The American Oligarcy is Back, and it's out of control

 

The American oligarchy is back, and it’s out of control

It’s the third time in the nation’s history that a small group of hyper-wealthy people have gained political power over the rest of us. Here’s what we must do. 

ROBERT REICH

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/the-american-oligarchy-is-out-of?

Choosing Democracy: Pete Hegseth Is Dangerous. Trump Nominated Him.

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What Is the Insurrection Act ?

What is the Insurrection Act?

The Insurrection Act authorizes the president to deploy military forces inside the United States to suppress rebellion or domestic violence or to enforce the law in certain situations. The statute implements Congress’s authority under the Constitution to “provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions.” It is the primary exception to the Posse Comitatus Act, under which federal military forces are generally barred from participating in civilian law enforcement activities.

 

The Insurrection Act, in principle, only allows the American president to use the armed forces to assist civilian authorities to enforce some law in the presence of an insurrection. But the language of the law is quite vague. Trump makes it clear that he has in mind invoking the Insurrection Act to very broad purposes, essentially to change the regime.

 

Brennan Center for Justice

Democrats Must Choose: The Elites or the Working Class

Democrats Must Choose: The Elites or the Working Class

Bernie Sanders.  November 12, 2024.

 

The results of the 2024 election have confirmed a reality that is too frequently denied by Democratic Party leaders and strategists: The American working class is angry — and for good reason.

They want to know why the very rich are getting much richer, and the CEOs of major corporations make almost 300 times more than their average employees, while weekly wages remain stagnant and 60 percent of Americans live paycheck to paycheck.

They want to know why corporate profits soar while companies shut down factories in America and move to low-wage countries.

They want to know why the food industry enjoys record breaking profits, while they can’t afford their grocery bills.

They want to know why they can’t afford to go to a doctor or pay for their prescription drugs, and worry about going bankrupt if they end up in a hospital.

Donald Trump won this election because he tapped into that anger.

Did he address any of these serious issues in a thoughtful or meaningful way? 

 

Absolutely not.

What he did do was divert the festering anger in our country at a greedy and out-of-touch corporate elite into a politics that served his political goals and will end up further enriching his fellow billionaires.

Trump’s “genius” is his ability to divide the working class so that tens of millions of Americans will reject solidarity with their fellow workers and pave the way for huge tax breaks for the very rich and large corporations.

While Trump did talk about capping credit card interest rates at 10 percent, and a new trade policy with China, his fundamental explanation as to why the working class was struggling was that millions of illegal immigrants have invaded America and that we are now an “occupied country.”

In his pathologically dishonest world, undocumented immigrants are illegally participating in our elections and voting for Democrats. They are creating massive amounts of crime, driving wages down, and taking our jobs. They are getting free health care and other benefits that are denied to American citizens. They are even eating our pets.

That explanation is grossly racist, cruel, and fallacious. But it is an explanation.

And what do the Democrats have to say about the crises facing working families? What is their full-throated explanation, pounded away day after day in the media, in the halls of Congress, and in town meetings throughout the country as to why tens of millions of workers, in the richest country on earth, are struggling to put food on the table or pay the rent? Where is the deeply felt outrage that we are the only major country on earth not to guarantee health care for all as a human right while insurance and drug companies make huge profits?

How do they explain supporting billions of dollars in military aid to the right-wing extremist government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which has created an unprecedented humanitarian disaster in Gaza that is causing massive malnutrition and starvation for thousands of children?

In my view, the Democrats lost this election because they ignored the justified anger of working class America and became the defenders of a rigged economic and political system.

This election was largely about class and change and the Democrats, in both cases, were often on the wrong side. As Jimmy Williams Jr., the president of the Painters Union, said, “The Democratic Party has continued to fail to prioritize a strong, working-class message that addresses issues that really matter to workers. The party did not make a positive case for why workers should vote for them, only that they were not Donald Trump. That’s not good enough anymore!”

As an Independent member of the US Senate, I caucus with the Democrats. In that capacity I have been proud to work with President Biden on one of the most ambitious pro-worker agendas in modern history.

We passed the American Rescue Plan to pull us out of the COVID-19 economic downturn; made historic investments in rebuilding our infrastructure and in transforming our energy system; began the process of rebuilding our manufacturing base; lowered the cost of prescription drugs and forgave student debt for five million Americans. Biden promised to be the most progressive president since FDR and, on domestic issues, he kept his word.

But, unlike FDR, these achievements are almost never discussed within the context of a grossly unfair economy that continues to fail ordinary Americans. Yes. In the past few years we have made some positive changes. We must acknowledge, however, that what we’ve done is nowhere near enough.

In 1936, in his second inaugural address, FDR spoke not only of his administration’s enormous achievements in combatting the Great Depression, but of the painful economic realities that millions of Americans were still experiencing.

Roosevelt’s words remain relevant today: “I see millions of families trying to live on incomes so meager that the pall of family disaster hangs over them day by day … I see millions denied education, recreation, and the opportunity to better their lot and the lot of their children … I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.”

Of course, the world is today profoundly different than it was in 1936. We are not in an economic depression. Unemployment is relatively low. People are not facing starvation.

But the Democratic leadership must recognize that, in a rapidly changing economy, working families face an enormous amount of economic pain, anxiety and hopelessness — and they want change. The status quo is not working for them.

In politics you can’t fight something with nothing. The Democratic Party needs to determine which side it is on in the great economic struggle of our times, and it needs to provide a clear vision as to what it stands for. Either you stand with the powerful oligarchy of our country, or you stand with the working class. You can’t represent both.

While Democrats will be in the minority in the Senate and (probably) the House in the new Congress, they will still have the opportunity to bring forth a strong legislative agenda that addresses the needs of working families.

If Republicans choose to vote those bills down, the American working class will learn quickly enough as to which party represents them, and which party represents corporate greed.

In my view, here are some of the working class priorities that Democrats must fight for:

• We must end Citizens United and stop billionaires from buying elections.
• We must raise the $7.25 federal minimum wage to a living wage — at least $17 an hour.
• We must pass the Protecting the Right to Organize Act to make it easier for workers to form unions and end illegal union busting.
• We must protect senior citizens by increasing Social Security benefits and extending the solvency of the program by lifting the cap on taxable income.
• We must bring back defined benefit pension plans so that workers can retire with security.
• We must do what every other wealthy nation does and guarantee health care to all as a human right, beginning with the expansion of Medicare to cover home health care, dental, hearing, and vision.
• We must cut prescription drug prices in half, no more than is paid in other countries.
• We must provide guaranteed paid family and medical leave.
• We must guarantee equal pay for equal work.
• We must create fair trade policies that work for workers, not just corporate CEOs.
• We must build 3 million units of low income and affordable housing.
• We must make public colleges and universities tuition free, childcare affordable for all, and strengthen public education by paying teachers the salaries they deserve.
• We must adopt a progressive tax system which addresses the massive income and wealth inequality we are experiencing by demanding that the very wealthy start paying their fair share of taxes.
• We must save taxpayer dollars by ending the massive waste, fraud and abuse that exists in the Pentagon.

These are extremely popular ideas. The Democratic Party would do well to listen to the clear directive of American voters, and deliver. The simple fact is: if you stand with working people, they will stand with you. In my view, if Democrats deliver on an agenda like this, they can win back the working class of our country and the White House.

Bernie Sanders is an Independent US senator from Vermont.

See his book. It is OK to be Angry About Capitalism. 

 

 

 

The Lessons of the 2024 Election; Robert Reich

The lesson of this election is that Democrats must attack inequality – and not cede working-class voters to Trump

"IMG_4023", by cornstalker (CC BY 2.0)

A political disaster such as what occurred last Tuesday gains significance not simply by virtue of who won or lost, but through how the election is interpreted. This is known as the Lesson of the election. The Lesson explains what happened and why. It deciphers the public’s mood, values, and thoughts. It attributes credit and blame. And therein lies its power. When the Lesson of the election becomes accepted wisdom – when most of the politicians, pundits and journalists come to believe it – it shapes the future. It determines how parties, candidates, political operatives and journalists approach coming elections. What’s the Lesson of the 2024 election? According to exit polls, Americans voted mainly on the economy – and their votes reflected their class and level of education. While the US economy has improved over the last two years according to standard economic measures, most Americans without college degrees – that’s the majority – have not felt it. In fact, most Americans without college degrees have not felt much economic improvement for four decades, and their jobs have grown less secure. The real median wage of the bottom 90% is stuck nearly where it was in the early 1990s, even though the economy is more than twice as large now as it was then. Most of the economy’s gains have gone to the top. This has caused many Americans to feel frustrated and angry. Trump gave voice to that anger. Harris did not. The real lesson of the 2024 election is that Democrats must not just give voice to the anger, but also explain how record inequality has corrupted our system, and pledge to limit the political power of big corporations and the super-rich. The basic bargain in America used to be that if you worked hard and played by the rules, you’d do better, and your children would do even better than you. But since 1980, that bargain has become a sham. The middle class has shrunk. Why? While Republicans steadily cut taxes on the wealthy, Democrats abandoned the working class. Democrats embraced Nafta and lowered tariffs on Chinese goods. They deregulated finance and allowed Wall Street to become a high-stakes gambling casino. They let big corporations gain enough market power to keep prices (and profit margins) high. They let corporations bust unions (with negligible penalties) and slash payrolls. They bailed out Wall Street when its gambling addiction threatened to blow up the entire economy but never bailed out homeowners who lost everything. They welcomed big money into their campaigns, and delivered quid pro quos that rigged the market in favor of big corporations and the wealthy. Joe Biden redirected the Democratic party back toward its working-class roots, but many of the changes he catalyzed – more vigorous actions against monopolies, stronger enforcement of labor laws and major investments in manufacturing, infrastructure, semiconductors and non-fossil fuels – wouldn’t be evident for years. In any event, he could not communicate effectively about them. The Republican party says it’s on the side of working people, but its policies will hurt ordinary workers even more. Trump’s tariffs will drive up prices. His expected retreat from vigorous anti-monopoly enforcement will allow giant corporations to drive up prices further. If Republicans gain control over the House as well as the Senate, as looks likely, they will extend Trump’s 2017 tax law and add additional tax cuts. As in 2017, these lower taxes will benefit mainly the wealthy and enlarge the national debt, which will give Republicans an excuse to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid – their objective for decades. Democrats must no longer do the bidding of big corporations and the wealthy. They must instead focus on winning back the working class. They should demand paid family leave, Medicare for all, free public higher education, stronger unions, higher taxes on great wealth, and housing credits that will generate the biggest boom in residential home construction since the second world war. They should also demand that corporations share their profits with their workers. They should call for limits on CEO pay, eliminate all stock buybacks (as was the SEC rule before 1982) and reject corporate welfare (subsidies and tax credit to companies and industries unrelated to the common good). Democrats need to tell Americans why their pay has been lousy for decades and their jobs less secure: not because of immigrants, liberals, people of color, the “deep state”, or any other Trump Republican bogeyman, but because of the power of large corporations and the rich to rig the market and siphon off most of the economy’s gains. In doing this, Democrats should not retreat from their concerns about democracy. Democracy goes together with a fair economy. Only by reducing the power of big money in our politics can America grow the middle class, reward hard work and reaffirm the basic bargain at the heart of our system. If the Trump Republicans gain control of the House, they will have complete control of the federal government. That means they will own whatever happens to the economy and will be responsible for whatever happens to America. Notwithstanding all their anti-establishment populist rhetoric, they will become the establishment. The Democratic party should use this inflection point to shift ground – from being the party of well-off college graduates, big corporations, “never-Tumpers” like Dick Cheney and vacuous “centrism” – to an anti-establishment party ready to shake up the system on behalf of the vast majority of Americans. This is and should be the Lesson of the 2024 election. Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His newest book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com. The Guardian is globally renowned for its coverage of politics, the environment, science, social justice, sport and culture. Scroll less and understand more about the subjects you care about with the Guardian's brilliant email newsletters, free to your inbox.

 

Robert Reich: Total Control, step toward authoritarianism

 https://open.substack.com/pub/robertreich/p/total-control?

What Is To Be Done ? Now ?

  

What is to be done ?  November 13, 2024. 

Opinion. Duane Campbell.

 

I have read, and continue to read the many positions expressed here. And, the many projections about why the Democrats lost this election- and more important – why the American people lost this election. 

 

As a first step. Note.  72,414,936 people in the US voted for our positions. They voted for a continuation of democracy. That is an incredibly strong force to work within.  In California 8, 030, 667 voted against the Trump campaign and 5,220, 663 voted in favor. 

 

Certainly the left lost.  And, some in the left contributed to the loss including the elected leadership of DSA. That issue requires some deep thinking. 

 

We have seen these forces before.  In 1968 Governor George  Wallace of Alabama took a racist campaign to the people and won significant support in the north including in Michigan among working people. 

 

It was said then, and I repeat now. When fascism comes to the U.S., it will not be in a Nazi uniform, they will be flying the U.S. flag , promoting “liberty”  and claiming to protect the people.  We have that now. 

 

The election of Trump and his MAGA party can lead to a dictatorship.  As Marc Cooper who lived through the Chilean Pinochet regime says,

 

“It can. It might. But it is far from inevitable. So far, he won an election and did not seize power. Lots of presidents win elections and then see themselves in a briar patch very soon after.”

 

“But Trump does not take office till January 20 and that means we have two months to start preparing a fierce opposition — more than a symbolic “resistance.”

 

We need to be about creating a resistance movement.  These  will be projects of education and organizing.  Our initial tasks will include strengthening  rules and norms at the state levels where we have democratic administrations.  For example, in the 2016 election California sued the prior Trump administration 120 times.  Winning many cases.  It will be more difficult this time because the Administration has taken control of the Supreme Court, but legal resistance will be important. 

 

We will need to educate and advocate for democratic norms.  This weakness is already clear in several states including Florida, Tennessee and Texas. 

And Trump, in Project 2025 proposes elimination of the federal Department of Education.  Book banning, political firings, and convincing some in education to just go along to get along – each need resistance.  The Trump / MAGA forces have already significantly diminished the effectiveness of teachers’ unions to resist these intrusions. 

 

Timothy Snyder in Tyranny describes an important historical precedent.

 

Some American states, right now, are laboratories of authoritarian rule (and resistance).  The American 1860s and American 1930s reveal tactics authoritarians use, as well as the weaknesses of the American system, such as slavery and its legacy. At those times, though, Americans were lucky in their leadership.  Lincoln and Roosevelt were in office at the critical moments.  And so we lack the experience of the collapse of the republic.

 

Snyder lists as a first step.  Do not obey in advance.

 

First: Do not obey in advance.

 

Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do.

Anticipatory obedience is a political tragedy. Perhaps rulers did not initially know that citizens were willing to compromise this value or that principle. Perhaps a new regime did not at first have the direct means of influencing citizens one way or another. After the German elections of 1932, which brought Nazis into government, or the Czechoslovak elections of 1946, where communists were victorious, the next crucial step was anticipatory obedience. Because enough people in both cases voluntarily extended their services to the new leaders, Nazis and communists alike realized that they could move quickly toward a full regime change. The first heedless acts of conformity could not then be reversed.

 

 

A first refusal to obey in advance now is to not treat this election victory as if it is the final step of victory for the fascist forces.  To treat this electoral victory as if it is final is to give into the fascist story.  They want us to believe that they have won.  We should obey.

 

They have won one election.  Not the end of history.

 

Their view  is far from complete.  I encourage all to stop repeating their view as fact.  ( read the remainder of Snyder’s 20 Lessons from the Twentieth Century. Each is important.)

 

They have won this election, but we have 67 million people on our side if we educate and organize.  Not everyone is as depressed as many of us are. 

Many treat this as just another election.  That is great.  The fascist have not won yet.  We should not give them credence by acting as if they have won the battle for the future.  The over stated  cries of despair actually serve the agenda of the fascist by presenting the case as if we lost the final battle.

Instead, we should organize for the future. 

 

I don’t diminish at all how dangerous and difficult this is.  But, we are at the beginning of the struggle. Not the end.  We need to pick each other up, support each other, and get back to work. 

 

After reflection,  I think a reference point should be more like  we face is more like the governments of the U.S. South from 1865 until 1990 rather than Nazi Germany. – Unless we allow the MAGA agenda to consolidate its forces.  We will face an authoritarianism that injures many.  We will need to defend those most in need of support.  I weep for the people of GAZA and the Ukraine. 

 

Robert Reich says it well in his post  The Resistance Starts Now.  On our blog.

https://www.dsanorthstar.org/blog/the-resistance-starts-now

 

 

AOC recommends self care. ( in case you did not get this e mail)

 

I’m not here to sugarcoat what we all are about to collectively experience.

But I think what we can do to prepare is build community. We do not have a choice.

Our choice is to build. Our choice to continue to fight. Our choice is to win. Our choice is to have each other.

We are about to enter a political period that will have consequences for the rest of our lives.

Our main project is to unite the working class in this country against a fascist agenda. Period.

Believe it or not, building community — whether it's your church, mosque, a knitting group, your dinner circle — is far more transformative than you realize.

If you don’t know your neighbor, it’s time to know your neighbor.

If you have a co-worker you think you’re cool with, it’s time to get to know that person.

It’s time to get to know the people we will be relying on to protect each other.

It may seem frivolous, but I guarantee you it’s not: creating community around you is one of the most powerful and radical things you can do in an environment like this.

Sometimes even just being in community with people who are not like-minded with you — is a very odd little thing that can help change their mind.

We have no choice but to live in the times that we live in, and to make it better one day at a time, one choice at a time.

Never, ever think that any choice or act of yours is too small. It isn't.

Regimes and autocracies are taken down by millions of drops of small actions that would otherwise be invisible by masses of people.

This is the assignment that we have ahead of us. I look forward to doing this work with you all.

In solidarity,

Alexandria

 

The situation is bad. It hurts. But,  lets not  give in.  Don’t obey in advance. 

 

They have won the first step. – one election.  Remember, they lost in2020.  The next steps are up to us. 

 

For example, The Governors of California and Massachusetts are already preparing the defense in those states.  We should focus some of our organizing on supporting the resistance efforts of state and local governance.  ( This was part of the mutual defense planning for the 2020 election cycle.).

 

As in 2020, allies are stepping up.  The Englers for example   have an excellent piece up on Waging Nonviolence. For 2024. 

 

https://wagingnonviolence.org/2024/11/a-new-wave-of-movements-against-trumpism-is-coming/

https://wagingnonviolence.org/2024/11/a-new-wave-of-movements-against-trumpism-is-coming/

 

WE need to focus on how to educate, organize, and grow the resistance. 

I, for one, have no interest in giving up on U.S. democracy, even while noting its imperfections.

 

 

 

Duane Campbell 

Sacramento, California.