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American Left
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The American Left refers to the groups or ideas on the left of the political spectrum in the United States. It is occasionally used as a shorthand for groups aligned with the Democratic Party. At other times, it refers to groups that have sought egalitarian changes in the economic, political, and cultural institutions of the United States.[1] Various subgroups with a national scope are active. Liberals and progressives believe that equality can be accommodated into existing capitalist structures, but they differ in their criticism of capitalism and on the extent of reform and the welfare state. Anarchists, communists, and socialists with international imperatives are also present within this macro-movement.[2] Many communes and egalitarian communities have existed in the United States as a sub-category of the broader intentional community movement, some of which were based on utopian socialist ideals.[3] The left has been involved in both the Democratic and Republican parties at different times, having originated in the Democratic-Republican Party as opposed to the Federalist Party.[4][5][6]
Although left-wing politics came to the United States in the 19th century, there are currently no major left-wing political parties in the country. Despite existing left-wing factions within the Democratic Party,[7] as well as minor third parties such as the Green Party, Communist Party USA, Party for Socialism and Liberation, American Communist Party, Workers World Party, Socialist Party, and American Solidarity Party (a Christian democratic party leaning left on economics), there have been few representatives of left-leaning third parties in Congress. Academic scholars have long studied the reasons why no viable socialist parties have emerged in the United States.[8] Some writers ascribe this to the failures of socialist organization and leadership, some to the incompatibility of socialism with American values, and others to the limitations imposed by the United States Constitution.[9] Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky were particularly concerned because it challenged orthodox Marxist beliefs that the most advanced industrial country would provide a model for the future of less developed nations. If socialism represented the future, then it should be strongest in the United States.[10] While branches of the Working Men's Party were founded in the 1820s and 1830s in the United States, they advocated land reform, universal education and improved working conditions in the form of labor rights, not collective ownership, disappearing after their goals were taken up by Jacksonian democracy. Samuel Gompers, the leader of the American Federation of Labor, thought that workers must rely on themselves because any rights provided by government could be revoked.[11]
Economic unrest in the 1890s was represented by populism and the People's Party. Although using anti-capitalist rhetoric, it represented the views of small farmers who wanted to protect their own private property, not a call for communism, collectivism, or socialism.[12] Progressives in the early 20th century criticized the way capitalism had developed but were essentially middle class and reformist; however, both populism and progressivism steered some to left-wing politics; many popular writers of the progressive period were left-wing.[13] Even the New Left relied on radical democratic traditions rather than left-wing ideology.[14] Friedrich Engels thought that the lack of a feudal past was the reason for the American working class holding middle-class values. Writing at a time when American industry was developing quickly towards the mass-production system known as Fordism, Max Weber and Antonio Gramsci saw individualism and laissez-faire liberalism as core shared American beliefs. According to the historian David De Leon, American radicalism was rooted in libertarianism and syndicalism rather than communism, Fabianism and social democracy, being opposed to centralized power and collectivism.[15] The character of the American political system is hostile toward third parties and has also been presented as a reason for the absence of a strong socialist party in the United States.[16] Political repression has also contributed to the weakness of the left in the United States. Many cities had Red Squads to monitor and disrupt leftist groups in response to labor unrest such as the Haymarket Riot.[17] The legacy of slavery and racial discrimination created deep divisions within the working class, producing a racially stratified, two-tiered labor force. These divisions fostered divergent political priorities and undermined class solidarity, making it more difficult for left-wing movements to build broad-based coalitions.[18]
During World War II, the Smith Act made membership in revolutionary groups illegal. After the war, Senator Joseph McCarthy used the Smith Act to launch a crusade (McCarthyism) to purge alleged communists from government and the media. In the 1960s, the FBI's COINTELPRO program monitored, infiltrated, disrupted and discredited radical groups in the United States.[19] In 2008, Maryland police were revealed to have added the names and personal information of anti-war protesters and death penalty opponents to a database which was intended to be used for tracking terrorists.[20] Terry Turchie, a former deputy assistant director of the FBI Counterterrorism Division, admitted that "one of the missions of the FBI in its counterintelligence efforts was to try to keep these people (progressives and self-described socialists) out of office."[21]
History
[edit]Origins and developments (17th century–20th century)
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Many indigenous tribes in North America practiced what Marxists would later call primitive communism, meaning they practiced economic cooperation among the members of their tribes.[22]
The first European socialists to arrive in North America were a Christian sect known as Labadists, who founded the commune of Bohemia Manor in 1683, about 60 miles (97 km) west of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Their communal way of life was based on the communal practices of the apostles and early Christians.[23]
The first secular American socialists were German Marxist immigrants who arrived following the Revolutions of 1848, also known as Forty-Eighters.[24] Joseph Weydemeyer, a German colleague of Karl Marx who sought refuge in New York in 1851 following the 1848 revolutions, established the first Marxist journal in the U.S., called Die Revolution, but It folded after two issues. In 1852 he established the Proletarierbund, which would become the American Workers' League, the first Marxist organization in the U.S., but it too was short-lived, having failed to attract a native English-speaking membership.[25]
In 1866, William H. Sylvis formed the National Labor Union (NLU). Frederich Albert Sorge, a German who had found refuge in New York following the 1848 revolutions, took Local No. 5 of the NLU into the First International as Section One in the U.S. By 1872, there were 22 sections, which were able to hold a convention in New York. The General Council of the International moved to New York with Sorge as General Secretary, but following internal conflict, it dissolved in 1876.[26]
A larger wave of German immigrants followed in the 1870s and 1880s, which included social democratic followers of Ferdinand Lassalle. Lassalle believed that state aid through political action was the road to revolution and was opposed to trade unionism which he saw as futile, believing that according to the iron law of wages employers would only pay subsistence wages. The Lassalleans formed the Social Democratic Party of North America in 1874 and both Marxists and Lassalleans formed the Workingmen's Party of the United States in 1876. When the Lassalleans gained control in 1877, they changed the name to the Socialist Labor Party of North America (SLP). However, many socialists abandoned political action altogether and moved to trade unionism. Two former socialists, Adolph Strasser and Samuel Gompers, formed the American Federation of Labor (AFL) in 1886.[24]
Anarchists split from the Socialist Labor Party to form the Revolutionary Socialist Party in 1881. By 1885 they had 7,000 members, double the membership of the SLP.[27] They were inspired by the International Anarchist Congress of 1881 in London. There were two federations in the United States that pledged adherence to the International. A convention of immigrant anarchists in Chicago formed the International Working People's Association (Black International), while a group of Native Americans in San Francisco formed the International Workingmen's Association (Red International).[28] Following a violent demonstration at Haymarket in Chicago in 1886, public opinion turned against anarchism. While very little violence could be attributed to anarchists, the attempted murder of a financier by an anarchist in 1892 and the 1901 assassination of the American president, William McKinley, by a professed anarchist led to the ending of political asylum for anarchists in 1903.[29] In 1919, following the Palmer Raids, anarchists were imprisoned and many, including Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, were deported. Yet anarchism again reached great public notice with the trial of the anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti, who would be executed in 1927.[30]
Daniel De Leon, who became leader of the SLP in 1890, took it in a Marxist direction. Eugene V. Debs, who had been an organizer for the American Railway Union formed the rival Social Democratic Party of America in 1898. Members of the SLP, led by Morris Hillquit and opposed to the De Leon's domineering personal rule and his anti-AFL trade union policy joined with the Social Democrats to form the Socialist Party of America (SPA). In 1905, a convention of socialists, anarchists and trade unionists disenchanted with the bureaucracy and craft unionism of the AFL, founded the rival Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), led by such figures as William D. "Big Bill" Haywood, Helen Keller, De Leon and Debs.[31]
The organizers of the IWW disagreed on whether electoral politics could be employed to liberate the working class. Debs left the IWW in 1906, and De Leon was expelled in 1908, forming a rival "Chicago IWW" that was closely linked to the SLP. The (Minneapolis) IWW's ideology evolved into anarcho-syndicalism, or "revolutionary industrial unionism", and avoided electoral political activity altogether.[32] It was successful organizing unskilled migratory workers in the lumber, agriculture, and construction trades in the Western states and immigrant textile workers in the Eastern states and occasionally accepted violence as part of industrial action.[33]
The SPA was divided between reformers who believed that socialism could be achieved through gradual reform of capitalism and revolutionaries who thought that socialism could only develop after capitalism was overthrown, but the party steered a center path between the two.[34] The SPA achieved the peak of its success by 1912 when its presidential candidate received 5.9% of the popular vote. The first Socialist congressman, Victor L. Berger, had been elected in 1910. By the beginning of 1912, there were 1,039 Socialist officeholders, including 56 mayors, 305 aldermen and councilmen, 22 police officials, and some state legislators. Milwaukee, Berkeley, Butte, Schenectady, and Flint were run by Socialists. A Socialist challenger to Gompers took one-third of the vote in a challenge for leadership of the AFL. The SPA had 5 English and 8 foreign-language daily newspapers, 262 English and 36 foreign-language weeklies, and 10 English and 2 foreign-language monthlies.[35]
American entry into the First World War in 1917 led to a patriotic hysteria aimed against Germans, immigrants, African Americans, class-conscious workers, and Socialists, and the ensuing Espionage Act and Sedition Act were used against them. The government harassed Socialist newspapers, the post office denied the SP use of the mails, and antiwar militants were arrested. Soon Debs and more than sixty IWW leaders were charged under the acts.[36]
Communist–Socialist split, the New Deal and Red Scares (1910s–1940s)
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In 1919, John Reed, Benjamin Gitlow and other Socialists formed the Communist Labor Party of America, while Socialist foreign sections led by C. E. Ruthenberg formed the Communist Party. These two groups would be combined as the Communist Party USA (CPUSA).[37] The Communists organized the Trade Union Unity League to compete with the AFL and claimed to represent 50,000 workers.[38]
In 1928, following divisions inside the Soviet Union, Jay Lovestone, who had replaced Ruthenberg as general secretary of the CPUSA following his death, joined with William Z. Foster to expel Foster's former allies, James P. Cannon and Max Shachtman, who were followers of Leon Trotsky. Following another Soviet factional dispute, Lovestone and Gitlow were expelled, and Earl Browder became party leader.[39]
Cannon, Shachtman, and Martin Abern then set up the Trotskyist Communist League of America, and recruited members from the CPUSA.[40] The League then merged with A. J. Muste's American Workers Party in 1934, forming the Workers Party. New members included James Burnham and Sidney Hook.[41]
By the 1930s the Socialist Party was deeply divided between an Old Guard, led by Hillquit, and younger Militants, who were more sympathetic to the Soviet Union, led by Norman Thomas. The Old Guard left the party to form the Social Democratic Federation.[42] Following talks between the Workers Party and the Socialists, members of the Workers Party joined the Socialists in 1936.[43] Once inside they operated as a separate faction.[44] The Trotskyists were expelled from the Socialist Party the following year and set up the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and the youth wing of the Socialists, the Young People's Socialist League (YPSL) joined them.[45] Shachtman and others were expelled from the SWP in 1940 over their position on the Soviet Union and set up the Workers Party. Within months many members of the new party, including Burnham, had left.[46] The Workers Party was renamed the Independent Socialist League (ISL) in 1949 and ceased being a political party.[47]
Some members of the Socialist Party's Old Guard formed the American Labor Party (ALP) in New York State, with support from the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). The right-wing of this party broke away in 1944 to form the Liberal Party of New York.[48] In the 1936, 1940 and 1944 elections the ALP received 274,000, 417,000, and 496,000 votes in New York State, while the Liberals received 329,000 votes in 1944.[49]
Civil rights, War on Poverty and the New Left (1950s–1960s)
[edit]In 1958, the Socialist Party welcomed former members of the Independent Socialist League, which before its 1956 dissolution had been led by Max Shachtman. Shachtman had developed a neo-Marxist critique of Soviet communism as "bureaucratic collectivism", a new form of class society that was more oppressive than any form of capitalism. Shachtman's theory was similar to that of many dissidents and refugees from Communism, such as the theory of the "new class" proposed by Yugoslavian dissident Milovan Djilas.[50] Shachtman's ISL had attracted youth like Irving Howe, Michael Harrington,[51] Tom Kahn, and Rachelle Horowitz.[52][53][54] The YPSL was dissolved, but the party formed a new youth group under the same name.[55]

Kahn and Horowitz, along with Norman Hill, helped Bayard Rustin with the civil rights movement. Rustin had helped to spread pacificism and nonviolence to leaders of the civil rights movement, like Martin Luther King Jr. Rustin's circle and A. Philip Randolph organized the 1963 March on Washington, where Martin Luther King delivered his I Have a Dream speech.[56][57][58][59]
Michael Harrington soon became the most visible socialist in the United States when his The Other America became a best seller, following a long and laudatory New Yorker review by Dwight Macdonald.[60] Harrington and other socialists were called to Washington, D.C., to assist the Kennedy Administration and then the Johnson Administration's war on poverty and Great Society.[61]
Shachtman, Harrington, Kahn, and Rustin argued advocated for a political strategy called "realignment" that prioritized strengthening labor unions and other progressive organizations that were already active in the Democratic Party. Contributing to the day-to-day struggles of the civil rights movement and labor unions had gained socialists credibility and influence, and had helped to push politicians in the Democratic Party towards "social-liberal" or social-democratic positions, at least on civil rights and the war on poverty.[62][63]
Harrington, Kahn, and Horowitz were officers and staff-persons of the League for Industrial Democracy (LID), which helped to start the New Left Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).[64] The three LID officers clashed with the less experienced activists of SDS, like Tom Hayden, when the latter's Port Huron Statement criticized socialist and liberal opposition to communism and criticized the labor movement while promoting students as agents of social change.[65][66] LID and SDS split in 1965, when SDS voted to remove from its constitution the "exclusion clause" that prohibited membership by communists:[67] The SDS exclusion clause had barred "advocates of or apologists for" "totalitarianism".[68] The clause's removal effectively invited "disciplined cadre" to attempt to "take over or paralyze" SDS, as had occurred to mass organizations in the thirties.[69] Afterwards, Marxism–Leninism, particularly the Progressive Labor Party, helped to write "the death sentence" for SDS,[70][71][72][73] which nonetheless had over 100 thousand members at its peak.
SDUSA–SPUSA split, foundation of DSOC–DSA and anti-WTO protests (1970s–1990s)
[edit]In 1972, the Socialist Party voted to rename itself as Social Democrats, USA (SDUSA) by a vote of 73 to 34 at its December Convention; its National Chairmen were Bayard Rustin, a peace and civil-rights leader, and Charles S. Zimmerman, an officer of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU).[74] In 1973, Michael Harrington resigned from SDUSA and founded the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC), which attracted many of his followers from the former Socialist Party.[75] The same year, David McReynolds and others from the pacifist and immediate-withdrawal wing of the former Socialist Party formed the Socialist Party USA.[76]
When the SPA became SDUSA,[74] the majority had 22 of 33 votes on the (January 1973) national committee of SDUSA. Two minority caucuses of SDUSA became associated with two other socialist organizations, each of which was founded later in 1973. Many members of Michael Harrington's ("Coalition") caucus, with 8 of 33 seats on the 1973 SDUSA national committee,[77] joined Harrington's DSOC. Many members of the Debs caucus, with 2 of 33 seats on SDUSA's 1973 national committee,[77] joined the Socialist Party of the United States (SPUSA).
From 1979 to 1989, SDUSA members like Tom Kahn organized the AFL-CIO's fundraising of $300,000, which bought printing presses and other supplies requested by Solidarnosc (Solidarity), the independent labor-union of Poland.[78][79][80] SDUSA members helped form a bipartisan coalition (of the Democratic and Republican parties) to support the founding of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), whose first President was Carl Gershman. The NED publicly allocated $4 million of public aid to Solidarity through 1989.[81][82]
The Democratic Socialists of America was founded in 1982 with the goal of running candidates in Democratic primaries and winning.[83]
In the 1990s, anarchists attempted to organize across North America around Love and Rage, which drew several hundred activists. By 1997 anarchist organizations began to proliferate.[84] One successful anarchist movement was Food Not Bombs, that distributed free vegetarian meals. Anarchists received significant media coverage for their disruption of the 1999 World Trade Organization conference, called the Battle in Seattle, where the Direct Action Network was organized. Most organizations were short-lived and anarchism went into decline following a reaction by the authorities that was increased after the September 11 attacks in 2001.
Occupy, Bernie Sanders campaigns and DSA electoral victories (2000s–present)
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In the 2000 presidential election, Ralph Nader and Winona LaDuke received 2,882,000 votes or 2.74% of the popular vote on the Green Party ticket.[85][86]
Filmmaker Michael Moore directed a series of popular movies examining the United States and its government policy from a left-wing perspective, including Bowling for Columbine, Sicko, Capitalism: A Love Story and Fahrenheit 9/11, which was the top grossing documentary film of all time.[87]
According to The New Republic, Barack Obama's victory in the 2008 United States presidential election "would thrill and then embitter a generation of leftists" with "Millennials curious about socialism [being] drawn to" Obama, "especially as he successfully repelled the avatar of the Democratic establishment, Hillary Clinton. In office, however, Obama veered to the economic center, tapping Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff and allowing fiscal moderates like Timothy Geithner and Larry Summers to steer the recovery from the economic crash."[83]
In 2011, Occupy Wall Street protests demanding accountability for the 2008 financial crisis and against inequality started in Manhattan, New York City, and soon spread to other cities around the country, becoming known more broadly as the Occupy movement.[88]
Kshama Sawant was elected to the Seattle City Council as an openly socialist candidate in 2013. She was re-elected in 2015.[89][90][91]
Bernie Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist who runs as an independent,[92] won his first election as mayor of Burlington, Vermont, in 1981 and was re-elected for three additional terms. He then represented Vermont in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1991 until 2007, and was subsequently elected U.S. Senator for Vermont in 2007, a position which he still holds.[93][94][95] Although he did not win the 2016 Democratic Party presidential nomination, Sanders won the fifth highest number of primary votes of any candidate in a nomination race, Democratic or Republican, and had caused an upset in Michigan and many other states.[96]
Democratic Socialists of America member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defeated ten-term incumbent Joe Crowley in the NY-14 U.S. House primary and went on to win her general election. She is the youngest woman ever elected to Congress and ran on a progressive platform. The DSA has seen a huge resurgence in growth with Bernie Sanders' 2016 presidential campaign and continues to grow despite having had a membership of around 5,000 members only a decade ago. Unlike other parts of the modern left like the Socialist Equality Party, the DSA is not a political party and its affiliated candidates usually run on a Democratic or independent ticket.
Political currents
[edit]Democratic socialism, social democracy, and resurgence of progressivism
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Use of the socialist label became more prominent after Socialist Party of America was founded in 1901. Eugene Debs ran as the party's presidential candidate five times and received 6% of the popular vote in 1912. The party suffered political repression during World War I due to its pacifist stance and broke into factions over whether or not to support the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia and whether or not to join the Comintern. The Socialist Party was re-formed in the mid-1920s but stopped running candidates after 1956, having been undercut by Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal and the resulting leftward movement of the Democratic Party to its right, and by the Communist Party on its left. In the early 1970s, the party split into tiny factions.
After 1960 the Socialist Party also functioned "as an educational organization".[97] Members of the Debs–Thomas Socialist Party helped to develop leaders of social-movement organizations, including the civil-rights movement and the New Left.[98][99] Similarly, contemporary social-democratic and democratic-socialist organizations are known because of their members' activities in other organizations.
When used in a broader sense, the American left can also refer to progressivism as the movement is largely sympathetic to social democratic principles, despite there existing differences in approach between progressive factions such as more capitalist-leaning American social liberals and social democrats versus some anti-capitalist democratic socialists. Following a slow in usage after the Progressive Era and post-F.D.R., progressivism had a rebirth in the 21st century with the two-term elections of Barack Obama,[100] followed by the election of politicians to Obama's left including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren.[101] The label has been more broadly embraced by Democratic Party elected officials since the 2016 United States presidential election, since Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton referred to herself as a "progressive who likes to get things done" during a CNN primary debate with Sanders, who also brandished the progressive label and indicated some degree of value consensus despite differing policies.[102] The Democratic Party has adopted an increasingly progressive stance with the presidency Joe Biden and his progressive economic agenda.[103] Biden's presidency has been considered to be ushering-in more principles of social democracy into American government.[104]
Democratic Socialists of America
[edit]Michael Harrington resigned from Social Democrats, USA early in 1973. He rejected the SDUSA (majority Socialist Party) position on the Vietnam War, which demanded an end to bombings and a negotiated peace settlement. Harrington called rather for an immediate cease fire and immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam.[105] Even before the December 1972 convention, Michael Harrington had resigned as an Honorary Chairperson of the Socialist Party.[74] In the early spring of 1973, he resigned his membership in SDUSA. That same year, Harrington and his supporters formed the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC). At its start, DSOC had 840 members, of which 2 percent served on its national board; approximately 200 had been members of Social Democrats, USA or its predecessors whose membership was then 1,800, according to a 1973 profile of Harrington.[106]
The DSOC became a member of the Socialist International. It supported progressive Democrats including DSOC member Congressman Ron Dellums and worked to help network activists in the Democratic Party and in labor unions.[107]
In 1982, the DSOC established the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) upon merging with the New American Movement, an organization of democratic socialists mostly from the New Left.[108] Its high-profile members included Congressman Major Owens, Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Congressman Ron Dellums, multiple state legislators (Sara Innamorato, Lee J. Carter, Summer Lee, Julia Salazar), and William Winpisinger, President of the International Association of Machinists.[109][circular reference] In 2019 at the Democratic Socialists of America convention in Atlanta, Georgia, DSA confirmed its support for Senator Bernie Sanders in the 2020 United States presidential election.[110]
Since the 2016 United States presidential election, the DSA has grown to more than 50,000 members, making it the largest socialist organization in the United States.[111] In 2017, DSA left the Socialist International, citing its support of neoliberal economic policies.[112]
Social Democrats, USA
[edit]The Socialist Party of America changed its name to Social Democrats, USA (SDUSA) in 1972.[74] In electoral politics, SDUSA's National Co-chairman Bayard Rustin stated that its goal was to transform the Democratic Party into a social-democratic party.[113] SDUSA sponsored conferences that featured discussions and debates over proposed resolutions, some of which were adopted as organizational statements. For these conferences, SDUSA invited a range of academic, political, and labor-union leaders. These meetings also functioned as reunions for political activists and intellectuals, some of whom worked together for decades.[114]
Many SDUSA members served as organizational leaders, especially in labor unions. Rustin served as President of the A. Philip Randolph Institute,[115] and was succeeded by Norman Hill. Tom Kahn served as Director of International Affairs for the AFL–CIO.[59] Sandra Feldman served as President of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT).[116] Rachelle Horowitz served as Political Director for the AFT and serves on the board for the National Democratic Institute. Other members of SDUSA specialized in international politics. Penn Kemble served as the acting director of the U.S. Information Agency in the Presidency of Bill Clinton.[117][118] After having served as the U.S. Representative to the U.N.'s Committee on human rights during the first Reagan Administration,[119] Carl Gershman has served as the President of the National Endowment for Democracy.[120]
Socialist Party USA
[edit]In the Socialist Party before 1973, members of the Debs Caucus opposed endorsing or otherwise supporting Democratic Party candidates. They began working outside the Socialist Party with antiwar groups such as the Students for a Democratic Society. Some locals voted to disaffiliate with SDUSA and more members resigned; they re-organized as the Socialist Party USA (SPUSA) while continuing to operate the old Debs Caucus paper, the Socialist Tribune, later renamed The Socialist. The SPUSA continues to run local and national candidates, including Dan La Botz' 2010 campaign for US Senate in Ohio that won over 25,000 votes and Pat Noble's successful election onto the Red Bank Regional High School Board of Education in 2012 and subsequent re-election in 2015. The SPUSA has run or endorsed a presidential ticket in every election since its founding, most recently nominating Greens party co-founder and activist Howie Hawkins in the 2020 presidential election.
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Christian democracy
[edit]American Solidarity Party
[edit]The American Solidarity Party (ASP) is a fiscally progressive and socially conservative Christian-democratic political party with a social-democratic faction in the United States.[121][122] It favors a social market economy with a distributist flavor,[122][123] and seeks "widespread economic participation and ownership" through supporting small business,[123] as well as providing a social safety net programs. It also has a minor anti-capitalism faction.[124] The party's name was inspired by Solidarity (Solidarnosc), the independent labor union of Poland.[125]
Green politics
[edit]Green Party of the United States
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The Green Party of the United States is an eco-socialist party whose platform emphasizes environmentalism, non-hierarchical participatory democracy, social justice, respect for diversity, peace, and nonviolence.[126][127][128][129][130] At their 2016 party convention in Houston, the party changed its platform to support a decentralized form of eco-socialism based on workplace democracy.[131][132]
In the 2000 presidential election, Ralph Nader and Winona LaDuke received 2,882,955 votes or 2.74% of the popular vote.[133]
In the 2016 election, Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein and running mate Ajamu Baraka qualified to be on the ballot in 44 states and the District of Columbia, with 3 additional states allowing write-in votes.[134][135]
The Greens/Green Party USA is a much smaller group focusing on education and local, grassroots organizing.
Anarchism
[edit]Anarchism in the United States first emerged from individualistic, free-thinking, and utopian socialism as typified by the work of thinkers such as Josiah Warren and Henry David Thoreau. This was overshadowed by a mass, cosmopolitan, and working-class movement between the 1880s and 1940s, whose members were mostly recent immigrants, including those of German, Italian, Jewish, Mexican, and Russian descent.[136]
Prominent figures of this period include Albert Parsons and Lucy Parsons, Emma Goldman, Carlo Tresca, and Ricardo Flores Magón. The anarchist movement achieved notoriety due to violent clashes with police, assassinations, and sensational Red Scare propaganda, but most anarchist activity took place in the realm of agitation and labor organizing among largely immigrant workers. Anarchist organizations include:
- Anarchist Black Cross[137]
- Anarchist People of Color
- Black Rose Anarchist Federation/Federación Anarquista Rosa Negra
- First of May Anarchist Alliance
- Food Not Bombs[137]
- Green Mountain Anarchist Collective
- Industrial Workers of the World[138]
- International Working People's Association
- Local to Global Justice[137]
- Revolutionary Socialist League
- Union of Russian Workers
- Workers Solidarity Alliance[137]
- Youth International Party
De Leonism
[edit]De Leonism, occasionally known as Marxism–De Leonism, is a libertarian Marxist ideological variant developed by the American activist Daniel De Leon.
Socialist Labor Party
[edit]Founded in 1876, the Socialist Labor Party (SLP) was a reformist party but adopted the theories of Karl Marx and Daniel De Leon in 1900, leading to the defection of reformers to the new Socialist Party of America (SPA). It contested elections, including every election for President of the United States from 1892 to 1976. Some of its prominent members included Jack London and James Connolly. By 2009 it had lost its premises and ceased publishing its newspaper, The People.[139]
In 1970, a group of dissidents left the SLP to form Socialist Reconstruction. Socialist Reconstruction then expelled some of its dissidents, who formed the Socialist Forum Group.[140]
Marxism–Leninism
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Marxism–Leninism has been advocated and practiced by American communists of many kinds, including pro-Soviet, Trotskyist, Maoist, or independent.[141]
American Party of Labor
[edit]The American Party of Labor was founded in 2008 and adheres to Hoxhaism.[142] It has its origins in the activities of the American communist Jack Shulman, former secretary of Communist Party USA leader William Z. Foster; and the British Marxist-Leninist Bill Bland. Members of the American Party of Labor had previously been active in Alliance Marxist-Leninist and International Struggle Marxist-Leninist, two organizations founded by Shulman and Bland. The present-day APL sees itself as upholding and continuing the work of Shulman and Bland. Although not a formal member of the International Conference of Marxist–Leninist Parties and Organizations (Unity & Struggle), the APL is generally supportive of its line and maintains friendly relations with a number of foreign communist parties including the Chilean Communist Party (Proletarian Action), the Turkish Labour Party (EMEP), the Labour Party of Iran, and the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist–Leninist).
It has been involved in a number of events, such as a 2013 protest against the Golden Dawn in Chicago,[143] a 2014 meeting on Ukraine[144] and a protest against Donald Trump at the 2016 Republican National Convention.[145] A significant program of the American Party of Labor is "Red Aid: Service to the People", which involves providing food, clothing and other assistance to the poor and homeless in impoverished communities, and has been established in multiple US cities.[146][147][148]
Its current organ, The Red Phoenix, carries articles concerning contemporary political issues and theoretical and historical questions.
Communist Party USA
[edit]Established in 1919, the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) claimed a membership of 100,000 in 1939 and maintained a membership over 50,000 until the 1950s. However, the 1956 invasion of Hungary, McCarthyism and investigations by the House Unamerican Activities Committee (HUAC) contributed to its steady decline despite a brief increase in membership from the mid-1960s. Its estimated membership in 1996 was between 4,000 and 5,000.[149] From the 1940s, the FBI attempted to disrupt the CPUSA, including through its Counter-Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO).[150]
Several Communist front organizations founded in the 1950s continued to operate at least into the 1990s, notably the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, the American Committee for the Protection of Foreign Born, the Labor Research Association, the National Council of American-Soviet Friendship, and the U.S. Peace Council. Other groups with less direct links to the CPUSA include the National Lawyers Guild, the National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee, and the Center for Constitutional Rights.[151] Many leading members of the New Left, including some members of the Weather Underground and the May 19th Communist Organization were members of the National Lawyers Guild.[152] However, CPUSA attempts to influence the New Left were mostly unsuccessful.[153] The CPUSA attracted media attention in the 1970s with the membership of the high-profile activist, Angela Davis.[154]
The CPUSA publishes the People's World and Political Affairs. Beginning in 1988, the CPUSA stopped running candidates for President of the United States.[155] After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, it was found that the Soviet Union had provided funding to the CPUSA throughout its history. The CPUSA had always supported the positions of the Soviet Union.[156]
Freedom Road Socialist Organization
[edit]The Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) was founded in 1985 through the mergers of Maoist and Marxist–Leninist organizations active near the end of the New Communist Movement. The FRSO grew out of an initial merger of the Proletarian Unity League and the Revolutionary Workers Headquarters. Some years later, the Organization for Revolutionary Unity and the Amilcar Cabral/Paul Robeson Collective merged into the FRSO.
In 1999, the FRSO split into two organizations, both of which retain the FRSO name to this day. The split primarily concerned the organization's continued adherence to Marxism–Leninism, with one side of the FRSO upholding Marxism–Leninism and the other side preferring to pursue a strategy of regrouping and rebuilding the left in the United States. These organizations are commonly identified through their publications, which are Fight Back! News and Freedom Road, and their websites, (frso.org) and (freedomroad.org), respectively.
In 2010, members of the FRSO (frso.org) and other anti-war and international solidarity activists were raided by the FBI. Secret documents left by the FBI revealed that agents planned to question activists about their involvement in the FRSO (frso.org) and their international solidarity work related to Colombia and Palestine.[157] The FRSO (frso.org) works in the committee to Stop FBI Repression.
Both FRSO groups continue to uphold the right of national self-determination for African Americans and Chicanos. The FRSO (frso.org) works in the labor movement, the student movement, and the oppressed nationalities movement.
Party for Socialism and Liberation
[edit]The Party for Socialism and Liberation was formed in 2004 as a result of a split in the Workers World Party. The San Francisco, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. branches left almost in their entirety and the party has grown significantly since then.[citation needed] The new party took control of the Worker's World Party front organization Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (A.N.S.W.E.R.) at the time of the split.[158]
Following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, A.N.S.W.E.R. organized the "Seize BP" campaign, which organized demonstrations calling for the U.S. federal government to seize BP's assets and place them in trust to pay for damages.[159]
The PSL has also been active in the antiracist movement, participating in protests across the country throughout 2020.[160][161] Several organizers in their Denver branch were arrested for their involvement in protests against the death of Elijah McClain.[162]
Progressive Labor Party
[edit]The Progressive Labor Party (PL) was formed as the Progressive Labor Movement in 1962 by a group of former members of the Communist Party USA, most of whom had quit or been expelled for supporting China in the Sino-Soviet split. To them, the Soviet Union was imperialist. They competed with the CP and SWP for influence in the anti-war movement and the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), forming the May 2 Movement as its anti-war front organization.[163] Its major publications are Progressive Labor and the Marxist–Leninist Quarterly.[164] They later abandoned Maoism, refusing to follow the line of any foreign country and formed the front group, the International Committee Against Racism (InCAR), in 1973. Much of their activity included violent confrontations against far-right groups, such as Nazis and Klansmen.[165] While membership in 1978 was about 1,500, by 1996 it had fallen below 500.[166]
Revolutionary Communist Party, USA
[edit]Formed in 1969 as the Bay Area Revolutionary Union (BARU), the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) had almost one thousand members in twenty-five states by 1975. Its main founder and long-time leader, Bob Avakian, a Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) organizer had fought off attempts for control of the SDS by the Progressive Labor Party. The party has been unwaveringly Maoist.[167] Working through the U.S.-China Peoples Friendship Association, the party arranged for visits by Americans to China.[168] Their newspaper, Revolutionary Worker has featured articles supportive of Albania and North Korea, while the party, unusually for the left, has been hostile to school busing, the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), and gay rights. The party fell out of favour with the Chinese government after the death of Mao Zedong, partly because of the personality cult of the RCP leader. By the mid-1990s the party numbered fewer than 500 members.[169]
Workers World Party
[edit]The Workers World Party (WWP) was formed in 1958 by fewer than one hundred people who left the Socialist Workers Party after the SWP supported socialists in New York State elections. Their publication is Workers World. The party's position has developed from Trotskyism to independent Marxism–Leninism, supporting all Marxist states. They have been active in organizing protests against far-right groups. They were also notable for being the main US supporter of the former Ethiopian communist government. In the 1990s their membership was estimated at 200.[170]
Their front group, Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (A.N.S.W.E.R.) organized the early protests against the war in Iraq, which brought hundreds of thousands of protesters to Washington, D.C. before the war had even begun.[171] However, following a split in the party in 2004, some members left to form the Party for Socialism and Liberation, taking leadership of A.N.S.W.E.R. with them. The Workers World Party then formed the Troops Out Now Coalition.[158]
Trotskyism
[edit]Many Trotskyist parties and organizations exist that advocate communism. These groups are distinct from Marxist–Leninist groups in that they generally adhere to the theory and writings of Leon Trotsky. Many owe their organizational heritage to the Socialist Workers Party, which emerged as a split-off from the CP.
Freedom Socialist Party
[edit]The Freedom Socialist Party began in 1966 as the Seattle branch of the Socialist Workers Party that had split from the party and joined with others who had not belonged to the SWP. They differed with the SWP on the role of African Americans, whom they saw as being the future vanguard of the revolution, and of women, emphasizing their rights, which they called "socialist feminism". Clara Fraser came to lead the party and was to form the group Radical Women.[172]
Revolutionary Communists of America (RCA)
[edit]The Revolutionary Communists of America are the US Section of the Revolutionary Communist International (RCI) (formerly International Marxist Tendency or IMT). They are a Trotskyist party founded in 2024,[173] with their preceding organization having existed in the US since 2002. The RCA are inspired by the theories of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin, and Leon Trotsky, as well as British Trotskyist Ted Grant, and publish a regular newspaper called The Communist (formerly Socialist Appeal and Socialist Revolution). The party-affiliated publishing house is called Marxist Books. The party argues for a break with the Democrats and Republicans, advocates for political class-independence of the working class based on a socialist program and aims to build a capable revolutionary leadership.[174]
International Socialist Organization
[edit]The International Socialist Organization (ISO) was a group founded in 1977 as a section of the International Socialist Tendency (IST). The organization held Leninist positions on imperialism and considered itself a vanguard party, preparing the ground for a revolutionary party to hypothetically succeed it. The organization held a Trotskyist critique of nominally socialist states, which it considered class societies. In contrast to this, the ISO advocated the tradition of "socialism from below". It was strongly influenced by the perspectives of Hal Draper and Tony Cliff. It broke from the IST in 2001 but continued to exist as an independent organization for the next eighteen years.
The ISO emphasized educational work on the socialist tradition. Branches also took part in activism against the Iraq War, against police brutality, against the death penalty, and in labor strikes, among other social movements. At its peak in 2013, the group had as many as 1500 members. The organization argued that it was the largest revolutionary socialist group in the United States at that time. The ISO found itself in crisis early 2019, largely stemming from a scandal over the leadership's response to a 2013 sexual misconduct case. The ISO voted to dissolve itself in March 2019.
Socialist Action
[edit]Socialist Action was formed in 1983 by members, almost all of whom had been expelled from the Socialist Workers Party. Its members remained loyal to Trotskyist principles, including "permanent revolution", that they claimed the SWP had abandoned. Strongly critical of authoritarian regimes, including the Soviet Union and Iran, it championed socialist revolution in third world countries. It was an active participant in the Cleveland Emergency National Conference in September 1984, set up to challenge American policy in Central America, and played a major role in organizing demonstrations against American action against the Sandinista rebels in Nicaragua.[175]
Socialist Alternative
[edit]Although Socialist Alternative has sometimes pursued a democratic socialist strategy, most notably in Seattle where Kshama Sawant was elected to the Seattle City Council as an openly socialist candidate in 2013.,[89][90][91] it identifies as a Trotskyist political organization. Socialist Alternative is the U.S. affiliate of the International Socialist Alternative, which is a Brussels-based international of Trotskyist political parties.
Socialist Equality Party
[edit]The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) is a political party that formed after a 1964 ideological rupture with Socialist Workers Party over the issue of their support of the Fidel Castro government in Cuba, The SEP are composed of Trotskyists and are affiliated with the World Socialist Web Site.
Socialist Workers Party
[edit]With fewer than one thousand members in 1996, the Socialist Worker's Party (SWP) was the second-largest Marxist–Leninist party in the United States.[176] Formed by supporters of Leon Trotsky, they believed that the Soviet Union and other Communist states remained "worker's states" and should be defended against reactionary forces, although their leadership had sold out the workers. They became members of the Trotskyist Fourth International.[177] Their publications include The Militant and a theoretical journal, the International Socialist Review.[178] Two groups that broke with the SWP in the 1960s were the Spartacist League and the Workers League (which would later evolve into the Socialist Equality Party).[179] The SWP has been involved in numerous violent scuffles.[180] In 1970 the party successfully sued the FBI for COINTELPRO, where the FBI opened and copied mail, planted informants, wiretapped members' homes, bugged conventions, and broke into party offices.[181] The party fields candidates for President of the United States.[180]
Solidarity
[edit]Solidarity is a socialist organization associated with the journal Against the Current. Solidarity is an organizational descendant of International Socialists, a Trotskyist organization based on the proposition that the Soviet Union was not a "degenerated workers' state" (as in orthodox Trotskyism) but rather "bureaucratic collectivism", a new and especially repressive class society.[182]
Spartacist League
[edit]The Spartacist League was formed in 1966 by members of the Socialist Workers Party who had been expelled two years earlier after accusing the SWP of adopting "petty bourgeois ideology". Beginning with a membership of around 75, their numbers dropped to 40 by 1969 although they grew to several hundred in the early 1970s, with Maoists disillusioned with China's new foreign policy joining the group.[183]
The League saw the Soviet Union as a "deformed workers' state", and supported it over some policies. It is committed to Trotskyist "permanent revolution", rejecting Mao's peasant guerilla warfare model. The group's publication is Workers Vanguard. Much of the group's activity has involved stopping Ku Klux Klan and Nazi rallies.[183]
Notable figures and current publications
[edit]People
[edit]- Ed Asner – actor
- Paul Auster – writer
- Bob Avakian – chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA
- Bill Ayers – co-founder and co-leader of the Weather Underground
- John Bachtell – chairman of the Communist Party USA
- General Baker – leader of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers
- Roger Nash Baldwin – founding member of the ACLU
- Jack Barnes – Socialist Workers Party leader
- Harry Belafonte – singer, civil rights and social activist
- Edward Bellamy – utopian socialist author
- Victor L. Berger – Socialist Party of America congressman
- Grace Lee Boggs – Chinese-American Marxist
- James Boggs – African-American Marxist
- Murray Bookchin – anarchist and libertarian socialist theorist
- Earl Browder – Communist Party leader
- James P. Cannon – leader of the Socialist Workers Party
- Chevy Chase – comedian
- Cesar Chavez – United Farm Workers leader
- Noam Chomsky – linguistics academic and anarchist activist
- John Cusack – actor
- Angela Davis – Communist Party leader
- Dorothy Day – founding member of the Catholic Worker Movement
- Claudia De la Cruz – Activist, Educator, Party for Socialism and Liberation candidate in 2024
- Daniel De Leon – Marxist theoretician and newspaper editor
- Eugene V. Debs – Socialist Party of America leader and presidential candidate
- David Dellinger – Socialist Party of America leader and pacifist
- Ron Dellums – Socialist congressman from California
- Farrell Dobbs – leader of the Socialist Workers Party
- Hal Draper – Young Peoples Socialist League leader and socialist intellectual
- W. E. B. Du Bois – Sociologist, historian, and civil rights activist
- Barbara Ehrenreich – co-chair of Democratic Socialists of America
- Albert Einstein – physicist
- Jane Fonda – New Left antiwar activist, actor, CED founder, climate activist
- William Z. Foster – Communist Party leader
- Al Franken – comedian and former Senator
- Gil Green – Young Communist and Communist Party USA leader
- Danny Glover – American actor
- Emma Goldman – anarchist activist
- Laurence Gronlund – utopian socialist author
- Horace Greeley – Utopian socialist newspaper editor, representative and Presidential candidate
- Gus Hall – Communist Party leader and presidential candidate
- Dashiell Hammett – author
- Fred Hampton – Black Panther
- Michael Harrington – democratic socialist activist
- Howie Hawkins – cofounder of Green Party US and 2020 presidential candidate of both it and SPUSA
- Tom Hayden – New Left activist and California assemblyman
- Bill Haywood – IWW labor activist
- Chris Hedges – dissident academic and Presbyterian Minister
- Alger Hiss – State Department official, accused Soviet spy
- Abbie Hoffman – Yippie activist
- Irving Howe – democratic socialist activist
- Mary Harris "Mother" Jones – IWW labor activist
- Tom Kahn – social democratic, civil rights and labor activist
- Helen Keller – author and activist
- Martin Luther King Jr. – civil rights activist
- Gloria La Riva – ten-time perennial presidential candidate for the Workers World Party and the Party for Socialism and Liberation
- Jack London – author
- Meyer London – Socialist Party of America congressman
- Vito Marcantonio – Socialist congressman from New York
- Sam Marcy – chairman of the Workers World Party
- Abby Martin - American journalist, documentary filmmaker
- Michael Moore – award-winning documentary filmmaker, author, podcaster
- A. J. Muste – pacifist, labor and civil rights activist
- Immanuel Ness – labor activist
- Huey P. Newton – leader of the Black Panther Party
- David North – World Socialist Web Site
- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – Representative for New York's 14th congressional district and democratic socialist
- Robert Dale Owen – Utopian socialist, Indiana politician
- Michael Parenti – academic
- Sean Penn – actor
- A. Philip Randolph – civil rights and labor leader
- Adolph L. Reed Jr. – political scientist, academic, and Marxist
- John Reed – journalist
- Paul Robeson – actor, civil rights and labor activist
- Tim Robbins – actor
- Jerry Rubin – Yippie activist
- Mark Ruffalo – actor
- Bayard Rustin – pacifist and civil rights activist
- C. E. Ruthenberg – Communist Party leader
- Bernie Sanders – Independent democratic socialist Senator and Democratic presidential candidate in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections
- Margaret Sanger – reproductive rights and labor activist
- Susan Sarandon – actor
- Kshama Sawant – Trotskyist activist and member of the Seattle City Council
- Max Shachtman – Marxist theorist and activist
- Irwin Silber – Marxist journalist
- Upton Sinclair – author and socialist politician
- Jill Stein – Green Party presidential candidate
- I. F. Stone – journalist
- Oliver Stone – director
- Paul Sweezy – Marxist economist and journalist
- Norman Thomas – Socialist Party of America leader and presidential candidate
- Benjamin Tucker – anarchist and libertarian socialist thinker
- Mark Twain – author
- Henry A. Wallace – Former Vice President and presidential candidate of the Progressive Party in 1948.
- Cornel West – dissident academic
- Tim Wohlforth – Trotskyist leader
- Richard D. Wolff – academic
- Malcolm X – civil rights activist
- Howard Zinn – academic
Publications
[edit]- The New Hampshire Gazette, fortnightly, press run 5,500, founded 1756.[184]
- The Nation, weekly, established 1865. Circulation 190,000.[184]
- The Progressive, monthly, established 1909.[184]
- Monthly Review, monthly, established 1949. Circulation 7,000.[184]
- Dissent, quarterly, established 1954.[184]
- Texas Observer, established 1954.[184]
- Fifth Estate, quarterly, established 1965.[184]
- Review of Radical Political Economics, quarterly, established 1968.
- Dollars & Sense, bimonthly, established 1974.[184]
- Mother Jones, bimonthly, established 1974.[184]
- In These Times, monthly, established 1976. Circulation 17,000.[184]
- Z Magazine, monthly established 1977. Circulation 10,000 print and 6,000 online subscribers.[184]
- Labor Notes, monthly, established 1979.
- Utne Reader, bimonthly, established 1984. Circulation 150,000.[184]
- Left Business Observer, established 1986.
- The American Prospect, monthly, established 1990. Circulation 55,000.[184]* The Baffler, established 1988.[184]
- CounterPunch, semi-monthly, established 1994.
- CrimethInc., anarchist publishing collective established 1996.
- Working USA, quarterly, established 1997.[185]
- The Indypendent, published 17 times per year, established 2000.[184]
- Truthout, website, established 2001.
- Left Turn, website, established 2001.[184]
- Socialist Revolution[186] (formerly Socialist Appeal), established 2001.
- Black Commentator, web-only weekly, established 2002.[184]
- Jacobin, established 2010.
- It's Going Down, established 2016.
Public officeholders
[edit]Communist Party USA
[edit]Wisconsin
[edit]- Wahsayah Whitebird – Member of the Ashland, Wisconsin city-council.[187][188]
Green Party of the United States
[edit]There have been at least 65 officeholders for the Green Party of the United States.[189]
Arkansas
[edit]- Alvin Clay – Justice of the Peace Mississippi County, District 6 Elected: 2012
- Kade Holliday – County Clerk Craighead County, Arkansas Elected: 2012
- Roger Watkins – Constable Craighead County, District 5 Elected: 2012
California
[edit]- Dan Hamburg – Board of Supervisors, District 5, Mendocino County
- Bruce Delgado – Mayor, Marina (Monterey County)
- Larry Bragman – Town Council, Fairfax (Marin County)
- Renée Goddard – Town Council, Fairfax (Marin County)
- John Reed – Town Council, Fairfax (Marin County)
- Gayle Mclaughlin – City Council, Richmond (Contra Costa)
- Deborah Heathersone – Town Council, Point Arena (Mendocino County)
- Paul Pitino – Town Council, Arcata (Humboldt County)
- John Keener (politician)|John Keener – City Council, Pacifica (San Mateo County)
- Vahe Peroomian – Board of Trustees, Glendale Community College District, Glendale (Los Angeles County)
- Amy Martenson – Board of Trustees, District 2, Napa Valley College, Napa (Napa County)
- April Clary – Board of Trustees, Student Representative, Napa Valley College, Napa (Napa County)
- Heather Bass – Board of Directors, Gilroy Unified School District, Gilroy, Santa Clara County
- Dave Clark – Board of Directors, Cardiff School District (San Diego County)
- Phyllis Greenleaf – Board of Trustees, Live Oak Elementary School District (Santa Cruz County)
- Adriana Griffin – Red Bluff Union School District, Red Bluff (Tehama County)
- Jim C. Keller – Board of Trustees, Bonny Doon Union Elementary School District, Santa Cruz County
- Brigitte Kubacki – Governing Boardmember, Green Point School, Blue Lake (Humboldt County)
- Jose Lara – Vice President and Governing Board Member, El Rancho Unified School District, Pico Rivera (Los Angeles)
- Kimberly Ann Peterson – Board of Trustees, Geyserville Unified School District (Sonoma County)
- Karen Pickett (politician)|Karen Pickett – Board Member, Canyon Canyon Elementary School District (Contra Costa County)
- Kathy Rallings – Board of Trustees, Carlsbad Unified School District, Carlsbad, San Diego County
- Sean Reagan – Governing Boardmember, Norwalk-La Mirada Unified School District, Norwalk (Los Angeles County)
- Curtis Robinson – Board of Trustees, Area 6, Marin County Board of Education (Marin County)
- Christopher Sabec (politician)|Christopher Sabec – Governing Boardmember, Lagunitas School District (Marin County)
- Katherine Salinas – Governing Boardmember, Arcata School District, Arcata (Humboldt County)
- Jeffrey Dean Schwartz – Governing Boardmember, Arcata School District, Arcata (Humboldt County)
- Alex Shantz – Board of Trustees, St. Helena Unified School District, Napa County
- Dana Silvernale – Governing Boardmember, North Humboldt Union High School (Humboldt County)
- Jim Smith (politician)|Jim Smith – President, Canyon School Board, Canyon Township (Contra Costa County)
- Logan Blair Smith – Little Shasta Elementary School District, Montague (Shasta County)
- Rama Zarcufsky – Governing Boardmember, Maple Creek School District (Humboldt County)
- John Selawsky – Rent Stabilization Board, Berkeley (Alameda County)
- Jesse Townley – Rent Stabilization Board, Berkeley (Alameda County)
- Jeff Davis (politician)|Jeff Davis – Board of Directors, Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District (Alameda and Contra Costa Counties)
- Karen Anderson (politician)|Karen Anderson – Board of Directors, Coastside Fire Protection District (San Mateo County)
- Robert L. Campbell – Scotts Valley Fire District (Santa Cruz County)
- William Lemos – Fire Protection District, Mendocino (Mendocino County)
- Russell Pace – Board of Directors, Willow Creek Fire District (Humboldt County)
- John Abraham Powell – Board of Directors, Montecito Fire District, Montecito (Santa Barbara County)
- Larry Bragman – Board of Directors, Division 3, Marin Municipal Water District Board (Marin County)
- James Harvey (politician)|James Harvey – Board of Directors, Montara Water and Sanitary District (San Mateo County)
- Randy Marx – Board of Directors, Fair Oaks Water District, Division 4 (Sacramento County)
- Jan Shriner – Board of Directors, Marina Coast Water District (Monterey County)
- Kaitlin Sopoci-Belknap – Board of Directors, Humboldt Bay Municipal Water District, Division 1 (Humboldt County)
- James Barone – Boardmember, Rollingwood-Wilart Recreation and Parks District (Contra Costa County)
- William Hayes (California politician)|William Hayes – Board of Directors, Mendocino Coast Park and Recreation District (Mendocino County)
- Illijana Asara – Board of Directors, Community Service District, Big Lagoon (Humboldt County)
- Gerald Epperson – Board of Directors, Crocket Community Services District, Contra Costa County
- Joseph Gauder – Boardmember, Covelo Community Services District, Covelo (Mendocino County)
- Crispin Littlehales – Boardmember, Covelo Community Services District, Covelo (Mendocino County)
- George A. Wheeler – Board of Directors, Community Service District, McKinleyville (Humboldt County)
- Mathew Clark – Board of Directors, Granada Sanitary District (San Mateo County)
- Nanette Corley – Director, Resort Improvement District, Whitehorn (Humboldt County)
- Sylvia Aroth – Outreach Officer, Venice Neighborhood Council, Los Angeles (Los Angeles County)
- Robin Doyno – At-Large Community Officer, Mar Vista Neighborhood Council, Los Angeles (Los Angeles County)
- Janine Jordan – District 4 Business Representative, Mid-Town North Hollywood Neighborhood Council, Los Angeles (Los Angeles County)
- Jack Lindblad – At Large Community Stakeholder, North Hollywood Northeast Neighborhood Council, Los Angeles (Los Angeles County)
- Johanna A. Sanchez – Secretary, Historic Highland Park Neighborhood Council, Los Angeles (Los Angeles County)
- Johanna A. Sanchez – At-Large Director, Historic Highland Park Neighborhood Council, Los Angeles (Los Angeles County)
- Marisol Sanchez (politician)|Marisol Sanchez – Area 1 Seat, Boyle Heights Neighborhood Council, Los Angeles (Los Angeles County)
- William Bretz – Crest/Dehesa/Harrison Canyon/Granite Hill Planning Group (San Diego County)
- Claudia White – Member, Descanso Community Planning Group (San Diego County)
- Annette Keenberg – Town Council, Lake Los Angeles (Los Angeles County)
- Rama Zarcufsky – Governing Boardmember, Maple Creek School District (Humboldt County)
Socialist Alternative
[edit]Washington
[edit]| Election year | No. of Seattle City Council members | % of Seattle City Council members | +/- |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | 0 / 9
|
0 | |
| 2015 | 1 / 9
|
11.11 | |
| 2019 | 1 / 9
|
11.11 |
- Kshama Sawant – Seattle City Council, Position 2
Socialist Party USA
[edit]New Jersey
[edit]| Election year | No. of Red Bank Regional High School Board of Education members | % of Red Bank Regional High School Board of Education members | +/- |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | 0 / 9
|
0 | |
| 2015 | 1 / 9
|
11.11 |
- Pat Noble – Member of the Red Bank Regional High School Board of Education for Red Bank
Vermont Progressive Party
[edit]- David Zuckerman – Lieutenant Governor
- Doug Hoffer – State Auditor
- Tim Ashe – Pro Tem of the Vermont Senate
- Chris Pearson – Member of the Vermont Senate
- Anthony Pollina – Member of the Vermont Senate
- Mollie S. Burke – Member of the Vermont House of Representatives
- Robin Chesnut-Tangerman – Member of the Vermont House of Representatives
- Diana Gonzalez – Member of the Vermont House of Representatives
- Sandy Haas – Member of the Vermont House of Representatives
- Selene Colburn – Member of the Vermont House of Representatives
- Brian Cina – Member of the Vermont House of Representatives
- Jane Knodell – Burlington City Council President (Central District)
- Max Tracy – Burlington City Council (Ward 2)
- Sara Giannoni – Burlington City Council (Ward 3)
- Wendy Coe – Ward Clerk (Ward 2)
- Carmen Solari – Inspector of Elections (Ward 2)
- Kit Andrews – Inspector of Elections (Ward 3)
- Jeremy Hansen – Berlin Select Board
- Steve May Richmond Select Board
- Susan Hatch Davis – Former Member of the Vermont House of Representatives
- Dexter Randel Former Member of the Vermont House of Representatives & Former Troy Select Board
- Bob Kiss – Former Mayor of Burlington
- Peter Clevelle – Former Mayor of Burlington
- David Van Deusen – Former Moretown Select Board & Former First Constable
Working Families Party
[edit]Connecticut
[edit]- Ed Gomes – Member of the Connecticut Senate from the 23rd district
New York
[edit]- Diana Richardson – Member of the New York State Assembly from the 43rd district
See also
[edit]- African-American leftism
- Anti-war movement
- British left
- Espionage Act of 1917
- Fourth-wave feminism
- Handschu agreement
- History of the socialist movement in the United States
- House Un-American Activities Committee
- Jewish left
- Liberalism in the United States
- Millennial socialism
- Modern liberalism in the United States
- New Left
- Pink tide
- Progressivism in the United States
- Red Scare
- Regressive left
- Tankie
References
[edit]- ^ Buhle, Buhle and Georgakas, p. ix.
- ^ Buhle, Buhle and Georgakas, p. vii
- ^ Iaácov Oved (1987). Two Hundred Years of American Communes. Transaction Publishers. pp. 9–15. ISBN 9781412840552.
- ^ Hushaw, C. William (1964). Liberalism Vs. Conservatism; Liberty Vs. Authority. Dubuque, IA: W. C. Brown Book Company. p. 32.
- ^ Ornstein, Allan (March 9, 2007). Class Counts: Education, Inequality, and the Shrinking Middle Class. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. pp. 56–58. ISBN 9780742573727.
- ^ Larson, Edward J. (2007). A Magnificent Catastrophe: The Tumultuous Election of 1800, America's First Presidential Campaign. Simon and Schuster. p. 21. ISBN 9780743293174.
The divisions between Adams and Jefferson were exasperated by the more extreme views expressed by some of their partisans, particularly the High Federalists led by Hamilton on what was becoming known as the political right, and the democratic wing of the Republican Party on the left, associated with New York Governor George Clinton and Pennsylvania legislator Albert Gallatin, among others.
- ^ Archer 2007.
- ^ Lipset & Marks, p. 9
- ^ Lipset & Marks, p. 11
- ^ Lipset & Marks, p. 16
- ^ Lipset & Marks, pp. 19–23
- ^ Draper, pp. 36–37
- ^ Draper, p. 41
- ^ Lipset & Marks, p. 23
- ^ Lipset & Marks, pp. 21–22
- ^ Lipset & Marks, p. 83
- ^ Arthur N. Eisenberg. "Testimony: Police Surveillance of Political Activity – The History and Current State of the Handschu Decree". New York Civil Liberties Union. Retrieved January 14, 2015.
- ^ ”Decoding the American Paradox: Historical Perspectives on its Immunity to Left-Wing Politics”,|website=https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4695355
- ^ Ed Gordon (January 19, 2006). "COINTELPRO and the History of Domestic Spying". NPR.
- ^ Lisa Rein (October 8, 2008). "Md. Police Put Activists' Names On Terror Lists". The Washington Post.
- ^ Colin Kalmbacher (January 19, 2019). "Former FBI Official: the FBI Tried to Keep 'Progressives and Socialists Out of Office' Long After Claiming Otherwise". Law & Crime.
- ^ Carl Ratner (2012). Cooperation, Community, and Co-Ops in a Global Era. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 40. ISBN 9781461458258.
- ^ Iaácov Oved (1987). Two Hundred Years of American Communes. Transaction Publishers. p. 20. ISBN 9781412840552.
- ^ a b Draper, pp. 11–12.
- ^ Coleman, pp. 15–16
- ^ Coleman, pp. 15–17
- ^ Draper, p. 13.
- ^ Woodcock, p. 395
- ^ Woodcock, p. 397-398
- ^ Woodcock, p. 399-400
- ^ Draper, pp. 14–16.
- ^ Draper, pp. 16–17.
- ^ Draper, pp. 21–22.
- ^ Draper, pp. 22–24.
- ^ Draper, pp. 41–42.
- ^ Ryan, p. 13.
- ^ Ryan, p. 16.
- ^ Ryan, p. 35.
- ^ Ryan, p. 36.
- ^ Alexander, pp. 765–767.
- ^ Alexander, p. 777.
- ^ Alexander, p. 784.
- ^ Alexander, p. 786.
- ^ Alexander, p. 787.
- ^ Alexander, p. 792-793.
- ^ Alexander, pp. 803–805.
- ^ Alexander, p. 810.
- ^ Stedman and Stedman, p. 9
- ^ Stedman and Stedman, p. 33
- ^ Page 6: Chenoweth, Eric (Summer 1992). "The gallant warrior: In memoriam Tom Kahn" (PDF). Uncaptive Minds: A Journal of Information and Opinion on Eastern Europe. 5 (20). Washington DC: Institute for Democracy in Eastern Europe (IDEE): 5–16. ISSN 0897-9669. Archived from the original (PDF) on October 19, 2015.
- ^ Isserman, The other American, p. 116.
- ^ Drucker (1994, p. 269)
- ^ Horowitz (2007, p. 210)
- ^ Kahn (2007, pp. 254–255): Kahn, Tom (Winter 2007) [1973], "Max Shachtman: His ideas and his movement" (PDF), Democratiya, 11: 252–259, archived from the original (PDF) on May 13, 2021
- ^ Alexander, p. 812-813.
- ^ Jervis Anderson, A. Philip Randolph: A Biographical Portrait (1973; University of California Press, 1986). ISBN 978-0-520-05505-6
- ^
- Anderson, Jervis. Bayard Rustin: Troubles I've Seen (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1997).
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- ^ Horowitz (2007, pp. 220–222)
- ^ a b Saxon, Wolfgang (April 1, 1992). "Tom Kahn, leader in labor and rights movements, was 53". The New York Times.
- ^
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- ^ Isserman, Maurice (June 19, 2009). "Michael Harrington: Warrior on poverty". The New York Times.
- ^ Isserman, The other American, pp. 169–336.
- ^ Drucker (1994, pp. 187–308)
- ^ Miller, pp. 24–25, 37, 74–75: cf., pp. 55, 66–70 : Miller, James. Democracy is in the Streets: From Port Huron to the Siege of Chicago. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1994 ISBN 978-0-674-19725-1.
- ^ Kirkpatrick Sale, SDS, pp. 22–25.
- ^ Miller, pp. 75–76, 112–116, 127–132; cf. p. 107.
- ^ Kirkpatrick Sale, SDS, p. 105.
- ^ Kirkpatrick Sale, SDS, pp. 25–26
- ^ Gitlin, p. 191.
Todd Gitlin. The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage (1987) ISBN 0-553-37212-2. - ^ Sale, p. 287.
Sale described an "all‑out invasion of SDS by the Progressive Labor Party. PLers—concentrated chiefly in Boston, New York, and California, with some strength in Chicago and Michigan—were positively cyclotronic in their ability to split and splinter chapter organizations: if it wasn't their self‑righteous positiveness it was their caucus‑controlled rigidity, if not their deliberate disruptiveness it was their overt bids for control, if not their repetitious appeals for base‑building it was their unrelenting Marxism". Kirkpatrick Sale, SDS, pp. 253. - ^ "The student radicals had gamely resisted the resurrected Marxist–Leninist sects ..." (p. 258); "for more than a year, SDS had been the target of a takeover attempt by the Progressive Labor Party, a Marxist–Leninist cadre of Maoists", Miller, p. 284. Miller describes Marxist Leninists also on pages 228, 231, 240, and 254: cf., p. 268.
- ^ Gitlin, p. 191.
Todd Gitlin. The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage (1987) p. 387 ISBN 0-553-37212-2. - ^ Sale wrote, "SDS papers and pamphlets talked of 'armed struggle,' 'disciplined cadre,' 'white fighting force,' and the need for "a communist party that can guide this movement to victory"; SDS leaders and publications quoted Mao and Lenin and Ho Chi Minh more regularly than Jenminh Jih Pao. and a few of them even sought to say a few good words for Stalin". p. 269.
- ^ a b c d Anonymous (December 31, 1972). "Socialist Party now the Social Democrats, U.S.A." New York Times. p. 36. Retrieved February 8, 2010.
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- ^ a b Anonymous (January 1, 1973). "'Firmness' urged on Communists: Social Democrats reach end of U.S. Convention here". New York Times. p. 11.
- ^ Horowitz (2007, pp. 204–251)
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Shevis, James M. (1981). "The AFL-CIO and Poland's Solidarity". World Affairs. 144 (Summer). World Affairs Institute: 31–35. JSTOR 20671880. - ^ Opening statement by Tom Kahn in Kahn & Podhoretz (2008, p. 235):
Kahn, Tom; Podhoretz, Norman (2008). "How to support Solidarnosc: A debate" (PDF). Democratiya (Merged with Dissent in 2009). 13 (Summer). Sponsored by the Committee for the Free World and the League for Industrial Democracy, with introduction by Midge Decter and moderation by Carl Gershman, and held at the Polish Institute for Arts and Sciences, New York City in March 1981: 230–261. Archived from the original (PDF) on November 17, 2011. - ^ "The AFL–CIO had channeled more than $4 million to it, including computers, printing presses, and supplies" according to Horowitz (2007, p. 237).
- ^ Puddington (2005):
Puddington, Arch (2005). "Surviving the underground: How American unions helped solidarity win". American Educator (Summer). American Federation of Teachers. Retrieved June 4, 2011. - ^ a b "Has the Socialist Moment Already Come and Gone?". The New Republic. August 3, 2023. ISSN 0028-6583. Retrieved August 9, 2023.
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- ^ Aldon Morris, The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement: Black Communities Organizing for Change (New York: The Free Press, 1994)
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The most sweeping account of how neoliberalism came to dominate American politics for nearly a half century before crashing against the forces of Trumpism on the right and a new progressivism on the left.
- ^ "America Is Becoming a Social Democracy". Foreign Policy. May 7, 2021. Retrieved October 24, 2024.
- ^ Drucker (1994, pp. 303–307)
- ^ O'Rourke (1993, pp. 195–196):
O'Rourke, William (1993). "L: Michael Harrington". Signs of the literary times: Essays, reviews, profiles, 1970–1992'. The Margins of Literature (SUNY Series). SUNY Press. pp. 192–196. ISBN 978-0-7914-1681-5. Originally: O'Rourke, William (November 13, 1973). "Michael Harrington: Beyond Watergate, Sixties, and reform". SoHo Weekly News. 3 (2): 6–7. ISBN 9780791416815. - ^ Isserman, pp. 312–331: Isserman, Maurice (2001) The Other American: The Life of Michael Harrington. New York: Perseus Books.
- ^ Isserman, p. 349: Isserman, Maurice (2001) The Other American: The Life of Michael Harrington. New York: Perseus Books.
- ^ List of Democratic Socialists of America members who have held office in the United States
- ^ Gabbatt, Adam (March 22, 2019). "Democratic Socialists of America back Bernie: 'The best chance to beat Trump'". The Guardian – via www.theguardian.com.
- ^ DSA 🌹 [@DemSocialists] (September 2, 2018). "It's official -- we now have 50,000 members!" (Tweet). Retrieved September 2, 2018 – via Twitter.
- ^ "DSA Votes for BDS, Reparations, and Out of the Socialist International". August 5, 2017.
- ^ Fraser, C. Gerald (September 7, 1974). "Socialists seek to transform the Democratic Party" (PDF). The New York Times. p. 11.
- ^ Meyerson, Harold (Fall 2002). "Solidarity, Whatever". Dissent. 49 (4): 16. Archived from the original on June 20, 2010.[clarification needed]
- ^ See
- Anderson, Jervis (1997). Bayard Rustin: Troubles I've seen. New York: HarperCollins Publishers. ISBN 9780060167028.*D'Emilio, John (2003). Lost prophet: Bayard Rustin and the quest for peace and justice in America. New York: The Free Press. ISBN 978-0-684-82780-3.
- Republished as Lost prophet: The life and times of Bayard Rustin. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. 2004. ISBN 0-226-14269-8.
- ^ Berger, Joseph (September 20, 2005). "Sandra Feldman, scrappy and outspoken labor leader for teachers, dies at 65". The New York Times.
- ^ Holley, Joe (October 19, 2005). "Political activist Penn Kemble dies at 64". The Washington Post.
- ^ "Penn Kemble: Dapper Democratic Party activist whose influence extended across the spectrum of US politics (21 January 1941 –15 October 2005)". The Times. London. October 31, 2005.[dead link]
- ^ Nossiter, Bernard D. (March 3, 1981). "New team at U.N.: Common roots and philosophies". The New York Times (Late City final ed.). section A, p. 2, col. 3.
- ^ "Meet Our President". National Endowment for Democracy. Archived from the original on April 26, 2008. Retrieved August 5, 2008.
- ^ Black, Susannah (August 15, 2016). "Mr. Maturen Goes to Washington". Front Porch Republic. Retrieved August 16, 2016.
What's next may be hinted at by a 51 year old devout Catholic, businessman, and semi-professional magician named Mike Maturen, who recently accepted the presidential nomination of the American Solidarity Party, the only active Christian Democratic party in the nation.
- ^ a b "Christian Democracy". American Solidarity Party. Archived from the original on November 16, 2018. Retrieved July 18, 2018.
- ^ a b "Did you know there's a third party based on Catholic teaching?". Catholic News Agency. October 12, 2016. Retrieved January 1, 2020.
We believe in the economic concept of distributism as taught by GK Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc.
- ^ Liberation Caucus of ASP 🧡, & (Liberation Caucus of the American Solidarity Party). (2021, October 28). Thread: What is the Liberation Caucus? We are a voting bloc caucus of @AmSolidarity, with members of varying backgrounds, unified by common principles. We seek to dismantle capitalism, racism and misogyny, and promote an ownership society through deliberative democracy. [Tweet]. @LiberationASP. https://twitter.com/LiberationASP/status/1453750965803393026
- ^ "Platform |". Archived from the original on June 10, 2021. Retrieved September 30, 2021.
- ^ Larry J. Sabato and Howard R. Ernst (2009). Encyclopedia of American Political Parties and Elections. Infobase Publishing. p. 167.
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- ^ Howie Hawkins (November 2001). "The Green Party and the Future of the US Left". Greens.org.
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- ^ "US Green Party Convention Adopts an Ecosocialist Position". London Green Left Blog. August 8, 2016.
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- ^ "2000 OFFICIAL PRESIDENTIAL GENERAL ELECTION RESULTS". Federal Election Commission. December 2001.
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- ^ Kathryn Bullington (September 2, 2016). "Green Party Ballot Access at Highest Levels in 2016". Independent Voter Project.
- ^ Kenyon Zimmer (2010). ""The Whole World is Our Country": Immigration and Anarchism in the United States, 1885–1940". University of Pittsburgh.
- ^ a b c d Amster, p. xii
- ^ Amster, p. 3
- ^ ALB
- ^ Alexander, p. 932
- ^ George & Wilcox, p. 95
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- ^ George & Wilcox, pp. 97–98
- ^ George & Wilcox, p. 103
- ^ George & Wilcox, p. 98
- ^ George & Wilcox, p. 99
- ^ George & Wilcox, p. 101
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- ^ a b Reuters
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[edit]- ALB (2009–10) "The SLP of America: a premature obituary?" Socialist Standard. Retrieved 2010-05-11.[1][permanent dead link]
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- Busky, Donald F. Democratic Socialism: A Global Survey. Westport: Praeger Publishers, 2000. ISBN 0-275-96886-3
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External links
[edit]- "The Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance versus the 'pure and simple trade union'", 1900 debate, Daniel De Leon and Job Harriman
- "Is Russia a socialist Community?", 1950 debate, Earl Browder, C. Wright Mills and Max Shachtman
- "Why No Revolution? A Short History of American Left Movements", Part 1: early 1800s to 1945, Part 2: 1945–2012, 2012, featuring Joe Uris
- "Second Thought" https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJm2TgUqtK1_NLBrjNQ1P-w
American Left
View on GrokipediaDefinition and Core Ideology
Philosophical Foundations
The philosophical foundations of the American Left emphasize egalitarian reformism, collective intervention in social and economic affairs, and a pragmatic approach to achieving progress through institutional mechanisms, diverging from the individualism of classical liberalism toward a view of society as malleable via rational planning. Drawing from 19th-century responses to industrialization, these foundations reject laissez-faire doctrines and Social Darwinism, which posited that societal inequalities stemmed from natural hierarchies, instead asserting that issues like poverty, exploitation, and class conflict require deliberate human agency and state involvement to mitigate.[8][9] This perspective aligns with early progressive thinkers who viewed modernization's disruptions—such as rapid urbanization and corporate consolidation—as solvable through ethical governance rather than unfettered markets.[10] Central to this tradition is the pragmatism of John Dewey (1859–1952), who argued that philosophy should serve democratic experimentation and instrumental problem-solving, prioritizing adaptive policies over abstract ideals. Dewey's instrumentalism influenced left-leaning education reforms and social democracy by framing knowledge as a tool for communal betterment, evident in his advocacy for public schooling as a means to foster social intelligence and equity.[11] This approach informed Progressive Era policies, where reformers sought to harness federal power against corruption and monopolies, as seen in antitrust efforts under Theodore Roosevelt from 1901 onward.[12] Complementing Dewey, figures like Herbert Croly in The Promise of American Life (1909) synthesized Hamiltonian statism with Jeffersonian democracy, calling for national administrative expertise to realize "national righteousness" through regulated capitalism.[13] European socialist influences, particularly utopian strains from Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward (1888), which envisioned state-directed economies, merged with American optimism to promote cooperative ideals over Marxist class warfare, though direct Marxist importation occurred via immigrant labor movements in the early 20th century.[14] Later, John Rawls's A Theory of Justice (1971) provided a contractualist framework for redistributive justice, emphasizing the "veil of ignorance" to prioritize the least advantaged, which resonated in policy debates on welfare expansion during the 1960s–1970s.[15] These foundations collectively prioritize causal interventions—such as regulatory reforms enacted via the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906—to engineer outcomes favoring equality, though empirical critiques note persistent trade-offs, like regulatory capture observed in subsequent decades.[16] Despite adaptations, this philosophy maintains a core tension with American constitutionalism's limited-government ethos, as evidenced by Progressive challenges to separation of powers starting around 1910.[17]Key Principles and Policy Priorities
The American Left's foundational principles center on egalitarianism and social justice, positing that structural inequalities in society—stemming from capitalism, historical discrimination, and power concentrations—require collective action and state intervention to rectify, rather than relying solely on market mechanisms or individual effort. This ideology prioritizes substantive equality over formal equality of opportunity, advocating for policies that redistribute resources and opportunities to marginalized groups, often framed through lenses of intersectionality encompassing race, class, gender, and sexuality. Drawing from progressive intellectual traditions, it emphasizes progress through reform or transformation of institutions to enhance democratic control and human welfare, critiquing unchecked private enterprise as perpetuating exploitation.[9][18] Key tenets include solidarity with the working class and global oppressed, anti-imperialism in foreign affairs, and environmental stewardship as inseparable from social equity, viewing ecological degradation as a symptom of profit-driven systems. Unlike conservative or libertarian emphases on limited government, the Left supports an activist state to decommodify essentials like housing and healthcare, promoting worker cooperatives and public ownership where feasible. Democratic socialists, a prominent strain, explicitly reject profit maximization as the economy's organizing principle, instead seeking to meet human needs via democratic planning. These principles have evolved, with modern variants incorporating identity-based analyses, though critics note tensions between class-focused universalism and group-specific equity demands.[18][19] Policy priorities reflect these principles through advocacy for expansive social welfare: universal single-payer healthcare (e.g., Medicare for All, proposed by Sen. Bernie Sanders in 2019 legislation attracting 51% public support in 2020 polls but facing cost critiques exceeding $30 trillion over a decade), free public college tuition, and student debt cancellation up to $50,000 per borrower as in Biden administration actions forgiving $150 billion by 2023. Economic redistribution features prominently, including wealth taxes on fortunes over $50 million (as in proposals by Sen. Elizabeth Warren in 2019), raising the federal minimum wage to $15 (achieved in 27 states by 2021 but stagnating federally), and strengthening unions via laws like the PRO Act introduced in 2021.[1][18] Social policies prioritize criminal justice reform, such as ending cash bail and mass incarceration (U.S. prison population peaked at 2.3 million in 2008, disproportionately affecting minorities), expansive immigration amnesty for 11 million undocumented residents, and protections for abortion access post-Roe v. Wade overturn in 2022. Environmental priorities center on the Green New Deal framework, aiming for net-zero emissions by 2050 through massive public investments estimated at $10 trillion, combining job creation with fossil fuel phase-outs. Foreign policy favors diplomacy over military intervention, cutting defense budgets (U.S. spent $877 billion in 2022, 40% of global total), and critiquing alliances like NATO as extensions of hegemony, as articulated in DSA platforms opposing U.S. aid to Israel amid 2023-2024 Gaza conflicts. These priorities, while polling variably (e.g., 60% support for paid family leave in 2021), often encounter empirical challenges, such as minimum wage hikes correlating with 1-2% employment drops in low-skill sectors per meta-analyses.[1][19]Variants and Internal Divisions
The American Left comprises several ideological variants, ranging from moderate liberals to democratic socialists and radical fringes, each with distinct emphases on reform versus revolution. Moderate liberals, comprising a significant portion of Democratic voters, prioritize incremental expansions of social welfare programs within a capitalist framework, such as targeted subsidies and regulatory adjustments, while maintaining support for free markets and institutional stability.[20][21] In Pew Research Center's 2021 political typology, groups like Establishment Liberals exhibit more pragmatic views, favoring compromise on economic issues and less aggressive redistribution compared to leftward factions.[20] Progressives and democratic socialists advocate systemic overhauls, including universal healthcare, aggressive climate action via frameworks like the Green New Deal, and wealth taxes to address inequality, often critiquing corporate influence as a barrier to equity.[20][22] This variant gained prominence through Bernie Sanders' presidential bids in 2016 and 2020, which mobilized younger voters toward policies emphasizing worker rights and public ownership in key sectors.[20] The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) exemplifies this strand, with membership surging from about 6,000 in 2015 to over 90,000 by 2021, driven by electoral successes like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's 2018 congressional win.[23][24] Radical elements, including Marxist-Leninist organizations and anarchist collectives, reject electoralism in favor of direct action or revolutionary change, though they hold limited influence in mainstream politics, focusing instead on anti-capitalist agitation and opposition to state power.[25] These groups often overlap with far-left activism in areas like anti-globalization protests but remain organizationally fragmented. Internal divisions fracture the Left along strategic, substantive, and cultural lines. A core tension pits "insider" strategies—working through the Democratic Party for reforms—against "outsider" approaches favoring independent runs or mass mobilization, as debated within DSA between coalition-builders and class-struggle purists.[26][27] Economic-focused socialists clash with identity-oriented factions, where the former prioritize class solidarity and union organizing, while the latter emphasize intersectional advocacy on race, gender, and sexuality, sometimes diluting universalist appeals.[28] Foreign policy exacerbates rifts, with progressives more likely to oppose U.S. military interventions and alliances—evident in DSA's internal debates over Israel policy—contrasting moderates' support for strategic engagements.[29][30] These cleavages, intensified by events like the 2020 pandemic and 2024 elections, hinder unified action, as seen in progressive frustrations with Democratic leadership on issues like student debt relief timelines.[20]Historical Development
Colonial and Early Republic Influences (17th-19th Centuries)
The earliest precursors to left-wing egalitarianism in colonial America appeared in religious dissenting groups, particularly Quakers, who emphasized spiritual equality among all persons regardless of social status and issued the first formal protest against slavery in the 1688 Germantown Quaker Petition, arguing that enslavement violated Christian principles of brotherhood.[31] Quakers' testimony of equality also extended to women's roles in ministry and governance within their meetings, challenging hierarchical norms prevalent in Puritan and Anglican colonies.[32] Economic grievances among lower classes manifested in events like Bacon's Rebellion of 1676, an interracial uprising led by Nathaniel Bacon involving indentured servants, small farmers, and enslaved Africans against Virginia's elite planters, highlighting early tensions over land access and taxation that foreshadowed class-based radicalism.[33] In the revolutionary and early republic eras, Thomas Paine's writings provided a foundational radical impetus, with Common Sense (1776) advocating direct popular sovereignty over monarchical rule and inspiring widespread democratic fervor among artisans and farmers.[34] Paine's Agrarian Justice (1797) further advanced proto-leftist ideas by proposing a national fund financed through inheritance taxes on land to provide stipends for the young, elderly, and disadvantaged, framing poverty as a systemic injustice stemming from the privatization of natural resources.[35] The French Revolution influenced American radicals, particularly Democratic-Republicans, who formed societies in 1793–1794 to celebrate its egalitarian ideals as an extension of 1776 principles, though this enthusiasm waned amid reports of Jacobin violence, deepening partisan divides with Federalists who viewed it as anarchic.[36][37] Early trade unions emerged in the late 18th century, exemplified by the Federal Society of Journeymen Cordwainers in Philadelphia (1794), which sought collective bargaining for wages and hours amid craft guild traditions. By the 19th century, utopian socialist experiments proliferated as responses to industrialization's inequalities, with Robert Owen's New Harmony community in Indiana (1825–1829) attempting cooperative production and education to eliminate class divisions through shared labor and property. Transcendentalist Brook Farm (1841–1846) in Massachusetts pursued intellectual and manual equality but dissolved due to financial strains, reflecting broader challenges in sustaining communal ideals. Labor organization intensified with citywide unions like Philadelphia's General Trades' Union (1833–1836), which coordinated strikes for shorter workdays and influenced the broader push for workingmen's parties advocating public education and currency reform.[38] These developments laid groundwork for later leftist currents by prioritizing economic redistribution and anti-elite solidarity, though they remained marginal amid dominant liberal individualism.Industrial Era and Progressive Reforms (Late 19th-Early 20th Centuries)
The late 19th-century industrialization in the United States, characterized by rapid factory expansion and urban migration, intensified worker exploitation, including long hours, low wages, and unsafe conditions, fostering the emergence of socialist thought within labor circles.[39] Many labor organizations during this period adopted socialist principles, viewing them as essential to counter the monopolistic power of industrial capitalists and achieve collective worker control over production.[39] The Haymarket Affair on May 4, 1886, in Chicago—where a bomb thrown during a rally for the eight-hour workday killed seven police officers and led to the controversial trial and execution of eight anarchist labor activists—served as a flashpoint, amplifying radical left voices while provoking widespread backlash against perceived foreign-influenced agitation.[40][41] This event underscored tensions between state authority and labor radicals, galvanizing socialist organizing despite judicial outcomes that critics, including later historians, deemed politically motivated to suppress dissent.[42] Eugene V. Debs, initially a railroad union leader, underwent a ideological shift toward socialism following the violent suppression of the 1894 Pullman Strike, which involved over 250,000 workers and federal injunctions under President Grover Cleveland.[43] By 1897, Debs publicly embraced socialism, criticizing capitalism's causal role in perpetuating class conflict and inequality.[44] In 1901, he facilitated the merger of his Social Democratic Party with dissidents from the Socialist Labor Party to form the Socialist Party of America, which advocated public ownership of utilities, railways, and mines as remedies to industrial monopolies.[43][45] Debs' presidential candidacies marked early electoral inroads for the American left: in 1900, he secured 96,000 votes (0.6% of the total), rising to 402,000 (3%) in 1904 and 420,000 in 1908.[43] The Progressive Era (roughly 1890s–1920s) saw left-wing pressures contribute to reforms like state-level child labor restrictions and workers' compensation laws, though these were often incremental measures short of the systemic overhaul demanded by socialists, who prioritized worker cooperatives and union control over industry.[46] The Socialist Party peaked in influence around 1912, when Debs captured 901,551 votes (6% nationally), reflecting urban immigrant and working-class support amid economic dislocations.[47][48] Leftist women, including figures aligned with socialist-feminist currents, intersected with suffrage campaigns, arguing that enfranchisement would empower proletarian women against capitalist patriarchy, though mainstream suffrage groups largely distanced from explicit class-based rhetoric.[49] Despite these gains, persistent factors such as ethnic divisions among workers, government suppression, and the absence of a feudal legacy—unlike Europe—limited socialism's mass appeal, as radicals repeatedly failed to transcend niche status.[50][46]Interwar Period and the Great Depression (1920s-1930s)
The Socialist Party of America (SPA), which had peaked with over 118,000 members in 1912, underwent a precipitous decline in the 1920s due to its staunch opposition to U.S. entry into World War I, internal schisms, and the First Red Scare's repressive measures, including Palmer Raids that targeted radicals.[51] By the mid-1920s, the party's membership had dwindled to around 25,000, and it struggled to regain pre-war electoral traction amid the dominance of Republican administrations under Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover, which prioritized business interests and limited government intervention.[51] The SPA's 1928 presidential nominee, Norman Thomas, garnered 267,420 votes (0.7% of the total), reflecting its marginal status in a prosperous era where socialist critiques of capitalism found limited resonance among workers insulated by apparent economic growth.[52] The Communist Party USA (CPUSA), founded in 1919 amid splits from the SPA, remained small and factionalized in the 1920s, with membership under 10,000 and operations often underground due to ongoing anti-radical sentiment and legal prosecutions under the Espionage and Sedition Acts.[53] Adhering closely to Comintern directives from Moscow, the CPUSA focused on industrial organizing and anti-imperialist agitation but achieved little broad appeal until the economic collapse of 1929. The Great Depression, with unemployment surging to 25% by 1933 and industrial production halved, catalyzed a resurgence in left-wing activism, as mass suffering exposed capitalism's vulnerabilities and drew thousands to radical alternatives.[53] CPUSA-led Unemployed Councils organized rent strikes, eviction resistances, and hunger marches, such as the 1932 Bonus Army march in Washington, D.C., which highlighted veterans' plight but was brutally dispersed by federal troops under Hoover.[54] Labor militancy intensified in the early 1930s, with union membership plummeting to 3 million by 1933 from 5 million a decade prior, as employers exploited desperation to crush organizing efforts.[55] Waves of strikes erupted, including the 1934 Minneapolis Teamsters strike and the San Francisco general strike involving 150,000 workers, demanding recognition of unions and better wages amid deflationary pressures.[56] These actions, often involving communists and socialists, pressured the incoming Roosevelt administration, though the National Industrial Recovery Act's Section 7(a) in 1933 provided only tepid protections that employers frequently ignored. The SPA, under Thomas's leadership, radicalized against "corporate socialism," with his 1932 presidential campaign securing 881,951 votes (2.2% of the total), the party's electoral high-water mark, by advocating public works, unemployment insurance, and nationalization of key industries.[52][57] Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, commencing in 1933, incorporated elements like the Civilian Conservation Corps and Works Progress Administration that echoed leftist demands for relief, but its core aimed to stabilize capitalism through regulated markets rather than systemic overhaul, leading Thomas to quip that it achieved "ninety percent of the Socialist program in one administration" without crediting socialism.[58] While some socialists and communists infiltrated agencies like the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, their influence was overstated by critics; the SPA initially opposed the New Deal as insufficiently transformative, though factional splits in 1936—expelling Trotskyist and "Old Guard" moderates—further weakened it.[59] The CPUSA, shifting to the Popular Front strategy in 1935 per Soviet guidance, endorsed Roosevelt in 1936 and grew to influence in the nascent Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), aiding union drives in auto and steel sectors, yet subordinated domestic goals to anti-fascist unity abroad.[60] By 1937, strikes numbered over 2,100 involving 1.86 million workers, bolstering industrial unionism, but the left's gains proved fragile, constrained by Roosevelt's pragmatic balancing of labor demands against business backlash and the CPUSA's foreign policy zigzags.[61] Overall, the era marked tactical left-wing mobilization amid crisis, yet electoral irrelevance persisted, with Thomas's 1936 vote share dropping to 1.1%, as New Deal reforms absorbed reformist energies without empowering revolutionary currents.[52]World War II, Cold War Onset, and Red Scares (1940s-1950s)
During World War II, the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) reversed its opposition to the conflict following Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, aligning with the Allied effort against fascism and urging American workers to prioritize victory over strikes or labor demands.[62] Under General Secretary Earl Browder, the party endorsed President Franklin D. Roosevelt's policies, including Lend-Lease aid to the USSR and the "no-strike pledge" for unions, which contributed to its membership peaking at approximately 85,000 in 1942.[62] This patriotic stance masked underlying Soviet loyalty, as CPUSA leaders subordinated domestic agitation to Moscow's directives, including temporary dissolution of the party into the Communist Political Association in 1944 to broaden appeal, though it was refounded as a party in 1945 amid postwar tensions.[63] The onset of the Cold War after 1945 fractured the American Left, with CPUSA and affiliated radicals denouncing U.S. containment policies like the Truman Doctrine (announced March 12, 1947) and Marshall Plan as imperialist aggression, while evidence from decrypted Soviet cables later revealed genuine espionage networks involving American communists in government roles, such as the atomic secrets passed to the USSR. Moderate left-leaning elements, including labor unions and Democratic Party factions, increasingly distanced themselves from pro-Soviet groups to avoid association with Stalin's regime, whose gulags and purges were becoming more widely documented.[64] By 1947, CPUSA membership had begun declining from wartime highs, exacerbated by internal purges and external pressures, as the party's advocacy for Soviet foreign policy alienated broader progressive coalitions formed during the war.[63] The Second Red Scare intensified suppression of the radical Left through institutional mechanisms, beginning with the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) hearings in 1947, which targeted alleged communist influence in Hollywood, resulting in the conviction of ten screenwriters and directors—the "Hollywood Ten"—for contempt of Congress after refusing to testify. The Smith Act of 1940, originally aimed at sedition, was invoked in July 1948 to indict CPUSA leaders, culminating in the 1949 trial and conviction of eleven top officials, including Eugene Dennis, for conspiring to advocate violent overthrow of the government; the U.S. Supreme Court upheld these convictions in Dennis v. United States (1951), affirming that abstract advocacy of force could be criminalized if it posed a "clear and present danger."[65] [66] Over 140 CPUSA members faced similar prosecutions by the mid-1950s, decimating leadership and reducing party rolls to under 10,000 by 1957, while blacklists in entertainment, education, and unions sidelined thousands of suspected sympathizers, though declassified records confirmed some espionage threats while highlighting excesses like guilt by association.[67] Senator Joseph McCarthy's 1950 accusations of communist infiltration in the State Department escalated public paranoia until his 1954 censure, marking the Scare's peak but cementing the radical Left's marginalization as mainstream liberals embraced anti-totalitarian stances to preserve credibility.[68]Civil Rights Movement and New Left Emergence (1960s)
The Civil Rights Movement intensified in the early 1960s, marked by nonviolent direct action tactics such as the Freedom Rides organized by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) in 1961, which challenged segregation in interstate travel and faced violent backlash from white supremacists in states like Alabama and Mississippi.[69] Key legislative achievements included the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibited discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin in public accommodations and employment, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which outlawed discriminatory voting practices and led to a surge in Black voter registration from about 23% in the South in 1964 to 61% by 1969.[70] While the movement's core organizations like the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) under Martin Luther King Jr. emphasized moral suasion and coalition-building with liberal Democrats, elements of the American Left—particularly labor unions, socialists, and the marginalized Communist Party USA (CPUSA)—offered ideological and logistical support, viewing racial justice as intertwined with class struggle.[71] However, CPUSA efforts were often opportunistic, aimed at exploiting grievances to advance Soviet-aligned agendas rather than genuine empowerment, as evidenced by FBI documentation of party directives prioritizing Negro recruitment for revolutionary ends over substantive reform.[72] Northern white students, inspired by Southern sit-ins and marches, increasingly engaged through initiatives like the 1964 Freedom Summer project, where over 1,000 volunteers, many from Ivy League and Midwestern universities, registered approximately 17,000 Black voters in Mississippi amid Klan intimidation and murders, including that of activists James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner on June 21, 1964.[73] This participation radicalized participants, exposing the limits of incremental liberalism and fostering disillusionment with establishment politics, as Northern radicals encountered the raw enforcement of Jim Crow laws.[71] Organizations like the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) shifted toward Black separatism by 1966 under leaders like Stokely Carmichael, who popularized "Black Power" during the Meredith March Against Fear, rejecting white involvement and emphasizing armed self-defense, which alienated moderate allies but resonated with emerging radical fringes.[74] Left-wing involvement drew scrutiny for potential communist infiltration, with FBI COINTELPRO operations targeting groups like SNCC for suspected ties, though evidence showed limited CPUSA control amid the party's post-McCarthy decline to under 10,000 members nationwide.[75] The New Left coalesced as a distinct generational revolt against the "Old Left's" bureaucratic Stalinism and the complacency of Cold War liberalism, with Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) formalizing this shift at its founding convention in Port Huron, Michigan, on June 11-15, 1962, where fewer than 100 delegates adopted the Port Huron Statement.[76] Drafted primarily by Tom Hayden, the 25,000-word manifesto critiqued "corporate liberalism" for perpetuating alienation, called for "participatory democracy" through grassroots structures, and rejected hierarchical vanguard parties in favor of direct action and personal authenticity, drawing tactical inspiration from civil rights but expanding to university governance, poverty, and eventual anti-Vietnam War mobilization.[77] By 1965, SDS membership exceeded 20,000 chapters, reflecting a youth-driven ideology that prioritized cultural transformation over orthodox Marxism, though it harbored internal tensions between democratic ideals and later factional violence, as seen in the 1969 split into Weatherman and other militant groups.[78] This emergence marked a pivot from labor-centric Old Left priorities to student-led, anti-authoritarian activism, influencing broader countercultural shifts while amplifying critiques of American imperialism.[79]Fragmentation and Decline (1970s-1990s)
The New Left, which had mobilized around anti-war protests, civil rights, and countercultural ideals during the 1960s, began fragmenting in the early 1970s due to ideological splits and organizational failures. Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), a key New Left group, dissolved amid violent factionalism at its 1969 national convention, splintering into radical offshoots like the Weather Underground, which pursued armed struggle but achieved negligible political impact before declining into irrelevance by the mid-1970s.[80] This internal discord, characterized by debates over tactics ranging from participatory democracy to revolutionary violence, eroded unified action and alienated potential broader support.[80] The conclusion of the Vietnam War in 1975, following the U.S. withdrawal and fall of Saigon, removed a primary unifying grievance for radicals, leading to demobilization as anti-war protests waned sharply.[69] Economic stagflation in the 1970s—marked by 13.5% inflation in 1980 and unemployment peaking at 10.8% in 1982—presented opportunities for left-wing economic critiques, yet fragmented groups like the New American Movement (founded 1971 from New Left remnants) focused more on feminist and community organizing than mass economic mobilization, limiting their reach.[81] Attempts to infuse "New Politics" into the Democratic Party, emphasizing grassroots participation over traditional machine politics, yielded mixed results, such as McGovern's 1972 nomination but subsequent landslide defeat, signaling voter rejection of perceived radicalism.[82] The 1980s exacerbated decline under Reagan's conservative ascendancy, with Democrats suffering presidential losses in 1980 (Carter's 44% popular vote) and 1984 (Mondale's 40.6%), as public backlash against 1960s excesses— including urban decay, crime rates rising 200% from 1960 to 1990, and cultural perceptions of moral laxity—shifted sentiment rightward.[83] The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), formed in 1982 via merger of socialist factions, struggled with stagnant membership around 8,000 through the decade, reflecting the broader left's marginalization amid economic recovery and anti-communist fervor.[84] Scholarly analyses attribute this to the left's failure to adapt to post-industrial shifts like deindustrialization, which displaced 5 million manufacturing jobs from 1979 to 1989, instead prioritizing identity-based causes over class solidarity.[85] By the 1990s, the mainstream left accommodated centrism through the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), established in 1985 to counter the party's leftward drift since the late 1960s, promoting "third way" policies blending market reforms with social spending.[86] Bill Clinton's 1992 and 1996 victories—securing 43% and 49% of the vote, respectively—hinged on this pivot, including the 1996 welfare reform law ending Aid to Families with Dependent Children after 61 years and NAFTA's ratification, which prioritized trade liberalization over protectionism despite displacing an estimated 850,000 U.S. jobs by 2000.[87] The Soviet Union's 1991 collapse further discredited Marxist variants, reducing radical left membership and influence, as global socialism's empirical failures—evident in Eastern Europe's economic output lagging the West by factors of 3-5 times—undermined ideological appeal.[83] This era marked a causal shift: electoral pragmatism supplanted revolutionary aspirations, fragmenting the left into niche advocacy while diluting its transformative edge.[3]21st-Century Resurgence and Setbacks (2000s-Present)
The American Left saw initial stirrings of revival in the early 2000s through widespread opposition to the Iraq War, with protests drawing millions but yielding limited policy shifts or electoral gains amid post-9/11 national unity. Barack Obama's 2008 presidential victory, capturing 53% of the popular vote, infused progressives with optimism via rhetoric of hope and change, including promises to close Guantanamo Bay and enact comprehensive immigration reform; however, his administration's expansion of drone warfare, bank bailouts during the financial crisis, and failure to prosecute Wall Street executives eroded support among the party's left wing by the mid-2010s.[88] The 2011 Occupy Wall Street protests, originating in New York City's Zuccotti Park, crystallized grievances over income inequality—the top 1% capturing 93% of income gains post-2009—and corporate political influence, reframing national discourse on wealth disparity and inspiring tactics adopted by later movements like Black Lives Matter. While lacking formal leadership or demands, Occupy mobilized tens of thousands across 900 U.S. sites, trained activists in horizontal organizing, and correlated with a 20-point rise in public mentions of "income inequality" in media from 2010 to 2012, though police evictions and internal disorganization led to its dispersal by 2012 without direct legislative wins.[89][90] Bernie Sanders' 2016 Democratic primary challenge marked a pivotal resurgence for democratic socialism, securing 43% of delegates and 12 million votes by advocating universal healthcare, tuition-free public college, and a $15 minimum wage, thereby mainstreaming policies previously marginalized within the party. His campaign boosted Democratic turnout among young voters by 20% over 2012 levels and spurred the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) membership from 6,000 in 2015 to over 90,000 by 2021, reflecting organizational growth amid economic populism. The 2018 midterm elections amplified this momentum, with DSA-endorsed candidates like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defeating establishment incumbents in safe Democratic districts, forming the "Squad" to champion the Green New Deal and challenge party leadership on issues like Medicare for All.[91][92] Yet Sanders' 2020 primary effort faltered, capturing 26% of the vote before endorsing Joe Biden, highlighting resistance from party elites and moderate voters wary of socialism's label—polls showed it repelling 50% of independents. The COVID-19 pandemic and George Floyd's 2020 killing fueled left-leaning activism, with protests drawing 15-26 million participants, but Biden's centrist pivot secured a narrow 51.3% popular vote win, prioritizing infrastructure over transformative reforms like student debt cancellation beyond $10,000.[93] Setbacks intensified post-2020, as inflation peaking at 9.1% in 2022—driven by supply disruptions and fiscal stimulus—eroded support among working-class voters, contributing to Democratic underperformance in the 2022 midterms where progressives lost key seats despite retaining House control narrowly. Cultural emphases on identity politics and "woke" initiatives, such as expansive DEI mandates and speech restrictions on campuses, provoked backlash; surveys indicated 56% of Americans viewed "woke" ideology negatively by 2023, associating it with elite overreach rather than material gains, alienating non-college-educated demographics that shifted Republican by 10-15 points since 2016. Mainstream media and academic sources, often aligned with progressive views, frequently attributed such shifts to misinformation rather than policy disconnects from causal economic pressures like wage stagnation.[94][95] The 2024 presidential election delivered a stark reversal, with Donald Trump defeating Kamala Harris 312-226 in the Electoral College and 49.9% to 48.3% in the popular vote, fracturing the Democratic coalition as Black and Latino voter support dropped 10-20 points from 2020 levels due to economic discontent and immigration concerns. DSA candidates achieved sporadic local successes, such as state legislative wins in New York and Minnesota, but national influence waned, with Squad members facing primary threats and the broader left critiqued for prioritizing cultural signaling over class-based appeals amid deindustrialization's legacies. These outcomes underscored persistent internal divisions—economic socialists versus identity-focused factions—and electoral limits, as left-wing organizations grew in membership but struggled to convert activism into durable majorities beyond urban enclaves.[96][85][97]Ideological Currents and Organizations
Social Democracy and Democratic Socialism
Social democracy in the United States emphasizes reforming capitalism through extensive government intervention, including robust welfare programs, labor protections, and progressive taxation, while maintaining private ownership of production. This approach draws from European models like those in Scandinavia, prioritizing inequality reduction via mixed economies rather than systemic overthrow.[98] In contrast, democratic socialism seeks democratic transition to an economy where workers collectively control means of production, viewing capitalism as inherently exploitative and requiring replacement to prioritize human needs over profit.[99] These ideologies overlap on the American Left, often blending in advocacy for policies like universal healthcare and free higher education, though democratic socialism explicitly rejects capitalist frameworks.[100] The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), founded in 1982 via merger of the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee and New American Movement, represents the primary democratic socialist organization today.[84] With over 80,000 members across all 50 states as of recent counts, DSA experienced explosive growth from about 6,000 in 2015 to peaks exceeding 90,000 by 2020, fueled by economic discontent post-2008 recession and Bernie Sanders' 2016 presidential campaign.[18] The group endorses candidates committing to socialist platforms, achieving successes in local races, such as electing over a dozen members to New York City Council seats by 2021, though national influence remains marginal within the Democratic Party.[101] Senator Bernie Sanders, who identifies as a democratic socialist, popularized these ideas through campaigns in 2016 and 2020, garnering 13 million primary votes in 2016 alone and influencing Democratic platforms on issues like Medicare for All and a $15 minimum wage.[102] [103] Sanders frames democratic socialism as an extension of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, advocating worker cooperatives, public ownership of utilities, and breaking up large banks, rather than state seizure akin to Soviet models.[103] Democratic Socialists like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a DSA member elected to Congress in 2018, have pushed the Green New Deal, combining climate action with job guarantees and union rights.[18] Historically, social democratic tendencies appeared in early 20th-century movements, such as the Social Democratic Party of America formed by Eugene V. Debs in 1898, which evolved into the Socialist Party emphasizing electoral reforms over revolution.[104] Post-World War II, social democratic policies embedded in New Deal expansions, including Social Security established in 1935 and Medicare in 1965, reflected pragmatic left-wing governance amid anti-communist pressures.[105] Contemporary American social democrats, often within the Democratic Party, advocate Nordic-style systems, as seen in proposals for paid family leave and tuition-free public college, though implementation faces fiscal constraints and political opposition, with U.S. welfare spending at about 20% of GDP in 2023 compared to 25-30% in Nordic nations.[98] Internal DSA divisions highlight tensions between reformist social democrats favoring Democratic alliances and more radical factions pushing independent socialist parties or anti-capitalist direct action.[106] Despite rhetorical commitments to democratic control, DSA platforms include controversial stances like abolishing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and defunding police, reflecting broader left critiques of state institutions but drawing criticism for overlooking enforcement needs in high-crime areas.[107] Economic analyses question feasibility, noting democratic socialist policies could expand deficits without productivity gains, as evidenced by Venezuela's state-led experiments yielding hyperinflation exceeding 1 million percent annually by 2018 under similar worker-control rhetoric.[108]Revolutionary Marxism and Leninism
Revolutionary Marxism and Leninism in the American context emphasizes the necessity of a disciplined vanguard party to lead the proletariat in seizing state power and establishing a dictatorship of the proletariat, adapting Lenin's theories on imperialism, democratic centralism, and the role of a revolutionary party to U.S. conditions of advanced capitalism. This strand prioritizes violent or non-parliamentary overthrow of the bourgeoisie over gradualist reforms, viewing electoral participation as subordinate to building revolutionary consciousness and organization. Early adopters interpreted Lenin's State and Revolution (1917) and Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916) as mandating opposition to U.S. imperialism and alliance with global communist movements, often aligning with the Soviet Union's foreign policy shifts.[109] The Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), founded in September 1919 in Chicago from splinter groups within the Socialist Party of America, became the dominant Leninist organization, adhering to Comintern directives and Stalin's interpretation of Marxism-Leninism after 1924. CPUSA implemented Lenin's concept of democratic centralism, centralizing authority in a politburo while prohibiting factionalism, which facilitated rapid mobilization but also internal purges mirroring Soviet patterns in the 1930s. Membership remained under 20,000 until the Great Depression catalyzed growth, reaching 66,000 by 1939 amid influence in the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) unions and anti-fascist campaigns.[110][111][112] CPUSA's revolutionary orientation waned during World War II under Earl Browder's leadership, shifting toward popular front alliances with liberals and temporarily dissolving into the Communist Political Association in 1944 to support the war effort against Nazi Germany, peaking at 85,000 members in 1942 before reverting to orthodox Leninism post-1945. Revelations of Soviet funding—estimated at millions of dollars via channels like the Ware Group espionage ring—and alignment with Moscow's non-aggression pact with Hitler (1939-1941) eroded credibility, contributing to membership collapse to under 10,000 by the 1950s amid McCarthy-era prosecutions under the Smith Act.[112][63] Post-1956, Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin fractured U.S. Leninists into factions: Trotskyists via the Socialist Workers Party (SWP, founded 1938 from CPUSA expulsions) rejected Stalinist "degenerated workers' state" theory; anti-revisionists formed the Marxist-Leninist Party USA (1970s) upholding Maoist influences against perceived CPUSA "Khrushchevism"; and later groups like the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP, 1975) under Bob Avakian promoted "New Communism." These organizations, often numbering in the low thousands, focused on agitation in anti-war protests (e.g., Vietnam era) and labor strikes but achieved negligible electoral success, with CPUSA candidates garnering under 0.1% of votes in presidential runs through 1940.[112][113] In the 21st century, self-identified Marxist-Leninist groups such as the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL, founded 2004), Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO), and American Party of Labor (APL, 2008) maintain branches across states, emphasizing anti-imperialism and solidarity with states like Cuba and China, but operate as marginal sects with memberships under 5,000 collectively and no legislative seats. Their influence persists in niche activism, such as campus organizing and protests against U.S. foreign policy, yet causal factors like ideological rigidity, historical associations with authoritarian regimes, and competition from broader left formations limit broader appeal in a proletarian base fragmented by service-sector employment and cultural individualism.[114][115]Anarchism and Anti-State Leftism
Anarchism in the United States emerged in the late 19th century among immigrant workers and intellectuals, drawing from European traditions while adapting to industrial conditions, emphasizing opposition to both state authority and capitalist hierarchies through direct action, mutual aid, and worker self-management.[116] Early adherents, often German and Eastern European immigrants, rejected electoral politics and centralized authority, viewing the state as an enforcer of class domination.[117] This strand of the American Left prioritized voluntary associations and federations over government intervention, influencing labor tactics like general strikes and sabotage.[118] The Haymarket Affair of May 4, 1886, in Chicago exemplified anarchism's intersection with labor struggles, as a rally protesting police violence against strikers for an eight-hour workday ended with a bomb explosion killing seven officers and at least four civilians, sparking gunfire that wounded dozens.[119] Eight anarchists—Albert Parsons, August Spies, Adolph Fischer, George Engel, Louis Lingg, Michael Schwab, Samuel Fielden, and Oscar Neebe—were convicted of conspiracy despite scant evidence linking them directly to the bomb, with four hanged on November 11, 1887, and one suicide in jail; Governor John Peter Altgeld pardoned the survivors in 1893, citing judicial bias.[40] The event galvanized international solidarity, establishing May 1 as International Workers' Day, though it also fueled anti-anarchist repression in the U.S., associating the movement with terrorism in public perception.[42] The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), founded in Chicago on June 27, 1905, incorporated anarchist principles into revolutionary syndicalism, advocating "one big union" to abolish wage labor via workplace control rather than state socialism.[120] Attracting lumberjacks, miners, and migrants excluded by craft unions, the IWW rejected political parties and emphasized direct action, including the 1912 Lawrence Textile Strike where 23,000 workers won concessions through solidarity tactics.[121] Internal tensions arose between anarchist-syndicalists favoring anti-statism and political socialists, but the organization's preamble explicitly opposed parliamentary methods, aligning with anti-state leftism.[122] By 1917, federal raids under the Espionage Act suppressed IWW activities, imprisoning leaders like William "Big Bill" Haywood, reducing membership from peaks of 150,000.[123] Emma Goldman, a Lithuanian-born activist who immigrated in 1885, became anarchism's most prominent U.S. voice, editing Mother Earth magazine from 1906 to 1917 and advocating free speech, women's autonomy, and anti-militarism through lectures reaching thousands.[124] She defended the Haymarket martyrs and opposed conscription during World War I, leading to her 1917 arrest under the Selective Service Act; deported to Russia in 1919 amid the Palmer Raids targeting 249 radicals, her expulsion highlighted the 1903 Immigration Act's ban on anarchist entry.[125] Goldman's critiques extended to Bolshevik authoritarianism after visiting Soviet Russia in 1920, reinforcing her commitment to stateless communism.[126] Anti-state leftism beyond classical anarchism persisted in communal experiments and pacifist critiques, such as the Catholic Worker Movement's houses of hospitality from 1933, which embodied personalist rejection of state welfare in favor of voluntary mutual aid, though not strictly anarchist.[127] Repression during the Red Scares marginalized these currents, with anarchism's influence waning by the mid-20th century amid dominance of state-oriented socialism, yet echoes remained in 1960s counterculture and later autonomous zones.[128] Empirical records show limited electoral success and frequent violence associations, such as Leon Czolgosz's 1901 assassination of President McKinley, claimed as anarchist-inspired, underscoring causal links between anti-state rhetoric and isolated extremism, though most advocates renounced such acts.[129]Environmentalism and Green Politics
The American Left's embrace of environmentalism intensified during the 1960s, when New Left activists linked pollution and resource depletion to systemic flaws in industrial capitalism, framing ecology as a front in broader anti-establishment struggles.[130] This shift contrasted with earlier bipartisan conservation efforts, such as those under Republican presidents like Theodore Roosevelt and Richard Nixon, who established the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970 amid public pressure but without the left's emphasis on wealth redistribution or anti-corporate measures.[131] By the 1970s, left-leaning organizations like the Sierra Club, originally focused on wilderness preservation, increasingly advocated for regulatory interventions tying environmental protection to social justice, though critics note the group's progressive bias has sometimes prioritized identity politics over core ecological goals.[132][133] Green politics within the American Left materialized through entities like the Green Party of the United States, founded in 2001 but rooted in 1980s committees promoting "ecological wisdom" alongside grassroots democracy and nonviolence.[134] The party, which garnered 2.74% of the national vote in the 2000 presidential election via Ralph Nader's candidacy, advocates an "Ecosocialist Green New Deal" calling for 100% clean energy, zero emissions, and economic guarantees like universal healthcare, explicitly critiquing capitalism's environmental toll.[134][135] Mainstream Democratic left figures, such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, advanced the Green New Deal resolution in February 2019, proposing net-zero emissions by 2050 through massive public investments in renewables, high-speed rail, and job guarantees, though the non-binding measure failed to pass amid debates over its estimated $93 trillion cost over a decade.[136][137] Empirical assessments of left-pushed policies like renewable portfolio standards (RPS), mandating 15-50% renewables in states such as California and New York, reveal trade-offs: while supporting approximately 200,000 jobs and reducing CO2 by 4-8% in some models, they have raised wholesale electricity prices by 7-11% on average through subsidies and integration costs for intermittent sources.[138][139] In California, aggressive mandates targeting 100% clean energy by 2045 correlated with rolling blackouts during the August 2020 heatwave, affecting nearly 800,000 customers due to solar/wind variability and premature nuclear/gas plant closures, exacerbating grid strain despite subsequent battery additions.[140] These outcomes underscore causal challenges in scaling renewables without reliable baseload backups, as intermittency necessitates costly storage and fossil fuel peakers, contributing to California's retail electricity rates exceeding the national average by 50-80% as of 2023.[141] Advocacy sources often downplay such economic and reliability burdens, reflecting institutional biases toward alarmist narratives over cost-benefit analysis.[142]Identity-Focused and Cultural Leftism
Identity-focused leftism in the American context emphasizes political mobilization around group identities such as race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation, often framing societal issues through lenses of systemic oppression and intersectionality rather than class or economic redistribution.[143] This approach originated in the New Left movements of the 1960s, evolving from civil rights activism and anti-war protests, where scholars and activists shifted emphasis from universal class struggle to particularized experiences of marginalized groups.[144] The term "identity politics" gained prominence in 1977 with the Combahee River Collective's statement by black feminist activists, who argued for liberation through recognition of interlocking oppressions based on race, gender, and class.[145] By the 1980s and 1990s, this framework expanded in academia, influenced by postmodern theories that deconstructed traditional narratives of progress and merit, prioritizing narrative control over empirical verification.[146] Cultural leftism, sometimes described as an extension of these ideas into broader societal critique, draws from Frankfurt School thinkers like Herbert Marcuse, who in the 1960s advocated repressive tolerance—tolerating radical critiques of Western culture while suppressing counterviews—to foster cultural revolution. This strand gained traction in U.S. universities post-1960s, where economic Marxism waned amid Cold War discrediting, but cultural variants proliferated, reorienting Marxism from proletariat vs. bourgeoisie to identity hierarchies like oppressor vs. oppressed groups defined by immutable traits.[147] Key intellectual contributions include Kimberlé Crenshaw's 1989 formulation of intersectionality, which posits that oppressions compound uniquely by identity combinations, influencing legal and policy discourses on discrimination.[148] Empirical critiques highlight how this focus fragments coalitions; for instance, surveys post-2016 showed identity politics alienating working-class voters, contributing to Democratic electoral losses by prioritizing symbolic issues over material concerns like wage stagnation.[149] Prominent organizations embodying identity-focused leftism include Black Lives Matter, founded in 2013 after the Trayvon Martin killing, which mobilized around racial justice but faced scrutiny for decentralized structures amplifying divisive rhetoric, such as demands to "disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family."[143] Other groups like the Human Rights Campaign advocate for LGBTQ+ rights, pushing policies on gender transition for minors despite limited long-term outcome data; a 2024 Cass Review in the UK, echoed in U.S. debates, found weak evidence for benefits of puberty blockers, with ideological capture in medical bodies overriding biological sex realities.[150] Cultural leftism manifests in DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) initiatives, adopted by corporations and governments post-2020 George Floyd protests, yet studies indicate they correlate with reduced innovation and merit-based hiring; a 2023 Harvard Business Review analysis noted DEI training often increases bias awareness without behavioral change, while shareholder value dipped in firms mandating quotas.[151] Critics from within the left, such as historian Eric Hobsbawm, argue identity politics supplants universalist socialism with tribalism, diluting anti-capitalist efforts by allying with neoliberal elites who co-opt grievances for market-friendly reforms.[152] Empirical data supports backlash: 2020-2022 crime surges in defund-the-police cities like Minneapolis (homicides up 72% in 2020) undermined trust in identity-driven reforms ignoring causal factors like family breakdown over systemic racism alone.[149] By 2024, polling showed declining support for extreme cultural positions, with Kamala Harris's campaign muting identity rhetoric amid voter fatigue, signaling a potential retreat from peak 2010s influence.[153] Sources advancing these views, often from conservative think tanks, counter mainstream media's amplification of identity narratives, which academic bias studies (e.g., 2020 Heterodox Academy reports) attribute to over 80% left-leaning faculty in social sciences, skewing discourse toward unverified oppression models.[154]Religious and Ethical Variants
The Social Gospel movement, emerging in the late 19th century among Protestant clergy, sought to apply Christian principles to address industrial-era social ills such as poverty, child labor, and urban squalor, influencing early 20th-century progressive reforms and elements of American socialism.[155] Key proponent Walter Rauschenbusch, a Baptist minister, argued in his 1907 work Christianity and the Social Crisis that the kingdom of God required systemic economic justice, inspiring evangelical support for labor rights and anti-monopoly measures before such views waned amid World War I and the rise of fundamentalism.[156] This religious impetus extended to interracial efforts, as seen in Black Social Gospel advocates like Reverdy C. Ransom, who linked biblical ethics to critiques of racial capitalism in the African Methodist Episcopal Church.[157] Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe played a pivotal role in the American labor movement from the 1880s onward, infusing socialist organizing with ethical imperatives drawn from Judaic traditions of justice and communal solidarity, as evidenced by their leadership in garment workers' strikes and the formation of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union in 1900.[158] Figures like Abraham Cahan and the Yiddish press promoted class struggle alongside cultural preservation, contributing to the Socialist Party's peak vote share of 6% in the 1912 presidential election, though this involvement often clashed with assimilation pressures and antisemitism. Catholic social teaching, articulated in papal encyclicals like Rerum Novarum (1891), similarly shaped left-leaning labor activism among Irish and Italian Americans, emphasizing worker dignity and subsidiarity, which informed the Congress of Industrial Organizations' union drives in the 1930s.[159] In the mid-20th century, Black liberation theology, adapted from Latin American models, emphasized scriptural calls for exodus from oppression, influencing civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr., who integrated Social Gospel ethics with demands for economic redistribution in his 1967 Where Do We Go from Here?.[157] This variant prioritized structural sin over individual salvation, critiquing capitalism's role in racial hierarchy, though it faced Vatican scrutiny for Marxist undertones by the 1980s.[160] Contemporary Christian left expressions, often within mainline Protestant denominations, advocate for pacifism and immigration reform through groups like the Network of Spiritual Progressives, but empirical data show declining institutional influence, with self-identified progressive Christians comprising under 20% of U.S. religious adherents by 2020 amid broader secularization.[161] [162] Secular ethical variants within the American left draw from humanism, a philosophy codified in the 1933 Humanist Manifesto and reaffirmed in 2003, positing reason and empirical evidence as bases for social progress, including wealth redistribution and global equity without supernatural appeals.[163] This framework undergirds progressive policies on welfare and environmentalism, as articulated by the American Humanist Association, which views ethical imperatives as evolving through scientific understanding of human interdependence rather than divine command.[164] Ethical socialism, emphasizing moral duties to mitigate inequality via cooperative economics, traces to thinkers like John Dewey, who in Individualism Old and New (1930) fused pragmatist ethics with calls for democratic planning, influencing New Deal-era interventions without religious framing.[165] These non-theistic strains prioritize causal analysis of systemic harms, such as market failures exacerbating poverty, over eschatological narratives.[166]Electoral Engagement and Governance
Historical Electoral Outcomes
The Socialist Party of America (SPA) achieved its peak national electoral performance in the early 20th century, with presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs securing 402,283 votes (2.98% of the popular vote) in 1904.[43] In 1908, Debs received 420,793 votes (2.83%).[43] The party's high point came in 1912, when Debs garnered 901,551 votes (6.0%), finishing third behind Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt.[167] Despite no electoral votes, this represented significant third-party support amid Progressive Era reforms and labor unrest. In 1920, campaigning from prison for opposing U.S. entry into World War I, Debs still polled 919,799 votes (3.42%).[168] Local elections yielded more tangible successes for socialists during this period, with SPA candidates winning mayoral races in over 30 cities by 1912, including Milwaukee, Wisconsin (Emil Seidel, 1910–1912), Schenectady, New York (George Lunn, 1911–1913), and Berkeley, California.[169] From 1901 to 1960, socialists were elected to office in 353 municipalities, often implementing public works, utility municipalization, and labor protections before facing opposition from business interests and anti-radical sentiment.[169] Milwaukee stood out, electing Daniel Hoan mayor for 24 years (1916–1940), during which the city expanded affordable housing and sanitation without tax increases.[170]| Year | Party/Candidate | Popular Votes | Percentage |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1904 | SPA (Debs) | 402,283 | 2.98% |
| 1908 | SPA (Debs) | 420,793 | 2.83% |
| 1912 | SPA (Debs) | 901,551 | 6.0% |
| 1920 | SPA (Debs) | 919,799 | 3.42% |

