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Several of you have asked me how to live in a nation whose leader has embraced cruelty as public policy. How do we inhabit Trump’s America without becoming complicit in this cruelty? Some thoughts... robertreich.substack.com/p/sunday-tho...

submitted 3 hours ago • 55 comments

The United States is the richest country in the history of the world. But who benefits from those riches? Consider: the richest 10% of Americans hold nearly 70% of the nation’s wealth – while the bottom 50% hold just 3%. See the problem?

submitted 19 hours ago • 504 comments

Trump's EPA just moved to reverse state and local bans on toxic "forever chemicals" that can lead to birth defects and cancer. So much for "Make America Healthy Again." https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/apr/05/trump-pfas-toxic-forever-chemicals

submitted 22 hours ago • 283 comments

Trump and the U.S. are officially in a trade war with China. Here’s what you should know.

submitted 23 hours ago • 53 comments

The stock portfolios of more than two dozen members of Congress outperformed the market in 2024. This isn't due to luck or skill. Lawmakers can use privileged information to trade stocks while they’re supposed to be working for you. Make no mistake, it’s legalized corruption.

submitted 1 day ago • 791 comments

Cost of extending the Trump tax cuts for the rich: $4.6 trillion Cost of cutting corporate tax rate to 15%: $1 trillion Remember this as we hear about "wasteful government spending."

submitted 1 day ago • 122 comments

The Trump tariff roller-coaster goes off the rails. The mad king makes a mockery of the rule of law. The Reverse Robin Hood budget bill begins. Heather and I break down this week's news — and take a sneak peek at my new memoir — on today's Coffee Klatch. https://youtu.be/fUIFIG1TnRo

submitted 1 day ago • 49 comments

The Trump regime is working to deter dissent. Anyone who goes against Trump could end up on a target list. This is having a chilling effect on five major pillars of society — universities, science, the media, the law, and the arts. It's straight out of the fascist playbook.

submitted 1 day ago • 289 comments

1 in 4 coal miners in Appalachia get black lung disease, caused by exposure to silica dust in mines. Once again, Trump is throwing workers under the bus for the sake of corporate profits.

submitted 1 day ago • 106 comments

The Supreme Court has unanimously ruled the Trump regime must facilitate the return of a Maryland man wrongly deported to El Salvador. How lawless do your actions have to be for even Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito to rule against them?

submitted 1 day ago • 224 comments

Mahmoud Khalil expressed his political point of view peacefully. That’s supposed to be permitted in a democracy. If this egregious assault on civil liberties stands, what’s to stop Trump from arresting American citizens who support any cause his regime doesn’t like?

submitted 2 days ago • 137 comments

It was always about personal profit

submitted 5 days ago • 41 comments

The Trump horror show continues. But I bring you these small reasons for modest hope to remind you that there are still some cause for optimism. https://robertreich.substack.com/p/twelve-small-reasons-for-modest-hope

submitted 2 days ago • 34 comments

One of the greatest ongoing scandals of today is that our elected officials — Democrats included — continue to refuse to ban members of Congress and their families from trading stocks.

submitted 2 days ago • 150 comments

The 500 richest people in the world added $304B to their combined net worth yesterday after Trump's tariff pause. And what did Republicans in the House do today? They passed a budget resolution that paves the way for more tax cuts for the rich. "Party of the working class."

submitted 2 days ago • 78 comments

How did my generation – the baby boomers – squander the potential our parents left us? What can our children do to correct our mistakes? These are the central questions of my new memoir: Coming Up Short. You can preorder it now. sites.prh.com/reich

submitted 2 days ago • 139 comments

After massive public backlash, the Social Security Administration is rolling back its disastrous cuts to phone services. This is a huge victory for the public against DOGE's rampage. Keep up the fight.

submitted 2 days ago • 653 comments

House Republicans voted to overturn the CFPB's cap on excessive overdraft fees — which was expected to save consumers $5 billion annually. The House also struck down CFPB oversight over payment apps run by Big Tech companies. The GOP is the party of letting you get ripped off.

submitted 2 days ago • 84 comments

Today would be a great day to ban members of Congress and their families from trading stocks.

submitted 2 days ago • 996 comments

The 500 richest people in the world added $304B to their combined net worth yesterday after Trump's tariff pause. Meanwhile, retirees, small businesses, and workers are still reeling from the mess. Trump's actions feel chaotic until you see who really comes out on top.

submitted 2 days ago • 136 comments

This is the budget resolution that Republicans have voted for. Another reminder that we have socialism for the rich, harsh capitalism for the rest.

submitted 2 days ago • 114 comments

No matter how many times Republicans say otherwise, there is no way they can pay for their tax cuts for the rich without gutting healthcare and food assistance for the poor — along with other programs that millions of people rely on. Don't believe their lies for a second.

submitted 3 days ago • 99 comments

I’ve been around politics for nearly 50 years, trying my best to stand up for the little guy. But my generation of Baby Boomers failed to stop the bullies. In my new memoir, Coming Up Short, I examine what went wrong — and what our children can do to build a better America.

submitted 3 days ago • 178 comments

Any traders with inside information that Trump was going to walk back his tariffs — some of them, presumably, Trump family members and cronies — just made a fortune. It all feels like chaos until you look more closely at who is winning.

submitted 3 days ago • 355 comments

See how this works? www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

submitted 3 days ago • 235 comments

Niccolò Machiavelli argued that sometimes it is “a very wise thing to simulate madness.” Wise, that is, for the manipulative ruler. Trump is simulating madness, but it’s all about increasing his wealth and power. https://robertreich.substack.com/p/trump-only-simulates-madness

submitted 3 days ago • 131 comments

Any traders with inside information that Trump was going to walk back his tariffs — some of them, presumably, Trump family members and cronies — just made a fortune. It all feels like chaos until you look more closely at who is winning.

submitted 3 days ago • 355 comments

Trump is trying to deregulate crypto as his personal businesses get more involved in the industry. He also just gutted the DOJ team that investigates crypto fraud. This may be one of most overt conflicts of interest in presidential history and it's hardly a blip on the news.

submitted 3 days ago • 191 comments

The upward redistribution of wealth over the past 50 years has shifted $80 trillion from the bottom 90% of Americans to the top 1%. That’s $80 trillion that would have gone into the paychecks of the working class. The greatest trick of all is trickle-down economics.

submitted 3 days ago • 255 comments

The top five egg producers own roughly half of all U.S. laying hens. The biggest of those corporations is Cal-Maine, which just announced quarterly profits of $509 million — more than 3x what it made a year ago. Corporate concentration + bird flu = a price-hiking free for all.

submitted 3 days ago • 665 comments

Both China and the European Union have slapped retaliatory tariffs on the United States. Trump's idiotic tariffs (and his general misunderstanding of how they work) have unleashed a new global trade war. Buckle up — because In a trade war, there are no winners. Watch

submitted 3 days ago • 43 comments

Remember: The recipe for economic growth isn’t tax cuts for the rich. It’s investment in our people — in health care, infrastructure and education — to build a strong middle class. You don't grow the economy through trickle-down nonsense.

submitted 4 days ago • 234 comments

The Social Security Administration is now wrongly informing some SSI recipients they are no longer receiving benefits. This comes as agency cuts have led to repeated website crashes and overwhelmed phone lines. This is what DOGE's "efficiency" looks like.

submitted 4 days ago • 177 comments

Has anything like this ever happened before? I asked several historians what they believed to be the closest analogy to the horrors we’re now living through with the Trump regime. I found their answers fascinating. robertreich.substack.com/p/office-hou...

submitted 4 days ago • 39 comments

SpaceX just landed a $5.92B contract with the Pentagon for Space Force rocket launches — the largest contract among the three firms who secured deals to send satellites into orbit. While DOGE cuts essential services for you, Musk is getting a taxpayer-funded windfall. Hello?

submitted 5 days ago • 364 comments

Here’s the real reason why DOGE is gutting the IRS. (Hint: it has nothing to do with “efficiency.”)

submitted 5 days ago • 517 comments

Reminder: Tariffs aren't paid by other countries. They're eventually paid by us at the check out line. And they're regressive — taking a higher percentage out of the paychecks of working people than out of the wealthy.

submitted 4 days ago • 389 comments

“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.” -Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

submitted 4 days ago • 270 comments

Private equity firms have reportedly flooded the airplane maintenance industry over the last five years. These are the same shady investors who have fueled the housing crisis and strip-mined our healthcare system. What could go possibly go wrong?

submitted 4 days ago • 48 comments

15 years ago the Supreme Court decided corporations are people under the First Amendment. Today, billionaire political spending is up 160-fold since that ruling. We must overturn Citizens United. Every day, it corrupts our politics and erodes our democracy.

submitted 4 days ago • 184 comments

Trump just shut down the DOJ's unit that investigates crypto fraud. Remember: Trump and his inner circle stand to profit from their crypto investments and a proposed national crypto reserve — while taxpayers could be left holding the bag. It's a new Golden Age for corruption.

submitted 4 days ago • 119 comments

Trump says tariffs will help US workers, but he may actually be putting them out of a job. Not only do tariffs make it harder for American companies to source products, but retaliation from our trading partners will shrink export markets. In a trade war, there are no winners.

submitted 4 days ago • 64 comments

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." -Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1953

submitted 4 days ago • 664 comments

I'm so excited to put a film out into the world that is full of joy, that celebrates the awe and wonder of science and the human experience. We are all born with an instinct to observe. That's how we learn, how we grow, how we make sense of ourselves and our place in the world We are all OBSERVERS

submitted 4 days ago • 9 comments

if you want to bring back the prosperity* and security of mid-century american life then you need high rates of unionization, a generous social insurance state, and widespread, freely available education. www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnb...

submitted 5 days ago • 209 comments

If Trump can claim a "national emergency" to disappear legal residents without due process, what’s to stop him from doing the same to U.S. citizens who oppose him? No one is safe — not even people legally in the country, possibly not even American citizens. Fascism is here.

submitted 4 days ago • 254 comments

Gutting the IRS isn't “efficiency." It’s helping billionaires evade taxes, pure and simple.

submitted 5 days ago • 15 comments