Dear Progressive Reader,
Shortly after he gave his Inaugural Address, newly sworn-in President Joe Biden headed to the Oval Office to sign a batch of executive orders. The office that surrounded him looked very different than the one Donald Trump had occupied. New works of art and powerful symbols of progressive movements formed the backdrop for Biden’s first official acts. As I wrote on Monday, “Biden’s choices of these symbols are not arbitrary. . . . Biden wanted ‘to walk into an Oval [Office] that looked like America and started to show the landscape of who he is going to be as President.’ ”
However, symbols alone will not be enough to undue the forces of reaction that have dominated our national politics in recent years. In one example, Armando Ibarra notes, “Paying symbolic tribute to César Chávez isn’t enough—if Biden really wants to honor the civil rights activist, he’d ensure farmworkers have the same protections as other workers.” It will take courage and perseverance from the incoming administration, and organized pressure from progressive forces, to move the agenda that is needed by all of the people of the United States, and the world.
Even though Donald Trump has retreated to his Florida estate, his legacy continues to impact Washington, D.C. As Mark Fiore illustrates this week, House minority leader Kevin McCarthy’s visit to Mar-a-Lago is “a sure sign that the Republican Party still hasn’t learned its lesson after a violent insurrection and losing the White House.” As Sarah Lahm writes, “We may never get truth from Trump or his most ardent supporters, like [South Dakota governor Kristi] Noem, but we can’t dwell on it for too long—we have some vaccines to administer.” Meanwhile, conspiracy theories continue to abound. Georgia member of Congress Marjorie Taylor Green asserts that the election was stolen, and that school shootings in Newtown, Connecticut and Parkland, Florida were “false flag,” staged events, and as Mason Muerhoff reports, teenage vigilante Kyle Rittenhouse is being held up as a hero of the right.
In order to rise above all the noise and take bold actions for change, President Biden must move quickly and decisively. Josue De Luna Navarro writes in an op-ed this week, “the Biden Administration [must] go beyond simply reforming the existing immigration system — and move instead to dismantle the deportation machine.” Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies note that Biden must “act to protect the children of the world from America’s most tragic and indefensible war crimes.” And Tina Gerhardt reports that “Indigenous leaders and environmental activists are standing firm on their demands of the new President” to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline and end the Enbridge Line 3 project.
Finally, our new issue of the magazine is out and subscribers should be receiving copies in the mail in early February. The new issue features a strong message from the Reverend William J. Barber II on how the Biden-Harris Administration “has an opportunity to lead us from the disaster of 2020 toward a bold new era of freedom and justice for all.” In this issue, I also review two new important books on the historical struggles for racial justice, and we feature an excerpt from Sarah Jaffe’s just-published book, Work Won’t Love You Back—which is reviewed online this week by Amy Pedulla as well.
Keep reading, and we will keep bringing you important articles on these and other issues of our time.
Sincerely,
Norman Stockwell
Publisher
P.S. – Our new February/March issue is off the presses and heading out in the mail. If you don’t already subscribe to The Progressive in print or digital form, please consider doing so today. Also, if you have a friend or relative that you feel should hear from the many voices for progressive change with our pages, please consider giving a gift subscription.
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