This week may be a nadir for the Biden administration. After Krysten Sinema’s very public refusal to budge on the filibuster, voting rights legislation is stuck. Senate Democrats plan to go through the motions (due to a parliamentary maneuver, it will be the first time the Senate will actually debate voting rights) but the effort is doomed as long as the filibuster remains. Similarly, after Joe Manchin’s refusal to agree to Biden’s “Build Back Better” package, Biden’s social and climate measure ...
Jan 18, 2022•5 min
The convergence today of Martin Luther King Jr. Day and of the Senate’s unwillingness to protect voting rights causes me to remember my childhood friend and protector, whom I knew as Mickey. I was always very short for my age, which made me an easy target for bullies. To protect myself, I got into the habit of befriending older boys who’d watch my back. One summer when I was around 8 years old I found Mickey, a kind and gentle teenager with a ready smile who made sure I stayed safe. Years went b...
Jan 17, 2022•7 min
These are hard times to keep your spirits up. Thinking you might need a bit of a boost, I’d like to introduce you to two young people who give me hope about the future of American politics. The first is Chloe Maxmin. I met her a few years ago when, still in her early-twenties and an unapologetic progressive, she had been elected to the Maine House of Representatives. She was the first Democrat ever to represent her district — Maine’s Lincoln County, the state’s most rural. The county also among ...
Jan 15, 2022•8 min
Capitalism and democracy are compatible only if democracy is in the driver’s seat. That’s why I took some comfort just after the attack on the Capitol when many big corporations solemnly pledged they’d no longer finance the campaigns of the 147 lawmakers who voted to overturn the election results. Well, those days are over. Turns out they were over the moment the public stopped paying attention. A report published last week by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington shows that over ...
Jan 14, 2022•8 min
It infuriates me when members of Congress — whether Republican or Democrat — squander the public’s trust. There’s so little of it left to squander. So when I find a conflict of interest by members of Congress for which there’s an easy remedy, I’m ready to shout it from the rooftops. And when I discover Congress won’t take action, I’m ready to scream. Today I want to talk about a very big conflict, with a very easy remedy. And I’d like your help getting the word out and putting pressure on Congre...
Jan 13, 2022•6 min
Yesterday, a member of our group named Emmet Bondurant, a distinguished constitutional lawyer from Georgia, commented on this page about the filibuster: The biggest lie of all is the Senate’s claim that it “is the greatest deliberative body in the world.” The filibuster makes the Senate the least deliberative legislative and least democratic legislative body by allowing a minority of Senators to prevent the Senate from debating, much less voting on, any legislation that is opposed by the minorit...
Jan 11, 2022•8 min
President Biden will go to Georgia tomorrow to give a speech on voting rights. It’s expected to be as hard-hitting as his speech last Thursday about Trump and the attack on the Capitol. Biden will push for reform of the senate filibuster to carve out voting rights from its 60-vote requirement, thereby opening the way for senate Democrats to enact the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Amendment Act. As you probably know, the Freedom to Vote Act would preempt state efforts to su...
Jan 10, 2022•8 min
We’ve gone through the shameful first anniversary of the attack on the U.S. Capitol and of the refusal of 147 members of Congress (all Republicans) to certify all the electors from states that voted for Biden, on the basis of no evidence of fraud. So far, no political figure has been charged with any criminal wrongdoing. We’ve seen 34 voter-suppression bills enacted by 19 Republican state legislatures; at least 8 give state legislatures the power to disregard election outcomes. More than 400 add...
Jan 08, 2022•9 min
I sometimes hear from people who tell me they’ve been fighting for years for the common good — for social justice, for a stronger democracy, for a sustainable environment — but they can’t do it any longer. They’re burnt out. “I’m done,” one of my former students wrote me last week. She’s been in the trenches for more than three years at a nonprofit dedicated to environmental justice, putting in 10 to 12-hour days, often six and sometimes seven days a week. “Maybe I’ve made a small difference,” s...
Jan 07, 2022•8 min
Friends, The words “anniversary” or “commemoration” do not appropriately characterize this day. What occurred a year ago is nothing to be memorialized, nothing to glorify. What happened on January 6, 2021 was frightening and shameful. That date shall live in infamy — like December 7, 1941 and 9/11. The difference is that on those days the United States was attacked by foreign powers, whereas on this date the United States was attacked by Americans — some waving American flags, most of them loyal...
Jan 06, 2022•2 min
Friends, With Trump’s Big Lie largely unchallenged by Republican lawmakers, the Republican Party has swung almost entirely into the Trump camp. Over 70 percent of registered Republicans believe Trump won the 2020 election. Trump has worked to purge from the state and national party anyone he considers insufficiently loyal to him. His closest supporters have become so extreme that they are openly supporting authoritarianism and talking of Democrats as “vermin.” Meanwhile, more than a third of Ame...
Jan 05, 2022•3 min
Last week I suggested that Trump maintains a hold on a large fraction of America because he fills a void created by a system that has left them behind. I followed with the question raised by Frank Capra’s iconic film “ It’s a Wonderful Life ,” in which the greedy Mr. Potter tries to take over Bedford Falls: Do we join together or let the Potters of America own and run everything? We’re well on the way to the Potterizing of America. To take one example, the expanded child tax credit payments will...
Jan 04, 2022•8 min
Before we turn to what I’m calling the "Potterizing” of America (the consolidation of wealth and power in the hands of a few at the very top), we need to deal with one of its shameful consequences that will be front and center this week: accountability for Trump’s ongoing attempted coup and the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Thursday marks the first anniversary of that attack. Last Wednesday I discussed four truths underlying the attack: (1) Trump incited it, (2) it culminated two months of hi...
Jan 03, 2022•9 min
Happy new year. I hope it’s a safe and healthy one for you and your family. Over the last few days I’ve shared with you some facts and thoughts about Trump’s continuing attempted coup. I’ve also suggested that an answer to it (and to Trumpism in general) can be found in Frank Capra’s 1946 iconic movie “ It’s a Wonderful Life ” and the central question it posed: Do we join together, or let the Mr. Potters of America own and run everything? Today, the first of 2022, struck me as an appropriate one...
Jan 01, 2022•4 min
My post yesterday on the real lesson of January 6 provoked a great discussion (many thanks to those of you who participated). It also prompted me to rewatch a movie that provides a hint of an answer — Frank Capra’s “ It’s a Wonderful Life, ” which was released 75 years ago this month. When I first saw the movie in the late 1960s, I thought it pure hokum. America was coming apart over Vietnam and the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, and I remember thinking the movi...
Dec 30, 2021•7 min
I’m sorry to intrude on your holiday week with this, but I want you to be prepared for what’s to come next week. January 6 will be the first anniversary of one of the most shameful days in American history. On that date in 2021, the United States Capitol was attacked by thousands of armed loyalists to Donald Trump, some intent on killing members of Congress. Roughly 140 officers were injured in the attack . Five people died that day. But even now, almost a year later, Americans remain confused a...
Dec 29, 2021•12 min
My father once said that at the 1939 World’s Fair he saw an exhibit about the future featuring “picture phones” that allowed people to talk and see each other. He predicted the gadgets would fail because users would find them awkward and unnerving. Well, that future is now — and it’s not awkward in the slightest. I just had FaceTime calls with my two sons and their families (including two wonderful daughters-in-law and a granddaughter) – one in New York, the other in Los Angeles. I can’t tell yo...
Dec 28, 2021•5 min
‘Tis the time to cash in gift certificates, shop for post-Christmas bargains, and fill shelves and closets with more stuff. I for one don’t want anything more, thank you. My shelves are already overflowing with books. My attic is full of old chairs and tables, chafing dishes, pictures, games, children’s toys, ski equipment, stereos, a broken easel. My closet can’t fit any more clothes, most of which I haven’t worn in years. I’m drowning in stuff. Once a year (usually around the holidays), I drop...
Dec 27, 2021•7 min
Friends, The reason I write this newsletter is not just to inform (and occasionally amuse) you, but also to arm you with the truth so you can fight more effectively for the common good. The forces undermining our democracy, polluting our planet, and stoking hatred and inequality have many weapons at their disposal — lobbyists, media megaphones, and money to bribe lawmakers. But their most powerful weapon is cynicism. They’re betting that if they can get us to feel like we can’t make a difference...
Dec 24, 2021•8 min
Democrats still hope they can salvage pieces of their ambitious tax agenda even after Sen. Joe Manchin blew up the legislation that included it. I’m sick of trying to fathom Manchin’s mind or motives but senate Democrats think he’s sincere about tax reform. In a Monday interview on a West Virginia radio station, Manchin pointedly said that ensuring people pay “their fair share” of taxes is the main reason he’s come this far in negotiations. “You have a chance to fix the tax code that makes it fa...
Dec 23, 2021•6 min
When it comes to the surging Omicron variant of COVID, just about all I’m hearing is advice about holiday planning. Should one attend a holiday party? Travel ? Meet friends at a restaurant ? Much of the answer boils down to how to calculate one’s tolerance for risk when so little is known about Omicron except that it spreads easily. Experts are throwing around a lot of numbers . Columnists are sharing their own personal calculations . I understand. We’re all a bit spooked and don’t know exactly ...
Dec 21, 2021•6 min
With the Senate now adjourned for the holidays and Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better” social and climate package stalled if not dead (Senator Joe Manchin went on Fox News yesterday to announce he won’t support it)*, Biden’s remaining agenda is now at the mercy of the 2022 midterm election year — a perilous time to get anything enacted. So what should be Biden’s and the Democrat’s first priority when the Senate returns in January? I’m sure Biden still wants his Build Back Better package passed. But ...
Dec 20, 2021•8 min
Rumor has it that I’ll be teaching remotely again this spring because of the Omicron variant. No official word from Berkeley yet, but the variant seems to be crashing through campuses all over the nation, even where almost everyone is vaccinated. Many universities are already closing classroom doors, as they did in March 2020. I’m glad universities are being careful. But I’ve got to tell you: I hate the idea of going back to teaching remotely. Teaching students through the lens of my laptop is l...
Dec 17, 2021•5 min
Time magazine has named Elon Musk as its 2021 “Person of the Year,” calling him “the man who aspires to save our planet and get us a new one to inhabit.” Oh, please. This is the man who downplayed the pandemic — predicting in March 2020 that there would be “probably close to zero new cases” in the United States by the end of April, and that “the coronavirus panic is dumb.” As infections surged, he called quarantine measures “fascist” and demanded that officials return people’s “freedom.” He then...
Dec 15, 2021•4 min
I’m often asked how I keep up with the news. Obviously, I avoid the unhinged rightwing outlets pushing misinformation, disinformation, and poisonous lies. But I’ve also grown a bit wary of the mainstream media –- the New York Times, Washington Post , CNN, and other dominant outlets — not because they peddle “fake news” (their reporting is usually first-rate) but because of three more subtle biases. First, they often favor the status quo. Mainstream journalists wanting to appear serious about pub...
Dec 14, 2021•5 min
It turns out that most of the people I deal with daily – the people I talk with, meet with, collaborate with, teach, zoom with, and have lunch and coffee with – are 50 years younger than I am. They’re in their mid-20s. I’m in my mid-70s. Most of the time I don’t think about the half-century gulf between us, but occasionally it slams me in the face. As when I catch our reflection in the window of a coffee shop and wonder, just for an instant, who that old man is hanging out with those young peopl...
Dec 11, 2021•4 min
Thank you for subscribing to my newsletter on power, politics, and the real economy. If you’d like to support this work, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Workers in one Starbucks store, in Buffalo, New York, made history yesterday by becoming Starbuck’s first unionized workplace. It’s a watershed for the biggest coffee seller in the world, which operates 8,953 stores in the United States — and which has done everything in its power to keep its workers from forming a union. The vote it...
Dec 10, 2021•6 min
Tomorrow begins Joe Biden’s two-day “Summit for Democracy,” whose avowed goal is to rally the nations of the world against the forces of authoritarianism. Yet some of the authoritarian forces that pose the gravest threat to American democracy (and to other democracies around the world) are homegrown in the U.S. -- such as the former guy’s Big Lie and refusal to concede the 2020 election, his attempted coup, his instigation of the deadly January 6 insurrection, and his open encouragement of Repub...
Dec 08, 2021•2 min
I’ve got a special place near my heart for Dan & Whit’s general store in Norwich, Vermont. It was there for me during my undergraduate years in college in nearby Hanover, New Hampshire — often on snowy evenings when I couldn’t get supplies elsewhere. Years later, when my parents moved to Vermont for their retirement, Dan & Whit’s was there for them, too. Like many places around the country, Vermont has been struggling with finding enough workers to fill jobs. But unlike most urban centers, where...
Dec 07, 2021•6 min
Friends, You will hear lots of reports this week about whether the economy is strengthening or weakening, whether Biden’s “Build Back Better” bill will get fifty votes in the Senate, and whether the Omicron variant of Covid will rapidly spread in the United States. What you will not hear is how closely these three questions are related to each other and to the strength of our system as a whole. Economics, politics, and public health are often treated as separate topics -- each with its own repor...
Dec 06, 2021•7 min
