and long run – if they side with it. Vietnam in particular has to be very careful. If China comes to think the US is pulling Vietnam’s strings, the consequences could get ugly.

Palestinian Community Sets Conditions On Support For Presidential Candidate

July 6, 2020 Middle East Monitor. , ,
Members of the Palestinian community in the United States have issued a declaration of principles that included a set of preconditions to support federal candidates in the presidential elections later this year. The document, signed by Palestinian cultural, political, social and academic figures, included 13 preconditions namely recognizing the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination as an inalienable right as well as the need for the Israeli occupation to immediately and unconditionally end and the refugees’ right to return to their homes in accordance with UN Resolution 194. The Declaration considered the activities carried out by the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement as a legitimate right in full harmony with the First Amendment of the American Constitution.

The 2020 Elections: The Struggle Is For Power Not Reform

June 30, 2020 Ajamu Baraka, Black Agenda Report. , , ,
The great African revolutionary, Amilcar Cabral, reminded us that without revolutionary theory there can be no revolution. His reminder was not a call for abstract theorizing, quite the contrary. What he meant was that one cannot advance in practice unless that practice is guided by the most advanced understanding of the material and ideological conditions that revolutionary forces face. Over the next two days, we will ground ourselves in our particular realities as they relate to our strategic and tactical engagement with the bourgeois electoral system in the United States. Let’s begin: The ongoing and current capitalist crisis has created the most serious crisis of legitimacy since the collapse of the capitalist economy during the years referred to as the Great Depression.

The Rebellion Against Police Repression Must Guard Against All Enemies

June 21, 2020 Danny Haiphong, Black Agenda Report. , , ,
The masses are in motion and public opinion about U.S. policing has rapidly shifted in three short weeks. George Floyd and Breonna Taylor’s assassination at the hands of U.S. police departments unleased a flood of anger toward the special bodies of armed forces that occupy the streets of Black American communities across the country. New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Minneapolis, and Washington D.C. have seen tens of thousands of people march several miles per day demanding that police departments be defunded or abolished altogether. Protestors of all hues have been brutalized and journalists have been targeted with flurries of rubber-coated steel bullets and tear gas cannisters.

Making Peace An Election Issue

May 27, 2020 Joe Lombardo, United National Antiwar Coalition. , , ,
In this series of interviews by the United National Antiwar Coalition, Joe Lombardo speaks with Margaret Kimberley who is an author, editor of Black Agenda Report and coordinating committee member of Black Alliance for Peace. She speaks about the Black Alliance for Peace's campaign to make peace an election issue. The demands include cutting military spending, losing military bases, stopping sanctions and ending militarism domestically. Margaret Kimberley explains why this is an important issue and what people can do to support the campaign.

Newspapers Won’t Connect the Dots On Postal Service Threats

May 5, 2020 Julie Hollar, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. , , ,
More than six weeks after a bill was introduced to require vote-by-mail to be available for the November 3 elections, no federal steps have been taken to ensure a fair and free election in the shadow of a pandemic that threatens people’s ability to access the polls. In fact, while some states scramble to put together vote-by-mail plans—shouldering the financial burden themselves—others are doing nothing, and New York went so far as to cancel its presidential primary. Meanwhile, commenting on Fox & Friends (3/30/20) about the Democratic vote-by-mail bill, Donald Trump said the quiet part out loud:  The things they had in there were crazy. They had levels of voting, that if you ever agreed to it you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.

Biden Dismisses Democratic Party Base’s Support For Medicare For All

April 23, 2020 Bill Bianchi and Laura Christenson-Garcia, Popular Resistance. , , ,
We often hear criticism of Donald Trump for, among other faults, his overwhelming Olympian arrogance, which drives millions of Democrats to pray daily for an end to his presidency.  But on the topic of Medicare for All, Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, exhibits similar heights of arrogance.  Recently, Biden told MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell, that even if the Congress sent him a Medicare for All bill, he would veto it.  And a week later, he confirmed that position.   Under our current private, for-profit, health system, the lack of treatment and care for the 75 million uninsured and underinsured puts them at extreme risk.  Now with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, that risk will extend to tens of millions of the newly unemployed in our country.

2020 Election Year Is An Opportunity For Transformational Change If We Embrace Our Power

April 19, 2020 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, Popular Resistance , , , ,
Although we do not tie our organizing to the election cycle, the 2020 election is an opportunity for the people to set the agenda for the 2020s. We need to show that whether Donald Trump or Joe Biden are elected, the people will rule from below. We need to build our power to demand the transformation we need. As Kali Akuno of Cooperation Jackson said in our recent Clearing the FOG interview, the right-wing is using this time to push through their agenda of corporate bailouts, deregulation, and worker exploitation. If the left doesn't organize and counter this, the country will continue on its current destructive path. The changes we want won't come from the top. Both corporate duopoly candidate's priorities are the wealthy investor class and big business. We are going to have to organize and mobilize for the necessities of the people from below.

Bernie Sanders Tests the Limits Of The US Political System

April 16, 2020 Roger D. Harris, Popular Resistance , ,
That Sanders was once the frontrunner and might have swept the Democratic primaries is an indicator of the neoliberal order’s decay. The coronavirus pandemic was both the final blow to the Sanders campaign and the world-historic event that proved unquestionably that his platform of universal health care and fairness to the working class was the medicine needed for an ailing nation. Shelter-in-place is Biden’s strong suit, while Sanders’ contagious ability to enthuse the youth was sequestered. And, no, Biden’s healthcare public option is not even a baby step towards universal health care. Sanders’ parting remark on April 8 was “we have won the ideological battle.” Of course, ideas don’t have agency on their own. The battle is to organize a progressive constituency and not self-defeat by tethering to the Democratic Party.

Media Silent As Poll Workers Contract Covid-19 At Primaries That DNC, Biden Campaign Claimed Were Safe

March 30, 2020 Katie Halper, Fair.org , , ,
Donald Trump is the single individual in US society most responsible for spreading dangerous misinformation about Covid-19 in the midst of a global pandemic. Anyone who echoes him, or his administration’s entreaties to not take going out in public too seriously, is engaging in public endangerment. Anyone who actively encourages people to gather in mass, and in close proximity, is doing so at a mass scale.
«123456789»

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

Donate Here

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! 

Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

Donate Here
Sign Up To Our Daily Digest

Independent media outlets are being suppressed and dropped by corporations like Google, Facebook and Twitter. Sign up for our daily email digest before it’s too late so you don’t miss the latest movement news.