Are We Ready for a Renaissance? A Preview of YES! Magazine’s Winter Issue
The Winter 2024 issue of YES! Magazine has hit newsstands and landed in mailboxes around the country. It’s the last issue before Donald Trump’s second term begins. The issue’s theme is “Renaissance,”...
View ArticleCan Ben Wikler Rebuild the Democratic Party?
Bruised and beaten in the 2024 election, Democrats are contending with the loss of the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives, and the fact that millions of Democratic voters simply didn’t...
View ArticleICC Issues Arrest Warrants for Israeli Officials
On Nov. 21, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for “crimes against humanity and war crimes”...
View ArticleBig Oil Lied and Deceived for Decades. Can It Be Stopped?
Big Oil is having its moment. Fresh off the U.S. presidential election—in which the industry’s favored candidate, Donald Trump, won—and COP29, the United Nations climate conference that became a venue...
View ArticlePeople Power From South Korea to Syria
There were two major political earthquakes in December 2024 in different parts of the world. First, South Korea President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law on Dec. 3 and sent armed security to the...
View ArticleCEO’s Killing Sparks Discourse on Broken Health Care System
Police have arrested a suspect in connection to the shooting death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson after a days-long manhunt. Thompson was shot in the back on his way to his company’s annual...
View ArticleAn Abolitionist Wish for the Holidays
‘Tis the season, and while many of us might be putting up trees and decorations, planning family dinners and holiday parties, and buying gifts for loved ones, there’s one population in the U.S. for...
View ArticleJournalists Caution Against “Nonprofit Killer” Bill
In November 2024, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a dangerous piece of legislation, HR 9495, that many are calling the “nonprofit killer” bill. When the bill was discussed in spring 2024 as a...
View ArticleBuilding the Black City: History, Capitalism, and Reparations
In his new book, Building the Black City: The Transformation of American Life, Joe Trotter Jr., Ph.D., explores the role of Black Americans in creating, sustaining, and expanding cities all over the...
View ArticleWill the FTC Continue to Serve Public Interest After Khan?
Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan’s tenure has been powerful; she has emerged as one of the most pro-public interest FTC chairs in recent memory. In December 2024, a U.S. district court granted...
View ArticleDoes Trump’s Pick to Lead Medicare Want to End Medicare?
Incoming president Donald Trump has picked TV celebrity Mehmet Öz, or “Dr. Oz,” to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). The Center for Science in the Public Interest has...
View ArticleTalking About Abolition: Participatory Budgeting
Melina Abdullah, Ph.D., is a fixture among racial justice activists in Los Angeles, leading Black Lives Matter LA’s protests and actions from the campus of California State University, Los Angeles. In...
View ArticleSurvivors of Eaton Fire Share Their Stories
On Jan. 7, 2025, YES! Senior Editor Sonali Kolhatkar’s family evacuated North Pasadena, California, alongside thousands of other residents of both North Pasadena and Altadena as a wildfire raged,...
View ArticleAltadena and North Pasadena Neighbors Rise Up for Mutual Aid
Thousands of people are reeling from one of the deadliest wildfires in California history, including YES! Senior Editor Sonali Kolhatkar, who is based in North Pasadena, close to where the Eaton fire...
View ArticleWhat Made the Gaza Ceasefire Possible?
Palestinians and their allies around the world are celebrating a ceasefire deal with Israel, brokered 15 months into a brutal genocide. The first part of the agreement is already in progress, with...
View ArticleFood Justice As a Path Toward Abolition
Farmer and activist Leah Penniman, who runs Soul Fire Farm in upstate New York, calls herself an abolitionist. While food justice may seem unrelated to abolition, Penniman sees them as intimately...
View ArticleMumia Abu-Jamal: A Mad Dash to the Right
On Jan. 20, 2025, Donald Trump was inaugurated as president of the United States for the second time, ushering in an era marked by double standards around criminality, the law, and democracy. The...
View ArticleTrump Begins Implementing Anti-Immigrant Agenda
Federal immigration enforcement agents have begun an arresting spree across the United States on orders from President Donald Trump, who ran on an anti-immigrant platform. Federal agents are striking...
View ArticleDo Lies and White Supremacists Run U.S. Prisons?
Upon returning to the White House, Donald Trump—who claimed he would be a “law and order” president—pardoned nearly 1,600 people involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. Trump, the first person in...
View ArticleReimagining Justice Systems in a Post-Abolitionist World
How do we think about creating a world free of policing and prisons, a world where the constant fear of state violence is a thing of the past? For Gina Dent, Ph.D., adopting an abolition mindset...
View ArticleWho’s Going to Stop Elon Musk?
Though Donald Trump was sworn in as president on Jan. 20, 2025, the real head of state appears to be Elon Musk, the world’s richest man. Musk spent hundreds of millions of dollars of his own money to...
View ArticleHow DEI Initiatives Can Continue in Spite of Trump
According to Republicans, the latest problems facing people in the United States are the fault of either immigrants or DEI initiatives. Donald Trump’s administration has dropped all pretense at being...
View ArticleChicago’s Guaranteed Income Project Shows Promising Results
A guaranteed income pilot project called the Chicago Future Fund (CFF) has just released its latest report. The project, run by Equity and Transformation (EAT) Chicago, is based in the city’s west...
View ArticleHow Migrant Workers Are Organizing Against Trumpism
The devastating Eaton fire in Southern California’s Altadena neighborhood led to the death of 17 people and the loss of more than 6,000 family homes in a historically Black community that is now mixed...
View ArticleMigrant Workers Lead Cleanup Efforts in Altadena
The Pasadena Community Job Center, established by the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) 25 years ago, was primed to move into action when the Eaton fire devastated the tight-knit...
View ArticleMigrant Workers Shape Their Own Narratives
The Pasadena Community Job Center is in the heart of Pasadena, California, just two miles from the Altadena neighborhood where the deadly Eaton fire destroyed thousands of homes and claimed 17 lives....
View ArticleWho Will Hold Trump Accountable for Violating the Constitution?
The president of the United States has no authority to freeze funds allocated by Congress. Yet Donald Trump has done just that. He has also begun rolling back congressionally mandated government...
View ArticleNew York Passes Climate Superfund to Make Polluters Pay
In December 2024, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a bill that fines fossil fuel corporations $75 billion to pay into a superfund the state can use for climate-related damage. New York is now the...
View ArticleHow to Start Making Change With Those You’d Rather Cancel
Black feminist and reproductive justice organizer Loretta J. Ross has spent decades dealing with people she fundamentally disagrees with, starting with an encounter she had as a young sexual assault...
View ArticleHow California’s Fast-Food Wage Hike Benefits Everyone
In April 2024, California became the first state in the nation to raise the minimum wage for fast-food workers at major corporate chains to $20 an hour. These workers now enjoy the highest base wage...
View ArticleAn Easy Fix for Corporate Tax Cheating
With President Donald Trump decimating the federal government workforce and the Republican Party attacking Medicaid, individual states are struggling to maintain social programs, even as they navigate...
View ArticleCan the Movement for Reparations Survive Under Trump?
During the summer of 2020, a long-standing movement for reparations for Black Americans gained steam. Thanks to historic racial justice protests, several local and statewide initiatives received a...
View ArticleWhat Does Trump Really Want From Russia’s War on Ukraine?
On March 7, 2025, there was an extraordinary confrontation between Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, United States President Donald Trump, and United States Vice President JD Vance in the Oval...
View ArticleClawing Back Public Protections of Our Land, Air, and Climate
The environmental organization Center for Biological Diversity has filed a lawsuit against several federal agencies over President Donald Trump’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)....
View ArticleThe Solution to Family Violence Is Not Incarceration
The United States criminal justice system treats the issue of family violence—also known as domestic violence—as a problem that can be solved through police intervention and incarceration. However,...
View ArticleTrump Unleashes New McCarthyism Against Palestine Activism
On Mar. 8, 2025, the Trump administration arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a prominent Palestinian student activist at Columbia University. Federal agents arrived at Khalil’s building lobby claiming the U.S....
View ArticleHow Tariffs Can Be a Good Idea for People and the Planet
Donald Trump is moving full steam ahead on his campaign promise of slapping tariffs on goods imported from Canada, Mexico, and China. According to a recent report in Reuters, Trump’s decision has...
View ArticleRising Up in the Streets: Women’s March 2025
On Saturday, Mar. 8, 2025, thousands of women and people of all genders gathered for a march and rally in downtown Los Angeles. The march, organized by the Women’s March, was held to commemorate...
View ArticleProtests Across California Target Trump–Musk Assault on the Public
In recent weeks, a coalition of advocacy organizations in California have come together to protest the impact of the pro-billionaire budgeting decisions happening in Washington, D.C. As part of a...
View ArticleCan Public Education Survive Trump’s Attacks?
On Mar. 3, 2025, Donald Trump’s secretary of education, Linda McMahon, announced her intention to eliminate the department she was chosen to lead. As her first move in what she calls the department’s...
View ArticleUnderstanding Congress’s Billionaire Budget
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer joined forces with President Donald Trump on Mar. 13, 2025, to pass one of the most reactionary federal budgets in recent memory. According to Mother Jones, the...
View ArticleTrump Disappears Hundreds of Venezuelans Into a Gulag
Within weeks of of being inaugurated for the second time, President Donald Trump rescinded the designation of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan nationals living...
View ArticleTexas Abortion Providers Fight Back
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton recently arrested two abortion providers in the state, a new stage in his crackdown against reproductive rights. Maria Margarita Rojas, who runs a small chain of...
View ArticleTransgender College Student Speaks Out on Trumpism
The Trump administration has targeted transgender people as a central tenet of its approach to government. Soon after Donald Trump’s inauguration, transgender American citizens who tried to renew...
View ArticleReport From Trans Day of Visibility
Hundreds of people gathered for a rally in Washington, D.C., on Monday, Mar. 31, 2025, to mark Transgender Day of Visibility. Given the Trump administration’s brazen attacks on the trans community,...
View ArticleActivists Demand No Tax Dollars for Israel’s Genocide
As Americans prepare to file their annual federal and state taxes, a group of activists has released a handy Not My Tax Dollars map where anyone can locate their state and city and learn how many...
View ArticleHow to Keep Going in the Face of Fascism
The Trump administration has sent another contingent of Venezuelan and Salvadoran nationals to El Salvador’s notorious gulag-like prison. This time, the administration claims that deporting the...
View ArticleOrganizing Principles for Anti-Trump Resistance
Though the Trump administration’s fascism is unprecedented in the modern-day United States, there are still lessons to be learned from earlier resistance movements. In a recent op-ed for YES! Media,...
View ArticleStudents Continue Resisting Israeli Genocide
Student activists at universities across the United States are continuing to grapple not only with the escalating Israeli genocide in Gaza but also with the Trump administration’s criminalization of...
View ArticleRising Up in the Streets: Millions Say “Hands Off” to Trump
An estimated 3 million people protested at about 1,300 gatherings around the United States on Apr. 5, 2025, in what was the first coordinated mass action against Donald Trump’s second tenure....
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