Doug McAdam is emeritus professor of Sociology at Stanford University and author or co-author of 18 books and articles on race in the U.S., American politics, and the study of social movements. These include the 2014 book Deeply Divided: Social Movements and Racial Politics in Post-War America, co-authored with Karina Kloos.
McAdam places this summer’s protests in the context of the regional shifts since the 1950s within and between the Democratic and Republican parties. Race is the fault line of these movements. The Cold War also makes an appearance, as it did in the earlier conversations with Cedric Johnson. We talk also about the possible role of political polarization in the U.S. in the country’s growing income inequality.
To date there have been more than 200 documented strikes, walkouts and other types of labor protest in the U.S. by essential workers in warehouses, meat processing plants, hospitals and grocery stores. What might this wave of activity mean for the labor movement after the pandemic? Guest: Eric Blanc, author of Red State Revolt: The Teachers' Strike Wave and Working-Class Politics (Verso: 2019), and organizer with the Democratic Socialists of America's Emergency Worker Organizing Committee (EWOC) ...
What are unions in the U.S. doing in response to the pandemic, and is it enough? What is the right balance for the left between being "deferential" and "hypercritical" towards unions? Frances Boyes is former union representative with Unite Here and board member of Mass-Care, as well as member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). Background: Culinary Union vs Bernie Sanders, American Prospect; Medicare vs COBRA, Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at University of Massachusetts-Amherst ...
Daphna Thier of DSA's National Political Education Committee, and Austin Hayes from Olympia DSA, discuss the how and why of political education in the context of DSA's 2019 resolution to "build and implement a socialist education program." Several chapters of DSA already have robust political education programs of their own, for example Olympia DSA Night School. ...
