with Kim Moody
Sunday, December 11, 2022, 1 PM EST
The midterm election results put a big roadblock in the path of the right wing’s plans to dominate Congress, outlaw abortion nationally, and take crucial offices in “battleground states” to nullify election results in 2024 and beyond. In other words, the plan to complete the “January 6 coup” attempt by other means has failed — for now.
This doesn’t put U.S. politics on a “stable” footing. A closely divided Congress means the possibility of legislative and policy gridlock in the face of a pending “stagflation” recession, racial injustice and attacks on women and LGBT people’s lives, a continuing war in Ukraine, and an ever-deepening global climate catastrophe. The far-right and white-supremacist agenda continues to develop in the Supreme Court and in rightwing-controlled state legislatures.
While everyone can see the bitter divisions in the Republican Party over Donald Trump’s backing of weak and absurd MAGA candidates who dragged down the party’s electoral showing and now Trump’s 2024 presidential bid, the Democratic Party establishment’s drive to sideline the “progressive” wing has received less attention. But it’s important to understand as a signal of the Democrats’ firm loyalty to corporate capital. These byzantine maneuvers also played a role in the Democrats’ loss of a number of key Congressional races.
We’ll discuss these developments and the continuing U.S. political turmoil with a feature presentation by Kim Moody, the author of many books and numerous articles on the U.S. working class, economy and politics, most recently Breaking the Impasse: Electoral Politics, Mass Action, and the New Socialist Movement in the United States (Haymarket Books).
Additionally we’ll have several comrades present brief reflections on important results and movement developments in their locations. Feel free to invite friends.