Building solidarity, defying chaos, reasons to be thankful: Weekend reads for November 23, 2024

What we're reading this week

Happy weekend to all!

As we look ahead to the Thanksgiving holiday, we understand that not everyone may be feeling especially thankful this season. But with the election past and the postmortems logged, the questions worth asking are about how to build a better world, even if it is on shakier foundations than we’d hoped for. The opportunity to gather, and to take a look back at the foundational myths of American democracy, is also a chance to think about that brighter future.

In the readings we share this week for our supporting subscribers, who make everything we do possible, we feature a look at some challenging and competing visions for the future: at the need to build solidarity, new interpretations of masculinity, the persistence or our insatiable hunger for energy, the threat of far-right visions of a renewed crusade brought home, and more. As we suggested earlier this week, it’s time to get back up: “Democracy is not a supermarket, where you pop in whenever you need something. It’s a farm, where you reap what you sow.”

But first, we encourage you to read our two-part conversation with organizer and author Astra Taylor. As we look ahead to an era full of challenges that demand solidarity, we talked to Taylor about what we can learn from the things Democrats got wrong (and Republicans got right) about media, why organizing is the path forward, and how progressives can begin to build the infrastructure to make small-d democratic victories possible in the future.

People should join their local Indivisible group, their local environmental group, join the local Democratic chapter. We only have strength when we get organized. Start a club if you're somewhere where there isn't one. Join a labor union. Or start a union at your workplace. Join DSA. DSA is a great example. Anything where they get you into community with others. And I don't mean community in the sense of having potlucks. I mean, I mean political communities. Find a political home that ensures that you're engaged beyond just casting a ballot. If you are someone who donates, I would say donate to groups that do year-round organizing as opposed to donating to the Democratic Party. Invest in this kind of long-term infrastructure that we need, but that the Democratic Party will never institutionalize

Overthrow the donor class. And the consultants, too

Stop moping. Start organizing

---

We hope The Ink will be essential to the thinking and reimagining and reckoning and doing that all lie ahead. We want to thank you for being a part of what we are and what we do, and we promise you that this community is going to find every way possible to be there for you in the times that lie ahead and be there for this country and for what it can be still.

---

Readings

An injury to one is an injury to all

[G]rowing working-class support for Trump and the MAGA Republicans does not mean working people are more conservative than wealthier Americans. Instead, it concluded, working people are “uniformly to the left of the middle and upper classes” when it comes to economic policies promoting fairness, equity, and distribution. On other issues such as immigration, education, and crime and policing, their findings are mixed and, not surprisingly, differentiated by race, gender, and political orientation. Most importantly, the WFP understands that the chief source of disaffection has been the neoliberal assault on labor and the severe weakening of workers’ political and economic power. [Boston Review]