Robert Reich

October 14, 2020 – I keep hearing from progressives who lament that even if Biden wins, Trump and McConnell have tilted the playing field forever. They point to McConnell’s rush to confirm Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, after blocking President Obama’s nominee for 293 days because it was “too close” to the next […]

October 8, 2020 – Without a shred of evidence, Trump claims that mail-in ballots are rife with fraud. Rubbish. Mail-in ballots, also called absentee ballots, have been used for years across America. They have proven safe and secure.  Even the right-wing Heritage Foundation, after examining 36 years of mail-in ballots, found only 1,285 cases of voter […]

October 4, 2020 – For about a minute today I found myself feeling sorry for Donald Trump. The poor man is now “battling” Covid-19 (the pugilistic verb is showing up all over the news). He’s in the hospital. He’s out-of-shape. He’s 74-years old. His chief of staff calls his symptoms “very concerning.” Joe Biden is […]

September 29, 2020 – Led by Mitch McConnell, Republicans are gearing up to reverse the precedent they themselves set in 2016, when they blocked President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee for 293 days because, they said, “this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president.”  They know if they let the people decide […]

September 15, 2020 – Since the first colonizers arrived in the United States to this very moment, wealthy elites have used the tools of theft, exclusion, and exploitation to expand their wealth and power at the detriment of Black, Latinx, Indigenous people, and marginalized people of color.It all boils down to this simple truth: Racism […]

August 25, 2020 – It’s no secret Donald Trump will do anything to hold on to power. His latest strategy is to sabotage the United States Postal Service, courtesy of his handpicked Postmaster General Louis DeJoy. A Republican mega donor with no postal experience, DeJoy instituted sweeping measures that have caused massive mail delays across the country. […]

August 14, 2020 – Since the start of the pandemic, American billionaires have been cleaning up. As more than 50 million Americans filed for unemployment insurance, billionaires became $637 billion richer. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg’s wealth has ballooned 59 percent. Amazon’s Jeff Bezos’s, 39 percent. Walmart’s Walton family has added $25 billion. Big drug company CEOs and their major investors […]

July 22, 2020 – Some societies center on social control, others on social investment. Social-control societies put substantial resources into police, prisons, surveillance, immigration enforcement, and the military. Their purpose is to utilize fear, punishment, and violence to divide people and keep the status quo in place — perpetuating the systemic oppression of Black and […]

July 14, 2020 – After the bruising crises we’re now going through, it would be wonderful if we could somehow emerge a fairer nation. One possibility is to revive an old idea: sharing the profits. The original idea for businesses to share profits with workers emerged from the tumultuous period when America shifted from farm […]

As our incompetent president flounders in the face of crises – leading the worst coronavirus response in the industrialized world, and seeking to crush nationwide protests for black lives – the hard truth about this country comes into focus: America is not exceptional, but it is the exception. No other industrialized nation was as woefully […]

June 17, 2020 – As hundreds of thousands take to the streets to protest ruthless police killings of Black Americans and centuries of systemic racism, Donald Trump and his enablers have been quick to cast the protesters as violent “looters” – and distract from the real looters of America. So far, over 10,000 Americans have […]

June 10, 2020 – As the coronavirus crisis rages on, Fox News is contributing almost as much to the deaths and disease as is Trump’s White House. Trump spouts a shocking amount of misinformation during his daily press briefings, but it’s Fox News’ equally misleading coverage of the crisis that closes the lethal circuit of […]

May 19, 2020 – As America reopens for business, you might expect Jeff Bezos, the richest man in America, and his Amazon corporation, one of the most profitable corporations in America, to set the corporate standard for how to protect the health of American workers. Think again.   Amazon’s warehouses have become Covid-19 hot spots, […]

May 11, 2020 – Donald Trump is getting nervous. Internal polls show him losing in November unless the economy comes roaring back. But much of the American economy remains closed because of the pandemic. The number of infections and deaths continue to climb. Almost 3,000 Americans died last Friday alone, the deadliest day since the […]

April 8, 2020 – Today, America’s wealthiest business moguls – like Jamie Dimon, head of JPMorgan Chase – claim that they are “patriots before CEOs” because they employ large numbers of workers or engage in corporate philanthropy. Rubbish. CEOs are in business to make a profit and maximize their share prices, not to serve America. And […]

February 18, 2020 – “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it sometimes rhymes,” Mark Twain is reputed to have said.  My first job after law school was as an attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice. I reported for work September 1974, just weeks after Richard Nixon resigned.  In the years leading up to his resignation, […]

February 6, 2020 – I wasn’t going to comment on Trump’s lie-filled State of the Union message but the whoppers were so big – especially on the economy – that I feel compelled. Here, for the record, is the real state of the union: 1. JOBS: Average monthly job creation dropped from 223,000 in 2018 […]

February 4, 2020 – An impeached president who was on trial and is up for re-election will be delivering a state of the union address to the most divided union in living memory. He will be giving his address to both his jurors and prosecutors, and most importantly, to the voters that will decide his […]

For months now, Trump and his Republican enablers have been selling a counter-narrative, to distract from Trump’s effort to get Ukraine to dig up dirt on Joe Biden, and Russia’s attempt in 2016 to help Trump win the election. How did they do it? Nine steps: Step 1: Find a source of half-baked lies and innuendo.​ […]