Robert Reich

You'll never guess the one promise Trump actually kept

The Trump regime started the week by telling lies about Alex Pretti’s murder in Minneapolis. Now, Donald Trump has pivoted back to telling lies about the economy in order to change the subject. Trump lies like other humans breathe.

Trump’s year back in office has been filled with lies and broken promises. We’re in the gravitational pull of the midterm elections, so it’s not too early to examine what he promised and how he’s delivered on them.

In this week’s video, I take a look at Trump’s 10 biggest campaign promises and what’s happened since he took office.

I doubt you need convincing, but you might share the video with your Trumpish “Uncle Bob” or anyone else still under the illusion that he’s doing what he said he would.

Are you feeling the “New Golden Age?” Are you enjoying those home and energy prices cut “in half?” How about the satisfaction of having peace throughout the world? And what of his promise to release ALL the Epstein files?

There are so many promises to talk about, you’ll never guess the one promise he actually kept.

Thanks for watching.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

Robert Reich is an emeritus professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/. His new memoir, Coming Up Short, can be found wherever you buy books. You can also support local bookstores nationally by ordering the book at bookshop.org

Trump has set his own destruction in motion

One of the few advantages of being as conspicuous as I am is that many people come up to me whom I don’t know, to give me their views about what’s happening in America — as if I’m a free-floating focus group.

This morning, I was at a restaurant counter finishing my breakfast when a middle-aged man sat down next to me, turned to me, and said, “I don’t want to intrude.”

He just had just done so, so I put down my knife and fork, wiped my mouth with my napkin, turned toward him, and asked, “May I help you?”

“I’ve been a life-long Republican,” he said, “but the events of the past weeks have caused me to leave the Republican Party.”

“I’m happy to hear that,” I said with a smile and turned to finish my breakfast.

“I’m from New Hampshire, and many of my Republican friends are leaving the party, too,” he said. “Minneapolis was the last straw.”

I put down my fork and turned toward him again. “I assume you’re talking about the behavior of ICE and Border Patrol agents there, and the killings?”

“All terrible, of course,” he said, shaking his head. “But what really finished me were the lies — Noem. Miller, Bovino, Vance, Trump.” He frowned. “They all lied through their teeth. I saw the video! They’re a pack of liars.”

I agreed and then turned back to my breakfast, explaining that I had to finish to get to an appointment.

But his words stuck with me.

There are two ways to look at what’s happened in Minneapolis. Two different tipping points for America.

The first is to see the nation tipping more deeply toward Trump’s fascist police state. ICE and the Border Patrol have now become vehicles of state terror. They’re engaged in extrajudicial executions with apparent impunity.

This tipping began with Trump’s purging of federal prosecutors who tried to hold him accountable for his attempted coup. It continued with his pardons of the January 6 rioters, his pardons of his allies and wealthy friends, his criminal prosecutions of James Comey and Letitia James, and the criminal investigation of Jerome Powell.

Now, we’re at full tilt. Trump’s inadequately trained, trigger-happy goons — outfitted with guns, pepper spray, and riot gear — have been bullying, beating, and murdering the residents of Minneapolis.

The regime refuses to allow Minnesota to investigate the killings, won’t criminally investigate the shooters, makes wildly false accusations about the victims, and claims that federal agents responsible for the killings have total immunity from prosecution.

But there’s a second way to see what’s happening in Minnesota — a tipping point of a different kind. The fellow from New Hampshire who sat next to me at breakfast this morning typifies it.

It’s America tipping toward mass revulsion of Trump and the people around him.

His latest lies and those of his surrounding sycophants are so blatant and disgusting that some Republicans, like my breakfast companion, are abandoning the GOP altogether.

Americans are coming together to defeat Trump’s fascism, just as they’ve come together in Minneapolis. Not just demonstrating — but also participating in neighborhood watches, standing guard outside a local mosque during Friday prayers, sending out encrypted messages about where agents are lurking, and taking videos of ICE’s atrocities and sharing them widely.

I hear from friends and former students in Minneapolis about an extraordinary outpouring of cooperation and mutual aid. They’re organizing deliveries of food and other necessities to families afraid to leave their homes, picking up groceries for immigrant families, driving vulnerable families to doctor’s appointments, and taking immigrant kids to school.

One friend tells me he’s lived in Minneapolis for 40 years and has never felt the city as closely bound together.

“I think we’ve discovered the real meaning of community,” he writes.

A former student says that despite the subzero weather, he and everyone he knows have been involved in organizing — both against ICE and for one another.

“This goes far deeper than a protest,” he says. “It’s a new way to live here.”

This upwelling isn’t limited to Minneapolis. I’m hearing from friends and former students across America who are seeing something similar where they live.

“You wouldn’t believe how this community has come together,” writes an old friend from Portland, Maine. “I’ve lived here for more than 20 years and don’t recall a time when we felt as united.”

Both tipping points may be true: We’re tipping toward Trump’s fascist police state at the same time we’re tipping toward a new era of community and solidarity. The latter is the consequence of the former.

I don’t buy the predictions of a second civil war. I think Americans are better than that. If polls are to be believed, most oppose the way Trump has been implementing his immigration policies. Most don’t accept his fascist police state.

As the nation shudders on the edge of his police state, we’re gaining stronger unity against it and taking more responsibility for the well-being of each other. In the darkness of Trump, we’re finding the light of America.

Robert Reich is an emeritus professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/. His new memoir, Coming Up Short, can be found wherever you buy books. You can also support local bookstores nationally by ordering the book at bookshop.org

Here's how ICE executions can end Trump's reign

Today we mourn the death-by-execution of Alex Pretti and Renee Good. I use the term execution intentionally because they were murdered intentionally by Trump’s goons. (I’ve seen the videos; I’m sure you have as well.)

At times like this, Gandhi used to say, “The truth is revealing itself.”

To show our grief and solidarity, you might want to wear a black armband this week and light a candle in your window this evening and for the remainder of the week.

But there is much more to do than mourn. As the labor leader Joe Hill asked in 1915 just before he was executed: “Don’t mourn … Organize.” The best way to honor the memories of Alex Pretti and Renee Good is to take action against the forces that executed both of them.

Obviously, your energies are needed in organizing your congressional district and your state for the midterm elections, and getting out the vote. (I’ll be back in coming months with detailed suggestions for how.)

But the midterms are nine and a half months away. In the meantime, Donald Trump and his thugs can do a great deal of damage if not stopped. What can you do now?

A few action items occur to me:

Tell your U.S. senators to vote NO on the Department of Homeland Security spending bill they’ll be considering this week — unless ICE is disarmed and prohibited from using racial or ethnic profiling and its agents are explicitly liable to criminal prosecution and civil lawsuits. At the very least, DHS’s funding should be slashed. If DHS is shut down after Jan. 30 because no spending bill has been enacted, so be it. (The congressional switchboard is: (202) 224-3121.)
If you’re represented by Republicans, call them and demand they rein in ICE. They need to hear from you. Some Republicans are beginning to come around. (Remember: They now have a margin of only three votes in the House.)
Urge your state attorneys general to join with other state AGs and to investigate ICE, the Border Patrol, and their leadership (Noem, Miller, Trump), with a view toward possible criminal prosecution. Trump cannot pardon them or protect them from state-level prosecutions. (You can locate the office of your state attorney general through the National Association of Attorneys General website or the USAGov directory. Most offices have official websites with online complaint forms, phone numbers, and mailing addresses for submitting consumer inquiries, complaints, or reports.)
If ICE is coming to your city or is already there, call on your mayor and your state police to protect those protesting ICE.
Circulate a pledge in your community to oppose ICE if and when it arrives there. Aim for signatures from 10 percent of the adults residing there.
If you are a member of your local Indivisible group (or if you’re not a member, join one; or if there’s none in your community, start one), suggest a general strike. What might this entail? I can imagine three elements: (1) no one goes to work (call in sick), (2) no one buys anything (stock up beforehand), and (3) no one uses social media (except Substack). In coordination with other Indivisible groups and other resistance groups across America, decide what date and for how long. (Then let me know!)
Isolate the United States economically, even more than Trump is doing. If you live in an EU country, urge your government to activate the Anti-Coercion Instrument. The Trump regime represents a clear and present danger to the world, including the sovereignty of European nations. The Anti-Coercion Instrument in the EU would allow the sanctioning of Trump regime officials, freezing of assets of corporations benefiting from the theft of Venezuelan oil, and expulsion of U.S. forces from European bases.
Allow the U.S. dollar to fall. Under the Trump regime — which is actively trying to take over the Fed, America’s central bank, and is dissolving ties with the rest of the free world — the dollar is becoming a highly risky currency. It’s already falling. Allow it to fall further. If you work in a large global corporation, urge your top executives to do the firm’s international transactions in currencies other than dollars. If you are in a large financial institution, urge traders to dump dollars.

Clearly, this is an incomplete list of the peaceful “good trouble” we could make. If other actions occur to you, please share them with the rest of us in the comments.

Friends, have courage. Be strong. Hug your loved ones. Remember Alex Pretti and Renee Good. Please do not succumb to fear or despair. We will be victorious.

Robert Reich is an emeritus professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/. His new memoir, Coming Up Short, can be found wherever you buy books. You can also support local bookstores nationally by ordering the book at bookshop.org

This was murder. It is time to rise against Trump

I don’t have all the details yet but it appears that Trump’s goons have murdered another American in Minneapolis.

This is the third shooting involving federal agents in the city this month, including the murder of Renee Good, 37, on Jan. 7.

The person who was killed was Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old man, an American citizen who lived in Minneapolis.

At least 10 shots appear to have been fired within five seconds. The video appears to show a group of masked agents mobbing someone, pushing him to the ground, then shooting him multiple times, even as he lies motionless.

The Department of Homeland Security says he threatened agents with a gun, but footage shows the man was holding a phone in his hand, not a gun, when federal agents took him to the ground and shot him.

The people of Minneapolis, who braved sub-zero weather yesterday to protest Trump’s army of occupation, are not deterred.

Dozens of protesters at the site of today’s murder blew whistles and demanded that police arrest the federal agents. As rapid response networks immediately sent text messages about the killing to various neighborhood and immigrant network Signal chats, other protesters made their way to the scene.

Trump’s goons used tear gas and flash bangs against the crowd. As protesters began running away, ICE agents pursued them.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz called the incident “sickening” and said Trump “must end this operation,” adding that “Minnesota has had it.”

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said he saw a video of the shooting.

“How many more residents, how many more Americans, need to die or get badly hurt for this operation to end?” he asked, adding that “a great American city is being invaded by its own federal government.”

There are now 3,000 ICE and Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis, a city whose own police force numbers 600.

I expect Trump will use today’s protests to invoke the Insurrection Act, and send active military troops there.

But almost everyone in America is now aware of the brutality of Trump’s goons.

It’s becoming harder for Americans to tell themselves that Trump is only going after “hard-core criminals.” Or even “illegal immigrants.” Or even Latinos. Or Black people. Or communists or “radical left extremists.”

He’s coming after all of us.

He’s coming after all of us who oppose his tyranny and brutality. All of us who defy his dictatorship. All of us who challenge his out-of-control, murderous goons.

All across America, we must rise up against this oppression as peacefully but as definitively as we possibly can.

Robert Reich is an emeritus professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/. His new memoir, Coming Up Short, can be found wherever you buy books. You can also support local bookstores nationally by ordering the book at bookshop.org

Show Trump bad news like this and he'll lose his mind

As Donald Trump’s dementia worsens, several axioms are useful for interpreting his increasingly incoherent bloviation.

Axiom #1: Whatever he asserts to be a fact is either a wild exaggeration or a bald-faced lie. Always disregard.
Axiom #2: Whatever he blames on anyone else is something he’s done. He projects like mad, so his accusations are always windows onto what he’s worrying that others will discover about himself.
Axiom #3: Whatever he criticizes as being fake news is a fact he doesn’t want you to know. So pay special attention to it.
Axiom #4: Whenever he attacks some source of information — a survey, poll, or report — it’s come up with some truth he fears. So look at it and share it.

(If you’ve got any other axioms, please share them with us.)

Apropos of the fourth axiom comes a new New York Times/Siena University poll, which prompted a bilious message from Trump, saying he’s adding it to his lawsuit against theTimes.

Hence, the poll is worth your looking at and sharing.

What does it show? That all the hand-wringing over Trump’s so-called “realignment” in the 2024 election was rubbish. There was no realignment.

It’s true that when Trump took office a year ago, his approval rating was above 50 percent and he had made significant breakthroughs among traditionally Democratic groups of voters — especially young, nonwhite, and low-turnouts.

But now that’s all gone. Only 40 percent of registered voters now approve of his performance. The supposed “demographic shifts” of the last election have completely vanished. Young and nonwhite voters disapprove of him even more than they did then, although he has kept most of his support among older and white voters.

Overall, among registered voters nationwide, Democrats lead by five percentage points. It’s the largest lead for the Democrats in a Times/Siena national poll since 2020. It would be enough for them to take back the House of Representatives.

The poll was done between Jan. 12 and 17, before Trump threatened Greenland and after an ICE agent killed Renee Good but before many of the other atrocities committed by ICE in Minnesota fully came to light.

But the biggest problem for Trump appears to be the economy. He was elected for two reasons: He said he’d get prices down and avoid foreign entanglements. He’s reneged “bigly” on both promises.

Robert Reich is an emeritus professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/. His new memoir, Coming Up Short, can be found wherever you buy books. You can also support local bookstores nationally by ordering the book at bookshop.org

The top three targets in America's fight to halt Trump

ICE agents have kidnapped a five-year-old child to use him as “bait” to arrest his parents. The child and his father are now in a detention center in Texas, although no one knows their exact whereabouts. They were in America legally.

This is only the latest cruel outrage I’ve heard about. All this is being done in our name — the United States of America — with our authority, our tax dollars, and, seemingly, our acquiescence.

Recently I asked many of you what you believe to be the most important strategy for stopping Trump’s reign of terror. I offered several alternatives based on what I’ve heard from prominent people and organizations in the resistance, along with some skeptical responses to each.

So many of you responded and want to discuss these further that today I’m posting a revised version of my query — including the top three alternatives, as edited to reflect many of the responses sent to me.

The list is hardly exhaustive, so please feel free to offer other ideas.

1. Target a few Republican senators and House members to switch parties and thereby give Democrats a congressional majority in at least one chamber.

Several of the people I contacted said the single most important thing we can do now is target a few Republican senators and representatives to switch sides or become independents who caucus with the Democrats — giving Democrats a majority in at least one chamber. That will be stop or at least slow Trump.

Republican majorities are razor-thin in both chambers, but as long as they’re in the majority, it’s extremely difficult to stop Trump. Yet some Republicans represent purple districts and states and are struggling to keep their Republican supporters behind them. They’re also struggling with their own consciences in continuing to support Trump’s authoritarian fascism. They’re “gettable,” I’m told.

I recall in 2001 when Vermont Republican Senator Jim Jeffords became an independent and caucused with the Democrats — thereby giving Democrats control of the Senate. Jeffords was a principled man who thought George W. Bush and Dick Cheney were destroying the GOP. Trump is far worse than Bush and Cheney.

Skeptics tell me this won’t work because the forces holding Republican senators and representatives in place are way stronger than they were in 2001.

2. Undertake the largest demonstration against Trump in American history, aiming for at least 10 million marching in the streets, along with a national strike.

Some of the people I spoke with believe that the two No Kings demonstrations last year generated a powerful wave of solidarity and that a third, far larger, would shake the GOP and Trump to the core. They also cite research showing that when 3.5 percent of a population takes to the streets, even the most intransigent regimes begin to fold.

They also recommend that such a demonstration be coupled with a general strike, lasting perhaps several days or a week, during which no one goes to work (if necessary, they call in sick) and no one purchases anything (stocking up in advance).

The demonstration and general strike would be designed to reveal the depth and breadth of the opposition to Trump. (Several people and groups in the resistance are aiming for May 1.)

Skeptics say a giant demonstration will only cause Trump to dig in and send even more ICE and Border Patrol agents into places where the largest demonstrations are occurring in hopes of provoking violence, which he’d use to justify even more repression. And a general strike would mostly hurt workers who take part in it, who’d be docked sick days or potentially lose their jobs.

3. Let Trump overreach to the point where Americans are so disgusted they overwhelmingly repudiate him in the midterms — resulting in a Democratic takeover of both chambers of Congress by wide margins, which severely limits what he’s able to do after January 2027.

Others I contacted tell me nothing more can or should be done over the next year, beyond organizing and mobilizing for November’s midterms. They say we should aim for an overwhelming vote against Trump’s Republicans — so large as to constrain Trump’s every move from then on.

Skeptics tell me that if Trump senses a huge midterm wave election against congressional Republicans, he won’t allow a free and fair election in November. They also say that unless action is taken between now and then to stop Trump, irrevocable damage will be done to America, so by January 2027 our democracy will be in tatters.

What do you think? You can vote here.

Robert Reich is an emeritus professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/. His new memoir, Coming Up Short, can be found wherever you buy books. You can also support local bookstores nationally by ordering the book at bookshop.org

Appeasement never works — it's time for Europe to deploy its ultimate weapon

TO: European leaders

From: Robert Reich.

It is impossible to appease a tyrant.

You know this better than most. I need not remind you of Neville Chamberlain's interactions with Adolf Hitler in 1938. Chamberlain met Hitler three times, culminating in the infamous Munich Agreement, which allowed Germany to annex Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland in exchange for Hitler's promise of peace.

Returning to London, Chamberlain waved a signed Anglo-German declaration, and famously declared "peace for our time.” Instead, Chamberlain had merely emboldened Hitler’s aggression. Hitler soon broke his promise, leading to World War II.

On Tuesday, on his “Truth Social” platform, Donald Trump reposted a comment saying, “China and Russia are the boogeymen when the real threat is the U.N., NATO and [Islam].”

This is madness.

You struck a trade deal with Trump last year. He is now threatening to rip it up and apply economic coercion and even military force if you do not allow him to annex Greenland. He is also on the brink of allowing Russia to annex part of Ukraine.

Most Americans are as opposed to Trump’s wild and illegal actions as you are. But we have no means of expressing our opposition because Trump’s Republicans control Congress and, in effect, the Supreme Court. You do have means.

I urge you to activate your so-called anti-coercion instrument, colloquially known as the “trade bazooka,” which will block some of America’s access to EU markets or impose export controls, among a broader list of potential countermeasures.

The time for appeasing Trump is over.

Robert Reich is an emeritus professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.
Robert Reich's new memoir, Coming Up Short, can be found wherever you buy books. You can also support local bookstores nationally by ordering the book at bookshop.org

These men can hit Trump where it hurts. Do they have the courage?

On Monday, as more than 3,000 ICE and Border Patrol agents — possibly joined by 1,500 active duty military, as Donald Trump threatened — patrol Minneapolis, hundreds of global CEOs and titans of finance and more than 60 prime ministers and presidents gathered in Davos, Switzerland, for the annual confab of the world’s powerful and wealthy, called the World Economic Forum.

This year’s Davos meeting occurs at a time when Trump is not just unleashing his brown shirts on Minneapolis but also dismantling the international order that’s largely been in place since the end of World War II — threatening NATO, withdrawing from international organizations including the UN climate treaty, violating the United Nations Charter by invading Venezuela and abducting Nicolás Maduro, upending established trade rules, and demanding that the U.S. annex Greenland.

He’s even hiked tariffs on Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Finland — fellow NATO members that have expressed solidarity with Denmark in its refusal to yield to Trump’s demand to annex Greenland.

According to a text message Trump sent to Norway’s prime minister over the weekend, Trump says one reason he’s seeking to acquire Greenland is he didn’t win the Nobel Peace Prize.

“Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America,” Trump wrote.

I hope the leaders now assembling at Davos speak out against Trump’s tyrannous assault on international laws and rules, and his contempt for every institution established to maintain peace.

Their collective repudiation of Trump would give other CEOs and world leaders cover to express their opposition as well. It could be a tipping point.

Will they? Trump is trying to stop them from doing so.

For example, he announced Saturday that he’s suing JPMorgan Chase, the largest bank in the United States, headed by one of the most prominent CEOs in the world — Jamie Dimon — who is now in Davos.

Trump said he’s suing JPMorgan “for incorrectly and inappropriately DEBANKING me after the January 6th Protest, a protest that turned out to be correct for those doing the protesting – The Election was RIGGED!”

Rubbish. There’s no evidence that Chase “debanked” Trump. (And obviously no evidence that the 2020 election was “rigged.”) Besides, if Trump thought the bank acted improperly, why would he be suing it now, five years later?

In reality, Trump’s lawsuit has nothing to do with any so-called “debanking.” Trump is suing JPMorgan Chase because last week Dimon came out publicly against Trump’s criminal probe of Fed Chair Jerome Powell, and apparently Trump worries about what Dimon might say at Davos.

Dimon’s opposition to the criminal investigation was couched in the mildest of terms: “Anything that chips away at [the Fed’s independence] is not a good idea. And in my view, will have the reverse consequences. It’ll increase inflation expectations and probably increase rates over time.”

Yet Dimon’s comment infuriated Trump.

Presumably, the reason Trump says he’ll sue JPMorgan “over the next two weeks” rather than immediately is because Trump wants to maximize the pressure on Dimon.

Dimon has a major speaking role at Davos. If Dimon uses it as an opportunity to blast Trump for taking a wrecking ball to the world economy as well as democracy, he gives cover to every other CEO and many heads of state to criticize Trump, too.

But if Trump can intimidate Dimon into silence, it’s unlikely any other CEO will risk it.

Hence, Trump’s shot across JPMorgan’s bow — aimed not so much at winning a lawsuit against the bank as silencing Dimon and others.

Does Dimon have enough integrity to put the bank’s profits and his own compensation ($770 million for 2025) at risk by speaking the truth — that Trump must be opposed by anyone still possessing power and integrity?

We will see, but I’m not betting on it. Dimon has shown time and again that he has more loyalty to JPMorgan than to the United States. His mild criticism of Trump for undermining the independence of the Fed could reflect no more than concern for his bank’s bottom line.

But who knows? Dimon will soon be retiring. This is his opportunity to be on the right side of history.

To ensure that the assembled CEOs and heads of state are cowed, Trump is traveling to Davos himself and taking with him the largest U.S. delegation ever to attend the meeting, including five Cabinet secretaries and other senior officials.

Will any prime minister or other head of state attending Davos dare repudiate Trump, when Trump is showing no qualms about raising tariffs on, or otherwise punishing, countries that oppose him?

Perhaps, but at most meekly and indirectly. Who wants to taunt the bear?

Yet Dimon and others at Davos must speak out against what is occurring. If there were ever a time for world leadership, it is now.

Davos’s excuse for existing is supposed to be world leadership — although its attendees have not exactly distinguished themselves in the past by their fealty to democracy, social justice, or the rules of international law. Some are directly benefiting from Trump’s tax cuts and regulatory rollbacks. Many occupy their positions precisely because of their reluctance to cause any trouble.

Yet if there were ever a time for them to speak out, it is now. This is their opportunity. It is also their duty. The world needs to hear from world leaders a clear and firm denunciation of the havoc Trump is wreaking.

Robert Reich is an emeritus professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.
Robert Reich's new memoir, Coming Up Short, can be found wherever you buy books. You can also support local bookstores nationally by ordering the book at bookshop.org

This crazy old man can be stopped in his tracks — here's how

Today, we honor the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr.

Trump has removed MLK Jr.’s birthday from the National Park Service’s fee-free days and substituted his own birthday of June 14 as a fee-free day.

I write this more in sorrow than in anger

All told, I feel profound sorrow for America. Sorrow for the people of Minneapolis who are enduring this Trump-made hell. Sorrow for Renee Nicole Good’s three children and wife.

I also feel sorrow for Greenlanders and Venezuelans and others around the world fearing what the sociopath in the Oval Office may do next. Sorrow for everyone justifiably worried about the future of America and the planet because of him.

I’m old enough to remember when Martin Luther King Jr.’s mission seemed impossible. Just as the mission you and I must now engage in — defeating Trumpism and creating a new and better America out of the rubble and chaos he is wreaking — may seem impossible at this moment.

Martin Luther King Jr. accomplished more than anyone thought he could when he began. He did it with patience and perseverance, with the strength of conviction. He did it with calmness, reason, and quiet passion.

And he did it with civil disobedience — what one of his assistants, the late great congressman John Lewis, called “good trouble.”

Good trouble meant mobilizing the nation against racial injustice by making sure almost everyone saw its horrors. Night after night on the news — watching peaceful civil rights marchers getting clobbered by white supremacists.

I remember watching Bull Connor, commissioner of public safety in Birmingham, and his goons use firehoses and attack dogs against Black people — including children — who were peacefully standing up for their rights.

The scenes horrified America and much of the world. Yet were it not for our painful national exposure to racist brutality, we wouldn’t have gotten the Civil Rights Act or the Voting Rights Act.

I’ve been thinking of those scenes as I’ve watched ICE thugs patrolling Minneapolis. Watched armed agents pulling people out of cars, using chokeholds, demanding proof of citizenship. Masked agents in unmarked vehicles grabbing neighbors off the streets, using tear gas and pepper spray, shooting innocent people exercising their First Amendment rights to protest.

This time it isn’t Bull Connor and his racist goons. It’s Donald Trump, JD Vance, Kristi Noem, Stephen Miller, and their fascist goons. It’s armed agents of the president of the United States who are bullying and brutalizing people. Committing a cold-blooded murder of a middle-class white woman in broad daylight who tried to get out of their way. Shooting and injuring others.

This time it’s Trump and the thugs around him making up stories to justify this brutality, lying about the protester’s motives, and threatening even more brutality.

Take a wider look and you see their lawless bullying on a different scale: a criminal investigation of the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board for failing to lower interest rates as fast as Trump wants. Criminal investigations of U.S. senators and representatives for telling America’s soldiers that they don’t have to follow illegal orders. Criminal investigations of the governor of Minnesota and mayor of Minneapolis for refusing to cooperate with Trump’s brown shirts.

The Justice Department searching the home of a Washington Post reporter and seizing her laptops and other devices.

Trump raising tariffs on our trusted allies — until and unless they support him in taking over Greenland. Greenland!

A crazy old man saying “f--- you, f--- you” and giving the finger to an American factory worker who criticizes him in public. The crazy old man is president of the United States, and the worker has lost his job because he dared criticize that crazy old man.

I remember the good trouble that occurred 65 years ago. I believe it’s time for it again. Time for all of us — everyone of us — to cause it.

What kind of good trouble?

A huge national demonstration, far larger than anything before. Everyone in the streets.

A giant general strike where we stop purchasing all products for two weeks (stocking up beforehand).

A massive boycott of all businesses sucking up to Trump.

A coordinated effort to get all our employers, our churches and synagogues, our unions, our universities to condemn this madness.

A loud demand that our members of Congress impeach and convict him of his high crimes.

There is no longer any neutral place to stand. Either you’re standing up for democracy, the rule of law, and social justice, or you’re complicit in the fascist mayhem Trump has unleashed.

That, for me, is the lesson of all this.

Trump and his thugs have brought us to this point. They are the Bull Connors of today.

We stand with the people of Minneapolis and with the people of every other town and city where Trump’s thugs are prowling or will prowl, and where people are resisting.

We stand with the citizens of Greenland and Venezuela. With Canadians and Europeans. With every nation now threatened by Trump’s lawless abuses of power.

We stand proudly and sturdily everywhere the bright lights of freedom and truth still shine.

We will overcome the darkness of Trump’s fascism. We reject the hate, the bigotry, the fear, and the murderous lawlessness of his regime. We dedicate ourselves to causing good trouble -- ending this mayhem, and building a new and better America.

Robert Reich is an emeritus professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.
Robert Reich's new memoir, Coming Up Short, can be found wherever you buy books. You can also support local bookstores nationally by ordering the book at bookshop.org

Trump's Gestapo can be defanged

ICE and Border Patrol agents must be reined in. I’ll tell you how in a moment.

Since Renee Nicole Good’s death, clashes between ICE and the residents of Minneapolis have escalated. On Wednesday night, an ICE agent shot and wounded someone who, ICE claimed, was fleeing arrest. (Sure, just like Good supposedly was trying to run them over when she turned her car away from them and said, moments before an agent fired three bullets into her chest and arm, “That’s fine, dude. I’m not mad at you.”)

I’ve always loved Minneapolis. Its people have midwestern common sense. They also have a deep sense of fairness and justice.

On Wednesday, Trump threatened that if Minneapolis and the state of Minnesota didn’t stop the protesters, whom he referred to as “insurrectionists,” he would “institute the INSURRECTION ACT … and quickly put an end to the travesty that is taking place in that once great State.”

Let’s be clear. The problem is not the protesters. It’s the armed thugs who are shooting and murdering them. (Trump seems capable of seeing a similar dynamic playing out in Iran and vows to protect the protesters there, but not in America.)

A friend who knows a lot more than I do about America’s armed forces recently wrote:

“There are four kinds of people who join the armed forces: those from a traditional military family, true patriots who want to serve their country, those with no other prospects who need a job, and psychotics who just want to kill people.

“The armed services do a pretty decent job of screening out the fourth group, but that group is now the prime recruitment pool for ICE. Racists, haters, gun nuts, and cage fighting fans who want to shoot anyone the least bit different from them. They are becoming America’s Gestapo. That is no exaggeration. We’re slipping into Nazi Germany.”

He’s exactly right.

ICE is reportedly investing $100 million in what it calls “wartime recruitment” of 10,000 new agents, in addition to the 20,000 already employed.

It has lowered its recruitment standards to meet the deportation targets set by Stephen Miller (Trump’s deputy chief of staff for promoting bigotry and nativism), thereby increasing the numbers of untrained and dangerous agents on the streets.

ICE’s recruitment is aimed at gun and military enthusiasts and people who listen to right-wing radio, have gone to Ultimate Fighting Championship fights or shopped for guns and tactical gear, live near military bases, and attend NASCAR races.

It’s seeking recruits who are willing to perform their “sacred duty” and “defend the homeland” by repelling “foreign invaders.”

If I had my way, ICE would be abolished and Border Patrol agents sent back to the border. But this isn’t going to happen under Trump and his Republican lapdogs in Congress. Too many Democrats are almost as spineless when it comes abolishing ICE.

But Congress can still take action to rein in ICE. At the very least, it must disarm ICE.

The Trump regime is allowing ICE officers to use lethal force in self-defense. But we’ve seen how readily ICE and Border Patrol agents claim self-defense when they’re shooting our compatriots.

How do we disarm ICE?

Congress is now considering the appropriations bill for the Department of Homeland Security, whose funding runs out at the end of January.

Please demand — call your members of Congress and tell them in no uncertain terms — that the DHS spending bill prohibit ICE and Border Patrol agents from carrying guns and that it unambiguously declare that agents do not have absolute immunity under the law if they harm civilians.

Do this as soon as you can.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), the senior Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee (and an old friend), said Tuesday that she’s seeking to put limits on ICE in the DHS spending bill. “I am looking for policy riders in the Homeland Security bill to [be] able to rein in ICE.”

House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said Wednesday that Democrats will oppose the bill unless Republicans agree to new rules governing ICE officers: “ICE cannot conduct itself as if it’s above the law.”

There is no reason for ICE agents to be armed. If they are shot at — and there’s no record of this ever actually happening — they could readily summon state or local police to protect their safety.

ICE was designed to be mainly an investigative agency, not a militarized arm of the presidency. ICE agents are not adequately trained to use deadly force.

In addition, ICE agents prowling our streets in unmarked cars, wearing masks, clad in body armor and carrying long guns, are a clear provocation to violence — both by them and by otherwise law-abiding residents of our towns and cities who feel they must stop their brutality.

Trump, Vance, and Miller want to provoke violent confrontations so they can justify even more oppression — including invoking the Insurrection Act, which would allow Trump to call in the regular military.

“I’d be allowed to do that,” Trump said in October, referring to the act, “and the courts wouldn’t get involved, nobody would get involved, and I could send the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, I can send anybody I wanted.”

Please: tell your members of Congress not to vote for the DHS spending bill unless it stipulates that ICE be disarmed.

Also tell them that the bill must restrict ICE and Border Patrol’s ability to conduct dragnet arrest operations and target people based on their race, language or accent. And the bill must clarify that ICE agents are liable under civil and criminal law if they harm civilians.

The Trump regime is telling agents they have “absolute immunity” from criminal prosecution or civil lawsuits if they kill or maim or otherwise hurt civilians. “That guy is protected by absolute immunity,” JD Vance said of the ICE agent who killed Renee Nicole Good. “He was doing his job.”

DHS went so far as to post a clip of Miller saying, “You have immunity to perform your duties, and no one — no city official, no state official, no illegal alien, no leftist agitator or domestic insurrectionist — can prevent you from fulfilling your legal obligations and duties.”

Rubbish. There’s no such absolute immunity under the law. Regardless of what the FBI concludes, I hope and expect the state of Minnesota will open a criminal investigation of the agent who murdered Renee Good and, on the basis of the evidence uncovered, prosecute him for murder under state law.

It would be useful for Congress to make it crystal clear in the DHS spending bill now under consideration that ICE agents do not enjoy absolute legal immunity.

Please call your representative and senators today and tell them not to vote for the DHS spending bill unless it (1) disarms ICE agents, (2) prevents them from targeting people based on their race, language, or accent, and (3) stipulates that agents who harm civilians are liable under criminal and civil laws.

To reach your representative or senator, call the U.S. Congressional Switchboard at (202) 224-3121. Tell them the state and city where you live. They will connect you to any member’s office.

Robert Reich is an emeritus professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.
Robert Reich's new memoir, Coming Up Short, can be found wherever you buy books. You can also support local bookstores nationally by ordering the book at bookshop.org

Silence in the face of Trump's catastrophe is complicity

This is a national emergency. Donald Trump is off the rails. His ICE and Border Patrol goons are loose on America. The havoc in Minneapolis will worsen and will occur elsewhere. Yesterday, someone else was shot there.

His military is loose on the world. Now Venezuela and the Caribbean, at any moment Iran or Cuba or Greenland. (European nations are at this moment sending troops to Greenland, presumably to defend it from Trump’s America.)

You may feel helpless — a powerless observer of this hurricane of violence and stupidity.

You may be experiencing the kind of despair that immobilizes the brain and numbs the senses.

You may want to scream but can’t find your voice because you’re so shocked and frightened.

Please do not succumb to helplessness, despair, or fear.

You are needed. Desperately.

What more can you do beyond protesting, calling your members of Congress, and (if you can afford to) writing checks to candidates who can flip seats?

Stay politically engaged, but don’t wait for the Democratic Party to get a spine or hope that the Republican Party discovers integrity. We are moving beyond party politics.

Here’s what you can also do: Mobilize your employers, your organizations, and your congregations — anywhere you work, any group of which you’re a member — and get them to use their influence to end this barbarity.

Organize your fellow employees, retirees, alumni, and congregants. Get them to help you pressure trustees, directors and heads of every major university, professional association, charity, and foundation. Every corporate CEO or managing director. Every religious leader.

Push everyone with any formal authority in this nation to speak with clarity and conviction against what is happening, and to commit themselves and their organizations to ending this scourge.

Help them understand that silence in the face of this catastrophe is complicity. That there is no longer any excuse for them to be “prudently cautious,” no longer any justification for them to wait until “others take the lead.”

The emergency is now.

Help them see that as America slides further into this authoritarian nightmare, their own organizations are on the line. No group is secure. No corporation is immune. There is no place to hide.

You can be a leader by getting the formal leaders of America to exercise their formal leadership and power.

The heads of American corporations and financial institutions need to issue strong rebukes of this regime. Corporations and banks that pride themselves on their responsibilities to the American public have a special role — Patagonia, TOMS, Ben & Jerry's, Salesforce, Adidas, Microsoft, Google, JPMorgan Chase.

We also need to hear from leaders of America’s great foundations which, after all, are organized to pursue the public interest — Ford, Rockefeller, Carnegie, Bill and Melinda Gates, J. Paul Getty, Robert Wood Johnson, Kellogg.

We need America’s religious leaders to condemn this brutality — bishops of the Catholic Church, the United Methodist Church, and the General Convention of the Episcopal Church; pastors of the Southern Baptist Convention and National Baptist Convention; president and counselors of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; rabbis in the Central Conference of American Rabbis, Union of Reform Judaism, and the Orthodox Union; imams in the Islamic Society of North America.

We need America’s great nonprofits to repudiate what’s occurring — League of Women Voters, Salvation Army, Common Cause, National Urban League, Public Citizen, Sierra Club, Greenpeace, Hispanic Federation.

Also the American Bar Association, American Medical Association, National Education Association, American Federation of Teachers, American Association of University Professors, National Library Association — all must loudly condemn Trump’s lawless reign of terror.

We need every labor union in America and its leadership to denounce what is happening and organize against it.

All must use their voices and their influence in this fight, because no other fight is as crucial at this point in the history of America and the world.

Make them see this. Deliver this message to them: If these organizations and these leaders stand up against what is occurring and use their considerable influence to stop it, history will praise their leadership and courage.

If they fail to do so, history will condemn their cowardice and complicity.

Robert Reich is a emeritus professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.
Robert Reich's new memoir, Coming Up Short, can be found wherever you buy books. You can also support local bookstores nationally by ordering the book at bookshop.org

This issue hurts Trump more than any other. His panicky lies show he knows it

The latest gauge on inflation, released on Monday morning, showed prices increasing 2.7 percent in December compared with the same period a year ago. Food prices were up 3.1 percent. (Reminder: Trump was elected on two issues: bringing prices down, especially food, and avoiding foreign entanglements.)

On Tuesday, Trump traveled to Detroit to deliver an address to the Detroit Economic Club. It was about “affordability” and he filled it with lies — such as Americans aren’t paying for his tariffs (of course they are) and inflation was “way, way, down” (it’s about the same as it was when he took office).

And he insisted that “affordability” is a “fake word by Democrats.” Unfortunately for Trump, “affordability” has become even more politically potent than immigration or crime. And in his first year at the helm, he’s made America less affordable.

He’s also been putting forward some ass-backward ideas for bringing down prices that will actually increase them. His biggest: Fire the current chair of the Federal Reserve Board and install a chair who’ll lower interest rates and thereby, in Trump’s addled brain, bring down the costs of borrowing to buy homes and cars. (In his speech on Tuesday, he called Fed chair Jerome Powell Powell, a “jerk.”)

Trump’s decision to open up a criminal investigation of Powell is a bizarre escalation of his pressure campaign against the central bank to cut interest rates. And it’s truly ass-backwards. Without an independent Fed committed to using interest rates to fight inflation, everyone who buys or sells or invests will have to assume the risk of runaway prices in the future. The result is a risk “premium” that makes everything more expensive instead of more affordable.

What should be done to make America more affordable? Ten commonsense initiatives:

1. Get rid of Trump’s tariffs

Trump’s blanket, unpredictable, on-again-off-again, gigantic and then sometimes modest tariffs have caused prices to jump on just about everything. That’s because tariffs are import taxes that are paid by the companies that do the importing and by their consumers.

Tariffs can be a tool to create American jobs, but only if they’re used in a targeted and responsible way. Targeted and responsible are two adjectives that no one uses in describing Trump’s tariffs.

The first step to make life more affordable for the average American is to get rid of them.

2. Bust up monopolies

Trump’s overriding goal is to boost share prices. He doesn’t seem to understand that most Americans aren’t directly affected by share prices: Over 90 percent of the value of shares held by Americans is held by the richest 10 percent; over half by the richest 1 percent.

In pursuit of high share prices, Trump has essentially given up on antitrust enforcement. Big corporations are now merging and buying up potential competitors at a rapid rate. But this means less competition, and less competition results in higher prices.

It’s another ass-backward approach to affordability. Trump’s overriding goal of high share prices collides with what should be the real goal: keeping prices low.

A real affordability agenda would bust up big corporations that dominate their industries and prohibit price gouging.

3. Fight for stronger unions

Trump hates unions and has done everything he can do to weaken the National Labor Relations Board and the Labor Department. He’s given free rein to corporate union-busting.

Here again, Trump’s goal of high share prices and corporate profitability is at direct odds with the needs of average workers for higher wages, which are necessary if the goods and services they require are to become more affordable to them.

Workers need more bargaining power to get higher wages. Unions do that. A real affordability agenda therefore would make it easier for workers to start or join them.

4. Raise the national minimum wage

For the same reason Trump believes unions and higher wages are bad for the economy — that is, his definition of the economy, which is the stock market — he’s been dead set against raising the national minimum wage.

But the federal minimum wage has been stuck at a measly $7.25 since 2009. Raise the damn wage. And raise it even higher for employees of big corporations that pay their top executives hundreds of times more than their workers.

5. Pass Medicare For All

Trump has been trying to destroy the Affordable Care Act because it was passed under his predecessor, Barack Obama. His latest gambit has been to block any extension of the subsidies that Americans need to be able to afford health insurance under the ACA. (The fight over this issue resulted in the longest government shutdown in history.)

Without those subsidies, the typical American will be paying 30 to 100 percent more for health insurance this year than last — which is already driving many people out of the ACA marketplace and forcing them to live without health insurance at all.

Extending ACA subsidies is necessary but not sufficient. A real affordability agenda would make Medicare available to all Americans. This will bring down health care costs for everyone, because Medicare is cheaper and more efficient than for-profit health insurance.

6. Make housing more affordable

Last Wednesday, Trump called for a ban on institutional investors buying single-family housing. I suppose it’s nice that he’s finally gotten around to this, but I’ll believe it when he actually signs the legislation.

A real affordability agenda would ban Wall Street firms from buying up housing, crack down on corporate landlords that collude to jack up rent prices, get rid of zoning laws that make it harder to build homes, and increase funding to boost the construction of housing in cities that need it most.

7. Make child care and elder care more affordable

The costs of child care take a third of the incomes of parents with young children, on average. The costs of elder care can be even higher for working people with elderly parents. Both are essential for working families.

An affordability agenda would include a universal child care program for parents and boost funding for caregivers of aging parents.

8. Give Americans paid leave

Here again, the goal of fat corporate profits and high share prices collides with what American workers need. Trump consistently opts for the former and argues that the nation “can’t afford” paid family leave.

Baloney. We’re the richest country in the world. Every other advanced nation provides paid leave. Working Americans need it. We should provide it, too.

9. Stop Big Finance siphoning off people’s incomes

Trump has deregulated big banks and allowed them to charge up to 30 percent interest on credit cards. (The banks love it because credit cards provide them with four times the return of any other line of business.) Trump has gotten rid of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which stopped other sleazy financial practices. And he’s allowed more consolidation of big financial institutions, which means even less competition, higher prices, and shadier deals. (His Justice Department recently approved the merger of Capital One and Discover, which will pile even more debt on low-income consumers.)

The captains of Wall Street have never had it so good. JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon made $770 million last year. But average working people are being shafted.

A real affordability agenda would cap credit card interest rates at 5 percent, stop the banks from charging late fees on unsuspecting consumers (Trump’s OMB director, Russ Vought, withdrew the late fee rule in April), and bust up the biggest banks whose market power is allowing them to charge absurdly high interest rates on all borrowing.

10. Raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans and corporations

Besides tariffs, Trump’s economic policy has cut taxes mainly on wealthy individuals and big corporations. He’s imbibed the “trickle-down” Kool-Aid that assumes tax cuts at the top make everyone better off.

The reality, as we’ve learned since Trump’s first tax cut mostly benefiting the wealthy and big corporations (as we should have learned from Ronald Reagan’s and George W. Bush’s trickle-down tax cuts also mainly benefiting the rich and big corporations) is that nothing trickles down. Trickle-down economics is a cruel sham.

The cumulative effects of all these tax cuts has been to make America’s rich far richer — now owning a record share of the nation’s wealth — and big corporations far more profitable (corporate profits are also near record levels), while dramatically enlarging the national debt.

And what do we get with a bigger debt? More inflation, which makes everything less affordable. Again, Trump has it ass-backward.

It’s time we ended the trickle-down hoax once and for all.

Besides, it’s only fair that the super rich pay more in taxes so that the rest of America can afford what Americans need: housing, health care, child care and elder care.

And by the way, even after paying more in taxes, the rich will still be richer than they’ve ever been, and giant corporations will still be exceedingly profitable.

***

These 10 steps are crucial for making America affordable again. Don’t fall for Trump’s ass-backward agenda, which will only make the rich richer and big corporations more profitable. You and I and everyone who wants to lower the cost of living for Americans should back the real affordability agenda.

Please share this with any Democrat or independent (hell, share it with any Republican) interested in running for office and improving Americans’ standard of living.

Robert Reich is a emeritus professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.
Robert Reich's new memoir, Coming Up Short, can be found wherever you buy books. You can also support local bookstores nationally by ordering the book at bookshop.org

Trump's regime just sent us all a terrifying message

If agents of the federal government can murder a 37-year-old woman in broad daylight who, as videotapes show, was merely trying to get out of their way, they can murder you.

Even if Donald Trump and his vice president and his secretary of homeland security all claim, contrary to the videotapes, that Renee Nicole Good was trying to kill an agent who acted in self-defense, they could make up the same about you.

Even if Trump describes her as a “professional agitator” and his goons call her a “domestic terrorist,” they could say the same about you regardless of your political views or activism. If you have left-wing political views and are an activist, you’re in greater danger.

How can we believe what the FBI turns up in its investigation, when the FBI is working for Trump and is headed by one of his goons, and is investigating possible connections between Renee Good and groups that have been protesting Trump’s immigration enforcement?

What credence can we give federal officials who are blocking local and state investigators from reviewing evidence they’re collecting?

You could be murdered because Trump’s attorney general has defined “domestic terrorism” to include impeding law enforcement officers. What if you’re merely standing in the way — in the wrong place at the wrong time? Or maybe you’re engaging in non-violent civil disobedience?

In October, Marimar Martinez, a U.S. citizen in Chicago, was in her car trying to warn people about ICE when she collided with a Border Patrol vehicle. Federal officials say she “rammed” the car. Her lawyers say she was sideswiped by it.

The agent then got out of his car and shot her five times. She survived. The Justice Department then charged her with assaulting a federal officer.

You could be next. All of us need to realize this. The people who are being assaulted and murdered are abiding the law.

The regime has also been grabbing people from their homes who are legally in the United States with permanent status — not just visas permitting them to work or study here but green cards — and whisking them away to prison because they’ve engaged in constitutionally protected speech the regime doesn’t like.

This is what happened to Mahmoud Khalil — who graduated from Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, has a green card, and whose wife is an American citizen.

Plainclothes Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents appeared at his apartment building on March 8 and then detained him without charges in a Louisiana ICE detention facility for three and a half months. (He missed his graduation and the birth of his first child.)

The Trump regime continues to try to deport him. A federal court heard arguments on Oct. 22 in the regime’s ongoing deportation case against him but has not issued a verdict.

Khalil did nothing illegal. He was in the United States legally. He has never been charged with a crime. He expressed his political point of view — peacefully, non-violently, non-threateningly. That’s supposed to be permitted — dare I say even encouraged? — in a democracy.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump conceded Khalil was snatched up and sent off because of his politics.

“This is the first arrest of many to come,” wrote Trump. “We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump Administration will not tolerate it.”

Trump could just as well arrest and expel permanent residents who voice support for, say, transgender people or DEI or “woke” or anything else the regime finds “anti-American” and offensive.

What’s to stop the Trump regime from arresting you for, say, advocating the replacement of Republicans in Congress in 2026 and electing a Democrat to the presidency in 2028?

Renee Nicole Good was murdered. Marimar Martinez was shot, but survived. Mahmoud Khalil was arrested and jailed, and is still fighting deportation. There are many others. The next could be you or someone you love.

What’s at stake isn’t just American democracy. It’s also your safety and security and that of your friends and loved ones. This is personal — to every one of us.

A dictatorship knows no bounds.

We must commit to peacefully fighting this regime, to ending Republican control of Congress in 2026, and to sending this dangerous gang packing in 2028 — assuming we’re still free and alive by then.

Robert Reich is a emeritus professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.
Robert Reich's new memoir, Coming Up Short, can be found wherever you buy books. You can also support local bookstores nationally by ordering the book at bookshop.org

Trump spelled out his dire threat with these 8 maniacal ideas

At the same time agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol are swarming into Minnesota and other states and cities, Trump is planning bombing raids on other countries.

Domestically and internationally, he is putting America on a war footing.

ICE is reportedly investing $100 million on what it calls “wartime recruitment” of 10,000 new agents, in addition to the 20,000 already employed. Its recruitment is targeting gun and military enthusiasts, people who listen to right-wing radio, who have gone to Ultimate Fighting Championship fights or shopped for guns and tactical gear, live near military bases, and attend NASCAR races. It’s calling for recruits willing to perform their “sacred duty” and “defend the homeland” by repelling “foreign invaders.”

Meanwhile, Trump has announced that he’ll ask Congress for a $1.5 trillion defense budget for the next fiscal year — a 66 percent increase over the 2026 defense budget Congress just authorized.

There’s coming to be no difference between Trump’s foreign and domestic policies.

Both are based on the same eight maniacal ideas:

Might makes right.
Law is irrelevant.
America is at war with the world’s “radical left,” who are defined chiefly by their opposition to Trump.
Fear and force are better weapons in this war than hope and compromise.
The U.S. stock market is the best measure of Trump’s success.
Personal enrichment by Trump and other officials is justified in pursuit of victory.
So are lies, cover-ups, and the illegal use of force.
Trump is invincible and omnipotent.

These ideas are at such fundamental odds with the norms most of us share about what America is all about and how a president should think and behave that it’s difficult to accept that Trump believes them or that his White House thugs eagerly endorse them. But he does, and they do.

Rather than some “doctrine” or set of principles, they’re more like guttural discharges. Trump is not rational, and the people around him trying to give him a patina of rationality — his White House assistants and spokespeople — surely know it.

The media tries to confer on Trump a coherence that evaporates almost as soon as it’s stated. The New York Times’s breathless coverage of its recent Oval Office interview with Trump — describing his “many faces” — is a model of such a vapidity.

According to the Times, Trump “took unpredictable turns” during the interview. But instead of seeing this unpredictability as a symptom of Trump’s diminishing capacities and ever-shorter attention span, the Times reported it as “a tactic he embraces as president, particularly on the world stage. If no one knows what you might do, they often do what you want them to do.”

Attempts to show inconsistencies or hypocrisies in Trump’s domestic or foreign policies are fruitless because they have no consistency or truthfulness to begin with.

Nor is it possible for the media to describe a “big picture” of America and the world under Trump because there is nothing to picture other than his malignant, impulsive, unbridled grandiosity all the way up and all the way down.

Trump has unleashed violence on America’s streets for much the same reason he has unleashed violence on Latin America and is planning to unleash it elsewhere: to display his own strength. His motive is to gain more power and, along the way, more wealth. (On Sunday, he even posted an image referring to himself as the “Acting President of Venezuela.”)

“Policy” implies thought. But under Trump, there is no domestic or foreign policy because it is all thoughtless. It is not even improvised. It is just Trump’s ego — as interpreted by the toadies around him (Miller, Vought, Vance, Kennedy, Rubio, Noem) trying to guess what his ego craves or detests, or fulfilling their own fanatical goals by manipulating it.

We must stop trying to make rational sense out of what Trump is doing. He is a ruthless dictator, plan and simple.

All analyses of what is happening — all reporting, all efforts to understand, all attempts at strategizing — are doomed. The only reality is that an increasingly dangerous and irrational sociopath is now exercising brutal and unconstrained power over America and, hence, the world.

Trump is putting America on a war footing because war is good for him as it is for all dictators. War confers emergency powers. It justifies ignoring the niceties of elections. It allows dictators to imprison and intimidate opponents and enemies. It enables them to create their own personal slush funds. It distracts the public from other things (remember Jeffrey Epstein?).

War gives dictators like Trump more power and more wealth. Period.

Robert Reich is a emeritus professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.
Robert Reich's new memoir, Coming Up Short, can be found wherever you buy books. You can also support local bookstores nationally by ordering the book at bookshop.org

Why Trump's assault on blue states is blatantly illegal

What does Donald Trump have against Minnesota? Not only is ICE causing mayhem in Minneapolis, but Trump is halting hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding for social services programs there, according to a Tuesday announcement from the Department of Health and Human Services.

It’s not just Minnesota. Trump is also stopping billions in funding for social services in Colorado, Illinois, New York, and California.

Why? Could it be because all of them are led by Democrats and inhabited by voters who overwhelmingly rejected Trump in 2024?

It’s not the first time Trump has openly penalized “blue” states. What’s new is how blatant his vindictiveness toward blue states has become.

Angry at Colorado’s votes against him in three successive elections and at its refusal to free Tina Peters — the former clerk of Mesa County, who was convicted in 2024 of tampering with voting machines under her control in a failed plot to prove they had been used to rig the 2020 election against Trump — Trump has cut off transportation money to Colorado, relocated the military’s Space Command, vowed to dismantle a major climate and weather research center located there, and rejected disaster relief for rural counties hammered by floods and wildfires.

Two weeks ago Trump used the first veto of his second term to kill a pipeline project that had achieved bipartisan congressional support, to provide clean drinking water to Colorado’s parched eastern plains. (Trump’s action enraged Republican congresswoman and formerly dedicated Trumper Lauren Boebert, who stated: “Nothing says America First like denying clean drinking water to 50,000 people in southeast Colorado, many of whom voted for him in all three elections.”)

If there were any doubts about Trump’s sentiments toward Colorado, he posted a New Year’s Eve message telling Colorado Governor Jared Polis, a Democrat, and Daniel P. Rubinstein, the Republican district attorney in Mesa County who prosecuted Ms. Peters, to “rot in Hell,” adding “I wish them only the worst.”

Is it even legal for Trump to reward red states and penalize blue ones? In a word: No.

In early December, Justice Department lawyers openly admitted that Trump withheld Department of Energy grants to Minnesota and other states according to “whether a grantee’s address was located in a State that tends to elect and/or has recently elected Democratic candidates in state and national elections.”

It’s the first time the Trump regime clearly acknowledged in court that which states get what depends on whether most people in a state voted for or against him.

What’s the legal argument? Trump’s Justice Department lawyers claim that such overt political vindictiveness “is constitutionally permissible, including because it can serve as a proxy for legitimate policy considerations.”

This, my friends, is utter rubbish.

Punishing states based on whom their residents voted for directly violates the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, which requires that the government treat citizens equally under the law: No “State [shall] deprive … to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

Penalizing a state for how its citizens vote also violates the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech. Voting is one of the most basic forms of speech in a democracy; it cannot be abridged or punished depending on for whom one votes.

And it violates a president’s duty under the Constitution to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” At the least, this requires that a president apply the law in a nonpartisan way. Congress may award grants or benefits to certain states and not others, but this power is reserved for Congress, not the president.

The issue will almost certainly end up in the Supreme Court. Although my expectations for our highest court could not be much lower, I’d be surprised if the justices sided with Trump here.

Any other result would effectively allow Trump to pit red states against blue and wreak havoc on the very idea of a national government.

Trump has made it clear he regards himself as president only of the people who voted for him. But that’s not how the Constitution works. Nor is it how American democracy works.

Robert Reich is a emeritus professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.
Robert Reich's new memoir, Coming Up Short, can be found wherever you buy books. You can also support local bookstores nationally by ordering the book at bookshop.org