Tonight, we learned several things from the first hearing of the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol: 1. After the riot began on January 6, many White House officials, including members of Trump’s own family, urged him to call off the rioters. He did not. Presumably the committee will provide detailed evidence of this. 2. When told that the rioters wanted to lynch Vice President Pence for being unwilling to stop the certification by electors, Trump said ...
Jun 10, 2022•5 min
My friends, I’m going to press the pause button on today’s news — including the House January 6 hearings that start this evening — and try to answer a big question that hangs over American politics right now like a sword of Damocles: Does Joe Biden have a snowball’s chance of being re-elected in 2024? With his current approval rate in the cellar, most pundits assume no (at age 81, he’d also be the oldest person ever elected president, slightly exceeding the typical American’s lifespan). The conv...
Jun 09, 2022
Last Friday — after Elon Musk said he planned to cut thousands of jobs at Tesla and also expressed worry over the economy — Joe Biden dismissed him with a zinger: “Lots of luck on his trip to the moon.” There’s no love lost between them. The fiercely anti-union Musk has been livid ever since pro-union Biden pushed a provision in a bill that would benefit electric-car makers that are unionized at the expense of those that are not (namely Tesla). In recent weeks Musk has said he has become a Repub...
Jun 07, 2022•6 min
The televised hearings of the House Select Committee on the January 6 insurrection, which begin Thursday, mark an historic milestone in the battle between democracy and autocracy. The events that culminated in the attack on the Capitol constitute the first attempted presidential coup in our nation’s 233-year history. The Select Committee’s inquiry is the most important congressional investigation of presidential wrongdoing since the Senate investigation of the Watergate scandals in the 1970s. To...
Jun 06, 2022•10 min
My informal weekly coffee with Heather Lofthouse (the executive director of Inequality Media Civic Action, and my former student), discussing the past week. In this morning’s klatch we discuss whether Congress will do anything to restrict gun purchases (Biden’s passionate plea notwithstanding), how long America will be willing to supply weapons to Ukraine, the likely outcome from next week’s hearings by the House’s special committee investigating the January 6 insurrection, the winner of the nat...
Jun 04, 2022•14 min
I was an intern in Bobby Kennedy’s Senate office during the summer of 1967. The civil rights movement was still gaining ground, and Kennedy was crusading for economic and political justice. My job that summer had nothing to do civil rights or justice, though. And it required only half a brain. I was in charge of Kennedy’s signature machine. The machine’s pen mechanically scrawled “Robert F. Kennedy” on thousands of photographs and constituent letters each day. I had to make sure the photos and l...
Jun 03, 2022•3 min
After a mass shooting in Parkland, Florida in February 2018, that left 17 people dead, JPMorgan Chase — America’s largest bank — publicly distanced itself from the firearm industry. Its chief financial officer reassured the media that the bank’s relationships with gunmakers “ have come down significantly and are pretty limited. ” That was then. This past September, a new Texas law went into effect that bans state agencies from working with any firm that “discriminates” against companies or indiv...
Jun 02, 2022•5 min
We have been through at least two years of social trauma (if you include all the Trump years, almost six). They include a pandemic that has taken the lives of over a million Americans. Wildfires, floods, and other climate disasters. Police brutality. Trump’s attempted coup and continued attacks on our democracy. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. The Supreme Court’s pending reversal of reproductive rights. A mass killing of Black people in Buffalo followed by a mass killing of children in Texas. Other...
May 31, 2022•5 min
Hello, friends. I hope you’re having a restful and safe Memorial Day. Today, I want to ask: Can anything positive come from last week’s tragedy? Or the mass shooting ten days before, in Buffalo? Can anything positive come from the Supreme Court’s imminent decision to reverse Roe v. Wade ? Making your own decision about whether to have a child, and keeping any child you do have out of harm’s way, are surely two of the most basic of all human needs. Yet both are fiercely resisted — the first by ev...
May 30, 2022
My informal weekly coffee with Heather Lofthouse (the executive director of Inequality Media Civic Action, and my former student), discussing this past —especially tough — week. As usual, pull up a chair and bring your morning cup. Today’s conversation touches on talking to young children about mass shootings, what we can learn from the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban, Trump losing credibility in the primaries, how we confront fatalism, if we should worry about Biden’s ratings, and the fact that many p...
May 28, 2022•13 min
I think about those 19 children who were murdered in their classroom on Tuesday, and feel the need to go back to basics — to the common good. Given the the difficulty of enacting sensible laws to reduce gun violence — which reflects in part the deepening split between Americans who believe in democracy and those who are throwing in their lot with Trump authoritarians — the question I keep coming back to is: what can we can do to rekindle a sense of common good? One of the most important initiati...
May 26, 2022•13 min
Yesterday, the Game Workers Alliance (a union of quality assurance workers at Activism subsidiary studio Raven Software) won their vote to form a union. This may not seem like such a big deal, but it is. The games industry is large and growing. Quality assurance testers do the grunt work of rooting out bugs and potential problems in the weeks and months before games are released publicly. These jobs are typically among the lowest in the game industry, with demanding workloads finding and catalog...
May 24, 2022•11 min
The richest person in America tweeted last week that Democrats have “become the party of division & hate, so I can no longer support them and will vote Republican.” Hello? Democrats are the party of division and hate? What planet has Elon been living on? Meanwhile, the second-richest person in America (Jeff Bezos) tweeted that the Democrats’ proposed tax hikes on the rich will not tame inflation and their proposed spending would worsen it (he’s wrong, and I’ll explain why in another post). In ad...
May 23, 2022•7 min
My informal weekly coffee with Heather Lofthouse (my former student and executive director of Inequality Media Civic Action), exploring the lows and few highs of the week. As usual, pull up a chair and bring your morning cup. Today our conversation touches on the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) being held in Budapest, why Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have it out for President Biden and the Dems, what Doug Mastriano’s Pennsylvania primary win could mean for the 2024 election, what’s h...
May 21, 2022•18 min
Decades ago, America’s wealthy backed a Republican establishment that believed in fiscal conservatism, anti-communism, and constitutional democracy. But today’s billionaire class is pushing a radically anti-democratic agenda for America — backing Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen, calling for restrictions on voting, and even questioning the value of democracy. Peter Thiel, the billionaire tech financier who is among those leading the charge, writes “I no longer believe that freedom a...
May 19, 2022•6 min
Hello friends, In 2017, Donald Trump repeatedly lied that between 3 and 5 million unauthorized immigrants had voted for Hillary Clinton. In the last few weeks, Trump has resurrected his lie during campaign rallies for the Republican primary candidates he has endorsed — whipping up fears of “ open borders and horrible elections, ” and calling for stricter voter ID laws and proof of citizenship at the ballot box. Trump endorsees have been amplifying the lie. J.D. Vance, the Trump-backed winner of ...
May 17, 2022•6 min
In a comment on this past Saturday’s post, Paula OH said: “It’s a very tough time. We need a hope machine! Anyone know how to build one?” My answer to Paula is a resounding: “yes!” And in a moment I’ll give Paula and you some hammers, nails, and solar panels to build one. First, though, I want to validate your discouragement. We expected COVID to be gone by now. We thought the minimum wage would be raised by now, that bold measures to slow climate change would be enacted by now, that pharmaceuti...
May 16, 2022•9 min
My informal weekly coffee with Heather Lofthouse (my former student and executive director of Inequality Media Civic Action), exploring the lows and few highs of the week. As usual, pull up a chair and bring your morning cup. If you somebody who might enjoy a conversation over coffee, please share. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robertreich.substack.com/subscribe...
May 14, 2022•13 min
Hello again, friends. After pro-choice protesters showed up outside the homes of Justice Samuel Alito and two other justices — peacefully chanting while walking in the street that lacked sidewalks — the editorial board of the Washington Post described such protests as “problematic” because they “bring direct public pressure to bear on a decision-making process that must be controlled, evidence-based and rational if there is to be any hope of an independent judiciary.” I’m sympathetic to this vie...
May 12, 2022•6 min
Hello friends. I hope you’re reasonably well, under the circumstances. Today I want to talk to you about leaks. I’ve had a lot of experience with them. I spent almost half my adult life in Washington. Justice Samuel Alito’s first draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade — which was leaked to Politico — was dated February 10. It is probably obsolete by now, as other justices have had time to offer critiques, dissents, and revisions. But according to another leak from the Supreme Court — this one occ...
May 10, 2022•6 min
My informal weekly morning coffee with Heather Lofthouse (my former student and Executive Director of Inequality Media), exploring the lows of the week. As usual, pull up a chair and bring your morning cup. If you know others who might enjoy a conversation over coffee, please share. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robertreich.substack.com/subscribe...
May 07, 2022
The Supreme Court’s upcoming decision to reverse Roe v. Wade (an early draft of which was leaked Monday) doesn’t ban abortions; it leaves the issue to the states. As a result, it will put another large brick in the growing wall separating Blue and Red America. Some say we’re on the verge of a civil war, but that’s not right. It won’t be a formal secession (we tried that once), but a kind of benign separation analogous to unhappily married people who don’t want to go through the trauma of a forma...
May 05, 2022•10 min
The beginning of May before midterm elections marks the start of primary season and six months of fall campaigning. The conventional view this year is Democrats will be clobbered in November. Why? Because midterms are usually referendums on a president’s performance, and Biden’s approval ratings are in the cellar. But the conventional view could be wrong because it doesn’t account for the Democrats’ secret sauce, which gives them a fighting chance of keeping one or both chambers: Trump Sauce. Ac...
May 03, 2022•7 min
Consider the larger pattern. Putin invades Ukraine. Trump refuses to concede and promotes his Big Lie. Rightwing politicians in America and Europe fuel white Christian nationalism. Rightwing television pundits encourage racism and spur bigotry toward immigrants. Police kill innocent Black people with impunity. Powerful men sexually harass and abuse women. Politicians target LGBTQ youth. CEOs who are raking in record profits and pay give workers meager wages and fire them for unionizing. The rich...
May 02, 2022•8 min
My informal weekly coffee klatch with Heather Lofthouse (my former student and Executive Director of Inequality Media) exploring the highs and lows of the week. As usual, pull up a chair and bring your morning cup. If you know others who might enjoy a good conversation over coffee, please share. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robertreich.substack.com/subscribe...
Apr 30, 2022•15 min
Guardrails against dangerous lies on Twitter? Now that Elon has total control over one of the major ways Americans find out what’s happening (I know, I know -- Twitter is vapid and filled with smears and jeers, but it has a hugely important role in shaping the news), what can be done to establish guardrails against dangerous lies? It seems likely that Musk will take down the few guardrails that remain on Twitter — but some guardrails are surely needed to prevent malicious harassment or dangerous...
Apr 28, 2022•7 min
As Trump’s big lie of a stolen election began ricocheting across America in November 2020, Arizona’s Republican attorney general Mark Brnovich (pronounced “Burn-O-Vich”) spoke out forcefully on national television. He told the public that Donald Trump was projected to lose the swing state, and “no facts” suggested otherwise. (At the time I thought to myself “good for him. Maybe more Republican attorneys general will show some spine.”) That was then. Recently, Brnovich — now running for Senate in...
Apr 26, 2022•4 min
Elon Musk struck a deal today to buy Twitter for roughly $44 billion, in a victory by the world’s richest man. Twitter agreed to sell itself to Musk for $54.20 a share, a 38 percent premium over the company’s share price this month before he revealed he was the firm’s single largest shareholder. Twitter’s founder and top managers had offered Musk a seat on the board but he didn't take it because he'd have to be responsible to all other shareholders. Now, he doesn’t have to be accountable to anyo...
Apr 25, 2022•5 min
Another weekly informal conversation with Heather Lofthouse (my former student and now executive director of Inequality Media) on the news of the week. Please pull up a chair and a hot mug. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robertreich.substack.com/subscribe
Apr 23, 2022•16 min
We recoil in horror as Putin and his forces wreak havoc and death on Ukraine — before our eyes and in real time. Both Putin and Ukraine President Zelensky repeatedly invoke “nationalism” and “patriotism,” but Putin’s nationalism and patriotism are manufactured to justify this brutal and unprovoked aggression while Zelensky’s words explain astonishing sacrifices now being made by ordinary Ukrainians to protect their freedom, democracy, and homeland. Donald Trump uses the same words, too — as do h...
Apr 21, 2022•9 min
