PARTY LINES MEAGAN DAY We Won’t Forget the Questions Bernie Asked What will decide the fate of neoliberalism today is not the extent of the economic damage the virus wreaks—it is the extent to which the virus transforms popular expectations. Illustration by Daniel Haskett THE SOAPBOX Letters & Internet Speaks Send us your deepest thoughts—we’ll try to publish them. STRUGGLE SESSION BRIAHNA JOY GRAY, ARI RABIN-HAVT, DAVID SIROTA, AND JEFF WEAVER The Oral History of the Bernie Campaign Four key figures in Bernie Sanders’s quest for the White House on what really happened. MEANS OF DEDUCTION Numbers Don’t Lie VULGAR EMPIRICIST The Social Democracy Index We looked at the best polling from the 2020 primary season. Turns out, you can spot a Bernie Sanders supporter not just by their age, but by their support for social-democratic policies. UNEVEN & COMBINED How We Lost Michigan In 2016, Bernie won a major upset in Michigan, thanks in part to a groundswell of support in the state’s rural areas. In 2020, he lost every county in the state—and the numbers show he lost many of his rural supporters, too. READING MATERIEL Take a Look, It’s in a Book CANON FODDER ANTON JÄGER & DOMINIK LEUSDER The Prophet of Inequality Whatever its shortcomings, Thomas Piketty’s latest book, Capital and Ideology, is a serious attempt to map our social world without resorting to easy abstractions. FIELD NOTES The Enemy Within Leaked messages from Labour Party staff littered with casual racism and sexism show that they worked against Jeremy Corbyn and wanted to keep the Tories in power. CANON FODDER HANNAH PROCTOR Reading Victor Serge from the Depths of Defeat Despite isolation, political defeat, and incalculable grief, the Russian revolutionary Victor Serge persisted in writing in collective rather than personal terms. Bernie Sanders’s Five-Year War FEATURE MATT KARP How he lost and where we go from here. The Two Paths of Democratic Socialism: Coalition and Confrontation FEATURE JARED ABBOTT After Bernie Sanders, democratic socialists in America face a vital strategic dilemma. Do we go the Justice Democrats route of winning gains by being the junior partner in a progressive coalition, or do we take a gamble on more independent class organization and struggle? How the Labour Party Lost the Chance of a Lifetime FEATURE RONAN BURTENSHAW Corbynism had a popular program—but not the popular insurgency it needed to fight for it. Illustration by Harry Haysom CULTURAL CAPITAL Capitalist Realism BASS & SUPERSTRUCTURE ALEX NIVEN Don’t Look Back in Anger Britpop is often dismissed as an embarrassing, retrograde moment in British culture. But at its best, it hinted at what might have happened if the working class had managed to regain its sense of power and pride after the defeats of the 1980s. WAYS OF SEEING PHOEBE BRAITHWAITE Mark Fisher’s Popular Modernism It’s been three years since we lost Mark Fisher, but his vision of a socialist future endures. BEYOND A BOUNDARY DANIEL FINN Where Have All the Political Footballers Gone? “Football gives meaning to life, yes. But life also gives meaning to football.” Illustration by Charlie Le Maignan THE TUMBREL Still Roasting Liberals GIRONDINS DAVID SIROTA Did Americans Want a Political Revolution? Joe Biden told us there was an easy path. Reality will soon catch up to that fantasy. WORST ESTATE DAVID BRODER We Don’t Live in Weimar Germany Liberals say that socialists who don’t support Joe Biden are “like the German Communists who refused to fight Hitler.” The analogy doesn’t hold up—and it’s also historically illiterate. LEFTOVERS The Struggle Continues POPULAR FRONT MARILYN ARWOOD We Knocked on a Million Doors for 45,000 Votes I helped organize Bernie Sanders’s canvassing efforts in Iowa, and I learned that we can knock on as many doors as we want, but to make lasting change, we need to think beyond election day. POPULAR FRONT CEDRIC JOHNSON Let’s Talk About South Carolina Bernie Sanders didn’t lose because of the “black vote,” but winning places like South Carolina is crucial to building a left majority. MEANS & ENDS SETH ACKERMAN The Victory to Come Bernie critics seem to think they dodged a bullet. They haven’t—the bullet is still on its way.