These 10 promises will bring Trump to his knees

Trump’s economy is truly sh---y for most Americans. Every time Trump or his lapdogs in Congress tell voters that the economy is terrific, they seem more out of touch.

A significant number of Democrats have won elections over the last 10 months — mayoral, gubernatorial, and special elections — by stressing affordability.

Democrats can show America that they can be better trusted than Republicans to bring prices down and real wages up by promising 10 things.

The Democrats’ Pledge to Make America Affordable Again

1. We’ll eliminate Trump’s across-the-board tariffs. They’re import taxes that are raising the prices of just about everything American consumers buy. We’ll eliminate them where their costs to consumers are far higher than any potential benefits in the form of new jobs.

2. We’ll bust up monopolies. Another major source of high prices is monopolies — especially in high tech, health care, food, and finance. We’ll vigorously enforce antitrust (anti-monopoly) laws so that corporations don’t have the power to raise prices. We’ll bust up giant corporations. We’ll bar large firms from merging or acquiring other firms.

3. We’ll fight for stronger unions. Workers need more bargaining power to get higher wages. Part of the answer is stronger unions. Democrats will make it easier for them to start or join them.

4. We’ll raise the national minimum wage to $20 an hour. No one who works full-time should be in poverty. And we’ll raise it even higher for employees of big corporations that pay their top executives more than 200 times the typical worker.

5. We’ll make housing more affordable. We’ll stop private equity firms from buying up large tracts of housing and colluding on prices. We’ll get rid of zoning laws that keep housing prices high. And we’ll raise taxes on big corporations that drive up housing prices where they’re headquartered or have major facilities and use the funds for more affordable housing there.

6. We’ll cut health-care costs by making Medicare available to everyone. Giving everyone the option of buying into Medicare would bring health care costs down because it’s cheaper and more efficient than private for-profit health insurance.

7. We’ll get working families help with child care and elder care. Both are essential for working families who must now pay out large portions of their incomes to provide care for family members.

8. We’ll give working families paid family leave. Twelve weeks of unpaid leave has proven useful but not adequate. Every other advanced country provides paid leave; the richest country in the world should too.

9. We’ll provide a universal basic income if adequate-paying jobs are unavailable. Face it: Artificial Intelligence will permanently replace many jobs. No family should be left in the cold. The universal basic income won’t be so high as to make families comfortable, but it will be enough to keep them out of poverty.

10. We’ll raise taxes on the wealthiest to pay for this. Since Reagan, the rich have paid far lower taxes while accumulating a near-record portion of total income and wealth. It’s only fair that they pay more so that the rest of America can afford what Americans need. We’ll raise the top marginal tax rate to 70 percent — what it was before Reagan. We’ll also impose a 0.5 percent tax on wealth in excess of $100 million. We’ll also eliminate the cap on income subject to Social Security taxes, require that the ultra-rich pay annual capital gains taxes on unrealized income, and eliminate the stepped-up basis at death.

These 10 steps are crucial for making America affordable again. We pledge to back every one of them.

Please share this with any Democrat interested in running for or remaining in office. And ask them to make the pledge.

  • Robert Reich is a 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 revolting outbursts point to something undeniable — and extremely urgent

After criticizing media coverage about him aging in office, Trump appeared to be falling asleep during a Cabinet meeting at the White House on Tuesday.

But that’s hardly the most troubling aspect of his aging.

In the last few weeks, Trump’s insults, tantrums, and threats have exploded.

To Nancy Cordes, CBS’s White House correspondent, he said: “Are you stupid? Are you a stupid person? You’re just asking questions because you’re a stupid person.”

About New York Times correspondent Katie Rogers: “Third rate … ugly, both inside and out.”

To Bloomberg White House correspondent Catherine Lucey: “Quiet. Quiet, piggy.”

About Democratic lawmakers who told military members to defy illegal orders: guilty of “sedition … punishable by DEATH.”

About Somali immigrants to the United States: “Garbage” whom “we don’t want in our country.”

What to make of all this?

Trump’s press hack Karoline Leavitt tells reporters to “appreciate the frankness and the openness that you get from President Trump on a near-daily basis.”

Sorry, Ms. Leavitt. This goes way beyond frankness and openness. Trump is now saying things nobody in their right mind would say, let alone the president of the United States.

He’s losing control over what he says, descending into angry, venomous, often dangerous territory. Note how close his language is coming to violence — when he speaks of acts being punishable by death, or human beings as garbage, or someone being ugly inside and out.

The deterioration isn’t due to age alone.

I have some standing to talk about this frankly. I was born 10 days after Trump. My gray matter isn’t what it used to be, either, but I don’t say whatever comes into my head.

It’s true that when you’re pushing 80, brain inhibitors start shutting down. You begin to let go. Even in my daily Substack letter to you, I’ve found myself using language that I’d never use when I was younger.

When my father got into his 90s, he told his friends at their weekly restaurant lunch that it was about time they paid their fair shares of the bill. He told his pharmacist that he was dangerously incompetent and should be fired. He told me I needed to dress better and get a haircut.

He lost some of his inhibitions, but at least his observations were accurate.

I think older people lose certain inhibitions because they don’t care as much about their reputations as do younger people. In a way, that’s rational. Older people no longer depend on their reputations for the next job or next date or new friend. If a young person says whatever comes into their heads, they have much more to lose, reputation-wise.

But Trump’s outbursts signal something more than the normal declining inhibitions that come with older age. Trump no longer has any filters. He’s becoming impetuous.

This would be worrying about anyone who’s aging. But a filterless president of the United States who says anything that comes into his head poses a unique danger. What if he gets angry at China, calls up Xi Jinping, tells him he’s an asshole, and then orders up a nuclear bomb?

It’s time the media reported on this. It’s time America faced reality. It’s time we demanded that our representatives in Congress take action, before it’s too late.

Invoke Section 4 of the 25th Amendment.

  • Robert Reich is a 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

The most dangerous corporation in America is building Trump's police state

The most dangerous corporation in America is one you may not have heard of.

It’s called Palantir Technologies, a Silicon Valley tech company that may put your most basic freedoms at risk.

Palantir gets its name from a device used in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, in which a “palantir” is a seeing stone — something like a crystal ball — that can be used to spy on people and distort the truth. During the War of the Ring, a palantir falls under the control of the evil Sauron, who uses it to manipulate and deceive.

Palantir — co-founded by far-right billionaire Peter Thiel and its current CEO Alex Karp — bears a striking similarity.

It sells AI-based data platforms that let their clients, including governments, militaries, and law enforcement agencies, quickly process and analyze massive amounts of your personal data.

Whether it’s social media profiles, bank account records, tax history, medical history, or driving records, the tools that Palantir sells are used to help clients identify and monitor individuals — like you.

Why should this matter to you? Billions of your tax dollars are going to Palantir, and what Palantir is working on could be used against you.

As Karp says: “Palantir is here to disrupt and make the institutions we partner with the very best in the world and, when it’s necessary, to scare enemies and on occasion kill them.”

Early in his current term, Trump signed an executive order requiring government agencies to consolidate all of their information about you into one giant database — something that has never been done before. To help process this massive amount of information, Trump chose Palantir.

Trump claims this is about “efficiency.” But as one Silicon Valley investor described it, Palantir is “building the infrastructure of the police state.”

Data privacy experts warn that when government data is pooled together, it can be used by a tyrant to intimidate or silence opposition. The possibilities for abuse are huge. One of Palantir’s major projects is a new immigrant surveillance system for ICE deportations.

We’ve already seen Trump target people or organizations he considers enemies. Imagine if he could punish or deny services to individual Americans based on their political affiliation, whether they’ve attended a protest, or even posted an unflattering picture of him online.

Palantir could be giving Trump the power to do just this.

Palantir co-founder and Trump ally Thiel has made no secret of his disdain for democracy, writing: “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”

But when he speaks of “freedom,” he isn’t thinking about you. To Thiel, “freedom” means that he and his fellow tech oligarchs get to do what they want, without consequences, while the rest of us live in an authoritarian police state.

It’s a match made in Mordor — Trump gets the infrastructure to go after his enemies. Thiel gets to end American democracy.

The danger of Palantir’s AI-powered super database on all Americans is amplified by the vast wealth and power of those associated with it, and their apparent disdain for democratic institutions.

To protect democracy and our individual freedoms, we need to elect leaders who will defend the public from corporations like Palantir — not partner with them.

Tolkien’s palantir fell under the control of Sauron. Thiel’s Palantir is falling under the control of Trump.

How this story ends is up to all of us. Please, help spread the word by sharing this video.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

  • Robert Reich is a 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

Oxford Dictionary's 'word of the year' explains all you need to know about Trump

The publisher of the Oxford English Dictionary has named “rage bait” its phrase of the year.

Call it the monetization of rage. Rage has become a valuable commodity. (Always follow the money.)

A growing number of online creators are making rage bait. Their goal is to record videos, produce memes, and write posts that make other users furious: conspiracy theories, lies, combustible AI-generated video clips — whatever it takes.

The more content they create, the more engagement they get, the more they get paid.

The rage bait market is worldwide. Since X, Facebook, and Instagram pay certain content creators for posts that drive engagement, people all over the globe have a financial incentive to share material that feeds the anger of American users and will therefore get reposted.

Last week a new feature on X permitting users to see where accounts originate showed that a number of high-engagement MAGA accounts that claim to be those of patriotic Americans are in fact from Russia, Eastern Europe, India, Nigeria, Thailand, and Bangladesh.

It’s not only social media. Much the same is true of Fox News and Newsmax, as well as MSNBC. (The network that’s falling behind is the one that hasn’t taken as clear a side in the outrage wars: CNN.)

This isn’t entirely new.

Years ago, I appeared on several television programs where I debated conservatives. Once, when my opponent and I discovered we agreed on more than we disagreed, the TV producer shouted in my earbud, “More anger!”

I asked the producer during the commercial break why she wanted more anger.

“It’s why people tune in,” she said. “An angry fight attracts more viewers than a calm discussion. People stop scrolling and stay put. Advertisers want this.”

At this point I lost my temper and refused to appear on that program ever again.

Now it’s far worse, because competition for eyeballs and attention is more intense. Rewards for grabbing that attention are greater, and they go to anyone with the ability to create and sell the most outrage.

Our brains are programmed for excitement. Few events get us more excited than being juiced up with rage.

Most large media corporations are moved by shareholder returns, not the common good. This has transformed many journalists from investigators and analysts offering news to “content providers” competing for attention.

Trump’s antics have ruled the airwaves for almost a decade because his eagerness to vilify, disparage, denounce, and lie about others is a media magnet. Regardless of whether you’re appalled or thrilled by his diatribes, they’ve been rage bait.

Media executives love them.

As early as the 2016 presidential race, Leslie Moonves, CEO of CBS, confessed that the Trump phenomenon “may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS,” adding, “Who would have expected the ride we’re all having right now? The money’s rolling in … and this is going to be a very good year for us. Sorry. It’s a terrible thing to say, but bring it on Donald. Keep going.”

The incentive structure in Washington follows the incentive structure in the media because the media is where people get their “news” — not only their understandings of what’s at stake but also their excitement, entertainment, and rage — which correlate directly with the performative rage we witness every day from the inhabitant of the Oval Office and his Republican lackeys.

How to make rage less profitable? Five remedies:

  1. Require that news divisions be independent of the executives who represent shareholders — as they were before the 1980s.
  2. Ensure that our personal information remains private, guarded from data-mining bots that flood us with custom-tailored news designed to enrage us.
  3. Demand that moderation policies be reinstated and enforced on social media.
  4. Stop social media corporations from paying “influencers.”
  5. Have our schools emphasize critical thinking about what students hear and see in the “news,” so they’re better able to distinguish truth from fiction and real news from hype.

I’d be interested to know your ideas about how we tame the monetization of rage.

  • Robert Reich is a 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 honest Reagan judge resigned under Trump — his explanation will floor you

Today I want to share with you a statement by former federal judge Mark L. Wolf explaining why he resigned from the federal bench in early November. I found it sobering and troubling. The statement appeared in The Atlantic.

By way of background, Wolf served in Gerald Ford’s Justice Department at the same time I did, under Attorney General Edward Levi, who had been president of the University of Chicago. (I was assistant to the solicitor general; Wolf was special assistant to then-Deputy Attorney General Laurence Silberman — later a federal appeals court judge — and Edward Levi.) It was a time when Levi and the department struggled to recover public trust after the Watergate scandal.

Wolf went on to lead the public corruption unit at the U.S. attorney’s office in Boston, securing more than 40 convictions, including of officials close to Democratic Mayor Kevin White. Ronald Reagan named Wolf to the federal bench in 1985. He has been considered a conservative jurist.

***

Why I Am Resigning

By Mark L. Wolf

In 1985, President Ronald Reagan appointed me as a federal judge. I was 38 years old. At the time, I looked forward to serving for the rest of my life. However, I resigned Friday, relinquishing that lifetime appointment and giving up the opportunity for public service that I have loved.

My reason is simple: I no longer can bear to be restrained by what judges can say publicly or do outside the courtroom. President Donald Trump is using the law for partisan purposes, targeting his adversaries while sparing his friends and donors from investigation, prosecution, and possible punishment. This is contrary to everything that I have stood for in my more than 50 years in the Department of Justice and on the bench. The White House’s assault on the rule of law is so deeply disturbing to me that I feel compelled to speak out. Silence, for me, is now intolerable.

When I accepted the nomination to serve on the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, I took pride in becoming part of a federal judiciary that works to make our country’s ideal of equal justice under law a reality. A judiciary that helps protect our democracy. That has the authority and responsibility to hold elected officials to the limits of the power delegated to them by the people. That strives to ensure that the rights of minority groups, no matter how they are viewed by others, are not violated. That can serve as a check on corruption to prevent public officials from unlawfully enriching themselves. Becoming a federal judge was an ideal opportunity to extend a noble tradition that I had been educated by experience to treasure.

My public service began in 1974, near the end of Richard Nixon’s presidency, at a time of dishonor for the Department of Justice. Nixon’s first attorney general, John Mitchell, who had also been the president’s campaign manager, later went to prison for his role in the break-in at the Democratic headquarters at the Watergate complex and for perjury in attempting to cover up that crime. His successor, Richard Kleindienst, was convicted of contempt of Congress for lying about the fact that, as instructed by the president, he’d ended an antitrust investigation of a major company after it pledged to make a $400,000 contribution to the Republican National Convention. The Justice Department was also discredited by revelations that FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had obtained and disseminated derogatory information about political adversaries, including Martin Luther King Jr.

I joined the Department of Justice as a special assistant to the honest and able Deputy Attorney General Laurence Silberman. Soon after, in 1975, President Gerald Ford named Edward Levi as attorney general to restore confidence in the integrity of the department. Levi, then the president of the University of Chicago, had a well-deserved reputation for brilliance, honesty, and nonpartisanship. Ford told Levi that he wanted the attorney general to “protect the rights of American citizens, not the President who appointed him.”

I organized Levi’s induction ceremony and was there when he declared that “nothing can more weaken the quality of life or more imperil the realization of the goals we all hold dear than our failure to make clear by word and deed that our law is not an instrument of partisan purpose.” For the next two years I served as one of Levi’s special assistants, working closely with a man who was always faithful to this principle.

With Levi as my model, in 1981 I became the deputy United States attorney and chief federal prosecutor of public corruption in Massachusetts. In about four years, my assistants and I won more than 40 consecutive corruption cases. Many convictions were of defendants close to the powerful mayor of Boston at the time. As a result, I received the Attorney General’s Distinguished Service Award and was appointed a federal judge.

Some of the cases over which I presided as judge involved corruption and were highly publicized. Most notable was the prosecution of the notorious Boston mobsters James “Whitey” Bulger and Stephen “the Rifleman” Flemmi. Both, it turned out, were also FBI informants. Agents in the bureau, I discovered, were involved in crimes and egregious misconduct, including murders committed by Bulger and Flemmi. I wrote a 661-page decision detailing my findings. This led to orders that the government pay more than $100 million to the families of people murdered by informants whom the FBI had improperly protected. Their FBI handler was convicted twice and sentenced to serve a total of 50 years in prison.

I also presided over a six-week trial of a former speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives. After he was convicted of demanding and accepting bribes, I sentenced him to serve eight years in prison.

I decided all of my cases based on the facts and the law, without regard to politics, popularity, or my personal preferences. That is how justice is supposed to be administered — equally for everyone, without fear or favor. This is the opposite of what is happening now.

As I watched in dismay and disgust from my position on the bench, I came to feel deeply uncomfortable operating under the necessary ethical rules that muzzle judges’ public statements and restrict their activities. Day after day, I observed in silence as President Trump, his aides, and his allies dismantled so much of what I dedicated my life to.

When I became a senior judge in 2013, my successor was appointed, so my resignation will not create a vacancy to be filled by the president. My colleagues on the United States District Court in Massachusetts and judges on the lower federal courts throughout the country are admirably deciding a variety of cases generated by Trump’s many executive orders and other unprecedented actions. However, the Supreme Court has repeatedly removed the temporary restraints imposed on those actions by lower courts in deciding emergency motions on its “shadow docket” with little, if any, explanation. I doubt that if I remained a judge I would fare any better than my colleagues.

Others who have held positions of authority, including former federal judges and ambassadors, have been opposing this government’s efforts to undermine the principled, impartial administration of justice and distort the free and fair functioning of American democracy. They have urged me to work with them. As much as I have treasured being a judge, I can now think of nothing more important than joining them, and doing everything in my power to combat today’s existential threat to democracy and the rule of law.

What Nixon did episodically and covertly, knowing it was illegal or improper, Trump now does routinely and overtly. Prosecutorial decisions during this administration are a prime example. Because even a prosecution that ends in an acquittal can have devastating consequences for the defendant, as a matter of fairness Justice Department guidelines instruct prosecutors not to seek an indictment unless they believe there is sufficient admissible evidence to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

Trump has utterly ignored this principle. In a social-media post, he instructed Attorney General Pam Bondi to seek indictments against three political adversaries even though the officials in charge of the investigations at the time saw no proper basis for doing so. It has been reported that New York Attorney General Letitia James was prosecuted for mortgage fraud after Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, one of Donald Trump’s former criminal-defense lawyers, questioned the legal viability of bringing charges against James. Former FBI Director James Comey was charged after the interim U.S. attorney who had been appointed by Trump refused to seek an indictment and was forced to resign. Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the third target of Trump’s social-media post, has yet to be charged.

Trump is also dismantling the offices that could and should investigate possible corruption by him and those in his orbit. Soon after he was inaugurated, Trump fired, possibly unlawfully, 18 inspectors general who were responsible for detecting and deterring fraud and misconduct in major federal agencies. The FBI’s public-corruption squad also has been eliminated. The Department of Justice’s public-integrity section has been eviscerated, reduced from 30 lawyers to only five, and its authority to investigate election fraud has been revoked.

The Department of Justice has evidently chosen to ignore matters it would in the past have likely investigated. Some directly involve the president. It has been reported that at a lavish April 2024 dinner at Mar-a-Lago, after executives from major oil companies complained about how the Biden administration’s environmental regulations were hurting their businesses, Trump said that if they raised $1 billion for his campaign he would promptly reverse those rules and policies. The executives raised the money, and Trump delivered on his promise. The law may be unclear concerning whether Trump himself could have been charged with conspiracy to bribe a public official or honest-services fraud. In addition, Trump himself may have immunity from prosecution if similar payments for his benefit continued after he became president. However, the companies that made the payments, and the individuals acting for them, could possibly be prosecuted. There is no public indication that this matter has been investigated by Trump’s Department of Justice.

As a prosecutor and judge I dealt seriously with the unlawful influence of money on official decisions. However, Trump and his administration evidently do not share this approach. After Trump launched his own cryptocurrency, $TRUMP, his Department of Justice disbanded its cryptocurrency-enforcement unit. The top 220 buyers of Trump’s cryptocurrency were invited to a dinner with Trump. Sixty-seven of them had invested more than $1 million. The top spender, Justin Sun, who was born in China and is a foreign national, reportedly spent more than $10 million. Sun also reportedly spent $75 million on investments issued by a crypto company controlled by Trump’s family. It is illegal for people who are not U.S. citizens to donate to American political candidates, and the most that anyone can donate directly to one candidate is $3,500. Ordinarily, the Department of Justice would investigate this sort of situation. There is, however, no indication that any investigation has occurred. Rather, a few months after Sun started purchasing tokens from the Trump-family cryptocurrency company, the Securities and Exchange Commission paused its fraud suit against Sun and his companies pending the outcome of settlement negotiations. (Sun and his companies have denied any wrongdoing.)

Trump is not the only member of his administration whose conduct is apparently shielded from investigation. In September of last year, Tom Homan, who became Trump’s “border czar,” reportedly was recorded accepting $50,000 in cash in return for a promise to use his potential future public position to benefit a company seeking government contracts. The FBI had created the fictitious company as part of an undercover investigation. Typically, an investigation of that sort would have continued after Homan became a Department of Homeland Security official, with the FBI seeking any additional evidence of bribery. However, after Trump took office, the investigation was shut down, with the White House claiming there was no “credible evidence” of criminal wrongdoing. Weeks after the FBI investigation was reported, Homan denied taking $50,000 “from anybody” and has said he did “nothing criminal.” An honest investigation could reveal who is telling the truth.

There is also the matter of Trump’s executive orders. A good number are, in my opinion, unconstitutional or otherwise illegal. For example, contrary to the express language of the Fourteenth Amendment, one order declares that not everyone born in this country is a U.S. citizen. Trump’s administration also has deported undocumented immigrants without due process, in many cases to countries where they have no connections and will be in great danger. Although many federal judges have issued orders restraining the government’s effort to implement those executive orders, some appear to have been disobeyed by members of the Trump administration. Trump has responded by calling for federal judges to be impeached, even though the Constitution permits impeachment only for “high crimes and misdemeanors,” such as treason and bribery.

Trump’s angry attacks on the courts have coincided with an unprecedented number of serious threats against judges. There were nearly 200 from March to late May 2025 alone. These included credible death threats, hundreds of vitriolic phone calls, and anonymous, unsolicited pizza deliveries falsely made in the name of the son of a federal judge, who was murdered in the judge’s home in 2020 by a disgruntled lawyer.

Over the past 35 years I have spoken in many countries about the role of American judges in safeguarding democracy, protecting human rights, and combatting corruption. Many of these countries — including Russia, China, and Turkey — are ruled by corrupt leaders who rank among the worst abusers of human rights. These kleptocrats jail their political opponents, suppress independent media that could expose their wrongdoing, forbid free speech, punish peaceful protests, and frustrate every effort to establish an independent, impartial judiciary that could constrain these abuses. These kleptocrats have impunity in their countries because they control the police, prosecutors, and courts.

In my work around the world, I have made many friends, young and old, who have been inspired by the example of American judges, lawyers, and citizens. They have suffered greatly for trying to make their countries more like ours. Among them are impartial judges who have been imprisoned in Turkey, a brilliant young Russian lawyer who was alleged to be a spy and forced into exile, and a Venezuelan law student who almost lost sight in one eye while protesting his country’s oppressive government. They courageously share what have historically been our nation’s convictions. These brave people inspire me.

I resigned in order to speak out, support litigation, and work with other individuals and organizations dedicated to protecting the rule of law and American democracy. I also intend to advocate for the judges who cannot speak publicly for themselves.

I cannot be confident that I will make a difference. I am reminded, however, of what Sen. Robert F. Kennedy said in 1966 about ending apartheid in South Africa: “Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope.” Enough of these ripples can become a tidal wave.

And as Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney wrote, sometimes the “longed-for tidal wave of justice can rise up, and hope and history rhyme.” I want to do all that I can to make this such a time.

Reagan understood something fundamental about the US that Trump doesn’t have a clue about

This week’s shooting of two National Guard members by a gunman identified by the authorities as an Afghan national was horrific.

But Trump’s response has been disproportionate and bigoted. He vows to “permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries.” He intends to deport legal immigrants born in countries the White House deems “high risk.”

He threatens to strip U.S. citizenship from naturalized migrants “who undermine domestic tranquillity.” He plans to deport foreigners deemed to be “non-compatible with Western Civilization.” He wants to detain even more migrants in jail — in the U.S. or in other countries — without due process.

In addition to the unconstitutionality of such actions, these threats stir up the worst nativist impulses in America — blaming and scapegoating entire groups of people for the act of one gunman.

Apart from Native Americans, we are all immigrants — all descended from “foreigners.” Some of our ancestors came here eagerly; some came because they were no longer safe in their homelands; some came enslaved.

Almost all of us are mongrels — of mixed nationalities, mixed ethnicities, mixed races, mixed creeds. While we maintain our own traditions, we also embrace the ideals of this nation.

Here’s how Ronald Reagan put it in a 1988 speech, in which he explained:

“I received a letter not long ago from a man who said, ‘You can go to Japan to live, but you cannot become Japanese. You can go to France to live and not become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Germany or Turkey, and you won’t become a German or a Turk.’ But then he added, ‘Anybody from any corner of the world can come to America to live and become an American.’”
A person becomes an American by adopting America’s principles, especially those principles summarized in the “self-evident truths” of the Declaration of Independence, such as “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Carl Friedrich wrote that “To be an American is an ideal, while to be a Frenchman is a fact.”
As an immigrant friend once put it to me: “I was always an American; I was just born in the wrong country.”

I don’t think I’ve ever quoted Reagan before. He was wrong about so many things. Yet Reagan understood something fundamental to this nation that Trump doesn’t have a clue about: America is an idea — a set of aspirations and ideals — more than a nationality.

The only thing Trump knows is that he needs to fuel bigotry. His Straight White Male Christian Nationalism requires prejudice against anyone who’s not.

Like dictators before him, Trump’s road to tyranny is paved with stones hurled at “them.” His entire project depends on hate.

America is better than this.

We won’t buy Trump’s hate. To the contrary, we’ll call out bigots. We won’t tolerate intolerance. We’ll protect hardworking members of our community. We’ll alert them when ICE is lurking.

We will not succumb to the ravings of a venomous president who wants us to hate each other.

This guy's favorite movie tells us all we need know about Trump

Pope Leo recently said his favorite movie of all time was It’s a Wonderful Life.

Mine too. I first watched it when I was a kid in the early 1950s. For years, it was shown the week before Christmas. I loved it. Still do.

The pope’s and my favorite movie has a lot to tell us about where America is right now, and the scourge of Donald Trump.

If you don’t already know it, the central conflict in the movie is between Mr. Potter (played by Lionel Barrymore) and George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart).

Potter is a greedy, cruel banker. In his Social Darwinist view of America, people compete with one another for scarce resources. Those who succeed deserve to win because they’ve outrun everyone else in that competitive race.

Potter, in other words, is Trump.

George is the generous, honorable head of Bedford Falls’ building-and-loan company, the one entity standing in the way of Potter’s total domination of the town.

After the death of George’s father, who founded the building-and-loan company, Potter — who sits on the bank’s board — seeks to dissolve it. Potter claims George’s father “was not a businessman. He was a man of high ideals, so-called, but ideals without common sense can ruin a town.” For Potter, common sense is not coddling the “discontented rabble.”

Exactly what Trump would say (think of his cuts to Medicaid, refusal to extend Obamacare subsidies, and withholding of food stamps during the government shutdown).

To George, though, Bedford Falls is a community whose members help each other. He tells Potter that the so-called “rabble … do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this community.” George’s father helped them build homes on credit so they could have a decent life.

“People were human beings to him,” George tells Potter, “but to you, they’re cattle.”

When George’s Uncle Billy accidentally loses some bank deposits that fall into Potter’s hands, the banker sees an opportunity to ruin George. (Trump would do precisely the same.)

This brings George to a bridge where he contemplates suicide, thinking his life has been worthless, before a guardian angel counsels him to think about what Bedford Falls would be like if George hadn’t been born — poor, fearful, and completely dependent on Potter. The movie ends when everyone George has helped — virtually the entire town — pitches in to bail out George and his building-and-loan.

It’s a cartoon, of course — both a utopian and a dystopian version of America — but the cartoon poses a choice that’s become all too relevant: Do we join together, or do we let the Potters of America — Trump and his billionaire backers — run and ruin everything?

Since the political rise of Ronald Reagan, Republicans and the moneyed interests have used Potter-like Social Darwinism to justify tax cuts for the wealthy, union-busting, and cutbacks in social safety nets.

Trump is shamelessly finishing what Reagan started.

The goal is to have Americans so angry and suspicious of one another that we don’t look upward to see where all the money and power have gone. That way, we don’t join together — as did the good citizens of Bedford Falls — to stop Potter, er, Trump, and the oligarchs behind him.

What would Republicans and America’s moneyed interests say about It’s a Wonderful Life if it were released today? They’d probably call it socialist, maybe even communist, and it would make them squirm — especially given the eerie similarity between Lionel Barrymore’s Potter and Trump.

When It’s a Wonderful Life was released, the FBI considered it evidence of Communist Party infiltration of the film industry. Either a movie was subversive or it wasn’t, and in the bureau’s broad framing, this one certainly was.

The FBI’s Los Angeles field office, using a report by an ad-hoc group that included Fountainhead author and future Trump pinup girl Ayn Rand, warned that the movie represented “rather obvious attempts to discredit bankers by casting Lionel Barrymore as a ‘scrooge-type’ so that he would be the most hated man in the picture.” The movie “deliberately maligned the upper class, attempting to show the people who had money were mean and despicable characters. This … is a common trick used by Communists.”

The Bureau’s report compared It’s a Wonderful Life to a Soviet film and alleged that Frank Capra, its director, was “associated with left-wing groups” and that the film’s screenwriters, Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, were “very close to known Communists.”

This was all rubbish, of course, and a prelude to the witch hunt led by Republican senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin, who launched a series of highly publicized probes into alleged Communist penetration of Hollywood, the State Department, and even the U.S. Army.

Trump’s probes are into alleged disloyalty to himself, which is akin to McCarthy’s communism in the early 1950s. Loyalty to Trump is now the purity test all elected Republicans must pass.

As director Capra does in his dystopian view of what Bedford Falls would have been had George Bailey never existed, Trump is seeking to rewrite American history as if his brazen attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election never occurred. If he succeeds, we’re all in a dystopian Pottersville.

In announcing the 77 pardons he recently issued to officials who joined him in seeking to steal the 2020 election, Trump called them “victims of political persecution” who were “targeted for defending the Constitution.”

In fact, they were co-conspirators in the worst attack on our system of government since the Civil War.

Trump declared that the pardons “end a grave national injustice.” In fact, the national injustice was that neither Trump nor any of his co-conspirators have yet been convicted of treason.

He declared that his pardons “continue the process of national reconciliation.” In fact, they continue his pursuit of national amnesia.

In Trump’s retelling, January 6 was “a beautiful day full of love and peace.” In fact, it was a day of national disgrace.

Presumably, Lionel Barrymore’s Mr. Potter would have said the same if that was necessary to secure his hold over Pottersville.

I don’t know whether Pope Leo had all this in mind when he called It’s a Wonderful Life his favorite movie of all time. But it’s likely that the pope, who hails from Chicago, knows what Mr. Potter — er, Trump — is doing to America, and indirectly to the world.

  • Robert Reich is a 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

It's time to talk turkey about how Trump ruined your holiday

Trump broke his biggest campaign promise, and it’s about to send the cost of your — and every other American’s — Thanksgiving holiday meals soaring.

The single-biggest reason people voted for him was to bring prices down. But this Thanksgiving, grocery prices are the highest they’ve been in years — and several of Trump’s policies are making the problem worse.

Here’s what Trump has done to your Thanksgiving menu:

1. Turkey

Start with turkey prices, which are up 40 percent this year. That’s largely due to the avian flu. But instead of working to contain avian flu outbreaks — which reduce supply, increase prices, and put public health at risk — Trump has fired or furloughed scientists and bird flu experts across multiple government agencies.

His Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Department of Agriculture also cut off routine reporting with states, leaving many officials without up-to-date guidance on how to detect and contain the disease.

2. Carrots, pumpkin pie, cranberry sauces

What about our favorite holiday side dishes? They’re all costing more because of monopolies.

What did Trump do about this? He has rolled back anti-monopoly policies designed to promote competition and protect small businesses and farms from the power of giant corporations.

3. Fruit salad and steamed vegetables

Trump’s tariffs are boosting their prices. It’s not hard to see how adding an import tax to goods brought into the country results in those goods costing more.

America imports about 60 percent of its fresh fruit and 35 percent of its fresh vegetables — meaning your fruit salad and steamed vegetables are costing you more because of Trump’s tariffs.

4. Coffee

Not even your after-dinner cup of coffee is safe. Thanks to Trump’s tariffs, coffee prices saw their largest month-to-month price increase since 2011. The average household is estimated to spend an extra $1,800 on goods — including food — in 2025.

Trump’s tariffs, on top of sparking trade wars with other countries, are hitting farmers hard too — which could put them out of business.

5. Other food on your Thanksgiving table

Meanwhile, Trump’s unprecedented crackdown on undocumented immigrants is causing you to pay more at the grocery store. Even Trump’s own Labor Department has admitted this.

ICE raids on farms and other job sites have a chilling effect on the labor force, leaving crops unharvested in the fields and supply chains disrupted.

Agricultural employment dropped 6.5 percent from March to July. Replacing and retraining workers is costly and time-consuming for farmers. Those costs inevitably get passed on to you.

6. Even food banks!

At the same time, Trump’s regime has cut aid to food banks. Food stamp programs have also been gutted by Trump and Republicans to finance tax cuts for the richest Americans.

Please keep this in mind during a holiday season that celebrates abundance. If you have the means, donate to or volunteer at a local food bank.

***

Trump doesn’t want you to know any of this. He’s doing everything possible to prevent the public from knowing how much and how fast prices are rising.

In the recent government shutdown, he used the absence of official data on inflation to tout numbers from the delivery app DoorDash and claim “everyday prices are beginning to drop.” With Thanksgiving coming, he claimed, “Grocery prices are way down,” referring to a Walmart promotional Thanksgiving package that cost less than last year but had six fewer items.

But here’s the truth: Rising grocery prices resulting from Trump’s failure to keep his biggest promise are hitting hit all of us — no matter whom we voted for — and making this Thanksgiving especially expensive.

***

  • Robert Reich is a 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
***

Here’s a video we made of how Trump’s policies have caused this Thanksgiving to be far more expensive. Please share.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

Trump's admin just revealed how rotten it really is

On Monday, the social media account of Pete Hegseth’s so-called “Department of War” posted that the department is investigating Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), a retired Navy officer.

Kelly’s supposed offense? He participated in a video reminding members of the armed forces that they have no duty to follow illegal orders — a concept enshrined in the Code of Military Justice, the shameful case of Lt. William Calley and the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War, the Geneva Conventions, and the Nuremberg Trials.

I’ve known Mark for several decades. I saw him pilot rockets into space. I gave a blessing at his marriage to Gabby Giffords.

I visited with Mark soon after Gabby was shot, in Tucson in 2011. He was brave, steadfast. If she survived (which wasn’t at all clear at the time), he was determined to go on with their lives together, doing whatever needed to be done. He has done that. Today, although not entirely recovered, she lives a reasonably full life, and they continue to support each other in every way.

When Mark ran for Senate, he was equally determined to go on with the work Gabby had begun as a member of Congress.

Few people are more dedicated to the ideals of America and the principles of the Constitution than Mark Kelly.

As for Pete Hegseth, well, the less said the better.

The contrast between Mark Kelly and Pete “Whiskeyleaks” Hegseth or Donald “Bonespurs” Trump couldn’t be larger.

The social media announcement put out by Hegseth’s “Department of War” mentioned “serious allegations of misconduct” against Kelly, suggesting that Kelly could be recalled to active duty “for court-martial proceedings or administrative measures.”

This is a dangerous move — almost as dangerous as putting federal troops into American cities over the objections of their mayors and governors or killing sailors on vessels in international waters because they’re “suspected” of smuggling drugs.

Trump likes military tribunals because they don’t require the same extent of due process as regular trials — and Trump has shown his contempt for due process.

In the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump called for those he perceives to be his enemies to be prosecuted in military tribunals. He said former representative Liz Cheney was “guilty of treason” because she participated in the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Kelly has posted:

“When I was 22 years old, I commissioned as an Ensign in the United States Navy and swore an oath to the Constitution. I upheld that oath through flight school, multiple deployments on the USS Midway, 39 combat missions in Operation Desert Storm, test pilot school, four space shuttle flights at NASA, and every day since I retired—which I did after my wife Gabby was shot in the head while serving her constituents.

“In combat, I had a missile blow up next to my jet and flew through anti-aircraft fire to drop bombs on enemy targets. At NASA, I launched on a rocket, commanded the space shuttle, and was part of the recovery mission that brought home the bodies of my astronaut classmates who died on Columbia. I did all of this in service to this country that I love and has given me so much.

“Secretary Hegseth’s tweet is the first I heard of this. I also saw the President’s posts saying I should be arrested, hanged, and put to death.

“If this is meant to intimidate me and other members of Congress from doing our jobs and holding this administration accountable, it won’t work. I’ve given too much to this country to be silenced by bullies who care more about their own power than protecting the Constitution.”

Kelly refuses to be silenced by a disreputable secretary of defense and a twice-impeached occupant of the Oval Office who’s been convicted of 34 felonies.

I believe Mark Kelly would make an excellent president.

  • Robert Reich is a 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 sinister setup is essential to Trump's power. Here's how it ends

The richest man on earth owns X.

The family of the second-richest man owns Paramount, which owns CBS — and could soon own Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns CNN.

The third-richest man owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

The fourth-richest man owns The Washington Post and Amazon MGM Studios.

Another billionaire owns Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, and the New York Post.

Why are the ultra-rich buying up so much of the media? Vanity may play a part, but there’s a more pragmatic — some might say sinister — reason.

As vast wealth concentrates in the hands of a few, this small group of the ultra-wealthy may rationally fear that a majority of voters could try to confiscate their wealth — through, for example, a wealth tax.

If you’re a multibillionaire, in other words, you might view democracy as a potential threat to your net worth. New York real estate and oil tycoon John Catsimatidis, whose net worth is estimated at $4.5 billion, donated $2.4 million to support Trump and congressional Republicans in 2024 — nearly twice as much as he gave in 2016.

Why? “If you’re a billionaire, you want to stay a billionaire,” Catsimatidis told The Washington Post.

But rather than rely on Republicans, a more reliable means of stopping majorities from targeting your riches might be to control a significant share of the dwindling number of media outlets.

As a media mogul, you can effectively hedge against democracy by suppressing criticism of yourself and other plutocrats and discouraging any attempt to tax away your wealth.

And Trump has been ready to help you. In his second term of office, Trump has brazenly and illegally used the power of the presidency to punish his enemies and reward those who lavish him with praise and profits.

So it wasn’t surprising that the owner of The Washington Post, Jeff Bezos — the fourth-richest person — stopped the paper from endorsing Kamala Harris last year, as Trump rose in the polls. Or that, once Trump was elected, Bezos decreed that the Post’s opinion section must support “personal liberties and free markets.” And that he bought a proposed documentary about Melania Trump — for which she is the executive producer — for a whopping $40 million.

Bezos’s moves have led several of the Post’s top editors, journalists, and columnists to resign. Thousands of subscribers have cancelled. But the Post remains the biggest ongoing media presence in America’s capital city.

Bezos is a businessman first and foremost. His highest goal is not to inform the public but to make money. And he knows Trump can wreak havoc on his businesses by imposing unfriendly Federal Communications Commission rulings, or enforcing labor laws against him, or breaking up his companies with antitrust laws, or making it difficult for him to import what he sells.

On the other hand, Trump can also enrich Bezos — through lucrative government contracts or favorable FCC rulings or government subsidies.

It’s much the same with the family of Larry Ellison, the second-richest man.

Paramount’s CBS settled Trump’s frivolous $16 million lawsuit against CBS and canceled Stephen Colbert, much to Trump’s delight. Trump loyalist flak Brendan Carr, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, then approved an $8 billion merger of Paramount Global, owner of CBS, and Skydance Media.

Larry Ellison’s son, David, became chief executive of the new media giant, Paramount Skydance.

In the run-up to the sale, some top brass at CBS News and its flagship Sixty Minutes resigned, presumably because they were pressured by Paramount not to air stories critical of Trump. No matter. Too much money was at stake.

I’m old enough to remember when CBS News would never have surrendered to a demagogic president. But that was when CBS News — the home of Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite — was independent of the rest of CBS, and when the top management of CBS felt they had independent responsibilities to the American public.

Like Bezos, Larry Ellison is first and foremost a businessman who knows that Trump can help or hinder his businesses. In 2020, he hosted a fundraiser for Trump at his home. According to court records, after the 2020 election, Ellison participated in a phone call to discuss how Trump’s defeat could be contested. In June 2025, he and his firm, Oracle, were co-sponsors of Trump’s military parade in Washington.

After taking charge of CBS, David Ellison promised to gut DEI policies there, put right-wing hack Kenneth R. Weinstein into a new “ombudsman” role, and made anti-“woke” opinion journalist Bari Weiss editor-in-chief of CBS News, despite her lack of experience in either broadcasting or newsrooms.

The Guardian reports that Larry Ellison has told Trump that if Paramount gains control of Warner Bros. Discovery — which owns CNN — Paramount will fire CNN hosts whom Trump doesn’t like.

Other billionaire media owners have followed the same trajectory. Despite his sometimes contentious relationship with Trump, Elon Musk has turned X into a cesspool of right-wing propaganda. Rupert Murdoch continues to give Trump all the positive coverage imaginable. Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce and owner of Time magazine, has put Trump on the cover.

It is impossible to know the extent to which criticism of Trump and his administration has been chilled by these billionaires, or what fawning coverage has been elicited.

But we can say with some certainty that in an era when wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few individuals who have bought up key media, and when a thin-skinned president is willing and able to violate laws and norms to punish or reward, there is a growing danger that the public will not be getting the truth it needs to function in this democracy.

What to do about this? Two important steps:

1. At the least, media outlets should inform their readers about any and all potential conflicts of interest, and media watchdogs and professional associations should ensure they do.

Recently, The Washington Post’s editorial board defended Trump’s razing of the East Wing of the White House to build his giant ballroom, without disclosing that Amazon is a major corporate contributor to the ballroom. The Post’s editorial board also applauded Trump’s Defense Department’s decision to obtain a new generation of smaller nuclear reactors but failed to mention Bezos’s stake in X-energy, a company that’s developing small nuclear reactors. And it criticized Washington, D.C.’s refusal to accept self-driving cars without disclosing that Amazon’s self-driving car company was trying to get into the Washington, D.C. market.
These breaches are inexcusable.

2. A second step — if and when America has a saner government — is for anti-monopoly authorities to block the purchase of a major media outlet by someone with extensive businesses that could pose conflicts of interest.

Acquisition of a media company should be treated differently from the acquisition of, say, a company developing self-driving cars or small nuclear reactors, because of the media’s central role in our democracy.

As The Washington Post’s slogan used to say, democracy dies in darkness. Today, darkness is closing in because a demagogue sits in the Oval Office and so much of America’s wealth and media ownership is concentrated in the hands of a few people easily manipulated by that demagogue.

  • Robert Reich is a 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 grassroots rebellion can decapitate Supreme Court's catastrophic mistake

Several of you have told me that the first step out of the mess we’re in is to get rid of the Supreme Court’s bonkers Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision of 2010, which held that corporations are people — entitled to the same First Amendment protection as the rest of us.

Corporate political spending was growing before Citizens United, but the decision opened the floodgates to the unlimited super PAC spending and undisclosed dark money we suffer from today.

Between 2008 and 2024, reported “independent” expenditures by outside groups exploded by more than 28-fold — from $144 million to $4.21 billion. Unreported money also skyrocketed, with dark money groups spending millions influencing the 2024 election.

Most people I talk with assume that the only way to stop corporate and dark money in American politics is either to wait for the Supreme Court to undo Citizens United (we could wait a very long time) or amend the U.S. Constitution (this is extraordinarily difficult).

But there’s another way! I want to tell you about it because there’s a good chance it will work.

It will be on the ballot next November in Montana. Maybe you can get it on the ballot in your state, too.

Here’s the thing: Individual states — either through their legislators or their citizens wielding ballot initiatives — have the authority to limit corporate political activity and dark money spending, because they determine what powers corporations have.

In American law, corporations are creatures of state laws. For more than two centuries, the power to define their form, limits, and privilege has belonged only to the states.

In fact, corporations have no powers at all until a state government grants them some. In the 1819 Supreme Court case Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward, Chief Justice John Marshall established that:

“A corporation is an artificial being, invisible, intangible, and existing only in contemplation of law. Being the mere creature of law, it possesses only those properties which the charter of its creation confers upon it, either expressly, or as incidental to its very existence … The objects for which a corporation is created are universally such as the government wishes to promote. They are deemed beneficial to the country; and this benefit constitutes the consideration, and, in most cases, the sole consideration of the grant.”

States don’t have to grant corporations the power to spend in politics. In fact, they could decide not to give corporations that power.

This isn’t about corporate rights, as the Supreme Court determined in Citizens United. It’s about corporate powers.

When a state exercises its authority to define corporations as entities without the power to spend in politics, it will no longer be relevant whether corporations have a right to spend in politics — because without the power to do so, the right to do so has no meaning.

Delaware’s corporation code already declines to grant private foundations the power to spend in elections.

Importantly, a state that no longer grants its corporations the power to spend in elections also denies that power to corporations chartered in the other 49 states, if they wish to do business in that state.

All a state would need to do is enact a law with a provision something like this:

“Every corporation operating under the laws of this state has all the corporate powers it held previously, except that nothing in this statute grants or recognizes any power to engage in election activity or ballot-issue activity.”

Sound far-fetched? Not at all.

In Montana, local organizers have drafted and submitted a constitutional initiative for voters to consider in 2026 — the first step in a movement built to spread nationwide. It would decline to grant to all corporations the power to spend in elections.

Called the Transparent Election Initiative, it wouldn’t overturn Citizens United — it would negate the consequences of Citizens United. (Click on the link and you’ll get the details.)

The argument is laid out in a paper that the Center for American Progress published several weeks ago. (Kudos to CAP and the paper’s author, Tom Moore, a senior fellow at CAP who previously served as counsel and chief of staff to a longtime member of the Federal Election Commission.)

Note to governors and state legislators: The Citizens United decision is enormously unpopular. Some 75 percent of Americans disapprove of it. But most of your governors and state legislators haven’t realized that you have the authority to make Citizens United irrelevant. My recommendation to you: Use that authority to rid the nation of Citizens United.

Hopefully, Montanans will lead the way.

  • Robert Reich is a 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 CEO knows Trump fried the economy — but he helped

The Big Mac has a big problem. According to the CEO of McDonald’s, fast food chains saw a double-digit dip in visits from lower- and middle-income customers in the first quarter of 2025.

The reason? He says we’re becoming a two-tiered economy, and lower- and middle-income customers can no longer afford fast food.

While the stock market is riding high and the Trump administration is slashing taxes for corporations and the rich, nothing is “trickling down” to everyday Americans.

Frankly, it’s a little galling to hear the CEO of McDonald’s complaining about income inequality, because corporations like McDonald’s are making the problem worse.

They pay their workers so little that many have to rely on food stamps and Medicaid to make ends meet — for which the rest of us pay in our taxes.

Meanwhile, their CEOs are paid roughly 1,000 times more than their typical employee.

Big corporations have a history of union busting, further reducing the power of their workers to negotiate a living wage.

Finally, they make the entire economy fragile. As wealth concentrates in the richest 10 percent, the rest of America can’t afford to buy enough to keep the economy running.

So what can we do about this? End the trickle-down hoax once and for all: Tax cuts for the wealthy make the rest of us worse off, not better.

Fight for unions. In the 1950s, when America had the biggest middle class the world had ever seen, a third of all private-sector workers were unionized. Now, it’s 6 percent.

Raise the minimum wage to $20 an hour (and higher for big corporations with billions in profits that pay their CEOs more than $20 million a year).

Bust up big monopolies with the power to keep prices high.

Demand corporations share their profits with workers, so that when corporations do better, their workers do, too.

In sum: Build an economy that works for everyone, not just those at the top. Because if we don’t, we’re all cooked.

***

Please watch our video — and share.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

  • Robert Reich is a 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.

GOP's sinister flirtation points to something very dark for America

Today I want to talk to you about a difficult subject. Let me start with the Trump regime’s ongoing accusations of antisemitism to extort billions of dollars from American universities — while simultaneously disregarding antisemitism within its own ranks.

Exhibit A is Harmeet Dhillon, now Trump’s assistant attorney general for civil rights. For the last 10 months, Dhillon has condemned prestigious universities for allowing what she deems “antisemitic” protests — and withheld research funding unless they agree to explicit measures supposedly to prevent antisemitism.

I was a Dartmouth trustee in the 1980s when its president, James O. Freedman, who was Jewish, endured the antisemitic barbs of an ascendant right-wing student group that included Dhillon, along with Laura Ingraham and Dinesh D’Souza.

In 1988, as editor of The Dartmouth Review, Dhillon published a column depicting Freedman as Adolf Hitler under the headline “Ein Reich, Ein Volk, Ein Freedmann” — a play on a Nazi slogan, “One Empire, One People, One Leader,” but substituting and misspelling Freedman’s name for “Fuhrer.”

Using the analogy of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, the column satirically described how “Der Freedmann” and his associates rid the campus of conservatives. The column referred to the “‘Final Solution’ of the Conservative Problem” and to “survivors” of the Dartmouth “holocaust” and described Dartmouth conservatives being “deported in cattle cars in the night.”

A drawing on the cover of the following issue also depicted Freedman, who had been critical of The Review, as Hitler.

I saw up close how much Dhillon’s publication hurt Freedman. As a Jew, he not only felt personally attacked but also worried about the effects of Dhillon’s publication on Jewish students at Dartmouth.

The student newspaper The Dartmouth took The Review to task, claiming that it “is anti-semitic; its impact rings through this community today and will remain long after its publishers have completed their stints in Hanover.”

Several faculty members wrote to outside advisers of The Review, asking them to reconsider allowing their names to be associated with the publication. The regional office of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, in Boston, condemned it.

It is possible, of course, that Dhillon’s undergraduate escapade into antisemitism caused her such remorse that she subsequently experienced a conversion of sorts and became committed to ridding universities of similar acts of bigotry.

But nothing in her history after Dartmouth or her official biography suggests such a conversion.

The most probable explanation for her turnaround is simple ambition. Dhillon grabbed the opportunity to become assistant attorney general in charge of civil rights and agreed to use the charge of antisemitism as a weapon to carry out the Trump regime’s war on prestigious universities — not because they’re hotbeds of antisemitism, but because the authoritarian right considers them hotbeds of leftist ideology.

As JD Vance said in a 2021 speech titled ‘The Universities are the Enemy,’ “we have to honestly and aggressively attack the universities in this country.”

But the problem of antisemitism within the ranks of Trump Republicans runs much deeper than Dhillon.

Exhibit B is Kevin Roberts — president of the Heritage Foundation, creator of Trump’s Project 2025, and one of Trump’s most loyal supporters.

Roberts recently came to the defense of Tucker Carlson after Carlson’s friendly interview with Nick Fuentes, an ardent fan of Adolf Hitler, in which Carlson declined to challenge Fuentes’s bigoted beliefs or his remark about problems with “organized Jewry in America.”

Here’s what Roberts said:

“Tucker Carlson … always will be a close friend of the Heritage Foundation. The venomous coalition attacking him are sowing division. Conservatives should feel no obligation to reflexively support any foreign government, no matter how loud the pressure becomes from the globalist class or from their mouthpieces in Washington.”

To whom was Roberts referring when he spoke of “the venomous coalition” and “the globalist class”? These words are closely associated with antisemitism and are similar to those Fuentes has used.

Roberts went on to say:

“The Heritage Foundation didn’t become the intellectual backbone of the conservative movement by canceling our own people or policing the consciences of Christians, and we won’t start doing that now. My loyalty as a Christian and as an American is to Christ first and to America.”

But aren’t Jews as loyal to America as Christians? Again, Roberts seemed to be toying with an antisemitic trope, implicitly questioning the loyalty of American Jews to America.

When asked about the controversy, Trump refrained from criticizing Fuentes (with whom he has dined at Mar-a-Lago) and praised Carlson for having “said good things about me over the years” — adding “you can’t tell him who to interview” and “if he wants to interview Nick Fuentes — I don’t know much about him — but if he wants to do it, get the word out. People have to decide.”

Fuentes liked Trump’s response, posting “Thank you Mr. President!” on social media.

Fuentes’s influence is surely one test of whether Trump conservatives are willing to accommodate bigots in their coalition.

But the problem of antisemitism in the ranks of Trump Republicans runs deeper than one antisemitic crackpot. Indeed, it runs deeper than the apparent hypocrisies of Kevin Roberts or Harmeet Dhillon.

It touches on a central question that everyone inside the regime and all who support it must grapple with: When does Trump authoritarianism bleed into fascism — along with the antisemitism that has historically fueled it?

  • Robert Reich is a 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.

Hidden behind this Trump tantrum was a horrific — and very real — threat

As you’re probably aware, Trump on Wednesday berated ABC’s Chief White House correspondent, Mary Bruce, for asking a question in a way he didn’t like during his meeting with the Saudi crown prince.

“It’s not the question that I mind; it’s your attitude,” Trump told Bruce. “I think you are a terrible reporter. It’s the way you ask these questions.”

He added, “You’re a terrible person and a terrible reporter.”

Trump is entitled to his opinions, even if they put his thin skin on full display. Reporters should be able to tolerate insults from the malignant narcissist now occupying the Oval Office. In fact, journalists should treat them as badges of honor.

The truly troubling aspect of Trump’s interaction with Bruce — which hasn’t got nearly as much coverage as did his insults of her — is the threat he then made against ABC, presumably for allowing Bruce to cover the White House.

He referred to ABC as a “crappy company” and said the network’s broadcasting license “should be taken away” — adding that his top broadcast regulator, Brendan Carr, whose Federal Communications Commission grants licenses to local stations, “should look at that.”

Might this threat cause ABC to ask Bruce to tone down her inquiries? Or even cause ABC to replace her with someone more to Trump’s liking?

This isn’t an idle concern. In recent months Trump has on several occasions threatened to revoke ABC’s broadcasting license after ABC journalists asked him questions he didn’t like. Last year he sued ABC News for defamation. It was a bogus suit, which courts would have thrown out had it been litigated. Instead, the network paid out $16 million to settle it.

Trump has gone after CBS — suing the company, and then, through his lapdog Carr, blocking the sale of its parent corporation, Paramount, to the Ellison family until it settled the lawsuit. Presumably, CBS’s termination of Stephen Colbert’s contract was also viewed by Paramount as necessary to get Carr’s approval — Colbert has been one of the sharpest and most popular Trump critics on late night television.

Trump’s threats against media companies that employ hard-hitting journalists or Trump critics are never harmless.

Last weekend, in a post on Truth Social, Trump went on the attack against late-night host Seth Meyers, accusing him of “suffering from an incurable case of Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS).”

Again, a personal insult from Trump isn’t a concern. Meyers took it as a compliment, as he should.

But Trump then pivoted to threaten NBC, which employs Meyers — urging NBC to “fire him, IMMEDIATELY!”

I doubt NBC will fire Meyers. But I can’t be sure that NBC’s parent corporation, Comcast, will be as tolerant of Meyers — given that Comcast is now preparing a bid for Warner Bros Discovery (as are Netflix and Paramount).

The winning bid must be approved by Carr. Comcast executives likely took note of the fact that Carr reposted Trump’s message telling NBC to fire Meyers.

The lesson here: Pay no attention to Trump’s personal insults. By now they’re expected features of Trump’s childish responses to criticism.

But pay a great deal of attention to his threats to the profits of media corporations. That’s where the rest of us are most vulnerable to Trump’s ongoing efforts to suppress criticism of him and his regime.

We cannot know how much Trump has already chilled unfavorable reporting or criticism because media corporations fear what he could do to their bottom lines. (Jeff Bezos’s tawdry effort to censor the editorial board of the Washington Post may be just the tip of a shameful iceberg.)

When Trump is gone, add this to the lengthening list of necessary reforms: eliminate a president’s authority to appoint the chair of the Federal Communications Commission.

  • Robert Reich is a 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 horrifying comment exposed an ugly truth about America

When Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) arrived at the White House yesterday, he was met by a Marine band, officers on horseback carrying the Saudi and American flags, and fighter jets flying over the White House in a V formation.

It was far more pomp than visiting foreign leaders normally receive.

What had the crown prince done to merit such honor from the United States?

He has helped broker a tentative peace between Hamas and Israel. But so have Egypt, Qatar, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates.

The real reason for the honor is that MBS and the Saudis are doing lots of business with Trump’s family — and this visit is part of the payoff.

It’s MBS’s effort to rehabilitate his reputation after Saudi operatives murdered Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi and chopped his body into pieces with a bone saw: a killing that U.S. intelligence determined was greenlit by MBS.

But in yesterday’s joint Oval Office appearance — freighted with flattery between Trump and MBS — Trump brushed off a reporter’s question about MBS and the murder.

“A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about, whether you like him or didn’t like him, things happen,” said Trump, referring to Khashoggi.

Things happen?

When the reporter then asked MBS about the finding by U.S. intelligence, Trump quickly interjected:

“He knew nothing about it. You don’t have to embarrass our guest by asking something like that.”

All of which raises once again the question of who is honored in this upside-down Trump era, and who is subject to shame and disgrace.

Larry Summers, who had been secretary of the treasury under Bill Clinton and a high official in the Obama White House, said Monday he was “deeply ashamed” about his relationship with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and therefore would be “stepping back” from all public engagements as he works to “rebuild trust and repair relationships.”

New details of Summers’s relationship with Epstein emerged last week when a House committee released emails showing years of correspondence between the two men, including Summers’s sexist comments and his seeking Epstein’s romantic advice.

Consultants who specialize in rehabilitating the reputations of public figures often advise that they begin with a full public apology, along with a period in which they “step back” out of the limelight.

What separates consultant-driven contrition from the real thing depends on whether it involves any real personal sacrifice.

It’s not clear what Summers will have to sacrifice. Apparently he’ll continue in his role of University Professor at Harvard, the highest and most honorable rank a faculty member there can achieve. (Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has called on Harvard to sever ties with Summers to hold him accountable for his close friendship with Epstein.)

The same question — whom we honor, whom we shame, and who is genuinely contrite — is also relevant to Eric Adams’s final weeks as mayor of New York City, during which the pace of his foreign travel is increasing even as the city foots much of the bill. No contrition from the mayor — although he was indicted on corruption charges that focused, in part, on improper foreign travel.

And then comes Elon Musk, who, despite his reign of terror in the federal government, including a stack of court rulings finding what he did to be illegal, to say nothing of his blowup with Trump, will preside this weekend at a festive DOGE reunion in Austin at a high-end hotel where Musk often has a suite.

In this era of Trump, America’s moral authority — its capacity to separate right from wrong, and to pride itself doing (or at least trying to do) what is honorable — seems to have vanished, along with the norms on which that authority has been based.

Under Trump, the only normative rule is to gain as much power and money as possible. Power and wealth are honored, even if the honoree has greenlit a brutal murder.

The only exception appears to be pedophilia. Or close association with a pedophile, for which an earnest expression of contrition may be sufficient to get back on the honor track.

High on the list of things America must do when this period of moral squalor is behind us will be to restore real honor and real shame.

  • Robert Reich is a 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.

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