For decades, life in America has been getting harder. Gun violence plagues our communities, wages aren’t keeping up with the spiraling cost of living, and big banks and landlords hold families financially hostage. The number of unhoused families with children keeps growing, wealth inequality is worse than ever, and we remain the only wealthy nation without basic guarantees like healthcare or parental leave.
With these challenges, we find ourselves stuck in a corrupt, corporate, capitalist political system beholden to big money. The Republican Party is wholly aligned with corporate interests, while the Democratic leadership often offers only weak solutions, too afraid to upset their donors. By supporting Israel’s genocide in Gaza and crushing dissent, the Biden administration opened the door to fascism. Come election time, the promise of stability was no match for a promise to blow up the rotten system.
The far right MAGA movement thrives on the country’s desperation, using rightwing populist tactics—like racism, culture wars, and immigrant scapegoating—fueled by billionaire wealth to push its agenda. With all three branches of the federal government under the control of the far right, what remains of democracy and key New Deal programs are getting dismantled. The passage of what Bernie Sanders calls the “worst piece of legislation in modern history,” Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” is class warfare: It massively redistributes wealth from bottom to top, shudders already-struggling hospitals and clinics across the country, drops hundreds of thousands of people’s health coverage, and puts Trump’s personal police force ICE) on steroids as he moves to crack down on immigrants and political opponents. According to estimates, 652,000 North Carolinians will lose health coverage, including tens of thousands in the Triangle.
History shows that oppressive systems can be overthrown, even when they seem insurmountable. Though billionaires have more tools than ever to wage class war, revolution is possible—if we can organize and break free from the mindset that those at the top earned their success through hard work, while the poor are simply lazy. Change accelerates in times of crisis.
So, what are our options?
Right now, it appears that we face three paths forward:
- The Far Rightward Path: This is the path the Republican Party is on, with MAGA driving us toward an authoritarian, fascist state that further redistributes wealth from bottom to top. It is a coalition of Christian nationalists, corporate elites, and libertarians bent on further dismantling democracy.
- The Neoliberal Path: The long-dominant wing of the Democratic Party, driven by wealthy donors and led by corporate media pundits and figures like Matt Yglesias, Larry Summers, Bill Clinton, and Chuck Schumer, continues to advocate for neoliberal policies that prioritize profit over people. Though they claim to support equity and environmentalism, their policies and advocacy protect corporate interests and fail to meaningfully address the needs of the working class. This path inevitably leads to a further rightward shift that ping-pongs us right back to rightwing populism.
- The Leftward Path: This path builds on the grassroots organizing that is already happening in our communities, strengthening and growing unions like United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, politically oriented by groups like the Democratic Socialists of America, and championed by political leaders like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Cornel West, Bernie Sanders, and Zohran Mamdani, who recently won the Democratic nomination for mayor of New York City. It rejects corporate media in exchange for independent outlets like DemocracyNow, Jacobin, ProPublica, and independent local journalism. It calls for universal programs like Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, public housing expansion, worker’s rights, public transit, wealth redistribution, and price controls on things like rent and minimum wage. It also challenges the power of big corporations and the real estate industry, relying on grassroots organizing rather than corporate money.
In this moment, our priority must be to defeat the rising tide of fascism. This might require the uneasy alliance between neoliberals and the left, but we must be clear-eyed about the need to defeat neoliberalism. It is incapable of defeating fascism. The North Carolina Democratic Party’s recent approval of a “People’s Primary” resolution to rid primaries of corrupting big money influences and its call for an arms embargo on Israel were promising local steps to reorient the party toward working class concerns.
Despite the undemocratic limitations placed on local government by states, it remains an important place for this work. The paths we choose play out in tangible ways locally. For example, should Durham and other Triangle cities demand little from big developers and corporations instead of fighting to ensure a fair share of profits are directed toward the public good like affordable housing, schools, parks, sustainable design, and other community benefits? Neoliberal talking points placing tunnel vision on housing supply and abundance have been deployed to justify deregulation, low expectations on development, and car-centric sprawl on a massive scale, while corporate developers have gentrified neighborhoods and wreaked environmental havoc, creating externalities that will detract from our city or eventually get subsidized with tax dollars from Durham’s working class.
The path we choose has implications for local budget priorities too. The neoliberal playbook in cities across the country includes the lure of corporate attractions like tax breaks and major capital investments in convention centers, which take decades to pay off, contribute little or nothing directly to the community, and come with annual budget losses. Will Durham residents foot the half-billion-dollar bill for a new convention center or instead invest more in better city planning, homegrown industries, parks, affordable housing, and elimination of food deserts? At stake also is Durham’s fare-free bus system, where 88 percent of the riders are low-income. Will buses remain free or not? These and many other issues are familiar debates at the local government level and impacted by the paths we choose to take.
The rich and powerful may have huge influence, but Mamdani’s socialist victory in a city that has elected elites like Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg, demonstrated the path to win while being vastly outspent. By strengthening grassroots movements and working with people outside our comfort zone, we can fight back and build a better world.
Nate Baker is a professional urban planner, Durham city council member, and Democratic Socialist.
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