Katrina vanden Heuvel: A Center-Left America Is Already Here

Katrina vanden Heuvel: A Center-Left America Is Already Here

Katrina vanden Heuvel: A Center-Left America Is Already Here

The majority of citizens support progressive agenda items like cuts in defense spending and higher taxes on the very rich.

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Barack Obama’s inaugural speech on Monday drew criticism from conservatives over what they perceived as the president’s overly liberal agenda. In an appearance on The Ed Show on Tuesday, Nation editor and publisher Katrina vanden Heuvel lauded the speech, arguing that Obama’s defense of progressive government articulated an agenda that the majority of Americans already support.

“I think that we’ve seen a left-center emerge over these last years but that too often the media doesn’t pay attention to it,” vanden Heuvel said.

The American media must also begin to reflect that joblessness, not deficit and debt, is the major crisis of our time, and that our great struggle is the fight against corporate control of the political system, she added.

Alec Luhn

Katrina vanden Heuvel last appeared on Current TV’s The War Room to discuss gun control.

We cannot back down

We now confront a second Trump presidency.

There’s not a moment to lose. We must harness our fears, our grief, and yes, our anger, to resist the dangerous policies Donald Trump will unleash on our country. We rededicate ourselves to our role as journalists and writers of principle and conscience.

Today, we also steel ourselves for the fight ahead. It will demand a fearless spirit, an informed mind, wise analysis, and humane resistance. We face the enactment of Project 2025, a far-right supreme court, political authoritarianism, increasing inequality and record homelessness, a looming climate crisis, and conflicts abroad. The Nation will expose and propose, nurture investigative reporting, and stand together as a community to keep hope and possibility alive. The Nation’s work will continue—as it has in good and not-so-good times—to develop alternative ideas and visions, to deepen our mission of truth-telling and deep reporting, and to further solidarity in a nation divided.

Armed with a remarkable 160 years of bold, independent journalism, our mandate today remains the same as when abolitionists first founded The Nation—to uphold the principles of democracy and freedom, serve as a beacon through the darkest days of resistance, and to envision and struggle for a brighter future.

The day is dark, the forces arrayed are tenacious, but as the late Nation editorial board member Toni Morrison wrote “No! This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”

I urge you to stand with The Nation and donate today.

Onwards,

Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editorial Director and Publisher, The Nation

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