Mask-off outbursts by Maga insiders and most strikingly, the destruction and reconstruction of the presidential seat, with a huge new $300m ballroom, means Trump isn’t planning to leave the White House when his term ends, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
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August’s riots echo the dark history of reactionary ‘Church and King’ mobs
Socialist historian KEITH FLETT traces the parallel evolution of violent loyalist rampages and the workers' movement's peaceful democratic crowds, highlighting the stark contrast between recent far-right thuggery and mass Gaza protests
REACTIONARY RAMPAGE:
The house of radical dissenter
Joseph Priestley is destroyed
by a right-wing mob during
the 1791 Birmingham riots
BEN CHACKO speaks with Knesset member OFER CASSIF about rising political violence, the prospects for peace and his continuous ‘silencing by suspension’
The City is leaning on Rachel Reeves to cut welfare spending — when what’s needed is cuts to all the benefits given to the mega rich, corporations and banks to help them not pay or blatantly dodge their fair share of tax, explains BERNIE EVANS
The choice between two Blairites to revamp the tepid centrism of our ruling party doesn’t even come as cold comfort as we wander the city streets suffering from their third decade of austerity and the fifth of wage stagnation, writes MATT KERR
ANN HENDERSON looks at the trailblazers of the Women’s Trade Union League and their successful fight for female factory inspectors — a battle that echoes in today’s workplace campaigns
HENRY FOWLER puts the strike of public-sector workers in New Zealand in the wider context of deteriorating employment conditions throughout the world’s major economies
MAT COWARD looks back at a protest 105 years ago this month, whose reporting by the media bears uncomfortable similarities with demos today
THE fascist-inspired riots of early August raised again the question of how protest occurs and what form it takes.
Some Tory leadership contenders made entirely specious comparisons with the huge and peaceful marches on Gaza that have taken place since October 2023.
Two entirely different things were being conflated but historically that wasn’t always the case. Until the last years of the 18th century, a riot was the most common and most frequent form of protest.
Before trade unions and working-class political organisations had developed there existed, for example, collective bargaining by riot. An employer would be besieged by workers until they addressed wage demands.
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