JACOBIN

JULY 11. 2025

Kenyan Women’s Gulf Jobs Begin With Hope and End in Horror

Reporting from Kenya, our correspondent spoke to women who returned from domestic work in the Gulf under the kafala system, which binds workers to employers and strips them of basic rights. Their testimonies reveal a pattern of exploitation, abuse, and death.

Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill Will Deepen Inequality

Donald Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill is an ugly policy that will punish the poorest, worsen inequality, and blow up the national debt.

Breaking the Blockade of Gaza

A member of the European Parliament, Rima Hassan was detained by Israel in June after she joined the aid flotilla to Gaza. She told Jacobin about her experience — and why another aid mission is setting off this Sunday.

JULY 10. 2025

A Left Response to the Birth Rate Crisis

The Right uses falling birth rates to pose as defenders of family and future against demographic suicide. The Left can’t keep declining to comment. Instead, we should reframe the conversation to emphasize security and freedom over scarcity and coercion.

Grok’s Antisemitic Meltdown Was Entirely Predictable

Elon Musk’s AI chatbot, Grok, started spewing antisemitic conspiracy theories this week. It’s not the first time something like this has happened — and a reminder that LLMs aren’t truth-telling machines but aggregators of undifferentiated online scribblings.

Of Course Trump Doesn’t Want to Release the Epstein Files

Not only was Trump intimately close to Jeffrey Epstein, but there is a wealth of reporting tying the billionaire pedophile to intelligence circles. Trump is once again protecting the elites he claimed he would fight on the campaign trail.

The Rise and Fall of the Knowledge Worker

Knowledge workers, whose jobs involve handling information rather than producing goods, were supposed to be the beneficiaries of neoliberalism and globalization. But generative AI and a hypercompetitive employment market is immiserating them too.

Mainstream Media Beat the Drums for War With Iran

Observing media coverage of the bombing of Iran, you could be forgiven for thinking you were watching a rerun of Iraq two decades ago. Mainstream outlets were all too happy to parrot the Trump and Netanyahu administrations’ line.

JULY 9. 2025

The Communist Who Reimaged Jewish Life in America

The Jewish communist Ben Gold’s recently reissued 1944 novel, Your Comrade, Avreml Broide, offers a glimpse into a world in which a radical tradition of egalitarianism and cosmopolitanism overshadowed Zionist nationalism.

If You Go See Jurassic World Rebirth, That’s on You

Jurassic World Rebirth is another entry in the dinos-eating-humans megafranchise. It is exactly what you would expect. For me, that works.

Rent Controls Work — but They Aren’t a Silver Bullet

Rent controls can help to make housing more affordable in cities like New York. But they must be part of a broader solution to the housing crisis that involves increasing density and building more housing.

France Risks Following America’s Bad Example

French right-wingers don’t yet have a leader like Donald Trump. Yet the creation of Fox News–like TV channels, harsh culture wars, and the decline of class politics are pushing France along a path troublingly similar to the United States.

JULY 8. 2025

US Teachers Are Kicking the ADL Out of Schools

The National Education Association, the United States’ largest teachers’ union, has voted to cut all ties with the Anti-Defamation League over the group’s weaponization of antisemitism and attacks on supporters of Palestinian rights.

Philly’s City Worker Strike Has the Garbage Piling Up

Philadelphia’s blue-collar municipal workers have entered their second week on strike. The city’s lowest-paid employees, AFSCME District Council 33 members are demanding a living wage.