Monday, June 29, 2026
The Country's 250th Birthday - A Time To Celebrate Or Mourn?
Robert Reich comments on the country's impending 250th birthday:
For the next seven days, most of America will be engaged in celebrating the birth of our nation 250 years ago.
Trump wants to use this occasion for his insatiable ego by putting his name and face everywhere he can. His grandiosity is boundless; his narcissism, loathsome.
Others may use the anniversary to celebrate the good things America has accomplished over two and a half centuries. Fine.
But a true understanding of where America has come at this point in our history would see the current danger to the ideals we’ve striven for — the wanton attacks on democracy, freedom, the rule of law, and equal opportunity, by people asserting white Christian nationalism.
That attack has been spearheaded by Trump and abetted by spineless Republicans in the House and Senate, a small-minded Supreme Court majority, and a blight of billionaires who are bankrolling much of this for personal gain. They are all traitors to those ideals.
America’s ideals have never been fully achieved, of course, but the effort to achieve them has been noble; it has inspired much of the world. That effort had been our nation’s purpose, the core of our moral authority.
Those ideals haven’t died, but the effort to achieve them is on life support.
I wish I could feel celebratory, but I don’t. To me, the darkness that has befallen our country doesn’t call for celebration or self-congratulation — not this week, nor as long as the darkness prevails. It calls for a clear-eyed determination to renew the effort to achieve our ideals — our moral rudder — and thereby take America back.
Instead of celebrating the 250th anniversary of America, I for one will be mourning the loss of our national purpose. I’ll be wearing a black armband to signify my sorrow.
Sunday, June 28, 2026
Public Says Going To War With Iran Was The Wrong Decision
The chart above reflects the results of the Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between June 19th and 22nd of a nationwide sample of 1,679 adults (including 1,517 registered voters). The margin of error is 3.3 points for adults and 3.1 points for registered voters.
Populism Is Back - And It's Growing Stronger In Both Political Parties
Robert Reich comments on the growing populist fervor in both political parties:
The most powerful force in both the Republican and Democratic Parties today is anti-establishment populism. It’s roughly similar to the late 19th century when the Populist Party challenged the dominance of corporate elites, national banks, and railroad monopolies, although this time I believe it will stick.
Among today’s Republicans, this has taken the form of Trump’s MAGA movement against immigrants, Black people, Muslims, “woke,” “DEI,” and especially Democratic “coastal elites” who are supposedly enabling these groups to overtake white Christian America.
Pitted against the Republican populists are “never-Trumpers” who cling to the older Republican virtues of fiscal austerity and isolationism.
Among Democrats, anti-establishment populism has taken the form of a movement against economic elites who are rigging the system against average working people. Its major proponents are Bernie Sanders, AOC, Zohran Mamdani, and other predominantly young Democratic politicians — such as Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson, Janeese Lewis George, the presumptive mayor of Washington, D.C., and a bevy of newly-elected members of Congress from New York — Claire Valdez, Darializa Avila Chevalier, and Brad Lander.
Pitted against these economic populist in the Democratic Party are so-called “moderate” and corporate Democrats who pine after the party of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, and seek at most incremental reforms of American capitalism.
In other words, the essential fissure inside American politics today doesn’t run horizontally from “right” to “left,” as those two poles have been defined since World War II.
It runs vertically from bottom to top.
Trump’s MAGA voters in the bottom view themselves through the lens of white Christian nationalism and believe the top has conspired to make them less dominant in American society.
Sanders’s, AOC’s, and Mamdani’s voters in the bottom view themselves through the lens of economic class and believe the top has conspired to rig the economy against them.
Both shifts have left the establishment behind. America’s corporate and financial elites love Trump’s tax cuts and regulatory rollbacks but feel uncomfortable with the white Christian nationalism now at the heart of the GOP.
They’re likewise content to deal with incremental reforms pushed by moderate Democrats but dislike the wealth taxes, rent-controls, single-payer health plans, and other safety-net expansions at the heart of the emerging Democratic Party.
I expect the establishment will fight to regain control of both parties.
One way will be to equate the populists with bigotry and extremism — in the GOP, to condemn the populists as racist, xenophobic, misogynistic, and fascist; in the emerging Democratic Party, to condemn the populists as antisemitic and communist.
There’s enough truth in both caricatures to cause many voters to back away from populism altogether.
But I urge cooler heads to see something else in the rising populism within both parties — a potential political alliance against the grotesque inequalities of income, wealth, and opportunity that have scarred modern America and fueled the populist anger in the first place.
The share of the U.S. economy going to working people is the lowest it’s been since 1947; the share going to corporate profits, the largest since 1950. One trillionaire and a brute of billionaires are now, in fact, running much of America.
Neither income nor wealth are zero-sum contests in which some people’s success can be achieved only at the cost of other people’s losses. But power is a zero-sum contest. And as power has gone to the top — and is has, whether we’re talking about the top 0.01 percent or 0.1 percent or 1 percent — everyone else has lost agency over their lives.
Both never-Trumper Republicans and “moderate” Democrats are struggling to articulate a message that isn’t just “we’re not Trump.” But given the gross inequalities in American society today, that’s a nearly impossible task.
Both Republican and Democratic establishments would be better served by overtly rejecting racism, xenophobia, and misogyny, as well as antisemitism and communism, while joining with populists to boldly change the system so that none of these were attractive. Make homes affordable, make healthcare accessible, put childcare and eldercare within reach of the average working family, and they won’t be.
Saturday, June 27, 2026
Trump Just Keeps Getting Humiliated (And That Makes Him Dangerous)
From Robert Reich:
Nothing makes Trump angrier than being humiliated. Humiliation involves public shame, which Trump’s malignant narcissism cannot abide.
But Trump is facing humiliation after humiliation. They’re causing him to lose his mind even faster than before.
The Iranian regime knows this, which is why it’s publicly humiliating Trump by contradicting everything he says about making progress on the peace talks.
Yesterday, Iran went further. It refuted Trump’s claim that Iran did not control the Strait of Hormuz, and that the strait was again open to shipping, by striking a container ship passing through the strait. Oil prices immediately jumped.
Meanwhile, American judges are humiliating Trump by ordering his name off the Kennedy Center, requiring that the center remain open, pausing work on his billionaire ballroom, threatening to stop his Arch de Trump, ending his slush fund, and vacating charges that Trump’s Justice [sic] Department has brought against Trump’s enemies.
Performing artists are humiliating him by pulling out of his so-called “Great American State Fair” on the National Mall because they don’t want any part in what’s become a Trump rally.
Congressional Republicans are humiliating him by rejecting his demands that they enact the “SAVE” Act (which would make it harder for millions of people to vote), pass his next reconciliation package, and blow up the Senate filibuster.
Four Senate Republicans even crossed party lines to back a war powers resolution directing Trump to halt military operations against Iran or seek congressional authorization to continue. Their support delivered a bipartisan rebuke to Trump’s handling of the war. (After lobbying by Trump, the Senate reversed its stance and rejected the resolution in a late-night vote.)
Turning 80 is itself a humiliation for Trump. Even if the media weren’t harping on it, his body is continuously reminding him that he’s the oldest president ever elected. Not to mention increasing calls from Democrats to invoke the 25th Amendment in light of Trump’s erratic behavior — including his feud with the pope, his doomsday threats on Truth Social, and his posting of an AI photo of himself as Jesus.
But the very worst type of humiliation for Trump is ridicule — as first became apparent in 2011 when Obama skewered him at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner by producing his birth certificate and saying Trump could “now get back to focusing on important issues like did we fake the moon landing?”
The audience roared. Trump fumed.
Trump can’t take ridicule — which is why he tried to get ABC to fire Jimmy Kimmel and gloated when CBS got rid of Stephen Colbert.
Yet late-night comedians are now having a field day with Trump’s algae-infested Reflecting Pool. Some are calling it the Strait of Warm Ooze.
The pile-up of humiliations is causing Trump to lash out at anyone and everyone, including his recent explosion at NBC correspondent Kristen Welker on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and Wednesday’s reported shouting match with Republican Senator Bill Cassidy during a closed-door lunch at the Capitol. The lunch came just after Trump dropped a bombshell by canceling plans to sign a bipartisan landmark housing affordability bill until he gets his way on the SAVE Act.
I’m tempted to enjoy the Trump humiliations. But I think it also important to note that as they mount, Trump is becoming even more erratic and dangerous. So beware.
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