The March on Washington, 60 years ago today How the economic progress of Black people has been stymied by the stagnation of the white working class. ROBERT REICH AUG 28 I remember. Do you? Sixty years ago today, Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, seeking to focus the nation’s attention on civil rights and jobs. I was a high school junior, watching the event from afar on TV. I was mesmerized by the power of King’s oratory, overcome by his grace and hope. One of my mother’s friends, visiting at the time, called Dr. King a “troublemaker.” That was the last I ever saw of her. He was a troublemaker, in the sense that the late civil rights leader and Congressman John Lewis used the term: He was a maker of “good trouble.” Dr. King’s speech, as well as the March on Washington, focused on economic discrimination and the lack of decent jobs for Black Americans. The civil rights leaders who organized the events made sure to include white labor organizer Walter Reuther, the head of the United Auto Workers. Today, 60 years later, I can’t resist asking: How much progress has been made since then? Poverty rates for Black Americans have fallen over the past 60 years. According to the latest data, a smaller proportion of Black people live in poverty than ever before. The Black poverty rate is 18.8 percent — about half what it was in 1966 — but still high in comparison to other races. The average income of Black households, after growing through the 1960s and 1970s, seemed to hit a ceiling. It is now around 65 percent of that of white households, where it’s been for some 40 years. The typical Black household now has around $24,000 in savings, investments, home equity, and other elements of wealth. The typical white household, around $189,000. If anything, the racial wealth gap has worsened. Mortality rates are far higher among Black women than white women, including deaths in childbirth. Police brutality against Black people continues. Hate crimes against Black people continue. Black children are disproportionately hurt or killed by gun violence. Why hasn’t more progress been made? One reason has to do with the economic stagnation of the white working class and the shrinkage of the American middle class, especially over the last four decades. It’s been hard for poor Black people to move up the ladder when so many of the lower rungs on that ladder are already occupied and the middle rungs are missing. Many white Americans in the bottom half are barely holding on — working paycheck to paycheck, fearing they could fall backward at any time, frustrated that their children aren’t doing better than they did at a comparable age. Meanwhile, white people at or near the top have gained so much wealth they’ve been able to effectively secede from the rest of America into wealthy enclaves. They don’t any longer see the struggles of the bottom half. Being rich in America today means not coming across anyone who isn’t. All of this has encouraged Republican leaders over the last several decades to use racial “dog whistles” to court the white working class. It’s prompted recent Republican “culture warriors” to attack diversity, equity, and inclusion and to roll back efforts to give schoolchildren honest accounts of the nation’s history of racism. And it’s encouraged Republican presidents to appoint Supreme Court justices who have eviscerated the 1965 Voting Rights Act — the crowning achievement of the Civil Rights Movement — thereby allowing restrictive voting laws in states with long-standing histories of racial discrimination. Republican appointees to the court have also barred the use of affirmative action in higher education. Dr. King understood that Black Americans could not get ahead if white Americans could not get ahead and vice versa. The destinies of lower-wage white and Black Americans were inextricably connected. As he said sixty years ago today, “many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.” With wealth and power now more concentrated at the top of America than at any time in the last 60 years, the only way the bottom half can advance is if the poor and working class join together with what’s left of the middle class in a multiracial, multiethnic political coalition. That prospect scares the American oligarchy more than anything.

RSN: FOCUS: Bernie Sanders | We, as Progressives, Are Now Engaged in Many Struggles

15 July 22

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FOCUS: Bernie Sanders | We, as Progressives, Are Now Engaged in Many Struggles
Bernie Sanders, Reader Supported News
Sanders writes: "In this unprecedented moment in American history we, as progressives, are now engaged in many struggles."

In this unprecedented moment in American history we, as progressives, are now engaged in many struggles.

We are trying to save the planet from the ravages of climate change; we’re trying to create an economy that works for all and not just billionaires; we’re trying to defend and improve American democracy against those who are moving us toward authoritarianism; we’re trying to create a public health care system which guarantees health care to all and protects us against future COVID variants; we’re trying to protect a woman’s right to control her own body against a reactionary Supreme Court; and we’re trying to address the horror of increased gun violence. Among many other things.

But, in the midst of all these struggles, we cannot simply remain on the defensive. At a time of obscene income and wealth inequality, outrageous corporate greed, and the growing concentration of oligarchic power, it’s important that we contrast our vision for the future of this country, our values, against those who wish to defend the status quo and our corrupt political and economic systems. In other words, this is not a time for tinkering around the edges. The American people are desperately hungry for a new direction — economically, politically, morally — and we must not be shy about demanding the bold and systemic changes this country needs. We must make it clear that:

Greed is not good. The growing gap between the billionaire class and everyone else is not good. Buying elections is not good. Producing carbon emissions and destroying the planet is not good. Starvation wages and the exploitation of workers are not good. War and excessive military budgets are not good. Making huge profits off of human illness is not good. Charging people the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs is not good. Having a corporate media which limits the scope of public discourse is not good. Monopolization of the economy is not good. Ignoring the needs of the most vulnerable – children, the elderly, and the disabled – is not good. Racism, sexism, homophobia, and xenophobia are not good.

If we truly wish to make America great, we need to strive for an equitable distribution of both wealth and power. In the richest country in the history of the world we should end austerity economics and use the exploding technology to benefit all, not just the few. We should strive to be a nation that has eliminated poverty and homelessness, and where every worker has a livable income, the right to join a union, and increased influence on the job. We should have a political system which encourages grassroots participation, not one heavily influenced by super PACs and wealthy campaign contributors.

We should have the best educational system in the world from childcare to graduate school – accessible to all regardless of income. We should have a high-quality health care system where all people can walk into a doctor’s office without worrying about the cost, because the system is publicly funded. Instead of spending more money on the military than the next ten nations combined, we should lead the world in efforts to eliminate war and climate change.

I do understand that these are difficult times in so many ways, and that many Americans are demoralized and discouraged. But, as I have said many times, despair is not an option. We are fighting not only for ourselves. We are fighting for our kids and future generations, and for the well-being of the planet.

During the next several months I will be traveling around the country doing my best to bring people together in the struggle for economic, racial, social and environmental justice. I hope you will join us at these events and help make them successful.

In solidarity,

Bernie

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The Democrat's disease The Roots of Trumpism (Part 3) Robert Reich Jul 8 --:-- --:-- Listen in podcast app Friends, Much of today’s Republican Party is treacherous and treasonous. So why are Democrats facing midterm elections that, according to most political observers, they’re likely to lose? Having been a loyal Democrat for some seventy years (my father liked Ike but my mother and I were for Adlai), including a stint as a cabinet secretary, it pains me to say this, but the Democratic Party has lost its way. How? Some commentators think Democrats have moved too far to the left — too far from the so-called “center.” This is utter rubbish. Where’s the center between democracy and authoritarianism and why would Democrats want to be there? Others think Biden hasn’t been sufficiently angry or outraged. Please. What good would that do? And after four years of Trump, why would anyone want more anger and outrage? The biggest failure of the Democratic Party — a disease that threatens the very life of the party — has been its loss of the American working class. As Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg concluded after the 2016 election, “Democrats don’t have a ‘white working-class’ problem. They have a ‘working class problem’ which progressives have been reluctant to address honestly or boldly. The fact is that Democrats have lost support with all working-class voters across the electorate.” The working class used to be the bedrock of the Democratic Party. What happened? Before Trump’s election, Democrats had occupied the White House for 16 of 24 years. Democrats controlled both houses of Congress during the first two years of the Clinton, Obama, and Biden administrations. During those years, Democrats scored some important victories for working families: the Affordable Care Act, an expanded Earned Income Tax Credit, and the Family and Medical Leave Act, for example. I take pride in being part of a Democratic administration during that time. But I’d be lying to you if I didn’t also share my anger and frustration from those years — battles inside the White House with Wall Street Democrats and battles with corporate Democrats in Congress, all refusing to do more for the working class, all failing to see (or quietly encouraging) the rise of authoritarianism if the middle class continued to shrink. (I offer the following video clip not in the spirit of “I told you so” but as a way of sharing my frustrations and fears at the time.) The tragic reality is that even when they’ve been in charge, Democrats have not altered the vicious cycle that has shifted wealth and power to the top, rigging the economy for the affluent and undermining the working class. Clinton used his political capital to pass free trade agreements, without providing millions of blue-collar workers who consequently lost their jobs the means of getting new ones that paid at least as well. His North American Free Trade Agreement and plan for China to join the World Trade Organization undermined the wages and economic security of manufacturing workers across America, hollowing out vast swaths of the Rust Belt. Clinton also deregulated Wall Street. This indirectly led to the financial crisis of 2008 — in which Obama bailed out the biggest banks and bankers but did nothing for homeowners, many of whom owed more on their homes than their homes were worth. Obama didn’t demand as a condition for being bailed out that the banks refrain from foreclosing on underwater homeowners. Nor did Obama demand an overhaul of the banking system. Instead, he allowed Wall Street to water down attempts at re-regulation. Both Clinton and Obama stood by as corporations hammered trade unions, the backbone of the working class. They failed to reform labor laws to allow workers to form unions with a simple up-or-down majority vote, or even to impose meaningful penalties on companies that violated labor protections. Biden has supported labor law reform but hasn’t fought for it, leaving the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act to die inside the ill-fated Build Back Better Act. At the same time, Clinton and Obama allowed antitrust enforcement to ossify, enabling large corporations to grow far larger and major industries to become more concentrated. Biden is trying to revive antitrust enforcement but hasn’t made it a centerpiece of his administration. Both Clinton and Obama depended on big money from corporations and the wealthy. Both turned their backs on campaign finance reform. In 2008, Obama was the first presidential nominee since Richard Nixon to reject public financing in his primary and general election campaigns, and he never followed up on his re-election promise to pursue a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United vs FEC, the 2010 Supreme Court opinion opening the floodgates to big money in politics. Throughout these years, Democrats drank from the same campaign funding trough as the Republicans – big corporations, Wall Street, and the very wealthy. “Business has to deal with us whether they like it or not, because we’re the majority,” crowed Democratic representative Tony Coelho, head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in the 1980s when Democrats assumed they’d continue to run the House for years. Coelho’s Democrats soon achieved a rough parity with Republicans in contributions from corporate and Wall Street campaign coffers, but the deal proved a Faustian bargain. Democrats became financially dependent on big corporations and the Street. By the 2016 election, the richest 100th of 1 percent of Americans – 24,949 extraordinarily wealthy people – accounted for a record-breaking 40 percent of all campaign contributions. That same year, corporations flooded the presidential, Senate and House elections with $3.4 billion in donations. Labor unions no longer provided any countervailing power, contributing only $213 million – one union dollar for every 16 corporate dollars. ** Joe Biden has tried to regain the trust of the working class, but Democratic lawmakers (most obviously and conspicuously, Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema) have blocked measures that would have lowered the costs of childcare, eldercare, prescription drugs, healthcare, and education. They’ve blocked raising the minimum wage and paid family leave. They’ve blocked labor law reforms. Yet neither Manchin nor Sinema nor any other Democrat who has failed to support Biden’s agenda has suffered any consequences. Why does Manchin still hold leadership positions in the Senate? Why is Manchin’s West Virginia benefitting from the discretionary funds doled out by the administration? Why hasn’t Biden done more to rally the working class and build a coalition to grab back power from the emerging oligarchy? Presumably for the same reasons Clinton and Obama didn’t: The Democratic Party still prioritizes the votes of the “suburban swing voter” – so-called “soccer moms” in the 1990s and affluent politically independent professionals in the 2000s – who supposedly determine electoral outcomes. And, as noted, the party depends on big money for its campaigns. Hence, it has turned it back on the working class. The most powerful force in American politics today is anti-establishment fury at a rigged system. There is no longer a left or right. There is no longer a moderate “center.” The real choice is either Republican authoritarian populism (see here, here, and here) or Democratic progressive populism. Democrats cannot defeat authoritarian populism without an agenda of radical democratic reform — an anti-establishment movement. Democrats must stand squarely on the side of democracy against oligarchy. They must form a unified coalition of people of all races, genders, and classes to unrig the system. Trumpism is not the cause of our divided nation. It is the symptom of a rigged system that was already dividing us.

POLITICO NIGHTLY: Why progressives hate Elon Musk

 

View in browser   BY CALDER MCHUGH Presented by Connected Commerce Council Elon Musk waves while providing an update on SpaceX's Starship, Thursday, Feb. 10, 2022, near Brownsville, Texas. | Miguel Roberts/The Brownsville Herald via AP BLOCKED AND REPORTED — He not only created a growing fleet of electric vehicles, he made gasless cars cool. He wants to build, essentially, the fastest trains ever. He condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine and sent satellite internet terminals to the Ukrainian people. So why do so many liberals hate Twitter’s soon-to-be owner, Elon Musk, so much? It wasn’t always this way. Not all that long ago, it was conservatives who denounced Musk. Ten years ago during a 2012 presidential debate with Barack Obama, Mitt Romney called Tesla a “loser,” lumping it in with the bankrupt solar energy company Solyndra. What changed since then? Here are three big developments that turned Musk into a liberal bogeyman. Trump was banned from Twitter. After former President Donald Trump’s attempt at a Jan. 6 coup, Twitter kicked him off the service. Progressives are worried that Musk (a self-declared moderate who suggested he would vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016) wants to bring Trump back. This is the simplest explanation, and it’s part of the story. But it’s not all of it by a long shot. There are two other aspects of progressive thinking that have become much louder, and more important, since the Obama administration. The first: The rise of the “ban billionaires” movement. If you were to ask your garden-variety, well-educated, politically active, MSNBC-watching liberal why they dislike Musk, they might give you an answer based on his wealth: “No one should be that rich.” This sentiment comes largely from a renewed class consciousness in the Democratic Party since Bernie Sanders’ 2016 primary run. Musk has made this debate a little personal. “ I keep forgetting that you’re still alive,” he tweeted at Sanders a few months ago, in response to a boilerplate statement from Sanders asking that “the extreme wealthy pay their fair share” of taxes. Even a more centrist Democrat who doesn’t object to the existence of billionaires might point to Musk’s continued troubles with the SEC or the Black workers suing Tesla for discrimination. Without question, “ban billionaires” and the increased concerns over income inequality and racial equity is a big part of Musk’s declining reputation among progressives. But it’s not all of it, either. The biggest reason: The way progressives interpret the phrase “free speech” has changed. Musk says he wants to make Twitter a haven for “free speech” on the internet. But when progressives hear Musk advocate for free speech, they think less of John Stuart Mill’s marketplace of ideas and more of the kind of talk you hear on Joe Rogan’s podcast. Over the past two years in particular, Musk has embraced a narrow and specific understanding of free speech. It’s one that’s shared by other powerful people who have built a brand on heterodox thinking, like Rogan. Call it the “just asking questions” philosophy, or maybe “Roganomics.” Especially in the Covid era, liberals have argued that we should trust the wisdom of credentialed experts. Musk does not seem to trust these experts, and he often uses his large platform on Twitter (where he has 86 million followers at last count) to regularly question them. Like Rogan, he pairs this set of beliefs with a native understanding of the internet and its denizens. He writes like an active Reddit user or a 4chan “edgelord,” someone stirring controversy with a smirk on his face, obscuring what’s sarcastic and what he actually believes. A new Vanity Fair profile of some leading figures in the New Right describes this rhetorical pose in detail. This style of communication makes a horde of internet users believe that Musk is just like them. Which is precisely what bothers a large number of extremely online progressives. Plus, for some liberals, Musk’s stirring of “controversy” has turned into simple misinformation. Since the beginning of the pandemic (he tweeted on March 6, 2020, “The coronavirus pandemic is dumb”), Musk has regularly questioned accepted science. Particularly in the wake of the Jan. 6 riots, the commonly held progressive position on free speech has shifted from, “The answer to bad speech is more speech,” to something along the lines of, “There is some misinformation, in particular from well-known institutions or people, that companies have to curb in order to protect small-d democratic values.” Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com. Or contact tonight’s author on Twitter at @calder_mchugh. A message from Connected Commerce Council: Why is Small Biz so big on Tech? Because digital tools make it easier to compete with the big guys. Google Ads help small businesses reach customers cheaply, while Amazon Prime gives marketplace sellers access to millions of customers and guaranteed two-day shipping. No wonder 85% of businesses say digital tools help them compete. Don’t wreck the tech that empowers their success. Learn why blocking Tech has big consequences for small business.   NIGHTLY NUMBER Nearly 60 percent The percentage of the U.S. population that has antibodies due to Covid-19 infection, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a steep rise that marks the first time during the pandemic when more than half of Americans have shown evidence of the virus infection.   JOIN US ON 4/29 FOR A WOMEN RULE DISCUSSION ON WOMEN IN TECH : Women, particularly women of color and women from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds, have historically been locked out of the tech world. But this new tech revolution could be an opportunity for women to get in on the ground floor of a new chapter. Join POLITICO for an in-depth panel discussion on the future of women in tech and how to make sure women are both participating in this fast-moving era and have access to all it offers. REGISTER HERE.     WHAT'D I MISS? — Kamala Harris tests positive for Covid: The vice president, who is fully vaccinated and doubly boosted, tested positive for Covid but was experiencing no symptoms , the White House said today. The last time Harris saw President Joe Biden in person was on April 18, according to her office, but the announcement still reinforces concerns about the virus closing in on the 79-year-old president. — Biden to comply with forthcoming order to keep Title 42 in place: The Biden administration said it will adhere to an expected court order from a Louisiana judge that would block the lifting of a Trump-era deportation policy used to expel more than 1 million migrants at the southern border. The pandemic measure was set to expire on May 23. — Austin says U.S. believes Ukraine ‘can win’ war against Russia: Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin delivered his assessment at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, where he hosted dozens of his global counterparts for a “Ukraine Defense Consultative Group” focused on the country’s security needs. — Justices hear fight over asylum-seekers waiting in Mexico: The Supreme Court is hearing arguments today in the Biden administration’s appeal of lower-court rulings that required the reinstatement of the “Remain in Mexico” policy . The controversial immigration program began during the Trump administration and forces some people seeking asylum in the U.S. to return to Mexico until their hearings. — Sanders pressures Biden on Amazon unions: The Vermont senator sent Biden a letter today, obtained by POLITICO, asking him to cut off federal contracts to Amazon until the company stops what he calls its “illegal anti-union activity.” And asked if Biden has fallen short in his union support thus far as president, Sanders said bluntly in an interview: “Yes, he has.” — Greens push climate compromise with Manchin: Environmental groups are pressing Democrats this week to seize their last best chance to pass party-line legislation to tame climate change. Advocates have dramatically scaled back their expectations from the early days of the Biden administration, and many say it’s time to toss in the towel on some of the progressives’ social policies in order to secure a narrower deal on Sen. Joe Manchin’s terms.   A message from Connected Commerce Council:     AROUND THE WORLD WHERE LE PEN WON — Emmanuel Macron was reelected as president of France on Sunday, but his far-right rival Marine Le Pen made a strong push across large swaths of the country, write Giovanna Coi and Cornelius Hirsch. The National Rally candidate led in more than 18,000 of the 35,000 mainland French communes, albeit mostly in sparsely populated, rural areas, while Macron won the big cities and generally did better in densely populated areas, winning 58.5 percent of the vote overall. Le Pen polled well in her traditional strongholds in northeastern France and in the southeast, as well as in French overseas territories. She also made gains in the traditionally more left-leaning southwest of the country, taking several of the larger administrative districts known as départements . The map shows the second round of presidential elections by commune in 2017 and 2022, with Macron in yellow and Le Pen in blue. POLITICO WORLD LEADER PRETEND — Global health advocates, including WHO officials, are concerned that the U.S. and European countries are beginning to ease pandemic guidance and funding — affecting the world’s response against Covid-19, writes health care reporter Erin Banco. Many Western governments are relaxing public health guidelines such as mask mandates and dropping Covid-19 financing from budgets. But here in Ghana and elsewhere in Africa, officials are still trying to ramp up primary vaccinations. The differing strategies muddle the direction of the global health community’s fight and have led to tensions with leaders who emphasize the virus still poses a threat. Over the last several months, top health officials in the U.S., Europe, Africa and global health organizations have held a series of conversations about how to confront the ongoing threat from the virus. Some countries worry the global health community is moving on too soon just as Covid-19 funding eases — including in the U.S., where Congress failed to approve $5 billion in additional global pandemic spending. That affects countries like Ghana, which rely on aid from the U.S. Agency for International Development to launch vaccination campaigns.   DON'T MISS ANYTHING FROM THE 2022 MILKEN INSTITUTE GLOBAL CONFERENCE: POLITICO is excited to partner with the Milken Institute to produce a special edition "Global Insider" newsletter featuring exclusive coverage and insights from the 25th annual Global Conference. This year's event, May 1-4, brings together more than 3,000 of the world’s most influential leaders, including 700+ speakers representing more than 80 countries. "Celebrating the Power of Connection" is this year's theme, setting the stage to connect influencers with the resources to change the world with leading experts and thinkers whose insight and creativity can implement that change. Whether you're attending in person or following along from somewhere else in the world, keep up with this year's conference with POLITICO’s special edition “Global Insider” so you don't miss a beat. Subscribe today.     PARTING WORDS C-SUITE SORROW — Corporate America has been chalking up profits this year, but some executives are sounding deeply uncertain about the country’s economic future. They are nowhere near as dour as Republicans about the state of the union — nor are they as pessimistic as many voters. But on public conference calls, first-quarter earnings reports and in private conversations, companies from Goldman Sachs to Tesla are voicing caution about the economy in ways that should unnerve Democrats already facing brutal midterm elections. If CEOs grow even more wary about the burgeoning set of risks, they could pull back in hiring and spending, denting the Covid-19 recovery, writes chief economic correspondent Ben White. Some companies are lowering their guidance to investors on future results because there are simply too many unknowns in the economy — the path of interest rates amid soaring inflation, the stability of the housing market, the recovery path for damaged supply chains and whether the country will ever shake off the Covid hangover. The uncertainty is reflected in stock market turbulence, where the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged nearly 1,000 points, or close to 3 percent, last Friday, in part on softening earnings reports — only to rebound today before tumbling another 810 points. The Dow has fallen for four weeks in a row and the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index for three straight weeks. “Senior management is out there just as clueless as we are as to which way things are going to go,” said Jack Ablin, founding partner at investment firm Cresset Asset Management. Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here. A message from Connected Commerce Council: Small businesses get a big hand from Tech. Digital tools like Google Business Profile, Instagram Paid Ads and Microsoft Teams make way for new business opportunities and greater growth—empowering smaller shops to more easily stand out and find new customers. Matter of fact, 92% of small businesses use digital services to connect with customers. That’s why wrecking their Tech is just bad business. Discover all the ways Tech helps drive small business success.     Follow us on Twitter Chris Suellentrop @suellentrop Tyler Weyant @tweyant Myah Ward @myahward   FOLLOW US

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