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As world leaders (except for Trump) gather in San Francisco this week for the Global Climate Action Summit, Bill McKibben comments on California’s new law mandating 100 per cent clean electricity by 2045—and on the next task: keep oil and gas in the ground.
Also: Should Democratic strategy focus on winning the votes of moderate Republicans? Steve Phillips points to one key factor: there aren’t that many of them.  Steve is the author of the New York Times best seller, ‘Brown Is the New White: How a Demographic Revolution Has Created a New American Majority.’
Plus: the inequality industry: Atossa Abrahamian examines the new focus on inequality at the IMF, the Ford Foundation, and other elite institutions, and argues that there’s a big political difference between seeking to reduce inequality, and fighting for a world of equality.  9/12/18

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In Oklahoma and West Virgina and Missouri, teachers have led amazingly successful battles against Republican budget-cutting and tax breaks for the wealthy. Although the Supreme Court’s Janus decision sought to cripple the ability of public sector unions to engage in politics, recent polls show that unions are more popular than ever. Randi Weingarten comments on the big picture of unions and politics – she’s president of the American Federation of Teachers, with 1.7 million members in more than 3,000 local affiliates nationwide.
Also, At the California Global Climate Action Summit, in San Francisco next week, all the world’s major nations will be represented–except for our own government. Mark Hertsgaard reports on how California, under Governor Jerry Brown, has taken the lead in fighting climate change — and how climate activists have organized at the upcoming summit to demand that the governor end new oil and gas drilling. Mark wrote the cover story for The Nation’s special issue on climate politics.
Plus: Some questions for Brett Kavanaugh, Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, from David Cole. The legal director of the ACLU and legal affairs correspondent for The Nation says some questions—about current cases—are inappropriate for Democrats to ask in the current confirmation hearings; but there are other questions—on Kavanaugh’s legal philosophy, and on his past statements and decisions—that he should be required to answer.  9/5/18

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Amy Wilentz takes up the vital question, is Melania Trump a hero of the resistance—or an accomplice of evil? Is she edging “ever closer to open contempt for him,” as New York Times columnist Frank Bruni argues, and finding “increasingly clever ways to show it”? Or is she sticking with her role as wife to a racist tyrant with a clear history of infidelity, and lots of cash?
Also: how mothers and pregnant women are discriminated against and punished – here at home, and around the world. Katha Pollitt talks about how that has happened—and why.
And as Labor Day approaches, we talk labor unions and politics with Lee Saunders, president of AFSCME. His union was the target of that decision by the Supreme Court in June, when it ruled, 5-4, that government workers who choose NOT to join unions may NOT be required to help pay for collective bargaining. Saunders explains what unions are doing to fight back – in the November election, and in the long run. 8/29/18

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Centrism lost for the Democrats in 2016, and it will lose again in 2018, Gary Younge argues: the party needs not just to oppose Trump, but also to put forward an alternative vision that can earn the support of working-class Americans. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has shown how to do it, running on a program of tuition-free higher education, Medicare for all, and a federal jobs guarantee.
Plus: Trump’s 1968 – and ours. In August 1968, 50 years ago this week, young antiwar demonstrators fought the police outside the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, while the whole world was watching. It was the culmination of an overwhelming year for the anti-war movement. But where was young Donald Trump? Todd Gitlin explains–he’s an activist, a sociologist, and author of “The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage.”
Also: Aretha Franklin, who died last week, was a musical genius who seems unique; but she came out of a specific place and time: Detroit in the 1950s and 1960s. Farah Griffin, Professor of Professor of English and Comparative Literature and African American Studies at Columbia University, comments—and explains the central role Aretha played in Angela Davis’s fight for freedom after facing capital charges in California in 1970. Also: Aretha and Obama—at the beginning of his presidency, at his inauguration, and at the Kennedy Center concert at the end.