Welcome to The Socialist Program. This is the audio of our monthly seminar. Subscribe and support

this programming at patreon.com slash the Socialist Program to join live once a month and ask

Brian Becker your questions and listen to them as soon as they come out. Thanks so much for your help

in keeping this independent show going. We can make this program with you,

but not without you. Thank you again, everybody, for your continued support. It makes a big

difference for us, of course, financially, but also psychologically and emotionally to know that

there are people who not only like the show, appreciate the show, rely on the show, but are willing to be

really part of making it a success by making a financial donation. So it's part of the collective.

So each of us does our part to make shows like this possible. And so that sense of community, that sense of the collective, very, very

important for all of us. The midterm elections is the theme of today's monthly seminar, which by the way,

it may not be monthly. It may be more frequently than each month. We're sort of considering that.

But the theme that I want to get started with is the midterm elections, what it means or what it might mean. Of course, it's still

unfolding. Some of the results are not in. All of that will be very impactful, potentially.

But also what it means in terms of the trajectory of politics

inside the United States. The reversal of Roe v. Wade, the Dobbs decision by the Supreme Court,

was in our estimate, and as we said on our show over and over again, a real turning point in a way, opening up a new era of domestic politics

in the United States, where the right wing of the ruling class in particular and its attendant

sort of organizations and institutions that exist in society, including right wing media,

they did something that would have seemed

impossible 20 years ago, which is to eviscerate abortion rights on the national level.

And once having done that, it was our view that the right wing would feel emboldened to go after

other either existing rights or policies that have been either progressive,

...