by Bob Gatty You’ve heard the noise from the far-right. Now it’s time to hear from the real South. I’m proud to introduce The Dixie Dems — a monthly feature of the Lean to the Left Podcast, where I’m joined by Robert Thompson (GA) and Arthur Hill (NC), two powerful progressive voices who aren’t afraid […]
by Bob Gatty You’ve heard the noise from the far-right. Now it’s time to hear from the real South. I’m proud to introduce The Dixie Dems — a monthly feature of the Lean to the Left Podcast, where I’m joined by Robert Thompson (GA) and Arthur Hill (NC), two powerful progressive voices who aren’t afraid […]
Lean to the Left has been redesigned for a better user experience, with new features and more on the way. By Bob Gatty You may have noticed some changes in the appearance of the Lean to the Left website, and it’s no accident. In addition to improving the look and feel of the site with […]
by Mark M. Bello You may have seen the recent Atlantic article chronicling an extraordinary shift on the U.S. Supreme Court—not just in jurisprudence, but in tone, trust, and tradition. Progressive Justices Elena Kagan, Ketanji Brown Jackson, and Sonia Sotomayor aren’t just dissenting from the Court’s conservative supermajority—they’re issuing warnings. And they are not using […]
by Mark M. Bello Donald Trump’s supporters call him a populist. They say he stands up to China. They cheer when he slaps tariffs on foreign goods and promises to bring jobs back home. So Trumpers, in July 2025, how’s that working out for you? Americans are paying the price—literally—for your hero’s reckless, economically illiterate […]
NPR CEO warns public broadcasting cuts will cause ‘stations to go dark’ as soon as next quarter. by Bob Gatty The decision to cancel Stephen Colbert’s The Late Show on CBS, along with the Republicans’ devastating cuts to public broadcasting constitutes a major threat to freedom, of speech, a cornerstone of our democracy — and […]
by Mark M. Bello CBS canceled The Late Show just days after Colbert slammed its parent company for a $16 million Trump payoff. Coincidence? America deserves better than silence. So, who was responsible? CBS? Paramount? Skydance? Some yellow-haired bully? Who? On July 11, Stephen Colbert opened The Late Show with a scathing monologue aimed squarely […]
by Mark M. Bello “It can happen here. Maybe it has.” —Gentleman’s Agreement (1947) How did we get here? How did we get from Gentleman’s Agreement—a bold, conscience-driven film that dared to speak America’s name alongside antisemitism—to a country where antisemitic tweets trend globally, Holocaust denial lives on YouTube, and pop culture megastars declare love […]
by Mark M. Bello As the Red Scare faded and the Hollywood blacklist slowly dissolved, American Jews stood at a crossroads. The moral clarity that briefly followed World War II—when Gentleman’s Agreement dared to confront antisemitism—was gone. In its place emerged a more complicated terrain: the Cold War, the establishment of Israel, McCarthyism’s lingering paranoia, […]
Hollywood, High Society, and the Limits of Polite Protest Introduction: From Courage to Silence by Mark M. Bello When *Gentleman’s Agreement* premiered in 1947, it seemed like a turning point. A major studio film—helmed by Elia Kazan, produced by Darryl Zanuck, and starring Gregory Peck—had taken aim at polite, coded anti-Semitism in America’s high society. […]
