Share Twitter Facebook Email Copy URL

Progressive politics and the multilateral order in the US and Europe

Progressive forces in the US have grown in size and influence over the last five years – but what is their role in the country’s society and politics, given the institutional and structural obstacles to left actors and thinking in the country? Their rising popularity at home is welcome news to leftists around the world – but is the US left connected to, and aware of, not just the political left around the world, but international relations in general? How have they reacted to the war in Ukraine, for example?

We discuss these and many other questions in the second edition of our office webinar series with Stefan Liebich. Stefan was a directly elected member of the Bundestag (the German national parliament) for the LEFT from 2009 to 2021, and long-time member of the Foreign Affairs committee of the Bundestag. After leaving elected office, he became an RLS Fellow on North American Affairs and developed a project called “Progressive America“. With this project, he started building understanding and bridges between progressives in the US and Europe.

Stefan underlined that there is a “real threat against US democracy” from an increasingly far-right, anti-democratic Republican party, while the Democratic party was “no longer the party of Obama and Clinton”, moving into a more social-democratic direction. What this will bring is unclear, but it is certain that the next few years are crucial for the survival of the United States of America as they exist today. In a wide-ranging discussion, Stefan also touched on the inner workings of the US political system, the public opinion of Joe Biden, and discussed the mistakes made by Die Linke in the run-up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.