This note introduces our Winter 2024 issue.
As we go to press, war is raging in Gaza, Trump’s electoral chances are soaring even as he is being tried in New York and Georgia, and Biden is scrambling to boost his approval rating and deflect criticism of the administration’s nearly uncritical support for Israel. With looming elections around the globe, the months ahead will present critical tests to the fate of democracy.
In the United States, much depends on the prospects of the Democratic Party. Our forum in this issue explores the party’s shifting base and priorities—and what they mean for efforts to build a democracy that serves all Americans.
Until recently, political scientists Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson argue, the Democrats have followed the rightward trend of center-left parties throughout much of the West—abandoning redistribution while growing support among the affluent and highly educated. But that trend is over. Since Biden took office, Democrats have embraced the boldest economic agenda in more than half a century, breaking with the politics of Barack Obama even while relying on a more economically diverse base. Though the party’s most ambitious plans narrowly failed in Congress, the stage is set, Hacker and Pierson think, for significant progressive gains.
Respondents all agree the party has changed, but they disagree about why—and what the changes portend. While some are skeptical that the changes reflect a decisive break with the past, others see important possibilities in new coalitions and the vibrancy of today’s social movements. Whatever happens this fall, anyone interested in “saving democracy, overcoming dysfunction, and addressing injustice” will have to reckon with the electoral shifts that Hacker and Pierson describe.
Also in this issue, Barnett Rubin reflects on the relationship between Zionism and colonialism, clarifying what it means for a political solution in Israel and Palestine. A new assessment of Walter Rodney, the late Guyanese historian and revolutionary, shows how his political vision was grounded in the history and culture of particular communities struggling for liberation. We talk with Palestinian American poet Fady Joudah, feature two of his poems, and consider what the Republican National Convention will mean for Milwaukee this summer. We close with “The Silencing of Fred Dube,” a troubling story of the failure to talk about the issues that divide us.
