WHEN FIRST ENCOUNTERING the Impeach Bush movement in 2007 I responded, almost flippantly, “Why not impeach the system that gave us Bush?” “Otherwise,” I said, “we risk having someone in the White House who’ll make us long for Bush.” If prescient, my response was admittedly formulaic and evidently deficient. Not surprisingly, whiffs of a new impeachment movement are again in the air since the November 2016 surprise. Those blowing from the Left, however, are again devoid of systemic/structural thinking and, alas, to its peril. It is to those who are wary of being seduced by this crowd that this more substantive response is directed, rather than to the lesser-evil true believers for whom hope springs eternal.

[. . .]

The Platypus Affiliated Society hosted a discussion on the politics of anti-racism and the American left on April 11, 2015 in Chicago. The speakers were Toby Chow, an organizer with Southsiders Organized for Unity and Liberation (SOUL) and The People’s Lobby; Brandon Johnson, an organizer for Chicago Teachers Union (CTU); August Nimtz, author of Lenin's Electoral Strategy from 1907 to the October Revolution of 1917 (2014); and Adolph Reed, Jr., author of Stirrings in the Jug: Black Politics in the Post-Segregation Era (1999).

[. . .]