Dear Progressive Reader,

The midterm elections are less that two weeks away and huge sums of money are going into attack ads to try and sway voters in the final days. As cartoonist Mark Fiore illustrates, these “closing arguments,” many paid for with so-called dark money, are delivering anything but accurate information. In recent years, the use of these much less regulated forms of “informing” voters has grown to eclipse the more traditional and accountable methods of debates and candidate interviews. As Nicholas Valentino, a political science professor at the University of Michigan recently told the New Jersey Monitor (a States Newsroom website): “If we are to hold our elected officials accountable on their policy stance[s], we have to know what they are . . . One of the key indicators of democratic backsliding is our restriction of information to the free press and an unwillingness to speak to the press.”

Other issues, like “culture wars,” 2020-election denial, and fear-mongrering are instead dominating the political conversation. As Mike Ervin notes in his recent column on the attacks on Pennsylvania candidate for the U.S. Senate John Fetterman, “In Republican campaign strategy, no marginalized group is off limits.” And as Bill Lueders points out, in his review of the new book Raising Them Right: The Untold Story of America’s Ultraconservative Youth Movement and Its Plot for Power, there is a “coordinated effort to win over young voters by churning out conservative superstars” on television and in social media.

In the meantime, some of the real issues in this election remain unaddressed. As Starbucks worker Alisha Humphrey explains, “while Starbucks and some sectors of our government would like to believe ‘the pandemic is over,’ the death count and high rates of long COVID-induced disability suggest otherwise.” At the same time, a looming “no” vote on the potential railway workers agreement threatens to impact the supply chain even further. As Michelle Chen reports in an interview with union members, “the main point of contention in the contract talks is not monetary compensation, but rather, control of their time on the job and the consequences for not following whatever schedule is imposed on a worker in a given week.” And, as David Helvarg and Jason Scorse point out, “[President] Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act came decades too late to stop climate change impacts this century.” So what will this mean moving forward? “Our next challenges will be hugely expensive and politically charged, pushing humanity’s limits,” they say.

In Brazil, South America’s largest economy, a runoff election for the presidency is set to take place on Sunday, and, as Jeff Abbott writes, this contest has many echoes of 2020 presidential election in the United States—including a declaration from the incumbent that he might not step down if he loses. “With Lula and Bolsonaro, it is basically [a choice] between democracy and authoritarianism,” one analyst tells him. Sound familiar?

Finally, we sadly noted this week the passing of the great writer Mike Davis who died on Tuesday following a battle with cancer. Dave Zirin offered his comments on the importance of Davis as a writer and activist, and we reposted reviews of two of Davis’s books, written by Amitabh Pal and I, fourteen years apart.

Please keep reading, and we will keep bringing you important articles on these and other issues of our time.

Sincerely,

Norman Stockwell
Publisher

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