What Obama Omitted

Dissent is a magazine for people who worry. So here is something to worry about, highlighted by Barack Obama's inaugural address. I am certainly glad that it was his inauguration, but what he said or, better, didn't say, illustrates one of the central problems of left politics today. We are committed to the struggle for economic equality and to the role of unions in that struggle, and right now that commitment is not a source of political strength, as we once thought it would be.