We have become accustomed to referring to postwar periods: the post-Second World War era, the post-Vietnam era, the post-Cold War era. But we have potentially entered a new and dangerous prewar era of intense superpower jockeying in which bloc politics returns to the fore.
The line being spun by New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s team is that his abject display of bootlicking in the White House was a strategic masterstroke that has put Trump on the backfoot. Yet Mamdani achieved not a single concession, not a single win.
In virtually every election held in every district and every state on 4 November, Democrats improved on their performance in last year’s presidential election. And in many places, they exceeded their most optimistic predictions. “No Kings” went to the polls.
Activism in neighbourhoods around Chicago shows that thousands of working people are willing to stand against the authoritarianism coming from the Trump administration in ways that elites at institutions like universities, corporations and the Democratic Party are not.
