I’m writing to you from Chicago, which occupies a special place not only in the collective hysterical imagination of Donald Trump and the far Right, but in the history and present of movements for justice.
Chicago has been the home of In These Times since our founding in 1976. The city has been, for more than 150 years, a center not just of protest and resistance, but the hard work of organizing and building progressive power.
It’s no accident that Trump’s incoming border czar, Tom Homan, said the administration’s deportation plans were “going to start right here in Chicago, Illinois.”
Almost all of our staff live in the city of Chicago. We are deeply engaged not only in the work of independent, progressive journalism, but in the communities where we live. We’ve covered issues that affect all of us — from immigration to women’s health to racial justice to economic inequality — not as neutral observers, but as active participants in the messy work of organizing.
When Trump targets immigrants in our city, it’s no abstraction. These are our neighbors, our loved ones, our families.
As we move forward into 2025, we will not breathlessly cover every machination of the new administration. Instead, we are doubling down on our community-based storytelling to help our readers and our movements make real assessments that can mark out the path ahead, so seemingly unclear and daunting at the moment.
As I type this, immigration agents are just a few miles away, preparing to fan out across the city. Neighborhoods across the metro area that are usually buzzing with life at the beginning of the week are eerily quiet. Meanwhile, the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, sees fit to speak to the opening election rally of Germany’s new far-right party, only days after his Nazi salutes at Trump’s inauguration. Some immigrants, clearly, matter much more than others.
For some of us here in Chicago, the days between sending this issue to the printer and the minute you hold it in your hands will feel like years.
We are living in dangerous times — but times of great danger are times of great opportunity. If the Left means to accurately assess the political terrain — in the hopes of understanding and changing it — we need publications like In These Times to, in the words of our founder, James Weinstein, “inform it, educate it and orient it.”
There is no way around it. We are hurting, and we are uncertain of what comes next. The best word I’ve found in many conversations about the moment we’re in is “disorienting.” Progressives and the Left need to build and support structures that can help us orient ourselves.
The path forward isn’t simply one of resistance and reaction. As the postwar liberal order collapses all around us, we at In These Times are prepared to do our part to meet this moment.
Alex Han is Executive Director of In These Times. He has organized with unions, in the community, and in progressive politics for two decades. In addition to serving as Midwest Political Director for Bernie 2020, he’s worked to amplify the power of community and labor organizations at Bargaining for the Common Good, served as a Vice President of SEIU Healthcare Illinois and Indiana for over a decade, and helped to found United Working Families, an independent political organization in Illinois that has elected dozens of working-class leaders to city, state and federal office. Most recently he was executive editor of Convergence Magazine.
