Reigniting The American Left: A Bold New Paradigm

Manifesto for a broad-based working class agenda with a unique American flair

The democrats and the modern left as it stands, with historic defeats in 2024 in both congressional and presidential elections, is at a crossroads. What we need now is not a lurch further to the center and to the right, but to move ever boldly to the left—on issues that unite us, not divide us.

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A Resurgence of the Ideas of the “Old Left”

The issues of the day demand a re-centering of what is and isn’t a political priority. What is clear about the state of the body politic is a fundamental disdain for oligarch shenanigans. Class must take center stage, and culture should be subsumed under class struggle. Not as a separate issue, but as a consequence of the power and influence of the ruling class, whose values and agendas are fundamentally opposed to that of workers. This is the real cause of the so-called “culture wars.”

The ruling class has weaponized division—race, religion, gender, and identity—to fracture the solidarity of the working class. They stoke fear of the “other” to distract from their looting of our pensions, their suppression of wages, and their sabotage of unions. But we will not be fooled. The old left understood this: From the Wobblies to the sit-down strikers of the 1930s, our precursors fought not as isolated factions but as a united front of laborers, farmers, and marginalized communities. Their victories—the 40-hour workweek, child labor laws, Social Security—were won not by pleading for scraps but by seizing power through collective action.

Today’s left must reclaim this legacy. We reject the neoliberal obsession with incrementalism and respectability politics. Our task is not to “reform” capitalism but to dismantle its chokehold on democracy. Let us revive the spirit of Eugene Debs, who declared, “While there is a soul in prison, I am not free.” Let us channel the fire of Fannie Lou Hamer, who thundered, “Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.” The culture wars are a smokescreen; our battle is for economic liberation. When healthcare, housing, and education are secured for all, the foundations of bigotry crumble.

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We Should Embrace Decentralization

A working class movement is a bottom-up movement. Not as an empty platitude, but so as to totally rethink how we organize our economy. A worker-first movement thus seeks to completely reform corporate governance and ownership with workers’ councils and employee ownership structures. The last 50 years have been disastrous for the working and middle classes, with growth in productivity and corporate profits far outstripping wages, even as costs have spiraled out of control. This cannot continue.

Decentralization is not a buzzword—it is a blueprint for bottom-up revolution. Imagine a nation where factories are governed by those who operate the machines, where farms are stewarded by those who till the soil, where hospitals are run by nurses and orderlies rather than profit-hungry administrators. The Mondragon Corporation in Spain, a federation of worker cooperatives employing over 70,000 people, proves that democracy in the workplace is not a utopian fantasy. In the U.S., the Evergreen Cooperatives in Cleveland and the Green Bay Packers’ community-owned model show glimpses of what could be.

This is not mere reform. It is a frontal assault on the tyranny of shareholders and CEOs who treat human labor as disposable. How is this achieved? Here are but a few ideas.

Employee Ownership Funds to transfer corporate equity to workers, ensuring profits flow to those who create them.

Localized Production Networks to break monopolies and empower communities to sustain themselves.

Participatory Budgeting to let neighborhoods, not distant bureaucrats, decide how tax dollars are spent.

The gig economy, outsourcing, and automation have been wielded as weapons against us. But under worker control, technology could shorten the workweek, uplift living standards, and free us to pursue creativity and care. Decentralization is the antidote to alienation.

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Reinforcing Our Democratic Institutions

Trump’s flagrant violation of democratic norms and values has led us to where we are today. But Trumpism is a symptom, not the disease. The rot runs deeper: a system where corporations buy politicians, where billionaires dictate policy, and where the Supreme Court legalizes bribery through rulings like Citizens United. Our democracy has been hollowed out, reduced to a stage play for the wealthy.

To rebuild, we must go beyond defending norms—we must rewrite the rules.

Abolish the electoral college, a relic of slavery that distorts the will of the people.

Pass a 28th amendment to outlaw private money in elections and establish public financing for campaigns.

Expand the Supreme Court to dilute the influence of partisan hacks and restore balance.

Strengthen the Voting Rights Act to end voter suppression and guarantee ballot access for all.

Democracy does not end at the ballot box. We must democratize every sphere: workplaces, schools, media, and policing. Citizens running for office rather than career politicians, worker veto power over corporate decisions, and community review boards with real authority over police departments.

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Tax Cuts for Working Class, Increases for the Rich

Balancing the budget is simple math. For decades, Republicans have peddled the lie that tax cuts for the wealthy will “trickle down.” The result? A $31 trillion national debt, crumbling infrastructure, and a generation drowning in student and medical debt. Meanwhile, the top 1% hoard $45 trillion in wealth—more than the bottom 90% combined.

The solution is not austerity. It is justice.

Work with other democracies and partner nations to effect a global minimum tax, where no matter where they go or what they do, the rich always pay a certain minimum amount every year.

Tax Wall Street with a 0.1% financial transaction levy to curb speculation and fund universal childcare.

Abolish the carried interest loophole that lets billionaires pay lower rates than teachers.

Impose a luxury tax on consumption of mansions, yachts, private jets and other high-ticket purchases of the wealthy. So that they can no longer avoid paying their fair share through clever tax tricks.

For working families, we propose:

A $10,000 annual tax credit for all households earning under $150,000.

Elimination of payroll taxes for those making under $75,000.

Untaxed retirement accounts and social security on a state and federal level to ensure every worker can retire with dignity.

This is not class warfare—it is a reckoning. The rich have waged war on us for 50 years. Now, we fight back.

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A New Social Contract

Our social contract, as it stands, has been frayed. It’s time to re-think it, and make it even better. The New Deal and Great Society were monumental, but they excluded too many: Black, Indigenous, migrant, and disabled communities. Today’s social contract must be universal, recognizing that no one is disposable from the white farmer in Omaha, Nebraska to the black social worker with student debt in Oakland, CA.

It starts with an end to mass incarceration and kids in cages.

Free or subsidized post secondary education including vocational training and student debt cancellation.

A 32-hour workweek with paid family leave, and a revamped civil and public service to create millions of union jobs.

This contract is not negotiable. We will fund it by dismantling the warfare state—slashing the Pentagon budget to 1/3 of it’s current size, and ending foreign regime. With our massive nuclear arsenal, no country would ever attack us, we do not need a large, expensive standing army, and navy. We can take care of our veterans, while having an effective, efficient, smaller military force purely for defense. No more foreign coups, regime changes, pre-emptive wars or massive networks of imperial outposts we call bases.

The old left fought for dignity in the shadow of robber barons and Jim Crow. Today, we pick up their banner. We are the miners, the teachers, the nurses, the gig workers, the dreamers. We are the many. And we will win.