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Your Socialist Grandfather Wants You to Fight for Economic Democracy
"The left" must get back to what was its original reason for existence—to fight for one-person, one vote democracy in the economic as well as political systems that govern our lives.
Sep 14, 2025
What’s the best way to pass on what you learned from more than a half century of left-wing doing, reading, writing, talking, and thinking?
Write a book. This was especially obvious to a retired union-activist-journalist-novelist grandfather. So, I did. Started writing a book tentatively titled Economic Democracy or No Democracy—An Anti Oligarchy Manifesto.
But then I actually listened to my grandchildren and learned they don’t read much. Instead, their pipeline to understanding the world is social media, mostly memes and videos, few of which exceed five minutes of attention span. At first, I argued with them. “You should read. Much more. Opens your mind to places, experiences, ideas …”
They try to be polite to grandpa, but there’s no mistaking the disinterest as cellphone-induced zombie (perhaps Zen-like?) eyes stare at a screen on the table instead of me.
How to respond? What to do? Decades of union organizing has taught me the importance of listening. Meeting people where they are at. Following their lead rather than trying to impose an "organizing template" on them. The most successful organizing drives are ones in which the "organizer" is a resource, an assistant in a process where the unorganized transform themselves into the organized. “The union is U”—an old slogan expressing a fundamental truth.
So, how to meet my grandchildren and other young people where they are at? How to say something they might consider listening to?
To achieve our goals, we must get rid of capitalist dictatorship in our economy and workplaces as well as oligarchy and authoritarianism in our political systems.
Perhaps these are questions someone two generations removed can never really answer. Certainly, in the late 1960s and early ’70s, when I was the ages of my two oldest grandchildren, there was no way most "old people" were deemed worthy of even asking their opinion about war, politics, and life in general, let alone the really important issues of the day like sex, relationships, and feminism.
Still, it is important for a socialist and union elder to try passing on at least a few things that might help young people today learn from our experiences—successes and, most of all, failures. According to a TV documentary about elephants, the oldest females are the ones able to lead the herd to faraway, lifesaving watering holes in times of drought.
Surely this era of climate-change-ignoring-billionaire-emperor CEOs, "free-world"-supported-live-streamed genocide, Donald Trump and all the other authoritarian, about-to-turn-fascistic "world leaders" is at least the human political equivalent of a savanna drought.
We are in a crisis almost certainly about to get worse, and the young ones need our working-class socialism, union-movement elderly-elephant-like accumulated knowledge to survive. It is up to us whose tusks are falling out to do what we can to save the herd.
So, I taught myself how to make videos, created the Your Socialist Grandfather YouTube channel, and turned my book manuscript into 43 five-minute-or-so-long videos. I call it a video book, and the first few episodes are already live on YouTube with a new one added every second day.
Mostly the free videos are about creating a new inclusive language of economic democracy to replace the old socialist-Marxist-anarchist jargon that divided us and to understand capitalism as another in a long line of tiny minorities attempting to rule over the vast majority.
As Your Socialist Grandfather sees it, "the left" must get back to what was its original reason for existence—to fight for one-person, one vote democracy in the economic as well as political systems that govern our lives. To achieve our goals, we must get rid of capitalist dictatorship in our economy and workplaces as well as oligarchy and authoritarianism in our political systems. We must challenge capitalists’ claim to “own” our economies.
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Unlike Maine's Governor, Platner Does Not 'Appreciate Everything Susan Collins Has Been Doing'
The US Senate candidate's comments came after Maine's Democratic governor expressed appreciation for the Republican senator.
Sep 09, 2025
Democrat Graham Platner, an oyster farmer running to unseat Republican US Sen. Susan Collins in Maine, isn't pulling any punches when it comes to the incumbent's record—unlike the state's governor, Janet Mills, who may also enter the 2026 race.
Mills on Monday confirmed that she is still "seriously considering a run" for Senate, according to News Center Maine. She said, "Every day I pick up the newspaper and I read the headlines and I watch the news, and there are a lot of very disturbing things going on in Washington."
Asked whether Collins—who sometimes votes against her party, but falls in line when her vote actually matters—has done enough to push back against things like US President Donald Trump's tariffs, Mills said: "She's in a tough position. I appreciate everything she is doing."
Platner struck a much different tone. Responding to the reporting on social media Monday night, he said, "I do not appreciate everything Susan Collins has been doing."
Welcoming Platner's retort, Jonathan Dean, a lawyer and solar energy entrepreneur running in Illinois' crowded Democratic primary race for US Senate, said, "This is more like it."
On Tuesday, Semafor congressional bureau chief Burgess Everett asked Collins about Mills' comments. The Republican senator said she was "delighted" to hear Mills' remarks and that "the governor and I have always had a good relationship."
Platner weighed in again, saying, "Susan Collins and I have never had a good relationship."
His responses align with what the US military veteran said in the video launching his campaign last month: "I did four infantry tours in the Marine Corps and the Army. I'm not afraid to name an enemy, and the enemy is the oligarchy."
"It's the billionaires who pay for it, and the politicians who sell us out. And yeah, that means politicians like Susan Collins," he continued. "I'm not fooled by this fake charade of Collins' deliberations and moderation."
"The difference between Susan Collins and Ted Cruz," he added, referring to a Republican US senator from Texas, "is at least Ted Cruz is honest about selling us out and not giving a damn."
Platner has already secured support from a key progressive in the chamber: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). The pair joined Troy Jackson, who is running to replace term-limited Mills as governor, for a rally in Portland, Maine on Labor Day as part of Sanders' Fighting Oligarchy Tour.
"We need senators in Washington who are prepared to take on the billionaire class and fight for working people," Sanders said in his endorsement of Platner. "He's a Mainer through and through, and he is building a movement strong enough to take on the oligarchy that is making Maine unaffordable for all except a privileged few. I look forward to Graham joining me in Washington."
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Sanders, Mamdani Bring 'Fighting the Oligarchy' Tour to Brooklyn
Sanders blasted Democratic Party leaders for withholding their support from Zohran Mamdani
Sep 07, 2025
U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has been crisscrossing the country on his Fighting the Oligarchy Tour, a series of fiery town halls meant to rally progressive voices from coast to coast. On Saturday night, the movement came home for Sanders, as he returned to his alma mater, Brooklyn College, to share the stage with New York City mayoral hopeful Zohran Mamdani in a packed town hall that echoed with calls for change.
Watch Saturday night's rally here:
Sanders blasted Democratic Party leaders for withholding their support from Zohran Mamdani, hailing Mamdani instead as “the future of the Democratic Party.”
“I find it hard to understand how the major Democratic leaders of New York state are not supporting the Democratic candidate,” Sanders said. “If a candidate started at 2% in the polls, gets 50,000 volunteers, creates enormous excitement, gets young people involved in the political process, gets nontraditional voters to vote, Democratic leaders would be jumping up and down!”
“So we’ve got another fight on our hands,” Mr. Sanders said. “And that is the future of the Democratic Party.”
Sanders and Mamdani turned their fire on Donald Trump’s agenda and the wealthy donors bankrolling efforts to derail Mamdani’s campaign. Sanders warned that America’s richest wield far too much influence, casting the mayoral race as “a test case of whether or not democracy can prevail.”
Sanders highlighted that Mamdani’s rising popularity—and the White House’s backlash—were signs of a progressive wave gaining unstoppable momentum.
“What they fear is Mamdani becoming a model for what could sweep across the country,” Sanders told the cheering supporters.
New York faces the clearest choice of this election year:Zohran Mamdani and Bernie Sandersv.Andrew Cuomo and Donald Trump
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— John Nichols (@nicholsuprising.bsky.social) September 6, 2025 at 10:48 PM
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