Robert Reich

The True Catastrophe of Trump, as seen from north of the border
A view from our neighbor





Friends,

Some of the most useful insights into what’s happening to America are coming from political analysts outside the United States. Here’s a particularly lucid essay by Andrew Coyne that appeared in the December 5 edition of Canada’s The Globe and Mail.

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Donald Trump — and American democracy — is getting exponentially worse


Andrew Coyne

I wish I could say I told you so. A point I have tried to make over the last year or so is that Donald Trump can only get worse: that however corrupt or incompetent or dictatorial or treasonous or insane he may appear at any given moment, it will inevitably come to be seen as a relative golden age beside what is to come.

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Robert Reich

The Joseph Welch Award for Standing Up to Tyrants Goes To …
Republican senators in the Hoosier State, whose civic tradition won out over fanatical political warfare




Friends,

Especially in these dark times, it’s important to salute courageous individuals who stand up to Trump’s tyranny.

My latest Joseph Welch Award (named after the courageous attorney who stood up to Joseph McCarthy in the 1954 Army-McCarthy hearings) goes to the 21 Indiana Senate Republicans who stood up to Trump last Thursday.

Indiana’s GOP-controlled state Senate rejected 31 to 19 the map that would have gerrymandered two more safe red seats. The vote may have imperiled the Republican Party’s chances of holding control of Congress next November, but it strengthened American democracy.

The failed vote was the culmination of a no-holds-barred, four-month pressure campaign from Trump and his White House on recalcitrant Indiana Republicans. The pressure included private meetings and public shaming from Trump, along with Trump’s threats to primary them next time they’re up for election (“They … should DO THEIR JOB, AND DO IT NOW!” Trump posted. “If not, let’s get them out of office.”).

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Robert Reich

Sunday thought: How Christmas will steal the Trump
His malignant narcissism prevents him from understanding public anxiety about the cost of living





Friends,

Trump gave what was billed as a “Christmas speech” in rural Pennsylvania this past week that began with his “wishing each and every one of you a very merry Christmas, happy New Year, all of that stuff” and boasting that now, under his presidency, “everybody’s saying ‘merry Christmas’ again.”

Then he claimed — contrary to the experience of nearly everyone in the crowd — that he had gotten them “lower prices” and “bigger paychecks.” And asserted that anyone having difficulty making ends meet should just cut back on buying stuff. “You can give up certain products. You can give up pencils … Every child can get 37 pencils. They only need one or two,” he said, adding, “You don’t need 37 dolls for your daughter. Two or three is nice. You don’t need 37 dolls.”

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Robert Reich

What my doctor told me, and what I said back






Friends,

My doctor told me I should relax more. The problem, she assured me, is not that I have high blood pressure or an aggressive cancer or any other particularly worrying health issue — “apart from those expected of someone my age.”

“My age?” I asked.

“You’ll be 80 in June,” she said. “So you should take it easier.”

She doesn’t like it that I work as hard as I do. “You’re writing at least one — what is it called? Substack — every day, I hear. Sometimes two. And putting out videos. And promoting a movie and your new book. And giving talks.”

I copped a plea to it all.

“It’s too much. You need to relax more,” she said.

“I feel okay,” I assured her.

“Have you considered meditation? Long walks? Dancing? Gardening?” she asked.

“I like what I do.”

“You’re spending too much time at your computer,” she said. “It’s bad for your neck and shoulders. Bad for your back. You’ll get arthritis in your hands.”

“I already have arthritis in my hands.”

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Robert Reich

Office Hours: What Will Trump Do to Divert Attention from His Mounting Failures?




Friends,

We all know by now that whenever Trump is cornered, he deflects attention. He distracts the public from whatever is causing him problems by doing something even bigger and more outrageous, like a magician diverting an audience while he hides the rabbit.

Trump is now cornered, big time. His polls are plummeting, Voters are frustrated with his handling of affordability. He claims he deserves an “A-plus-plus-plus-plus-plus” on the economy but most disagree. Prices continue to soar.

Congressional Republicans are in revolt. GOP hardliners are upset with Trump’s “peace” plan for Ukraine, which looks like what Putin has wanted all along. Isolationists are angry about his intervention in Venezuela. Others want to know about the bombing of vessels allegedly smuggling drugs into the U.S., including the second strike that killed two survivors.

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Robert Reich

How Can Outrageous CEO Pay be Stopped?
Here's One Good Answer





Friends,

As you know by now, I don’t like raising big problems without offering big potential solutions.

The big problem I want to talk about today is that CEO pay has become utterly untethered from reality.

When I was a young man in the 1960s and ’70s, CEOs typically made 20 to 30 times the pay of their workers. That was enough to reward leadership, but not so much as to distort the entire economy and alienate workers who could still aspire to the American Dream.

Today, the gap between CEO pay and the pay of average workers has exploded. The average CEO at a major corporation now takes home nearly 300 times what their employees earn.

In some cases, the disparity is so grotesque it defies belief. For example:

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Robert Reich

Who’s the Last Person in the World to Deserve the Nobel Peace Prize?
The person who’s been waging illegal wars





Friends,

Trump recently had his name engraved on the U.S. Institute of Peace — now renamed the “Donald J. Trump U.S. Institute of Peace.” On Wednesday, the White House confirmed the renaming, calling it “a powerful reminder of what strong leadership can accomplish for global stability.”

Actually, it’s a reminder of what a strong malignant narcissist can accomplish when untethered from reality.

On Friday, Gianni Infantino, president of FIFA, the world football league, awarded Trump the first (and likely last) annual FIFA Peace Prize — along with a hagiographic video of Trump and “peace.”

What FIFA has to do with peace is anyone’s guess, but Infantino is evidently trying to curry favor with Trump. (Infantino, by the way, oversaw the 2020 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, defending and minimizing Qatar’s miserable human rights record. He also played a key role in selecting Saudi Arabia to host the 2034 FIFA World Cup, notwithstanding the Saudi murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.)

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Robert Reich

Sunday thought: Really, truly, the end of Trump is near
MAGA is cracking up, but beware





Friends,

Ten and a half long months ago, America began spiraling in a terrifying direction. We knew Trump was bad; his first term had been a calamity. But few of us were prepared for the catastrophe that awaited us in the second.

Part of it came because Republicans gained control of both chambers of Congress, and Trump was able to intimidate and browbeat them into submitting to whatever he wanted to do.

Now, finally, the ground is shifting.

Some congressional Republicans are turning hawkish on the budget and reject Trump’s zany notion of $2,000 “tariff dividend” checks, as well as his stated desire to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies for two years.

Russian hawks dislike Trump’s love fest with Putin on Ukraine.

Nor did they appreciate his happy meeting with Zohran Mamdani.

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Robert Reich

What Democrats Must Pledge to America
Ten ways to make America more affordable





Friends,

Trump’s economy is truly sh*tty 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.

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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.

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Robert Reich

The clearest symptom yet of Trump’s mental decline
His brain is turning into sh*t


Friends,

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.”

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Robert Reich

The Most Dangerous Corporation in America
Please help spread the word






Friends,

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.

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Robert Reich

The Monetization of Rage
Why We’re So Polarized (II)





Friends,

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.

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Robert Reich

Winner of this week’s Joseph Welch Award
For standing up to tyranny. In honor of attorney Joseph Welch, who represented the U.S. Army in the Army-McCarthy Hearings of June 1954.

Former federal judge Mark L. Wolf

Friends,

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.

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Robert Reich

Sunday thought: The Bigot in the Oval Office
Like dictators before him, Trump’s road to tyranny is paved with hate

Tim Folzenlogan, “Winter Liberty” (1991)

Friends,

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.

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Robert Reich

Trump, the Pope, and me

Mr. Potter, er, Trump

The real meaning of Pope Leo’s and my favorite film



Friends,

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.

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Robert Reich

Senator Mark E. Kelly, Patriot of Patriots
The contrast between him and Pete Hegseth or Trump couldn’t be larger






Friends,

On Monday, the social media account of Pete Hegseth’s so-called “Department of War” posted that the department is investigating Senator Mark Kelly, 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 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. 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.

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Robert Reich

A toxic combo: Trump, Billionaires, and the Media
What to do about it





Friends,

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.

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Robert Reich

How to Get Rid of “Citizens United”
We can do away with it without a new Supreme Court. Nor do we need a constitutional amendment. There’s a far simpler way.





Friends,

Several of you responded to my “Sunday thought” yesterday by saying 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.

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Robert Reich

Sunday thought
The rot at the top





Friends,

Ten months of this shit. Enough to make one scream, run stark naked in the streets, mount a revolution.

But we have to play the long game. In that long game, America learns from this catastrophe — and turns those lessons into laws, rules, and norms that prevent this from ever happening again.

Much has been revealed lately, both about Trump and the rot at the top of our system.

Trump’s attempted cover-up of his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein has riveted the nation’s attention to the moral depravity of many rich and powerful men who raped children, with impunity.

Trump’s celebration of the Saudi crown prince who ordered the brutal killing of a Washington Post reporter has shown the moral vacuity of the CEOs who flocked to the White House dinner to honor the prince because they want his investments.

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Robert Reich

Antisemitism in Trumpworld?
It is an inherent part of neofascism





Friends,

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.”

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