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The British Labour Party suffered a historic defeat last week—working class people who voted Labour their entire lives have now switched sides.  Centrists in the Democratic Party say this means that the socialist program doesn’t work as an alternative to racism and xenophobia–in other words, it’s bad news for Bernie.  And for us at The Nation.  They say Boris Johnson is a lot like Donald Trump, and that Boris’s victory suggests Trump will win in 2020—the way Brexit foretold the 2016 vote in the US.  D.D. Guttenplan disagrees, and explains why.
Plus: the end of the year brings The Nation’s progressive honor roll for 2019 – honoring those who’ve done the steady work of advancing economic, social and racial justice.  John Nichols names the elected officials and also activists, organizations, and ideas that are shaping our future.
Also: this week India is on fire–with massive protests, and massive repression, of Muslim students saying “no” to the government’s move toward making India a Hindu nation – the great Indian novelist and activist Arundhati Roy explains.  12/19/19

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Some analysts criticize progressives who urge Democrats to focus on turning out their core base—people of color, unmarried women, and younger voters—they say it’s a big mistake to give up on working class whites. And many progressives reply that it would be a disaster for the Democrats to try to “win back” working class white Trump voters by not talking about discriminatory policing, reproductive health care, and LGBTQ rights. Joshua Holland examines the actual evidence—and concludes that Democrats have already won back enough white working-class voters to defeat Trump in 2020.
Also: What happens to pregnant women when anti-abortion state legislatures grant legal personhood to fertilized eggs, embryos, and fetuses? What happens when pregnant women’s behavior is criminalized? Katha Pollitt reports.
Also: Brett Kavanaugh was not on the list of candidates for the Supreme Court that Trump released during the campaign—how did Kavanaugh end up ahead of everybody else? Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post has that story—her new book is Supreme Ambition: Brett Kavanaugh and the Conservative Takeover.  12/11/19

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Democrats need to learn the lessons of their historic victory last month, when Virginia became the first Southern state in the post–civil-rights-movement era to entirely flip back to Democratic control.  Virgina Democrats now hold the governorship AND both houses of the state legislature.  How did they do it?  Joan Walsh says one key was that Republican attacks on abortion didn’t send Democrats running scared.
Also: Trump’s pardons for war criminals: Jeet Heer says the military is right to stand up for the laws of war, but the basic issue is a political one, and the military can’t make this a political fight.  But the voters can.
And Bryce Covert has been examining strikes in America over the last couple of years.  More workers went on strike last year than at any time since 1986 – more than 20 years ago.  They include public sector workers, like teachers and nurses, and corporate employees, like auto and hotel workers – and even low-paid, part-time and temporary people who don’t have unions—like fast food workers and Uber drivers. 12-4-19

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Bernie Sanders says it will take a movement to change America: “It can’t all be Bernie.”  John Nichols comments on his interview with the candidate, who is now back in second place in the polls.  And we play clips from the interview, originally broadcast on the Next Left podcast.
Also: deporting the immigrants called “undesirable”–now, under Trump, and a hundred years ago.  Historian Adam Hochschild notes that  it’s the 100th anniversary of the Palmer Raids, where J Edgar Hoover got his start rounding up and trying to deport immigrant radicals—and when one heroic Labor Department official blocked thousands of deportations.
Plus: Martin Scorcese’s new film “The Irishman” opens on Netflix this week; it claims to tell the true story of the murder of Jimmy Hoffa, the head of the Teamsters Union, who disappeared in 1974.  But nobody who’s studied that history thinks the movie is right about what happened to Hoffa.  Does that fact change our judgement about the film?  John Powers comments; he’s critic at large for Fresh Air with Terry Gross. 11-27-19

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The adventures of older women in America: Ruth Bader Ginsburg for example is 86,and Nancy Pelosi just turned 80. But where are the prominent Republican women in politics today who are older?  Gail Collins has been thinking about that; of course she’s the New York Times op-ed columnist.  Her new book is No Stopping Us Now.
Also: Rick Perlstein says the Nixon impeachment limited the charges against the president in order to win a Republican majority in the Senate; since that’s not going to happen with Trump, the Democrats might as well include all his high crimes in their articles of impeachment.
And historian Eric Foner talks about the New York Times’s “1619 Project,” which argues that the legacy of slavery is central to all of the American past and present.  11/21/19