Base and Superstructure

Thoughts on production, alienation, and ideology

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Iowa Democratic Party Culver

Iowa Democratic Party: Build a 2030 Coalition!

May 10, 2021 /

Far be it from me to offer advice to the Iowa Democratic Party. Sure, I had to join to caucus a couple times for Bernie Sanders. That hardly makes me a party member.

But let’s take a look at a fact no one – even the biggest IDP booster on Earth – will deny. The Iowa Democratic Party consistently lost almost every key statewide race in the 2010s. Yes, Obama delivered a win at the presidential level in 2012. Yes, they won some Congressional races and a State Auditor election in 2018. But look beyond that and you find one bloodbath after another.

Fred Hubbell was a dud. Theresa Greenfield couldn’t get it done. Terry Branstad crowned Chet Culver King of the Duds. Deidre DeJear didn’t bring home the win. And the less said about Bruce Braley, the better. No Democrat came close to winning a U.S. Senate seat, and Trump trounced both Clinton and Biden. Democrats failed to make gains in the state legislature, and so on.

Why? Blogs like Bleeding Heartland focus relentlessly on the question. Why has the GOP kicked the shit out of the Iowa Democratic Party from one end of the state to the other? And what can the IDP do about it?

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Political Magazines New Masses

Which Political Magazines Do You Read?

May 6, 2021 /

For this post, I have a question for readers: which political magazines do you read?

For my part, back in the day I used to read a wide range of left-wing magazines. That included outlets like Dissent, In These Times, Z Magazine, etc. I’ve also read Jacobin here and there, and I subscribed to Bitch magazine, a feminist pop culture outlet, for several years.

These days, I’ve moved away from all those sources a bit. Here’s a list of current magazines and journals I subscribe to: Catalyst, Current Affairs, and n+1. As far as the niche of those respective outlets, here’s how I’d describe them: leftist and social democratic political strategy (Catalyst), smart and more ecumenical leftist takes on a wide range of social and political phenomena (Current Affairs), New York literary journal with a political essay component (n+1).

How about you?

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Political Argument and Wealth: Fallacy or Not?

April 29, 2021 /

political argument wealth

People often talk about money or class standing in a political argument. But I’m not referring in this post to liberal elitism. Nor am I talking about the even more brazen, ‘I have more money than you, therefore I’m better’ kind of thing.

Rather, I want to focus on more subtle ideas. And ones found primarily on the political left. Leftists will appeal to money or class status when discrediting certain kinds of views or people.

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Work Won't Love You Back Sarah Jaffe

Work Won’t Love You Back

April 26, 2021 /

Many readers know I like to set a common theme for the year. For this year’s theme, I chose value and the corporate workplace, a topic I’ve also written about in prior years. So far, I’ve hit this theme in a number of ways. But one way I might summarize it all? Work won’t love you back.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I found out labor journalist Sarah Jaffe recently wrote a book called Work Won’t Love You Back.

Let’s take a look at Jaffe’s book.

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