We tend to see mass upsurges and rebellions from below as occurring outside the framework of elections. At the point of production, in the workplace, in the streets. But isn’t that too restrictive and limited?

I would make a case that what we saw on Election Day was a mass popular upsurge – organized and spontaneous – of remarkable breath and depth against the MAGA movement. The marching of tens of millions to cast their vote for democracy, democratic governance, and democratic rights was every bit as authentic as street and strike actions, took place on a scale that makes it unique, and possesses positive consequences in the near and longer term that few other actions can claim.

My point here isn’t to diminish the latter – street and strike actions -, but only to recast how we see the struggle in the electoral arena in our political imagination and practice.

There was a time when I thought my radical – communist – politics required that I make a long “tortured” explanation for voting for Democratic candidates when the answer was simple and obvious. Thankfully those days are in my rear view mirror.

The struggle isn’t only to defend, but also to reform – deepen and extend – our democracy and democratic structures so that they respond better to the everyday concerns of millions.

Long interview, but worth listening to. A reliance on old understandings of the 20th century is inadequate in many ways to understanding today’s realities.

If I have learned anything in the past decade, it is that the formation of the political consciousness of working people is a far more complicated, interactive, and many layered and leveled process than I first understood it years ago. It takes place at the cultural level as well as the economic.

Moreover, the working class itself has a hand in the process. It’s not simply a recepticle of what others say and do.