Fallen Angels
Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa’s unsuccessful run for mayor of New York was a stark reminder of how much has changed in NYC since the dark days of the fiscal crisis — and how much remains the same.
9 Article(s) by: Kim Phillips-Fein
Kim Phillips-Fein teaches American history at Columbia University. Her most recent book is Fear City: New York's Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics.
Trump’s Deportations Are a Throwback to Red Scare Politics
The detention and threatened deportation of Mahmoud Khalil stands in a long tradition of the US government using border policy as a tool for political control, stretching back to First and Second Red Scare efforts to crack down on left-wing dissent.
Assessing the Damage of New York City’s Budget
The theatrics of this year’s New York City budget brought to mind the fiscal and political conflicts of the 1970s — and the need to find a new vision for New York beyond austerity.
Today’s Conservative Movement Has Roots in the Capitalist Backlash Against the New Deal
During the New Deal, right-wing businesspeople were furious that their authority was being challenged in the workplace and in society. So they started organizing. And that’s the origin story of the modern conservative movement.
Richard Nixon’s Watergate Paranoia Was Animated by a Fierce Anti-Communism
It’s easy to chalk up the Watergate scandal to Richard Nixon’s singular paranoia. But his criminal actions are better understood as a reaction to the social upheavals of the day and a feverish attempt to destroy the Left.
The Business Class Has Never Liked Democracy
Today, on Inauguration Day, we shouldn’t forget that the business class has long stoked fears of democracy — and bankrolled the conservative movement that gave us the events of January 6.
Crises Have a Way of Accelerating History
Crises like the one we’re in upend the social order, reveal long-festering conflicts, and throw open the doors to futures both bleak and transformative. We can emerge from this crisis a more just society.
Against the Great Man Theory of Historians
Robert Caro has penned more magisterial works of history than nearly anyone else. But without accounting for the often-invisible work of others in his research, his new memoir Working is not so much inspiration as an exercise in self-celebration.
Trump After One
A Jacobin roundtable on Trump’s first year in office.