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Office Hours: Where they’re raging against the establishment

It’s one of the most powerful forces in America. How does it express itself?

Robert Reich Dec 11 ∙ Preview

Friends,

A groundswell of rage against the establishment has been growing in America for decades.

It became a gale-force wind after the Wall Street financial crisis of 2008, when banks that gambled with other people’s money had to be bailed out by taxpayers but millions of average Americans lost their savings, jobs, and homes.

It has been fomented by record levels of inequality. CEO pay has soared to 320 times that of average workers, and the stock market has reached staggering heights. At the same time, young men with no more than a high school degree are now earning 22 percent less, adjusted for inflation, than non-college young men earned 50 years ago.

And it’s become a deepening source of public distrust, as big money has taken over our politics. In the 2024 election, candidates raised $16 billion, much of it from a relative handful of billionaires.

Indicators of that rage are all around us.

Where can you find it?...