Current Affairs

With a flurry of election victories, nonstop media attention, and a shift in public opinion, the fortunes of the American left are finally starting to turn.

Looking back at the complicated life and continued relevance of El Presidenté. Shortly before my father’s 1974 emigration to New York City, he’s an aspiring politician in post-colonial Jamaica, whipping support for democratic socialist Michael Manley’s bid to become prime minister, riding People’s National Party vans to Kingston, canvassing voters, not returning home for days. He’s 16 years old.

Francesca Hong, a State Assembly member in Wisconsin, nearly just became the Democratic nominee for governor. The 37-year-old democratic socialist, a single mom and former restaurant worker, was leading in polls, and running on a platform of universal childcare, a data center moratorium, and raising the minimum wage. If elected, Hong would have been the first member of the Democratic Socialists of America to become a governor, an extraordinary step forward for the socialist movement.

And I bade my comrades cast lots among them, which of them should have the hardihood with me to lift the stake and grind it into the Cyclops’ eye… — Homer, the Odyssey When you walk through the French Quarter in New Orleans, you’ll see—and be seen by—two distinct types of surveillance cameras. Some are the familiar little black bubbles and metallic cylinders, perched outside the doors of shops, or mounted on poles at the edge of parking lots.

Representative Andy Ogles has lost his seat in Congress, and the nation is a better, cleaner place for it. Few people did so much, in so short a time in elected office, to drag America’s public discourse into the gutter of bigotry, religious hatred, and outright fascism. Practically every week, a new statement came from Ogles’ office that marked a new low point in ethics and good taste. “Homosexuality has no place in America.

For decades, the Pentagon Papers whistleblower filled notebooks with reflections on war, conscience, and hope. His family discusses what they reveal. In October 1969, nearly 14 years into the Vietnam War and only months before the first civilian draft lottery, Daniel Ellsberg decided that Americans deserved to know the truth.

Thinking we have time left to address climate change, or that “Net Zero by 2050” will save us, is driving us toward full social collapse in ways that become more obvious with every new broken temperature record. Lies are a lot like gourds. They come in hundreds of different varieties, sizes, and bulbous, twisty shapes. Some are off-puttingly spiked and prickly, while others remind us of fall childhood memories.

The amount of money put toward defeating Abdul El-Sayed in the Michigan Senate Primary was staggering: Tens of millions of dollars in outside spending were funneled into pushing vicious, untrue ads about El-Sayed that blanketed the Michigan airwaves. When I was in Michigan last month reporting on the campaign, I couldn’t believe how often the ad accusing El-Sayed of sexism was airing on local TV. It was in practically every commercial break.

Dr. El-Sayed’s primary win is sending a shockwave through U.S. politics, but at Current Affairs, we’ve been covering him since 2018. Current Affairs is pleased to announce that public health expert Dr. Abdul El-Sayed has been nominated as the Democratic Party candidate for U.S. Senate in Michigan. Our magazine has covered Dr. El-Sayed’s work many times over the years, and he is a former contributor to our pages and our YouTube channel.

We’re constantly told that democratic socialists are too “extreme.” But it’s the Republicans who have gun nuts, self-proclaimed exorcists, and other unsavory characters in their ranks. It’s a funny experience, opening your local newspaper and finding that it condemns your own politics as a threat to the nation.