Democrat Scott Colom hasn’t yet won Mississippi’s U.S. Senate race. The state is still tallying ballots that could make Colom the first Black senator from Mississippi since …1881.

We’ll probably know by Friday. It will depend on a process playing out in election offices across Mississippi’s 82 counties, where local officials are receiving and examining absentee and provisional ballots. As of Monday morning, Colom’s lead over Republican incumbent Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith had grown to nearly 2,600 votes.

Hyde-Smith has not appeared publicly since election night, when she essentially declared victory despite a razor-thin margin with ballots still uncounted. “We are not backing down,” she posted on social media Friday. “This election is not over. Our team is working across Mississippi to monitor the remaining ballots and protect the integrity of the process. We will see this through to the very end!”

Mississippi’s counties can count absentee ballots if they are received by today — five business days after the election. Voters with identification issues also have until today to address them in person at their local elections office. Counties have until this Friday to certify complete results to the secretary of state.

During the campaign, Colom emphasized that he would represent all Mississippians, and he charged that Trump’s policies — the war with Iran and tariffs, especially — harmed everyone equally, cutting across all demographic lines.

But Colom and his Black supporters have not ignored the significance of his candidacy as a Black man. He ended his campaign with an ad set at the Jackson home of Medgar Evers, the civil rights leader who was gunned down in 1963 in his own driveway, dying in front of his wife and children.

“It’s a powerful reminder of the sacrifice to gain the ballot,” Colom said Friday. “What was important to me about that ad is we didn’t ask people to vote for me. We just talked about the sacrifice, talked about the story. We just wanted that to be the closing ad because I wanted that to be the last message that the people of Mississippi heard.”

***

I have never been to Mississippi. I’ve been invited there but always found excuses. To me, Mississippi was the Ku Klux Klan. The heartland of American racism. The place where reprobate bullies could — and did — murder people who tried to stand up to them. I also had a more personal reason for avoiding the state.

In September 1964, the start of my freshman year at college, I got word that a boy who had protected me from childhood bullies — I knew him only as Mickey — had been murdered in Mississippi.

Early that summer, Mickey — whose full name was Michael Schwerner — had traveled to Mississippi to register Black voters. The Civil Rights Movement was gaining strength. Martin Luther King Jr. had given his famous “I Have a Dream” speech at the August 1963 March on Washington, where 250,000 people had gathered at the Lincoln Memorial to hear him.

“Freedom Summer” of 1964 brought college students, both Black and white — Mickey among them — from northern schools together with Black people from Mississippi to educate and register Black voters under the aegis of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).

Mississippi was chosen because only 7 percent of the state’s eligible Black voters were then registered, in a state that was about 40 percent Black. Most had been frozen out of the polls with poll taxes, subjective literacy tests, and brutality. It had been that way since 1877.

The system was enforced by white supremacists who could commit crimes with impunity because the entire region had become a one-party state run by white supremacists.

Mickey was among the first wave of volunteers to arrive in Mississippi for Freedom Summer. On the afternoon of June 21, 1964, he and two other student volunteers — Andrew Goodman, also white, and James Chaney, a young Black man — were driving near the town of Philadelphia, Mississippi, when Neshoba County Deputy Sheriff Cecil Ray Price stopped them for allegedly speeding.

Price locked them up in the local jail. That night, after they paid their speeding ticket and left the jail, Price followed them in his police car, stopped them again, ordered them into his car, and took them down a deserted road where he turned them over to a group of his fellow Ku Klux Klan members. They beat Mickey, Andrew, and James with chains. Then they killed them and buried their bodies in an earthen dam under construction.

For weeks, no one knew what had happened to the three volunteers. Lyndon Johnson used concern over their disappearance to pressure the House to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964 on July 2.

Just before he signed the bill, Johnson addressed the American people on television “to talk to you about what that law means to every American.” He said:

[T]hose who founded our country knew that freedom would be secure only if each generation fought to renew and enlarge its meaning…. Americans of every race and color have died in battle to protect our freedom. Americans of every race and color have worked to build a nation of widening opportunities. Now our generation of Americans has been called on to continue the unending search for justice within our own borders.

Johnson was proud that his bill had the bipartisan support of more than two-thirds of the lawmakers in Congress, along with “the great majority of the American people.” He said:

The purpose of the law is simple…. to promote a more abiding commitment to freedom, a more constant pursuit of justice, and a deeper respect for human dignity…. We will achieve these goals because most Americans are law-abiding citizens who want to do what is right. My fellow citizens, we have come now to a time of testing. We must not fail.

On July 16, two weeks after Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act and a little more than three weeks after James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Mickey Schwerner disappeared, Senator Barry Goldwater accepted the Republican nomination for president at the Cow Palace in Daly City, California. Goldwater told Republican delegates that “extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And … moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”

Meanwhile, Alabama’s segregationist Governor George Wallace, running in Democratic primaries against incumbent Lyndon Johnson, won 34 percent of the vote in Wisconsin and 30 percent in Indiana. A significant share of those votes came from working-class Democrats.

In the presidential election that fall, voters backed Johnson’s vision of America and rejected Goldwater by a landslide, the loser prevailing only in his own state of Arizona and five states of the Deep South: Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, and South Carolina.

Mickey’s body and those of Chaney and Goodman were found August 4. They were illustrations of extremism in the defense of what white supremacists defined as liberty.

The state of Mississippi refused to bring murder charges against any of the killers, but eventually Price and Neshoba County Sheriff Laurence Rainey, also a Klan member, and sixteen others — including Samuel Bowers, the Imperial Wizard of Mississippi’s White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan — were arraigned for the federal crime of conspiracy to violate the civil rights of the murdered young men.

An all-white jury found seven of them guilty, including Price and Bowers. After several unsuccessful appeals, each received a sentence of between three and 10 years. None would spend more than six years behind bars.

When the news reached me that Mickey had been beaten and murdered by white supremacists — by adult bullies who would stop at nothing to prevent Black people from exercising their right to vote — something snapped inside me.

It was as if I had gotten a new pair of eyes and began to see everything differently.

Before then, I understood bullying as a few kids picking on me for being short, making me feel bad about myself. After I learned what happened to Mickey, I began to see bullying on a larger scale, all around me: Black people bullied by white; workers bullied by employers; girls and women bullied by men; the disabled or gay or poor or sick or immigrant bullied by politicians, insurance companies, landlords, and bigots.

I saw the powerful and the powerless, the exploiters and the exploited.

It seemed as if the world had changed, when in fact it was me who had changed. I had a different understanding of the meaning of injustice. It became as personal to me as were the bullies who called me names and threatened me on the playground — but larger, more encompassing, more urgent.

***

Last Monday, the day before Election Day, Angela Lewis, the daughter of James Chaney, said a prayer of thanks to her father, who had been murdered just days after she was born. On Tuesday, she voted for Scott Colom. That she could vote at all was because of people like her father, Goodman, and Schwerner.

“I called all my kids,” Ms. Lewis said, “and I told them that if they love me and if they ever want to talk to me again, they better get out of that bed in the morning and they better go vote.”

Even if Scott Colom is not determined the winner of the race to become Mississippi’s next senator, in an important sense Colom has already won. He has achieved what seemed impossible in 1964 — a Black man gaining so many votes in Mississippi that the result turns on absentee and provisional ballots.

Not only has Colom won, but Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner have won. Mississippi has won. America has won.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/

When a senior Cabinet official releases a video message vowing to fight for his job, you know he’s about to lose his job. For Pete Hegseth, it may be a matter of days.

House Republican leaders are bracing for enough GOP defections to impeach Hegseth when the measure comes to a vote this week. Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie says he’ll force a vote to impeach Hegseth unless Hegseth resigns first. Massie plans to introduce an impeachment resolution as early as today. Democratic House Leader Hakeem Jeffries said on Sunday he’d support the resolution.

In his video — which Hegseth recorded last Thursday, two days after America repudiated Trump (for which even JD Vance blamed on the war in Iran) — Hegseth insists that “We are more determined than ever — more resolute than ever — to finish what we have started.”

Maybe not. Trump’s new Acting President (a.k.a. Chief of Staff) Stephen Miller knows Hegseth would be a convenient fall guy for the war. Fire Hegseth, and Trump can claim a clean slate on which to draw up a plan for exiting the Iran quagmire — perhaps with one last intense bombing campaign followed by a faux-triumphant “our job is done” message.

Multiple senior military leaders — those still left, that is — have warned that the United States can’t extend military operations in Iran. The war has strained service members and their families and created a maintenance backlog that could take years to unwind, according to The Wall Street Journal. Even the chief of naval operations, Admiral Daryl Caudle said the Navy cannot “sustain its current level of support for the Iran conflict.”

Hegseth’s response? He castigated the media for revealing classified information.

Hegseth’s tenure has been disastrous from the moment he first walked into the Pentagon. Even if Trump were capable of hearing sound advice, Hegseth hasn’t come close to giving it to him. Instead, he’s been pursuing grievances about DEI and denigrating or firing women and Black officers. A defense official told CNN that Hegseth is focused on “muscles, dudes in dresses, testosterone.”

John Ullyot, who resigned as Pentagon spokesman, said Hegseth has brought “total chaos” to the Pentagon.

I’ve known many other defense secretaries, starting with Cap Weinberger, who served under Reagan. I can say without fear of contradiction that Pete Hegseth is the stupidest and least qualified of them all. His incompetence and determination to suck up to Trump helped launch the war against Iran in the first place. Since then, Hegseth has lied his way through more than eight months of Pentagon and Iran war mayhem.

Hegseth evidently believes that his job is to cheerlead and defend Trump with bragadocious lies like “We didn’t start this war, but under President Trump we’re finishing it” and “America is winning decisively, devastatingly, and without mercy” and “We will show no quarter for our enemies.” (“No quarter” means kill everyone and take no prisoners, which is a war crime.)

If Acting President Stephen Miller won’t fire him, Hegseth’s undoing may happen as soon as this week anyway. If by some miracle Hegseth keeps his job until January, Democrats should promptly impeach him when they take over the House and Senate.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.

I was moved to tears this week. I expect you were, too.

It wasn’t just a repudiation of Trump. It was a reaffirmation of our democracy, our diversity, our ideals. A confirmation of America.

I’m filled with gratitude for the hard work so many of you did — writing postcards, organizing friends and colleagues, going door-to-door to get out the vote, supporting good candidates. Also protesting and marching, demanding an end to the madness. And protecting the most vulnerable among us.

I also want to thank you for being a part of our small but mighty community here on this Substack. Thank you for joining me day after day. Sharing these posts, commenting on them, offering your thoughts, being respectful of one another. Thank you also for suggesting to others that they join us here. (And for supporting this effort, to the extent you can, with a paid subscription.)

But our work — yours and mine — is not over. In a real sense, it’s just beginning.

The billionaire oligarchs who put Trump and JD Vance into power and financed their Republican enablers still have extraordinary wealth and power — and motivation — to destroy our democracy.

Giant corporations and private equity firms that rigged the economy for themselves and against most Americans still want to increase their monopoly profits at the expense of average Americans.

Corporate Democrats — so-called “centrists” and “moderates” who drink from the same financial troughs as the Republicans — are still determined to protect the status quo and preserve the current allocation of power in America.

Trump himself is still in the White House, now buttressed by the most bigoted and belligerent chief of staff ever.

In other words, the regressive forces are as dangerous as they were before. What has changed is that We the People have shown our repugnance toward them — loudly and clearly — and voted people into government who might constrain them.

The contest between democracy and authoritarianism is hardly over. We have won this battle, but we have not won this war.

Let’s celebrate our win. Feel the joy. Appreciate the stunning beauty of America. Relish our diversity and decency.

But tomorrow, we continue the fight.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/

The excitement is palpable. Texas! Kansas! North Carolina! South Carolina! (As I write this, Democrat Scott Colom is leading Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith in Mississippi!)

Democrats will control both chambers of Congress by a comfortable margin next year.

What does this mean, as a practical matter? More specifically, what’s the most important thing the Democrats should seek to achieve?

Even with full control of Congress, it won’t be easy. Trump will remain in the White House. He’s likely to veto whatever the Democrats try to do and ignore whatever they say. He and his Cabinet officers won’t willingly testify before congressional committees investigating the regime’s actions, pleading executive privilege.

I’ve asked a number of political advisors, Trump watchers, congressional staff, and Democratic insiders what they think the Democrats’ #1 priority should be next year, and grouped their responses below. Please have a look, and indicate which you agree with (or add your thoughts in the comments).

1. Impeach and convict Trump of high crimes and misdemeanors

They tried this twice to no avail, of course. But starting in January, Democrats will have a majority in the House and enough votes in the Senate to bring them within striking distance of being able to convict Trump of high crimes and misdemeanors. Those who believe this should be the Democrats’ top priority tell me that it’s all about accountability, and Trump has violated the law and the Constitution with such impunity that to preserve the integrity of our system he must be held responsible.

2. Reform our broken system of campaign finance

Others think that the top priority should be campaign finance reform — putting an end to the legalized bribery in of billions of dollars of campaign contributions. One way of doing this would be to provide public matching funds for small-dollar donations to candidates for the House, Senate, and presidency. Another would be a constitutional amendment making clear, contrary to the Supreme Court’s rulings, that money is not speech and corporations are not people.

3. Enact a wealth tax on billionaires

Others believe the top priority should be a tax on billionaire wealth. The failure of billionaires to pay their fair share makes a mockery of our tax system. Most billionaires borrow against their fortunes to pay their lavish living expenses, so have no earned income to declare. California’s billionaire tax failed because of concerns that the state’s billionaires would exit California, so a national wealth tax is necessary and logical. If Trump vetoes it Democrats would have the issue for the 2028 election.

3. Enact Medicare for All

A final view I’m hearing is that the Democrats’ top priority should be Medicare for All — a single-payer system open to everyone. Trump and the Republicans have ended Obamacare subsidies and cut Medicaid, leaving even more Americans uninsured. Americans now pay more (20 percent of GDP) for a healthcare system that delivers shorter lifespans than in most other rich countries. Many of the Democrats elected this week advocated Medicare for All, and want to see it enacted. (Again, if Trump vetoes, a natural issue for the 2028 election.)

What do you think? Which of these — or something else — ought to be the Democrats’ top priority when they take control of Congress in January?

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.

The great sleeping giant of America has awakened, taken a hard look at what’s become of the nation, and roared a thunderous “NO!”

What occurred yesterday was not — as some are saying — the inevitable mid-term swing of the pendulum against the party in power. Texas hasn’t elected a Democratic senator since 1988. The last time Kansas elected a Democratic senator was 1932.

Nor was it just the economy. Americans are unhappy with inflation, but the country is not in a depression or recession. Unemployment remains quite low.

Nor, finally, was it all due to Trump. Despite Trump’s repeated efforts to get voters to “pretend” he was on the ballot, he was not. Most Republican candidates barely mentioned him and many Democratic candidates stressed local or statewide issues rather than fixate on him.

Something much larger is responsible for what occurred: anti-establishment populism. It’s burst forth against the mammoth corporations that have scored record profits while most Americans have had to pay more. Against the mega donors and super PACs that have flooded American politics with more campaign money — legalized bribes — than ever before. And against the Big Tech billionaires who have become the most powerful force in the American economy and society -- as well as Trump’s and the Republican Party’s most visible backers.

The irony is that anti-establishment anger propelled Trump into the presidency in 2016 and again in 2024. Many Americans had found his politically-incorrect rants and “America first” nativism to reflect their own anger at being disrespected or left behind. “I am your warrior,” he told supporters when he announced his candidacy for the 2024 election.

But during his second term, Trump has morphed into the very establishment he had railed against. He’s given tax cuts and subsidies to tech billionaires in exchange for their help making him and his family billionaires, too. He’s promoted their AI, pushed their data centers, put Elon Musk in charge of “DOGE,” advocated their crypto, and went to war in the Middle East — not only causing gas prices to soar but making Big Oil billions (or, as Trump bafflingly boasts, “we’re making an absolute fortune in our country”) and enriching Big Tech weapons makers and investors, including his family.

Many who voted for Trump in 2016 and 2024 have now abandoned him because of this blatant corruption, crony capitalism, and eagerness to be on the gilded side of America’s new Gilded Age. According to CNBC’s late October poll, corruption was the top issue on voters’ minds.

Meanwhile, anti-establishment populism has finally taken firm hold in the Democratic Party. “The biggest divide in this country is not left versus right,” said the newly elected Texas Senate candidate James Talarico. “It’s top versus bottom.”

Sherrod Brown regained his Senate seat from Ohio largely due to voter anger at data centers and the Big Tech billionaires behind them.

Abdul El-Sayed never tired on the campaign trail of reminding Michigan voters that his opponent, Mike Rogers, was backed by big corporations and mega donors.

Even Kansas’s victorious Adam Hamilton — who during his run for the Senate adamantly rejected the leftist label his opponent wanted to impose on him — campaigned on making data centers pay for their own energy, banning lawmakers from trading stocks, expanding Medicare drug-price negotiations, and cracking down on price-gouging.

Hamilton also rejected money from corporate PACs, as did most Democratic candidates for the Senate.

The real question to my mind is whether, come January when they control Congress, Democrats will take advantage of the new populism to enact measures most Americans need, such as Medicare for All, and reforms most Americans want, such as tougher anti-monopoly laws and limits on campaign contributions (even if this requires a constitutional amendment).

Trump is likely to veto any such initiatives, of course, but at least they’ll lay down markers for the 2028 presidential election — which, judging from what we’ve seen in the midterms, is likely to be a populist doozie.

Meanwhile, thanks to all of you who have worked so damned hard to help bring about today’s extraordinary victory. Our democracy worked. It held.

Congratulations, all.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/

Years ago, my dear friend the late Alan K. Simpson, Republican senator from Wyoming, explained to me how America viewed our two major political parties. “Democrats think Republicans are stupid, and Republicans think Democrats are evil,” he said with a grin. “You’re in the evil party. I’d rather be a member of the stupid party.”

That was before Trump turned the Republican Party into a neofascist cult, premised on the lie that he won the 2020 presidential election.

The most immediate choice Americans will make tomorrow is between politicians who have led and enabled that neofascist cult, and politicians who have rejected it.

But the real choice goes much deeper.

More than a decade ago, with the 2016 political primaries looming, I asked hundreds of people in America’s heartland who they thought should be our next president. At the time, Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush were the two parties’ presumptive favorites, but most people told me they preferred Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump. Many mentioned both.

When I asked them why, they told me that America needed someone “authentic” who’d “shake things up” and “make the system work for ordinary people” — and they thought that Sanders or Trump fit the bill.

The following year, Sanders — then a 74-year-old Jew from Vermont who described himself as a democratic socialist and wasn’t even a Democrat until the primaries — ended up with 46 percent of the pledged delegates to the Democratic National Convention from primaries and caucuses.

Trump, a 69-year-old egomaniacal billionaire reality TV star who had never held elected office or had anything to do with the Republican Party and who lied compulsively about almost everything, won the Republican primaries and went on to beat Clinton, one of the most experienced and well-connected politicians in modern America. Granted, he didn’t win the popular vote and had some help from Vladimir Putin, but he won.

Something very big was happening in America — and it continues to this day: a rebellion against the establishment. Hillary and Jeb Bush had deep bases of funders, well-established networks of political insiders, experienced political advisers, and all the name recognition you could want, but neither of them could convince voters they weren’t part of the system and therefore part of the problem.

When I did my interviews across middle America at the end of 2015, the overall economy was doing well in terms of the standard measures of employment and growth. But those indicators didn’t reflect the economic insecurity most Americans felt — and still feel.

Nor did the standard measures reveal the searing unfairness most Americans experienced — and still experience.

The indicators didn’t reveal the linkages most Americans saw — and continue to see — between wealth and power, between corruption in high places and their own stagnant real wages, between the soaring fortunes of a few and their own loss of ground, between the emergence of a billionaire class and the undermining of our democracy.

The standard measures didn’t show the frustration of American workers without college degrees who for decades had worked harder than ever but had nothing to show for it, and whose lifespans had shrunk.

Much of today’s political establishment still denies what has occurred. They prefer to attribute the anger and ugliness in our politics solely to Trump, rather than see him for what he is — the consequence of decades of neglect of millions of Americans, for whom the American Dream has become an ongoing nightmare.

Trump has channeled their frustrations into hate for scapegoats who have nothing to do with their problems — Muslims, transgender people, Mexicans, undocumented immigrants, and other Trumpian boogeymen.

The real choice tomorrow is not between Left and Right, or between socialism and capitalism, and surely not between Alan Simpson’s caricatures of an evil party and a stupid one.

The real choice is between a cruel, regressive, and bigoted America that blames vulnerable “others” for our wildly unequal and increasingly rigged system, or a diverse, equitable, and inclusive America that gets to work unrigging it.

I know how frightening this time may be for you. I understand the stomach-churning mixture of hope, fear, disgust, and outrage you may feel.

Even if the Democrats win big tomorrow, our work will just begin. You and I and all of us will have to push very hard against the widening inequalities that are corrupting our system, and push very hard for democracy and social justice.

In other words, even if Democrats win tomorrow, we will be at the end of the beginning.

Robert Reich is a professor at Berkeley and was secretary of labor under Bill Clinton. You can find his writing at https://robertreich.substack.com/.

Donald (“pretend-I’m-on-the-ballot”) Trump has made this election into a referendum on him. Good.

He is a historic anomaly whose election to the highest office in the land — twice! — will forever be a stain on the judgment of the American people. A president who lies incessantly; who generates fear and fuels hatefulness; who viciously attacks the free press, political opponents, and all who disagree with him; who uses his office for personal gain; and who cozies up to dictators such as Vladimir Putin while turning against our historic friends, such as Canada.

For the sake of our democracy and our future, we must send a clear signal on Tuesday that we find Trump repugnant. A rejection beyond mere repudiation. A clear vote of no confidence.

While Trump and his Republican enablers have manufactured false threats to America — Americans who are Muslim, Mexican Americans, Latino Americans, transgender Americans, fraudulent voters, “globalists” — they dismiss the real threats to America that are growing worse by the day: climate change; widening inequalities of income, wealth, and political power; unregulated AI; and the most expensive and least effective healthcare system in the world.

We must get back to work on what is critical to our future.

Every branch of the federal government is now under the control of the Republican Party, and the Republican Party is under the control of Trump. Unless constrained, he and they will be emboldened — to eliminate what’s left of the Affordable Care Act, to further cut Medicare and Medicaid, to eviscerate Social Security, to give even more tax cuts to the rich and large corporations.

The Republican Party has lost its right to govern. It once stood for a set of ideas that, while not always appropriate to America’s needs, at least gave the party some reason for being: states’ rights, free trade, and fiscal prudence. Now it stands for nothing but Trumpism.

It is time to renounce the hatemongering and race-baiting that has engulfed this nation.

It is time to affirm that we are a tolerant and courageous people — not the bigots and fearful cowards Trump and the Republicans have made us out to be.

It is time to lead the world again, not pretend we can isolate ourselves from it. Our greatness isn’t found in the color of our skin or the uniformity of our ethnicity. It is found in our dedication to democracy, equality of opportunity, tolerance of others, and freedom.

It is time to throw the bums out.

Vote Tuesday as if your life and the lives of those you love depend on it.

They do.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.

The Republican Party once stood for limited government, active opposition to Soviet aggression, and a balanced budget. Now it stands only for Trump and his authoritarian neofascism, demanding total loyalty to him.

Yet Trump’s approval among U.S. adults now stands at 33 percent, with 66 percent disapproving; 52 percent said they disapprove strongly. (That approval rating is 4 percentage points lower than in July and 8 points lower than at this point last year. It’s lower than at any point in his first term.)

In other words, the Republican Party has tied itself to Trump, but the vast majority of Americans believe Trump a failure.

So where does that leave the GOP? Nowhere. The GOP is dead.

The death of the Republican Party is tragic to me personally. I got my first job in government in Republican Gerald Ford’s administration. I argued Supreme Court cases in Ford’s Department of Justice. Years later, as secretary of labor under Bill Clinton, I worked closely with Republicans in the House and Senate to enact the Family and Medical Leave Act, raise the minimum wage, and protect workers’ pensions. My father was a Republican who voted for Dwight Eisenhower for president in 1952 and 1956. His father, my grandfather Alexander Reich, was a Republican who voted for Alf Landon for president in 1936 and Wendell Willkie in 1940.

Gerald Ford is as far from the current Republican Party as was or is any Democratic president. Sad to say, in 2024, the board of the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation declined to present the Gerald R. Ford Medal for Distinguished Public Service to former Wyoming representative Liz Cheney out of fear that, should he become president again, Trump would retaliate against the organization by taking away its tax-exempt status.

In response, Pulitzer Prize–winning photographer David Hume Kennerly resigned from the board. In his resignation letter he wrote that “Gerald Ford became president, in part, because Richard Nixon had ordered the development of an enemies list and demanded his underlings use the IRS against those listed. That’s exactly what the executive committee fears will happen if there’s a second coming of Donald Trump.” Kennerly added:

“Did [Lieutenant] Gerald Ford meet the enemy head-on [in World War II] because he thought he wouldn’t get killed? No. He did it despite that possibility. This executive committee, on the other hand, bolted before any shots were fired. You aren’t alone. Many foundations, organizations, corporations, and other entities are caught up in this tidal wave of timidity and fear that’s sweeping this country. I mistakenly thought we were better than that. This is the kind of acquiescent behavior that leads to authoritarianism. President Ford most likely would have come out even tougher and said that it leads directly to fascism.”

Ford’s biggest mistake as president was to pardon Nixon. Ford believed that America had to be shielded from the pain and disruption of a president put on criminal trial and possibly imprisoned. Yet to many Americans, the fact that Nixon would not be held accountable felt like another assault on the common good.

All subsequent Republican presidential candidates, including Trump, have used Nixon’s playbook, relying on a coalition of corporate America and the white working class, and using bigoted racial dog-whistles.

Nixon infected the modern Republican Party with a sickness that would ultimately kill it. Trump applied the coup de grace.

The Republican Party purged their honest lawmakers who refused to go along with Trump’s Big Lie, the most dangerous one in American history in terms of its consequences for Americans’ confidence in democracy.

On April 14, 2024, on ABC’s “This Week,” host George Stephanopoulos asked New Hampshire’s then Republican governor Chris Sununu about his switch from supporting former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley for the Republican presidential nomination to supporting Trump.

“Your words were very, very clear on January 11, 2021,” Stephanopoulos reminded Sununu. “You said that President Trump’s rhetoric and actions contributed to the insurrection. No other president in history has contributed to an insurrection. So, please explain.”

Sununu responded, “For me, it’s not about him as much as it is having a Republican administration.”

Near the end of the interview, Stephanopoulos said: “Just to sum up, you would support [Trump] for president even if he is convicted in classified documents. You would support him for president even though you believe he contributed to an insurrection. You would support him for president even though you believe he’s lying about the last election. You would support him for president even if he’s convicted in the Manhattan case. I just want to say, the answer to that is yes, correct?”

Sununu replied, “Yeah, me and 51 percent of America.”

Stephanpoulos: “I’m asking you about right and wrong. You’re comfortable with the idea of supporting someone who’s convicted of a federal crime as president?”

Sununu: “No, I don’t think any American is comfortable with any of this. They don’t like any of this, of course, but I mean, when it comes to actually looking at each of these trials as they kind of take place whether it’s this year or next year or as they kind of line up. Right now this is about an election. This is about politics.”

I could hardly believe what I was hearing. Politics is not about right and wrong? It has no moral content? Is it only about winning?

Chris Sununu’s willingness to destroy American democracy so his party could stay in power — a rejection of our system of government and an abrogation of the self-government that generations of Americans have fought and died for — is shared by most Republican officeholders today.

The Republican Party’s end is tragic because America needs two parties capable of governing; two parties with a sense of the common good, even if their interpretations of it differ; two parties dedicated to democracy, even if politics is sometimes dirty and often frustrating.

The death of the Republican Party illustrates what happens when presidents are not held accountable. It is evidence of what occurs when a large portion of the public feels it’s been cheated. It shows that many Americans have lost sight of our history and ideals or have become so cynical and hopeless that they are willing to chuck it all in favor of an atrocious human being who claims to be on their side.

The Republican Party went from a governing institution into a crazed cult, intent on turning America into an authoritarian nation. A large, angry, anxious working class craved a strongman who’d shake up the system, but strongmen are utterly inconsistent with democracy. Hence, the GOP’s death.

I fervently hope that many of the Trump cultists now in Congress who call themselves Republicans will be thrown out on November 3. That would be the best thing that could happen to the Republican Party, because it could give the GOP the chance it desperately needs — to start over.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.

Everywhere he goes on the campaign trail, Trump is telling Republican voters to “pretend I’m on the ballot.”

He’s not, of course, but his approval rating is so low that telling voters to “pretend” he’s on the ballot is backfiring big-time.

Which is why so many Republican candidates are trying to distance themselves from him. They’re not mentioning his name. They’re not talking about his policies. They avoid the word “MAGA.” A dozen have removed his name, image, or endorsements from their campaign websites.

They don’t want to appear with him. When Mike Schrimpf, a spokesman for John Sununu’s Senate campaign, was asked why Trump isn’t campaigning with Sununu, Schrimpf limply explained,“John’s focus the entire campaign has been on New Hampshire, and [he] doesn’t plan to campaign with anyone from outside New Hampshire.” Maine’s Republican Sen. Susan Collins told The New York Times she has no plans to campaign with Trump.

Several prominent Republican candidates are openly criticizing Trump. Michigan’s Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers released a direct-to-camera ad that takes on Trump’s trade war with Canada. “Here in Michigan, we know that Canada is not our enemy,” Rogers says, holding a can of the Canadian-brewed beer Labatt. “We need to end this tariff war — now.”

Yet Democrats in key battleground states aren’t letting their Republican opponents get away with distancing themselves from Trump. At last week’s Senate debate in Maine, Troy Jackson accused Susan Collins of failing to oppose Trump’s war in Iran and his tariffs. “We are in a crisis now because she wouldn’t stand up to Trump.”

In last week’s Georgia debate, Jon Ossoff tied his Republican challenger, Rep. Michael Collins, to Trump — charging that “Whatever Donald Trump says, Mike Collins does” and at one point even calling Trump’s tariffs the “Mike Collins Donald Trump tariffs.”

In last week’s Michigan debate, Democrat Dr. Abdul El-Sayed accused his Republican opponent, Mike Rogers, of being a “sock puppet” for Trump.

The more voters “pretend” Trump is on the ballot, the better for Democrats.

Yet I doubt Trump cares. He isn’t really campaigning for Republicans anyway. He’s campaigning for himself.

His “midterm convention” in Dallas at the start of September — invented by Trump to kick off the campaign season — was little more than a pep rally to glorify himself. His photographs covered the walls of the arena where the Dallas Mavericks play. His face was even plastered on coffee cups, in elevators, over mirrors in lavatories.

His endorsements of Republican candidates have been laced with self-absorption. When asking South Carolinians to vote for Darline Graham for the Senate, for example, he recounted that his “dear friend Lindsey” always told him Darline was the finest, most reliable, smartest, and most loyal person he had ever known. Then Trump said (cue Trump’s ego): “I would be upset with Lindsey for saying this, because I thought I had all of those qualities.”

When Trump appears on the road with Republican candidates who still want to be seen with him, he talks mostly about himself — explaining, for example, why he takes large doses of aspirin daily (he says he “psychologically” needs it); claiming that he has one of the highest IQs “anywhere in the world”; warning that if Democrats take over Congress he’ll be impeached; blaming his lousy polls on “an extremely poor job of promotion,” complaining that his hair is thinning; and railing at the media for not reporting the “huge crowds I’m attracting” to “my” rallies.

He barely mentions the Republican candidates. He doesn’t even talk about America as a whole. Instead, he praises Americans who support him and criticizes Americans who oppose him — such as those in Los Angeles and San Diego, whom he invited Iran to nuke.

He discounts polls showing a blue wave as “fake” because, he insists, the polls haven’t factored in his campaign appearances. “They don’t account for the fact that Trump is out campaigning,” he says. “MY RALLIES ARE SAVING THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, AGAIN!!!”

He’s been deaf to bipartisan concerns over his use of millions of taxpayer dollars to run ads boosting himself — finally conceding last week that he’ll pay for them out of his MAGA, Inc. PAC but won’t commit to reimbursing the public for the cost of the ads he’s already run.

Will Republicans blame him if the GOP loses Congress? More than 30 percent of non-MAGA voters who backed Trump in 2024 say they will blame him for any loss. (Half of Democratic midterm voters say they’ll attribute the loss to Trump, and 46 percent of Democratic voters say they’re casting ballots mainly to oppose Trump.)

But I don’t think he gives a fig. Trump isn’t out campaigning for Republican candidates. He’s campaigning for his boundless ego.

His rallies are delivering to him what he craves more than anything else: audiences that worship him. Although the crowds are far smaller than before, he’s still basking in their adoration.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.

Here’s today’s trivia question (which may turn out to be not at trivial at all when all the facts emerge): Who solicited money from a presidential donor in return for access to the head of the IRS over the donor’s taxes, was a Fox News host, was engaged to the son of the U.S. president, was the former wife of someone who wants to be the next U.S. president, who raised money for and spoke at a rally that led to an attack on the U.S. Capitol, and now is a U.S. ambassador?

If you guessed Kimberly Guilfoyle, you’d be correct on all counts.

Rarely has a person been so enmeshed in the workings (or one might say, dysfunctions) of our current political-economic-media-influence system as Guilfoyle.

From 2001 to 2005, Guilfoyle was married to Gavin Newsom, now governor of California. In 2018, she began dating Donald Trump Jr., became engaged to him in 2020, and emerged as one of his father’s most outspoken defenders and a MAGA icon.

After Trump’s 2020 defeat, Guilfoyle sought to turn her status into a profitable business ventures including lines of hair care and fragrance products and a medspa. She also launched a political consulting firm and sought work in public relations.

In 2022, she launched what she termed an upscale vodka and champagne brand, American Dream, organizing a dinner for Mar-a-Lago guests that participants realized halfway through was an investment pitch.

According to a report in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal by Dana Mattioli, Drew Hinshaw, Rebecca Ballhaus, and Joe Parkinson, Trump grew frustrated with Guilfoyle for soliciting investments from Mar-a-Lago members for her companies, and complained that Guilfoyle was supposed to be raising money for him but instead was at his club raising money for herself.

The Journal reports that after Trump won the 2024 election, Eric Deters — a Trump donor and former co-owner of Snappy Tomato Pizza, a regional restaurant chain, who had mounted unsuccessful runs for Congress and governor — began soliciting Guilfoyle’s help on several matters, including gaining access to incoming Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Billy Long, to discuss an IRS probe into Deters’s tax deductions.

Guilfoyle offered to use her sway as Donald Jr.’s former fiancée. Deters promised to pay her as much as $1 million if she were successful.

Her engagement to Trump Jr. ended in December 2024. On December 10, 2024, Trump nominated Guilfoyle to be the U.S. ambassador to Greece.

After Billy Long was confirmed IRS commissioner, Guilfoyle sent him a congratulatory note, attaching a letter Deters had written outlining his tax dispute: “Don Jr. and I are very close with Eric Deters and his wife and I know he sent you a letter,” she wrote. “I am hoping I know how busy you are that you could give some time and attention to it.”

She assured Deters that “I wrote him a very nice message. Told him how important it was that you’re close to me and to don.”

The Journal reports that as her confirmation hearing approached, Guilfoyle complained to friends that she was broke.

She reached out to Deters with an urgent request: She needed $100,000 that she said she owed American Express — and needed Deters to give it to her in a way that wouldn’t leave a paper trail. “It won’t show up anywhere if you wire money to American Express,” she wrote on Signal, according to messages reviewed by the Journal.

“Honey please I need you to get this done for me today,” she texted Deters, adding a prayer hands emoji and a PDF with bill payment instructions from American Express. “You could just send it here,” she wrote on July 3, 2025, just days before her July 9 confirmation hearing.

Deters ultimately did not make the payment, But the set of transactions illuminates the casual pay-to-play world in which Trump, his family, appointees, and donors all operate.

The Senate confirmed Guilfoyle as ambassador to Greece on September 18, 2025.

Billy Long is now the U.S. ambassador to Iceland.

The top two Democrats on the House Foreign Affairs and Senate Foreign Relations committees have now called for an investigation into Guilfoyle.

Congressional Democrats are already looking into claims reported last month by the Journal that Guilfoyle told guests at a reception that the U.S. could undermine the Greek government if it chose to, that she promoted the business interests of one particular Greek construction and energy company, and allowed its lobbyist into private diplomatic meetings.

In Trump world, being close to power creates a special economy of getting and giving. The arenas include Fox News, Mar-a-Lago, the White House, Capitol Hill, and extend even to our foreign embassies. All relationships within these arenas — personal, romantic, political, diplomatic — are transactional.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.

Democrats have a good shot at taking control of the House and perhaps even the Senate, Trump’s approval ratings are among the lowest of any president on record, and the 80-year-old president is looking and acting ever more demented.

So how long will he last, and what’s likely to do him in?

I’ve posed that question to an array of president watchers, advisers, and historians, and I’ve grouped their responses below. (None talked about him dying in office, although that possibility can’t be entirely discounted.)

Please select the one that best matches your own sense of how Trump will go.

1. He’ll hang on for two more years.

A few people I consulted with believe his determination to fill out his term — and not appear weak or resemble Joe Biden — will force him to stay the course if he can possibly hold on. They predict he’ll continue to lose his mental and physical capacities, say and post ever more outrageous things, and become an object more ridiculed than feared, but he won’t budge. The world will be spared by a few relatively saner people around him who won’t allow him to destroy humanity.

2. He’ll resign within a year and give the office over to Vance.

A second view I’m hearing is that because Trump cares so strongly about his legacy, he won’t want to be remembered as frail and bonkers. So before he’s totally incapacitated he’ll turn the presidency over to JD Vance — to give Vance a leg up on the 2028 election. Trump’s deal with Vance and top officials in Congress will be that, in return for his resignation, they’ll agree to his memorial arch, his name on the Kennedy Center, and his name on the White House ballroom.

3. He’ll be impeached and convicted within the year.

Some are convinced that if the Democrats gain control of the House, they’ll impeach Trump for high crimes and misdemeanors (the list of wrongdoings is already long) and that enough Republican senators will join Democrats to come up with the two-thirds necessary to convict him. They note that Trump’s support among Republican senators is already weakening, and many would rather not have him president during the 2028 general election.

4. The 25th Amendment will be invoked within six months.

Others think the likeliest outcome is for the 25th Amendment to be invoked because, at the rate he’s deteriorating, Trump’s mental and physical losses will soon become obvious. Democratic leaders will become alarmed at his behavior, Vance will be eager to take the reins, and congressional Republicans won’t want him president during the 2028 election. Hence, under Section 4 of the amendment, Congress will set up a body to declare him unable to “discharge the powers and duties of his office.”

So today’s Office Hours question: How long will Trump last, and how will he leave office?

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.

The last time Kansas elected a Democrat to the Senate was 1932. Yet on Friday, Democratic Senate candidate Adam Hamilton received his second endorsement from a Republican former Kansas governor in less than a month, in his race against Republican incumbent Senator Roger Marshall.

The top Senate Republican super PAC is so concerned that Marshall could lose the race that it’s diverting funds to Kansas from North Carolina, where it’s canceled its remaining ads against Democrat Roy Cooper — basically conceding North Carolina (by the way, a Democrat hasn’t won statewide federal office in North Carolina in nearly two decades).

To say it’s not looking good for Republicans is an understatement.

Trump is an albatross around the necks of every Republican running for Congress or governor. He’s also posing problems for plenty of Republican candidates for state office.

Why?

It’s not that Americans have suddenly discovered that Trump is a despicable human being. His personality has been on national display for more than a decade.

It’s not that Trump’s hold over his MAGA base has significantly weakened. Polls show self-identified MAGAs are still firmly in his camp.

It’s not that most Americans have become angry that the major beneficiaries of Trump’s tax cuts are big corporations and the very rich, or that the burdens of his spending cuts disproportionately fall on the poor (as less nutrition assistance and Medicaid), or that his mass deportations are violent and cruel. There’s no evidence that these policies are suddenly swaying voters.

And it’s not that voters have become any more aware of Trump’s lies. He continues to say the U.S. is experiencing a “golden age” with a “roaring economy” that’s doing “better than any other country” in the world, and that any negative public perception is due to a “public relations” problem.

No, the real problem for Trump and Republicans is Americans are hurting, and they know it’s because of Trump and Republicans.

A new AP-NORC poll shows a record low 26 percent of Americans approve of Trump’s handling of the economy, while just 17 percent approve of how he’s handling the cost of living. These are comparable to George W. Bush’s ratings during the 2008 financial crisis and George H.W. Bush’s just before he was swept out of office. The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index fell to 81.9 in September, its lowest since April 2014.

In Kansas, for example, Trump’s tariffs have caused China, Canada, and Mexico to retaliate by sharply cutting demand for wheat, sorghum, and soybeans. As a result, Kansas grain silos are so swollen that grain brokers have been forced to reroute human-grade grain into dog food.

At the same time, tariffs on foreign-produced aluminum and steel have driven up the prices of farm machinery and replacement parts. Trump’s decision to lift certain foreign beef import restrictions has hurt the beef sales of local cattle ranchers.

Trump’s war in Iran has choked off shipping of sulfur and phosphate in the Persian Gulf, causing nitrogen and phosphate fertilizer prices to surge by over 100 percent. The blockage has also caused diesel prices to soar, making farmers pay $200 per acre just to fuel their tractors.

These higher costs and lower crop sales have resulted in the closure of roughly 700 Kansas farms over the past year. Many remaining farmers are barely holding on.

This explains why Kansas’s former Republican governor Mike Hayden endorsed Democrat Adam Hamilton over Republican incumbent Roger Marshall in Friday’s Wichita Eagle:

“Sen. Marshall time and again has chosen to back the tariffs and the war, despite what is happening back in Kansas. Kansans need a senator willing to stand up and say this isn’t working.”

There it is, folks.

Americans can bear Trump’s awful personality. Some might succumb to his MAGA cult. They might believe many of his lies.

But they can’t abide what Trump’s policies are doing to them and their families.

Forget the rip-roaring stock market. When it comes to voting, kitchen-table economics — the financial realities average people talk about over the kitchen table, such as the prices they’re paying and the money they’re earning — are more potent than anything else.

I continue to warn against complacence. It’s still vitally important that we vote, and that we encourage everyone we know — especially those who share our values — to vote. And it’s crucially important to remain vigilant against Trump’s interference in our elections.

But with a little more than four weeks to go, I’m breathing a wee bit easier. I hope you are, too.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.

Democratic candidates should be talking about ONLY two things in these last five weeks before the midterms, and show how they’re connected: higher prices and Trump-Republican corruption.

Consider:

1. The Trump-Republican war on Iran has been a huge windfall for Big Tech supplying the military — such as Palantir, a core artificial intelligence and data-integration partner for the U.S. Department of Defense, founded by Trump and JD Vance buddy Peter Thiel. But it’s costing Americans dearly.

At the same time, investment companies backed by Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump have accumulated at least $3.2 billion to $6.3 billion in direct Pentagon contracts, current funding, and future contract options since January 2025.

But Trump’s Iran war is causing Americans to spend some $1.50 a gallon more on gas (gas was $2.98 per gallon before the war; it’s now $4.42 to $4.47 per gallon). Since the war began, Americans have spent $65 billion more on gas.

The price of diesel fuel has soared to an average of $7.00 a gallon — and because trucks that transport everything to retail stores now pay so much more to get it there, this price increase is also being passed on to consumers.

2. Trump has given out tariff waivers and carve-outs to industries and companies making kickbacks to him, while the tariffs have jacked up prices overall.

For example, when polyethylene terephthalate, the thermoplastic used to make plastic bottles, got a tariff exemption, it was a win for Reyes Holdings, a Coca-Cola bottler that ranks among the largest privately held companies in the U.S. and is owned by a pair of brothers who have donated millions of dollars to Republican causes.

Just after Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, dumped $1 million into Trump’s inauguration, Apple got tariff exemptions for its products.

After Elon Musk sank a quarter of a billion dollars into Trump’s 2024 campaign, Tesla got a tariff exemption for electronics.

And so on.

But the worldwide tariffs that made these corrupt exemptions possible have increased annual household costs by an estimated $1,100, according to The Budget Lab at Yale.

3. Trump’s support for artificial intelligence is another form of corruption that’s pushing up prices.

The AI industry’s war chest for the 2026 midterms is projected to exceed $200 million, with almost all of it going to Republican candidates and Trump’s own super PAC.

But AI is already harming average Americans by increasing borrowing costs. Together with the costs of Trump’s war in Iran, Big Tech’s huge borrowing — over $500 billion so far this year — is crowding out other borrowers, thereby contributing to sky-high interest rates on mortgages, auto loans, and credit-card overdrafts.

In addition, Trump’s encouragement of AI data centers is raising electricity prices in areas where data centers are sucking up energy.

4. Trump’s tariffs and support for AI are increasing the costs of housing.

Housing affordability is among voters’ top concerns this election cycle, yet:

— The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate is now 7.33 percent — higher than at any point since late 2023 — due in part to Trump’s war and his encouragement of AI borrowing.

— The prices of lumber and building materials have soared because of Trump’s tariffs. The National Association of Home Builders estimates that tariffs on lumber and building materials have added $10,900 to the cost of constructing a new U.S. single-family home.

— The price of copper, a key material for electrical wiring in residential and commercial construction, has soared 40 percent in the past year due to Trump’s tariffs and data center demands — adding even more costs to building a typical home, which requires hundreds of pounds of copper.

5. Trump’s tax cuts for America’s wealthiest corporations and individuals have come at the expense of healthcare and health insurance for average Americans.

To pay for the tax cuts for America’s wealthiest families and corporations — including their largest donors — congressional Republicans slashed Medicaid and failed to renew healthcare tax credits, forcing millions of Americans to spend more for coverage or forgo it altogether.

Trump and congressional Republicans passed the biggest Medicaid cut in history, which will result in 10 million people becoming uninsured and make healthcare providers that serve low-income populations vulnerable to private equity takeovers.

Millions of Americans will spend an average of $2,136 in annual Affordable Care Act (ACA) premiums this year — 58 percent more than last year (in some states they’re paying up to 220 percent more). Nearly 5 million Americans will lose healthcare coverage this year because congressional Republicans failed to renew the Premium Tax Credit. Additionally, at least 115 hospitals and clinics across 32 states have closed or reduced services as a result of the Republican healthcare cuts.

The corruption runs even deeper. When Trump rolled out TrumpRx earlier this year, he claimed Americans would get access to more affordable prescription drugs. But the platform fails to disclose information about less expensive generic alternatives and in some instances charges consumers more for products that are available for less elsewhere.

As the Groundwork Collaborative has shown, the biggest winners from TrumpRx are the Trump family and Big Pharma. Donald Trump Jr. is on the board of drug platform BlinkRx, which benefits from the regime’s promotion of direct-to-patient medicine sales. BlinkRx donated $50,000 to the Trump inaugural committee. When patients use TrumpRx instead of insurance, they have to cover the drug cost themselves — saving money for insurance companies as they continue to rake in premiums.

And despite Trump exempting 17 of the largest pharmaceutical companies from his threatened pharmaceutical tariffs, these firms have continued to raise prices on nearly 900 different drugs. At least three of these firms — Gilead, Merck, and Pfizer — each donated $1 million to the Trump-Vance inaugural committee, alongside the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, which lobbies on behalf of Big Pharma.

These connections between the higher prices Americans are paying and the corruption of the Trump regime and its Republican enablers need to be widely understood. The richest Americans and biggest corporations have made out like bandits — and average working Americans are paying dearly for what the bandits have stolen.

Less than five weeks until the November 3 midterm elections, Democrats must show Americans not only that they’re paying more for just about everything, but that the reason they’re paying more is the rot at the heart of Trump-Republican deal.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.

I feel optimistic about the midterm elections, just over five weeks away. But my stomach aches when I think of what’s at stake.

Call me nauseously optimistic.

I suspect you’re in a similar place.

If it were only the polls, I’d feel reasonably good. Here’s one that stuck out for me: The share of Republicans who say the economy is better than a year ago has collapsed from over 70 percent in January to 29 percent in September, according to last week’s New York Times/Siena poll.

Here’s another: According to a Wall Street Journal poll, just 37 percent of Americans approve of the job that Trump is doing — the lowest approval rating of any president heading into a midterm election in Journal polls dating to 1990.

Another good sign: Because of Trump’s unpopular war, his dreaded tariffs, and their effect on prices, Republicans in tight races are starting to tiptoe away from Trump. In recent days, Maine Senator Susan Collins and Kansas Senator Roger Marshall have distanced themselves from Trump on tariff policies that they say hurt small businesses and rural communities in Maine and aircraft production in Kansas. Nebraska Senator Pete Ricketts has questioned whether consumers would see lower prices from Trump’s decision to temporarily allow more foreign beef imports into the U.S., a move that’s opposed by ranchers. All three senators are seeking reelection this year.

In the House, seven Republicans, including a group facing tough reelection races, joined Democrats this past week in passing a measure directing Trump to remove U.S. forces from hostilities against Iran unless Congress authorizes the war.

Republicans are also uneasy with Trump’s refusal to regulate AI, data centers, or even Flock Safety cameras — which most Americans now oppose.

And I think this is fascinating: Mentions of Trump’s name per hour on conservative podcasts have fallen nearly 70 percent from their peak in the run-up to the 2024 election. Monthly mentions of his name have fallen 30 percent since the U.S. launched the war in late February.

All encouraging.

But what makes my stomach churn is the vast amounts of money from some of the worst right-wing billionaires in America (cue Elon Musk) now being poured into key races to finance a barrage of ads favoring Republican candidates and making stuff up about Democrats and progressives.

My stomach also aches when I think about what Trump and his regime may try (and have already tried) to do to interfere with our elections and further erode public trust in them. On Friday, for example, the Supreme Court lifted restrictions on a federal voter database pushed by Trump. Even worse, his regime refuses to rule out sending ICE agents to polling places.

So our work over the next five weeks is essential — phoning, writing, canvassing, getting out the vote, and, to the extent we can, funding candidates who will help average working Americans.

Yes, money talks, and Trump is a vicious dictator. But there are far more of us than there are Trump’s billionaires — more of us to do the talking and the organizing and the mobilizing. And far more of us to guard our electoral system than there are Trump lapdogs and agents.

And always remember this: We’re on the right side — the side of the people seeking the common good rather than the corporate and techno-billionaires seeking additional wealth and power for themselves.

Which is why I’m nauseously optimistic that we will prevail in just over five weeks. And you? How do you feel?

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.

Everyone in the world knows how much Trump craves attention, especially televised attention.

After all, his political career emerged from reality TV. He’s known to watch several television screens simultaneously in the White House. He views much of what he and his regime do through the lenses of television (even deciding on cabinet and sub-cabinet officials on the basis of how they look on TV).

So today’s TV blackout of his trip to the United Nations General Assembly must cause him some anguish.

He has no one to blame but himself.

On Friday he announced he was banning CNN, Politico, and MSNOW from the White House because he objected to their coverage of him and his regime. Over the weekend, reporters from the organizations were denied entry to the complex and had their credentials confiscated.

In a commendable show of media solidarity, Fox News Media, ABC News, CBS News, and NBC News then suspended their television coverage of Trump today — coverage that also entails distributing their footage to news organizations worldwide. They said in a joint statement: “No administration should restrict a news organization because it objects to its reporting,” the four other major news organizations.”

Which means Trump has no TV coverage today because the above-mentioned networks — plus CNN — had long performed the television duties on a rotation, and CNN had been slated to provide coverage for Trump’s travel today to New York. (Trump’s activities today are still expected to be covered by print, radio and wire journalists, along with still photographers.)

The American public is ill-served by a megalomaniacal authoritarian in the White House who refuses to allow negative coverage.

But the solidarity of the media reveals a fundamental truth about this megalomaniac: The most successful way to respond to him is to unite against him.

Had the big universities he attacked united against him, his power over them would have been far more limited. Same with the law firms he bullied. Similarly with nations. (Canada’s move toward the European Union in light of Trump’s bullying is exactly right.)

Bullies can’t continue to bully if the people and institutions they seek to bully won’t succumb to the bullying — especially if they unite.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.

Last week, the unlikely duo of Bernie Sanders and Steve Bannon keynoted a Washington conference to demand a stop to AI, its data centers, and the risks AI poses to jobs and even to the human species.

Notably, both lambasted the corporate oligarchs behind AI.

The most potent force in American politics is anti-establishment fury at a system seen as rigged against average working people. AI has become Exhibit A.

Until recently both parties largely avoided criticizing the wealthy corporate elites that funded their campaigns. In nature as in politics, one does not bite the hands that feed.

Trump Republicans have instead aimed populist fury at immigrants, LGBTQ+ people, Black and Latino people, “communists,” Muslims, so-called “woke” leaders, “coastal elites,” “childless cat ladies,” and other scapegoats.

Democrats — with the exceptions of Bernie Sanders, AOC, and a few others — have also avoided criticizing wealthy corporate elites, aiming populist fury at Trump.

This may be changing.

It’s becoming obvious to much of America that giant corporations have been raking it in while workers have been taking it on the chin.

As of mid-2026, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the percentage of the total economy going to workers as wages fell to a record low of 52.9 percent (down from above 65 percent when tracking began in 1947) — leaving the rest to investors, business owners, and corporate profits.

AI is on the way to causing far more inequality — generating billions for its backers while reducing jobs and wages.

Trump and his regime, meanwhile, have exposed the greed, venality, cupidity, and corruption of America’s wealthy corporate elites by allowing them to do anything they want — including energy-guzzling, water-depleting AI data centers — as long as they kiss his assets by funding his PAC, paying for his ballroom, and singing his praises.

Trump has thereby unveiled the truth about corporate America that for years had been hidden behind corporate PR about “corporate social responsibility,” corporate charity, and “trickle-down” economics: The captains of corporate America are willing to throw average working Americans under the bus to make billions more.

Corporate avarice under Trump has become so blatant and corporate America’s contempt for the needs of average Americans so flagrant that most Americans are now catching on. In a recent NBC poll, 54 percent of Americans agreed that “When it comes to politics and society, nothing really matters because powerful people will always do whatever they want.”

AI may well be the final tipping point.

Data centers are unpopular — some 70 percent of the public opposes them. And Americans harbor deep suspicions of AI. Over 60 percent believe AI could destroy humanity (this includes 60 percent of Trump supporters).

Fears about AI are provoking larger concerns about wealthy corporate elites bribing politicians — not just to get generous subsidies for AI but also to reduce the corporate elite’s tax bills, kill off unions, slash social safety nets, deregulate Wall Street, attain no-bid government contracts, receive exclusive licenses, open tax loopholes, get tariff exemptions, use public lands, and become even bigger monopolies.

Because of Trump, Americans are coming to view those wealthy corporate elites as more aligned with Republicans than with Democrats. According to last week’s Times-Siena poll, when likely voters were asked which party the word “elitist” describes, 43 percent said Republicans while 33 percent said Democrats.

This is something of a return to how America’s two major political parties used to be viewed. Before World War II, Democrats were assumed to be on the side of working people against wealthy corporate elites. On the eve of his 1936 reelection, FDR told the American people they were fighting “business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, war profiteering …. We now know that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government organized by the mob.”

Will Democrats seize the moment and embrace the new AI-fueled economic populism? Or will they continue to succumb to the siren song of big money?

According to Politico, some Democratic political consultants are quietly urging candidates in the toughest battleground races to stay mum on AI “over fears that powerful and well-resourced pro-AI interest groups could spend money pummeling them in the final weeks of the midterms.”

It’s not just the future of the Democratic Party that’s at stake; it’s the future of America.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/