The sky had not yet begun to brighten on a chilly February morning in 1911 when the first workers arrived at the seafood cannery in Biloxi, Mississippi. Slipping in after them was a slender man carrying cumbersome camera equipment. Photographer Lewis Hine was not allowed in the cannery. But he had no qualms about sneaking in at five in the morning, as he knew the managers would not arrive until hours later. He would return again at noon in a rowboat, tying up to the cannery dock, to get within striking distance of his subjects.

One was Manuel, who, at just five years old, was already a veteran shrimp picker. In the photograph taken by Hine, Manuel is round-cheeked and round-tummied, with a serious expression. Barefoot, he stands facing the camera, dressed in a checkered shirt, short pants, and a soiled apron, wearing a fisherman’s cap on his head. In each hand he holds a strainer pot. Behind him is an immense mound of oyster shells.

Hine had traveled to Biloxi on behalf of the National Child Labor Committee, a group formed in 1904. One of the greatest documentary photographers, Hine journeyed to factories, mills, fields, and mines to document how America’s children toiled. His images played a major role in the enactment of child labor laws in the United States.

Hine—who was born 150 years ago, on September 26, 1874—pioneered the use of photography as part of crusades for social reform. Now is a good time to recall Hine’s efforts as part of the broader movement to improve the conditions of children at work, in school, and in housing. In the past few years, America’s business lobby has sort to reverse that progress and roll back protections, according to the Economic Policy institute. This year alone, six states—Alabama, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, and West Virginia, enacted legislation to weaken child labor protections, despite an increase in child labor violations. These and other states have been trying to roll back rules that deal with youth work permits, work hours and rest breaks, and protections from hazardous work in response to lobbying campaigns by the restaurant, construction, hospitality, grocery, and farm industries. Other states, however, are pushing to strengthen laws.

Interior of tobacco shed, Hawthorn Farm. Girls in foreground are 8, 9, and 10 years old. The 10 yr. old makes 50 cents a day. 12 workers on this farm are 8 to 14 years old, and about 15 are over 15 yrs. (Photo: Lewis Hine / Library of Congress)

Lewis Hine was born in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, above a popular Main Street restaurant that his parents owned. His father died when Lewis was seventeen years old. He worked as a hauler at a furniture factory, toiling thirteen hours a day, six days a week, to help support his mother and sister. But in 1893, during an economic downturn, the factory closed. He picked up odd jobs, splitting firewood and making deliveries. (Delivery boys were later a favorite subject in his work.) When he was hired as a bank janitor, he studied stenography at night and was promoted to secretary.

Hine’s life began to change when he met Frank Manny, who became his mentor, introducing him to the ideas of John Dewey and, later, Felix Adler, the founder of the Ethical Culture movement. Hine enrolled at the teachers’ college in Oshkosh, where Manny taught, and then spent a year at the University of Chicago. When Manny became superintendent of the Ethical Culture School in New York City, he offered Hine a job teaching geography and natural history. While teaching, Hine completed his degree in education at New York University.

The Ethical Culture School, founded by Adler, was progressive and experimental. It based its curriculum on humanist values that helped lay the groundwork for Hine’s future work. Although Hine had never picked up a camera before, Manny suggested he become the school photographer. He took pictures of school activities, set up a dark room, and started a camera club.

Manny used Hine’s emerging photography skills to teach students about social conditions, in particular the conditions facing the waves of immigrants coming through Ellis Island. Manny urged Hine to portray the dignity and worth of the newcomers, in part to help counter a growing anti-immigrant sentiment. Hine, with Manny as his assistant, lugged his rudimentary photography equipment to Ellis Island. He never photographed people without their permission, and in the cacophony of languages, he had to pantomime his requests to take a picture. Using an old box camera, glass-plate negatives, and magnesium flash powder that he had to ignite manually, he managed to capture beautiful images of people just arriving from Europe. He returned to Ellis Island many times over the coming years, taking 200 photographs in all.

After graduating from New York University, Hine began graduate studies in sociology at Columbia University. This prepared him for an assignment with Arthur and Paul Kellogg, who ran the reform-oriented magazine Charities and The Commons (later renamed Survey). They asked Hine to take pictures for the Pittsburgh Survey, a pioneering six-volume sociological study of conditions in that urban industrial city funded by the Russell Sage Foundation.

Hine followed in the footsteps of documentary photographer Jacob Riis, who captured the squalid conditions of New York’s tenements in his 1890 masterpiece How the Other Half Lives. But whereas Riis photographed his subjects as helpless victims, beaten down by an oppressive system, Hine sought to present his subjects as people with pride and dignity, often tough and defiant, who held out hope for a better world. Hine was known for inviting his subjects to reveal what they wished of themselves rather than trying to catch them or coax them into wearing expressions of anguish or emptiness. Historian Robert Westbrook credits Hine with engaging his subjects with “decorum and tact,” rarely taking candid shots but instead encouraging eye contact with the camera lens.

Jewel and Harold Walker, 6 and 5 years old, pick 20 to 25 pounds of cotton a day in Comanche County, Oklahoma. (Photo: Lewis Hine / Library of Congress)

Hine worked with advocacy organizations that were trying to ban child labor. One of his pictures is of a mother and her four children sitting around the kitchen table, in a New York tenement lit by an oil lamp, all making paper flowers. “Angelica is three years old,” he noted. “She pulls apart the petals, inserts the center, and glues it to the stem, making 540 flowers a day for five cents.”

In 1908 the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC)—led by prominent reformers like Jane Addams, Lillian Wald, and Florence Kelley—offered Hine a full-time job as an investigative photographer. He traveled around the country, photographing doffer boys in cotton mills, cigar makers, coal breakers, cannery workers, berry and tobacco pickers, laundry workers, even glassworkers—all under the age of sixteen. To gain access to factories and mills, he would pose as a fire inspector, a Bible salesman, or an industrial photographer. When that failed, he would linger at plant gates, asking children if he could take their picture. His years of teaching, combined with a gentle demeanor, allowed him to connect well with youngsters.

In a speech to the National Conference of Charities and Correction in 1909 entitled “Social Photography: How the Camera May Help in the Social Uplift,” Hine argued that “the great social peril is darkness and ignorance.” Social reformers, he said, need to expose the terrible living and working conditions that are invisible to many Americans. “The average person believes implicitly that the photograph cannot falsify. Of course, you and I know that this unbounded faith in the integrity of the photograph is often rudely shaken, for, while photographs may not lie, liars may photograph.”

Hine was a stickler for individual details, recording whenever possible children’s names, ages, working hours, and wages. He was particularly moved by the young boys laboring at coal mines. Of their work, he wrote, “It’s like sitting in a coal bin all day long, except that the coal is always moving and clattering and cuts their fingers. Sometimes the boys wear lamps in their caps to help them see through the thick dust. They bend over the chutes until their backs ache, and they get tired and sick because they have to breathe coal dust instead of good, pure air.” While he was at a Pennsylvania mine, two boys fell in the chute and were smothered to death.

Leo, 48 inches high, 8 years old. Picks up bobbins at 15 cents a day in Elk Cotton Mills. (Photo: Lewis Hine / Library of Congress)

Hine’s photographs made visible the long-ignored plight of working children. They were used in brochures and booklets, news and magazine articles, exhibits and public lectures. His work played an important role in the movement to enact state and federal child labor laws (which were often paired with compulsory education laws to keep children in school), In 1912, the movement persuaded Congress to create the federal Children’s Bureau. President William Howard Taft appointed Julia Lathrop, a well-known activist who was part of the Hull House settlement in Chicago, as its first director. Over the next decade, Lathrop – the first women to head a federal agency -- directed research into child labor, infant mortality, maternal mortality, juvenile delinquency, and mothers' pensions. Using the bureau’s research findings and Hine’s photographs, the NCLC pushed Congress to pass further legislation, including the Keating-Owen Child Labor Act of 1916 and the Sheppard-Towner Act, a 1921 law that gave the Children’s Bureau the authority to conduct research and pay for services to combat maternal and infant mortality. The movement to end child labor abuses culminated in 1938 with the Fair Labor Standards Act, which included strong protections for children.

In 1918 Hine left the NCLC and went to work for the American Red Cross, traveling to Europe to document the lives of refugees who were uprooted during World War I.

During the 1920s, wanting to focus on more-uplifting subjects, he began a series of portraits honoring American workers. His final major project was to document the construction of the Empire State Building. Although by then in his mid-fifties, he scrambled to dizzying heights to photograph work that he felt captured the uplifting nature of the human spirit. These photos were published in his 1932 book, Men at Work.

From the book, Men at Work, a workman on the framework of the Empire State Building, New York City, 1931. (Photo: Lewis Hine)

In 1936 Hine was appointed head photographer for the National Research Project of the New Deal’s Works Progress Administration. But the next year, when the Farm Security Administration hired photographers to document the working and living conditions of poor and working-class Americans, Hine was not among those hired. The project director, Roy Stryker, said that Hine was difficult to work with. In addition, Hine’s approach of allowing his subjects to pose for the camera may not have been in sync with the other photographers’ notions of documentary social realism.

Hine’s life ended in misfortune. Viewed as outmoded in a time when candid shots were in vogue, he could not find work. He lost his home and ended up on welfare, dying in poverty within a year of his wife’s death. Only after his death was his work once again appreciated. Along with Riis, he is recognized as the father of documentary social photography, an inspiration to many younger photographers—including Paul Strand and others who joined the radical Photo League, as well as Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, Margaret Bourke-White, Gordon Parks, and Milton Rogovin, who all used the camera as a weapon in the struggle for social reform. Today thousands of Hine’s images have been preserved at major institutions, including the Library of Congress.

Israel’s violence toward its neighbors, long out of control in its destruction of Gaza, now threatens to open new fronts, involve new nations, and even drag the United States into direct conflict. Promises of a cease-fire from the Biden administration have come to nothing. Soft behind-the-scenes diplomacy has failed to achieve peace.

In response, “Cease-fire,” the first demand of the peace movement since Israel’s destruction of Gaza began, has evolved. The actions of the Israeli military and government, the indiscriminate killing of women and children with U.S. weapons, and appropriate frustration from activists in the street have created a new demand: an American arms embargo against Israel. For U.S. President Joe Biden and his administration, it may be the only way out of a new quagmire in the Middle East.

But instead of deescalating the war and reaching a lasting peace with the Palestinian people, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israeli government is expanding the war to new fronts. On September 23, the Israel Defense Forces launched a barrage of attacks on Lebanon, killing over 600 people and wounding thousands. It is now threatening a ground invasion. The previous week it simultaneously detonated electronic devices across Lebanon, killing dozens and maiming thousands, including civilians and children. Commenting on that attack, former CIA Director and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said, “I don’t think there’s any question that it’s a form of terrorism.” These terror attacks in Lebanon were perpetrated just one day after a senior Biden adviser warned Netanyahu not to expand the war.

President Biden’s strategy to achieve a cease-fire and end the destruction of Gaza has, so far, failed. His strategy to prevent a wider war in the Middle East is currently failing. It’s time for a tougher, clearer tack.

These are only the latest examples of a pattern of escalation by Israel. In January an Israeli strike killed a top Hezbollah commander in Beirut, Lebanon. In April Israel destroyed the Iranian embassy in Damascus, Syria. In late July they assassinated the political leader of Hamas, and lead negotiator in the cease-fire talks, in Tehran, while he was attending the inauguration of Iran’s new president. Israel has also escalated the scale of violence in the West Bank, killing over 500 civilians in the past year and launching a major military operation there in August.

Israeli officials have recently described their strategy of expanding the war to include Lebanon as “deescalation by escalation”—an oxymoron that flies in the face of the Biden administration’s long-stated goal to prevent a wider, regional war. This diplomatic failure on the part of President Biden and his foreign policy team threatens to drag the United States into another war in the Middle East. The Pentagon announced that the U.S. is sending additional forces, adding to the 40,000 U.S. servicemen and women already in the region. Another aircraft carrier, the USS Truman, and accompanying ships is now headed to the area to join the USS Abraham Lincoln, sending thousands more sailors to the region as well, at considerable expense.

More direct U.S. involvement in Israel’s wars threatens not only those U.S. personnel, but also the political situation at home. A major foreign policy failure so close to the November presidential election could have the effect of bolstering former President Donald Trump’s bid to retake the White House. Trump has consistently criticized Biden for not supporting Israel enough, saying he should let them “finish the job” in Gaza. No friend to the Palestinians, Trump even used the term “Palestinian” as an insult and slur on the debate stage with Biden. Despite repeated signs that the Israeli PM is not a trustworthy partner for peace, President Biden has failed to use his leverage to rein him in. In a recent statement Netanyahu declared he will not entertain diplomatic ideas on Lebanon and will not engage in cease-fire talks for 45 days. The fact that the statement came 45 days before the U.S. presidential election is a clear signal of Netanyahu’s political desires and motivations.

So what can Mr. Biden, his administration, and presidential hopeful VP Kamala Harris do? They can change course and finally put their foot down with Netanyahu and his right-wing government. The introduction of Joint Resolutions of Disapproval by Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont provides an opportunity to do so. These privileged resolutions requires the U.S. Senate to take a vote on the sale of $20 billion dollars of military equipment to Israel. Over $18 billion comes in the form of high tech F-15 fighter-bombers, but the sale also includes tank munitions, mortar shells, and precision bombs. Biden could preempt the vote by announcing a pause to at least some weapons to Israel in light of the expanding war he has long opposed publicly. This move could also shield the Biden administration from forthcoming reports from inspectors general investigating human rights violations committed by Israel using U.S. weapons, a breach of US law.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has certainly given President Biden cause to stop sending U.S. arms to his right-wing government. The assault on the people of Gaza is nearing its one year anniversary. Tens of thousands of Israelis are protesting their government’s failure to get back hostages taken by Hamas during its attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. Former Israeli Prime Ministers Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert have criticized Netanyahu’s prosecution of the war and blamed him for strategic failures that led to October 7. President Biden could embrace these more reasonable forces in Israel, framing his arms stoppage as a message to Netanyahu personally and an effort to retrieve the hostages.

He’s done it before. In one of President Biden’s first foreign policy moves as president he announced a pause in offensive weapons to Saudi Arabia. The kingdom had been using such weapons to destroy its neighbor to the south, Yemen, since 2015. Biden’s move helped pave the way for negotiations leading to a cease-fire in Yemen that has largely held since 2022. His example of presidential leadership, while not perfect, illustrates a clear road map. There’s historical precedent too. Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, and George H.W. Bush also leveraged U.S. arms to Israel. Want a cease-fire to end or prevent humanitarian disaster? Stop providing the fire.

President Biden’s strategy to achieve a cease-fire and end the destruction of Gaza has, so far, failed. His strategy to prevent a wider war in the Middle East is currently failing. It’s time for a tougher, clearer tack. There is still time to prevent the complete destruction of Gaza and to avert another disastrous regional war. There is time for Biden to avoid a political blunder that will permanently damage his legacy as president. There is time to energize young voters and Arab-American and Muslim-American voters who fear a return of Trumpism but can’t stomach a vote for an administration they see as complicit in genocide.

But there isn’t much time.

The Not Another Bomb Campaign, launched by the Uncommitted movement that successfully mobilized over 700,000 voters to express their discontent with Mr. Biden’s Gaza policy in the Democratic Primary, has the correct framing. “It is crystal clear: In order to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza, the U.S. must immediately stop arming Israel.” Satisfying this new demand can also stop the expansion of violence into Lebanon, Syria, and Iran, preventing the loss of American lives. Heeding it might be the only way to stop the horror.

Europe is the biggest market for U.S. fracked gas exports. This fracked gas is liquefied—turned into LNG—and then shipped to the E.U.’s shores. Once regasified it runs in pipelines to fuel industry processes or heat homes or food. While it was enthusiastically titled “Freedom Gas” in 2019, when the E.U.-U.S. LNG deal was forged, more and more Europeans realize today that this gas comes with a very bitter aftertaste, concerning both our planet’s climate and the environment as well as human rights and the health of impacted communities.

This spring, I had the opportunity to meet Corpus Christi and Southern Louisiana inhabitants and learn firsthand about the devastating impact that the LNG industry, on top of all other polluting industries impacting the community, has on people and their health, water, air, and livelihoods.

Industry operations in petrochemical and LNG export locations in the U.S. Gulf Coast are linked with heart, lung, and kidney diseases; significantly lower life expectancy; water and air pollution; loss of biodiversity; and structural human rights violations as well as structural environmental racism. It becomes more and more clear to any remotely responsible energy user that all this is what Europeans are importing when they import LNG, molecule by molecule, vessel by vessel.

More and more LNG export facilities—and E.U. import facilities for that matter—will become stranded assets, and the money invested in them, which should have been invested in renewable energy and energy efficiency, will be lost.

The U.S. Gulf Coast is not only hit by reckless fossil fuel industry activities, but also regularly hit by major hurricanes—and finds itself in the middle of an active hurricane season right now. Increasingly damaging hurricanes are only one of many consequences of the climate crisis. We all experience one heat record after another, floods, droughts, and the world has probably surpassed the 1.5°C threshold already. LNG is fossil methane and has a global warming potential over 100 times higher than that of carbon dioxide in the next crucial decade. LNG leaks methane all along the supply chain.

This should be shocking for any European—and American—to hear, given in the past two years, Europe swallowed over 60% of all LNG that the U.S. exported. After Europe has been scrambling to get off Russian gas, U.S. LNG made up for over 46% of the gas in the E.U. in 2023, and almost all of it is fracked—making the LNG’s climate impact even worse.

Now there are gigantic further LNG plans in the making: Massive LNG export capacity increases are planned in the Gulf Coast. But even notwithstanding the fact that people and the planet can’t afford even more LNG, this buildout does not make sense: The E.U.’s gas demand has already decreased by 20%, and will decrease further if we take our climate commitments seriously. Austria’s fossil gas demand has decreased by 25% since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. However, we are still heavily dependent on Russian gas. In March of 2024, 93% of our gas imports came from Russia—and this too is a shocking truth. So while we may need LNG from other countries in the short-term in order to diversify our gas imports, we would be putting ourselves between a rock and a hard place if we were to replace Russian gas with fracked LNG from the U.S. and Canada. There is no lesser of two evils. This is exactly why it is so important that we phase out fossil gas and transition to sustainable alternatives in those industries that will still depend on gas in the future.

But there is no doubt about our long-term trajectory. We agreed to achieve climate neutrality by 2040. This will be the end date for any use of fossil gas in Austria. The European Union aims for climate neutrality 10 years later than we do. In any case, the bottom line is that we will be phasing out the use of fossil gas in the next 25 years in Europe—which should not be ignored by our transatlantic partners. If we all take our international commitments seriously—commitments that were strengthened at the last climate conference in Dubai—we must not invest in the long-term expansion of ever more LNG capacity. There is no alternative to a fossil fuel phaseout.

In addition to that, more than 40% of the E.U.’s LNG import capacity has been idle last year and the bloc’s LNG demand is expected to peak very soon—possibly already this winter. More and more LNG export facilities—and E.U. import facilities for that matter—will become stranded assets, and the money invested in them, which should have been invested in renewable energy and energy efficiency, will be lost.

Rather than channeling support into fossil giants like LNG export plants—fuming, polluting, and venting sometimes more than 90 hours straight—we need a transatlantic strategy to get off fossil fuels, as fast and fairly as possible.

“The greed of the John Deere company is giving President Biden the perfect opportunity to win back working-class voters. All he needs to do is put up a major fight to stop Deere from shipping U.S. jobs to Mexico.”

I wrote that on June 12, 2024, and the Democrats ignored me. Donald Trump did not. He just called for a 200% tariff on all John Deere imports if the company exports U.S. jobs to Mexico.

How have the Democrats responded to Trump? In the worst way possible. They got billionaire Mark Cuban to say that Trump’s clumsy effort to save 1,000 jobs is “insanity… ridiculously bad and destructive.” Cuban didn’t even mention the plight of the workers.

Cuban’s argument is nothing short of embarrassing. He says that since the proposed tariff on Deere is higher than the one proposed on Chinese imports, Deere will be unable to compete with Chinese tractors and farm equipment. This will potentially lead, he said, to the “destruction of one of the most historied companies in the United States of America.”

The Democrats must decide, and soon, whether they really are the party of the working class. If they are then they must fight hard to save worker jobs from unabated corporate greed.

What exactly is so insane? Trump’s goal isn’t to tariff John Deere out of business. His goal is to keep Deere from exporting 1,000 jobs. Why is it insane to preserve those 1,000 decent-paying unionized U.S. jobs?

Cuban ignores the question of why Deere feels the need to ship jobs to Mexico. Deere argues that it must do so in order to stay competitive. That leads to a Catch-22 proposition: If Deere moves jobs to Mexico and faces a stiff tariff, it will go under. And, if it doesn’t move the jobs to Mexico, it will become uncompetitive and also go under. Cuban is in line with how Deere justifies layoffs to workers: If we don’t cut 1,000 jobs now and move to Mexico, more jobs will be cut later.

What’s Wrong With This Picture?

The big, bigger, and biggest problem is that the Democrats and Cuban are unable to put workers and their livelihoods front and center. They are unable to mouth these words: The 1,000 Deere workers should keep their jobs precisely because Deere, one of the greediest companies on Earth, is loaded with profits and is pouring billions upon billions into stock buybacks. Which is flat-out true.

Last year, Deere recorded $10 billion in profits and it’s CEO was paid $26.7 million. The company also spent $12.2 billion on stock buybacks that enriched its top officers as well as the big Wall Street funds that own loads of Deere stock. (What are stock buybacks? A way for a company to boost the price of its shares by buying them on the open market—a blatant form of stock manipulation that was illegal until deregulated by the Reagan administration.)

And here’s the simple truth: The move to Mexico is designed to cut labor costs in order to finance those stock buybacks. It has nothing to do with competition, Chinese or otherwise. As any Deere worker would tell us, it’s all about greed. The sad thing is that Cuban, a critic of stock buybacks, knows this as well, but refuses to call out Deere.

Mass Layoffs Are Destroying the Democratic Party

My book, Wall Street’s War on Workers, conclusively shows that from 1996 to 2020, as the mass layoff rate rose in any given county in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, the Democratic vote declined. In the rural counties, on average, one-third of the workforce suffered through mass layoffs. Losing your job in a county that has few decent employment alternatives does not lead to positive feelings about the party that is supposed to be the defender of the working class.

Trump’s intervention in 2017 to stop Carrier from moving an Indiana plant to Mexico was “wildly popular.” And yet the Democrats remain tone deaf to the plight of mass layoff victims.

The question is why?

The answer involves understanding what John Kenneth Galbraith called “the conventional wisdom.” There’s an entrenched sense within the Democratic Party of what kinds of interventions are acceptable in financialized capitalism and which are not. Here are a few of the internalized rules:

• It’s OK to tax stock buybacks, but it’s not OK to outlaw them.
• It’s OK to raise taxes on corporations, but it’s not OK to interfere with their power to lay off workers at will.
• It’s OK to provide taxpayer funds to subsidize corporations to make investments, but it’s not OK to tell corporations that they can’t use taxpayer funds to lay off taxpayers or conduct stock buybacks.
• It’s OK to regulate new technologies so consumers don’t get ripped off, but it’s not OK to protect worker livelihoods from such technologies.
• It’s OK to bail out private big banks with taxpayer funds, but it’s not OK to turn them into public banks.
• It’s OK to go after monopoly price gouging, but it’s no OK to stop monopoly mass layoffs.
• It’s OK to ask for 60-day notice for mass layoffs, but it’s not OK to stop compulsory layoffs when they are used to jack up CEO pay, service harmful leveraged buyout debts, or fund stock buybacks.

On a deeper level what ties all this together is a profound faith in corporate power and efficiency. It will be for the better for all of us if billionaire CEOs are free to run their corporations as they see fit. That faith includes protecting the right of corporations to hire and fire at will. After all, new technologies and globalization inevitably involve the churning of jobs, don’t they? Trying to stop or slow down that process would only cripple the economy, wouldn’t it? And we certainly don’t want a country where government officials tell billionaires what to do, do we?

Therefore, a sober, realistic Democratic Party, trapped in its conventional wisdom, will refuse to intervene in corporate hiring and firing. Instead, they travel down the uninspiring and unconvincing path creating an “opportunity economy,” growing new jobs for the future from taxpayer subsidies to chipmakers and the like.

Not so with Trump. He swings a wrecking ball at the conventional wisdom. He acts as if he actually believes that jobs should not be exported to lower-wage countries, and that puts him in tune with nearly every U.S. industrial worker. To be sure many Democrats believe the same. The difference is that Trump has no built-in guard rails about intervening in corporate decision-making. You move jobs to Mexico, he bellows, and we’ll slap a tariff on your butt that is so high that it will be much cheaper for you to keep the jobs here.

That has to be music to the ears of every Deere worker facing the axe, and it certainly will get the attention of millions of workers who have seen their jobs shipped abroad.

It’s Not too Late for the Democrats to Act

Because Trump has difficulty focusing on a coherent message, the field is still open for the Democrats to put forth a new policy that directly affects the jobs of millions of workers. I’m a broken record on this because it’s so very simple. Harris should give a primetime talk and focus on the $700 billion in tax payer money that now goes to private corporations for goods, services, and subsidies: Here’s the line she should stress:

No taxpayer money shall go to corporations that lay off taxpayers or conduct stock buybacks.

To clarify the point, she should add some pragmatic flexibility:

For those companies receiving taxpayer money, layoffs must be voluntary, not compulsory, as is already the case for many white-collar employees.

That would seem fair and just to millions of workers, even if Wall Street would find it “insane.”

The Democrats must decide, and soon, whether they really are the party of the working class. If they are then they must fight hard to save worker jobs from unabated corporate greed.

Is that really too much to ask?

There seems to be quite a bit of confusion as to what a Trump victory in the November election portends. There has been talk of a Trump coup since the 2020 election, with January 6th serving as one of the main events in that narrative. In their efforts to understand and explain, observers have called that event an attempted coup. Recently, Donald Trump referred to the effort to get Biden to step aside as a coup. Such confusion.

In a recent Portside article, Jonathan Winer, a former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for international law enforcement, details three phases of mischief-making on the part of Trump and his minions. Winer characterizes the MAGA effort to implement Project 2025, should Trump win, as a "coup." However, most activities that Winer discusses in his article take place before the winner is certified. All that pre-certification activity involves legislative, electoral, and judicial maneuvering and mischief—but precedes actual office holding. It seeks to influence who wins electorally and that is not the process that one follows in a coup.

A coup is a militarized assault on the institutions of power. It seeks to overthrow through violent means what is recognized as a legitimate government. It involves organized force, capture of key institutions, including the military, security establishment, Information institutions, media outlets, executive); and removing incumbent officials (legislators, judges, administrative personnel, military, and security leaders). These are summary dismissals; they do not come about through an orderly process. Some come with additional burdens that might include imprisonment, exile, or execution. It also involves suspension and/or rejection of the existing constitution and governing structure. It usually results in a military-led administration and governance by decree. That is not what we are considering here.

The mob on January 6th did not seem to have meaningful plans to take over the government, or much of an idea of what they would do on day two. Nothing they did extended beyond Congress. What little coordination there was did not include mobilizing an armed force to overthrow the government, nor did they have any plan for governing. They clearly did not have the support of the military leadership and, bluster and bravado aside, they did not have the wherewithal to withstand a frontal military assault. Their main goal seems to have been to disrupt the legislative process which was to confirm the winner of the election. It was disruptive of congressional business. It was, no doubt, an insurrection, which is a violent uprising against the government. That concept suffices to characterize the January 6th events.

Once the authoritarians have taken power, they use their democratic legitimacy to justify a series of restrictions on democratic forms of governance, such as voter and polling restrictions.

With the coming election we are hearing commentators refer to the Project 2025 document as a prescription for a coup. I find this conceptualization to be problematic. We are witnessing political developments that may have never occurred before in this country. We have no ready ways of conceptualizing those events, so, like Procrustes, we fit them into preexisting conceptual categories. This is what I see happening with the effort to understand what a second Trump administration might portend.

If Trump wins the election and proceeds to implement Project 2025 it will be via the existing political process, even if they massage, manipulate, misinterpret, and cajole to get the results they seek. And they will. Observers cannot accept that the political system can produce outcomes such as those that Project 2025 promises because that would require condemning a flawed process—one that is open to manipulation. This would be a process that can produce an elected administration, however controversial, with a different (and dangerous) policy agenda. Understanding this process requires seeing that such a power grab can happen in the system through its normal workings.

So long as they stay within the operational framework that requires Congress to codify and fund their initiatives, and a Supreme Court to sanction what they do, they will be a legitimate, if not popular, government. We might not like what they do but it will fall within the framework of the American constitutional order.

It is important to be clear about what we are confronting—which is an attempt to consolidate Authoritarianism through the mechanism of State Capture.

We are witnessing an attempt to capture the instruments of the government to institute policy and personnel changes that will resonate for decades.

Contemporary Authoritarian regimes concentrate power in a leader or an elite to undermine democratic institutions to the extent that those institutions become more performative than substantive. Once the authoritarians have taken power, they use their democratic legitimacy to justify a series of restrictions on democratic forms of governance, such as voter and polling restrictions. They neuter the political order while allowing a level of social and economic freedom. These regimes will tolerate social and economic institutions not directly under governmental control so long as they stay in line. The practice of authoritarian regimes is to rely on resignation in the face of lawful, though repulsive measures, and passive mass acceptance rather than active popular support. So long as Trump is in play, authoritarianism will have a populist cast. Thereafter, right-wing Authoritarian forces expect to have their dominance institutionalized through State Capture.

A simple definition of State Capture assumes that elections occur, and officials hold office. It is a matter of how and who. State Capture is a systematic process to advance narrow group interests by taking control of the institutions and processes that produce and implement public policy. Once in control they proceed to direct policy away from the public interest and instead begin to shape policy to serve their own interests more effectively.

We are dealing with a process that has antecedents in Hungary, Türkiye, India, and elsewhere where an authoritarian regime captures the government through formal channels and then begins to populate the administrative structure with partisans, preferably in secure civil service positions. They then implement policies that further consolidate their power. We are witnessing an attempt to capture the instruments of the government to institute policy and personnel changes that will resonate for decades.

The make-up and character of these “narrow interest groups” can differ from case to case. So, in India it can be Hindu nationalists, capitalists, and the landed gentry. In Türkiye, Islamists, and capitalists. In South Africa party cadre, domestic and international capitalists and landed interests. The one thing they all have in common is that capitalists always factor. The narrow interests served by a Trump presidency includes the monopoly sector, neoconservatives, white nationalists, Christian evangelicals, and isolationists. Regimes on the right exist, as in this case, to advance the interests of Capital.

The make-up and character of these “narrow interest groups” can differ from case to case... The one thing they all have in common is that capitalists always factor.

We see the phenomenon of winning elections to legitimize authoritarian regimes on both the right and the left. The difference being that the regimes on the left are doing so under extreme duress from covert destabilizing forces, in the face of punishing international sanctions, and as acts of survival. It does not excuse them, but it does place them in a different context. Among them are regimes that came to power through other means such as coups and revolutions. In those cases, they already have control of the state. The goal is to continue in power.

The main similarity is that State Capture regimes deploy the electoral process to maintain their positions and power. The process of gaining and staying in power involves winning elections. Much can be said about the veracity of those elections. No matter how flawed they may be, though, the regime still gets to check the Democracy box. That is what will happen with Trump if he wins- they will modify the instruments of the state to remain in power and serve capital...forever, if possible. That plan can be delayed but not derailed by the outcome of the November election.

The U.S. is on the brink of making a major climate misstep.

According to a new Center for International Environmental Law analysis, planned petrochemical projects across the U.S. could add a staggering 153.8 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalent (CO₂e) emissions annually. This is equal to the emissions of nearly 40 coal power plants or all U.S. domestic commercial aviation emissions. The implications for climate change are dire, with the petrochemical sector set to become an even larger contributor to the country’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

In a time when decisive climate action is needed more than ever, building more petrochemical plants is a monumental mistake the U.S. cannot afford to make.

Already responsible for 5.2% of the U.S.’ 6.3 billion metric tonnes of annual CO₂e emissions, the petrochemical industry is poised for massive growth. A total of 118 petrochemical projects—ranging from the expansion of existing plants to the construction of entirely new plants—are either planned or already underway and could add the equivalent of 2.4% of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. If this buildout proceeds, more than 7% of U.S. GHG emissions could come from the petrochemical sector.

A Growing Climate Threat

Petrochemical plants manufacture products like plastics, ammonia, and other chemicals, and have a typical lifespan of about 30 years. This means that the fossil-fueled emissions from these facilities will persist for decades, hindering the U.S.’ ability to meet its climate targets. Globally, the petrochemical sector is already a major climate problem, responsible for around 10% of total GHG emissions. Plastic production alone contributes 5.3% of global emissions, while synthetic nitrogen fertilizers add another 2.1% of global emissions.

In a recent analysis, the International Energy Agency projected that 85% of the growth in oil demand will come from petrochemical production by 2030. In the U.S., the planned petrochemical buildout will only make this worse. Our analysis not only reaffirms what we already know about the petrochemical industry’s impact but also highlights new and concerning developments.

Environmental Injustice Amplified

The environmental impact of the petrochemical buildout extends far beyond its contribution to climate change. The petrochemical buildout will deepen environmental injustices in communities that already bear the brunt of industrial pollution. The vast majority of planned petrochemical projects are sited in communities that already experience detrimental environmental and health impacts of living on the fence line of the fossil fuel industry, particularly in the Gulf South and Ohio River Valley.

In Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley,” a region between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, 26 new petrochemical projects are planned. This area is already home to more than 200 fossil fuel and chemical facilities where residents face some of the highest cancer rates in the country. In St. John the Baptist Parish, around halfway between the two cities, lifetime cancer rates are 800 times the U.S. average, according to an estimate from the Environmental Protection Agency. The expansion of petrochemical plants in these communities will only deepen the public health crisis.

Surprising Findings

Megaprojects Make Up Most of the Emissions

One of the most alarming revelations from our analysis is that just 10 megaprojects account for half of the potential emissions from the petrochemical buildout. The fate of just a handful of projects will have a massive impact on the U.S.’ ability to meet its climate targets.

Plastic Production Is Facing Serious Roadblocks

Nearly 60% of planned plastic production projects, calculated based on potential emissions, are on hold. This suggests that investors are already assessing significant risks around the future of plastic production. The growing awareness of the environmental damage caused by plastics, community opposition to these plants, and a global overcapacity of plastic production may be giving investors pause.

Ammonia, A Huge Growth Sector

Ammonia, primarily used in fertilizers, is emerging as a concerning climate problem. More than a third of the projected new emissions come from planned ammonia production. Companies behind projected projects are pitching ammonia not just for fertilizers but as a clean “fuel of the future.” findings reveal that these projects are anything but “clean,” with 95% of proposed U.S. ammonia production being derived from methane gas, which undercuts its supposed climate benefit.

Taxpayers are Footing the Bill

Adding insult to injury, many of these projects are being subsidized by U.S. taxpayers. Planned ammonia and methanol plants stand to benefit from U.S. government incentives like 45Q tax credits, which provide generous handouts to companies using carbon capture systems (CCS) despite carbon capture’s long record of failure.

A Look at the Math

To work out emissions from these planned petrochemical projects we dug through companies’ websites, press releases, and investor communications as well as consulted the Environmental Integrity Project’s comprehensive Oil and Gas Watch database to find the potential production capacity of new petrochemical projects. We used “emissions factors” published by academics at the Universities of Cambridge, Bath, and Sheffield to turn those production numbers into an estimate of emissions, and incorporated the expected emissions from fertilizer decomposition and plastic incineration.

Despite our careful math, we know our calculations underestimate the true climate harm these projects could bring. A few factors contribute to our conservative figures. First, we were only able to estimate emissions from two-thirds of the potential projects. Second, the models we use rely on the U.S. Department of Energy’s estimate of methane leakage, but recent studies suggest that methane leaks are three times higher than this figure. Finally, we cannot quantify some of the potential impacts that plastic pollution or overuse of fertilizers might be having, but there are worrying studies suggesting that both could have deep climate impacts.

The Bigger Picture

Having just experienced the warmest summer on record, the need to phase out fossil fuels has never been more clear. The US petrochemical buildout is a leap in the wrong direction—one that will lock in fossil fuel demand at a time when we should be transitioning away from them.

The decisions made about these projects will have far-reaching consequences. Our analysis reveals the high stakes and urgent need to question whether these projects should be allowed to move forward.

The U.S. is at a crossroads. Policymakers, investors, and communities must confront the reality that the continued expansion of petrochemical infrastructure is incompatible with a sustainable future. The fate of these projects will not only shape the U.S.’ climate trajectory but also have global repercussions in the fight to curb fossil fuel emissions and protect communities vulnerable to the compounding impacts of the petrochemical buildout.

In a time when decisive climate action is needed more than ever, building more petrochemical plants is a monumental mistake the U.S. cannot afford to make. The time to act is now.

In recent days, former U.S. President Donald Trump and his Republican running mate, JD Vance, have doubled down on their false and defamatory claims about legally admitted Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, thus churning up widespread fears, bomb threats, and school evacuations. Claiming that these migrants were destroying the American “way of life,” Trump promised that, if elected, he would order massive deportations. This statement echoed his astonishing promise, made during the 2024 campaign and previously, to seize and deport between 15 and 20 million immigrants.

Nativist agitation has a long, sordid history in the United States. In the 1850s, large numbers of American Protestants rallied behind the Know Nothing movement and its political offshoot, the American Party, ventures centered primarily on opposing the influence of immigrant Catholics. In the latter part of the 19th century, hostility toward Chinese immigrants (“the yellow peril”) and, later, Japanese immigrants led to lynchings, riots, and legislation that barred virtually all immigration from the two Asian nations.

During the early 20th century, American xenophobia focused on the alleged dangers provided by the “new immigrants” from Southern and Eastern Europe, predominantly Catholics and Jews. Such people, it was claimed, had a higher propensity for moral depravity, feeble-mindedness, and crime, and were polluting the “Nordic race.” As a result, many “old stock” Americans championed changes in immigration law to sharply reduce the number of these allegedly inferior people entering the country. Adopted in legislation during the 1920s, a new, highly discriminatory national origins quota system did, indeed, largely restrict their ability to enter the United States, leaving millions to perish in Europe after the onset of the Nazi terror.

Although nativism has been mobilized by political parties and movements of varying political persuasions, it has appeared most frequently on the right.

Of course, many Americans, symbolized by the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor, welcomed the arrival of people from foreign lands. And, in line with their views, U.S. immigration law was significantly liberalized in 1965.

We should also recognize that the United States was hardly unique in undergoing surges of anti-immigrant nativism. Indeed, over the centuries, recent arrivals in many countries experienced rampant xenophobia—including “Paki-bashing” in Britain and violence against Turkish immigrants in Germany. Recently, in fact, intense opposition to immigration and immigrants provided a key factor behind British public support for Brexit and the startling rise of previously marginal, hyper-nationalist parties in Europe.

What has inspired this hostility to people coming from other lands?

Many individuals, it seems, feel uneasy when confronted with the unfamiliar. Thus, they sometimes find differences in skin color, religion, language, or culture to be disturbing. Although some people can―and often do―find these things a welcome addition to their lives or, at least, interesting, others become uncomfortable. In these circumstances, immigrants are easily added to other disdained minority groups as victims of widespread misinformation, mistrust, and prejudice.

Unfortunately, this unease with human differences provides a ready-made opportunity for political exploitation. As many a demagogue or unscrupulous politician has learned, fear and hatred of the “other” can be effective in stirring up a mob or winning an election.

Although nativism has been mobilized by political parties and movements of varying political persuasions, it has appeared most frequently on the right. Fascist movements of the 1920s and 1930s focused heavily on the supposed glories of their nation and the ostensible biological inferiority of people from other lands. This xenophobia provided a rightwing ideological component in numerous countries, including the United States, where groups like the Ku Klux Klan, the Silver Shirts, the Nazi Party, and the America First movement lauded a mythical “Americanism” and assailed the foreign-born.

More recently, too, anti-immigrant sentiment has played a central role in Europe’s parties of the far right, such as France’s National Front (now the National Rally), Alternative for Germany, the Swiss People’s Party, Hungary’s Fidesz, the Party of Freedom of the Netherlands, the Brothers of Italy, and numerous others of their stripe. Meanwhile, in the United States, anti-immigrant sentiment has thrived in the increasingly right-wing Republican Party. Trump’s adoption of an anti-immigrant approach as a central theme of his MAGA movement, like his promise of building a wall between Mexico and the United States, is no accident, but part of a political strategy to ride xenophobia to power.

A key reason that nativism has become a staple of the right is that, with the advent of democratic institutions in many nations, the right has faced a difficult situation. Before the commoners gained the vote, their opportunities for effectively challenging economic and social inequality were limited. But, armed with the ballot, masses of people had the power to elect governments that would implement more equitable policies, such as sharing the wealth. This could be accomplished in a variety of ways, including taking control of giant corporations and estates, heavily taxing vast fortunes, raising workers’ pay, reducing the workday and lengthening vacations, building inexpensive housing, and establishing free education and healthcare. Worst of all, from the standpoint of the right, such leveling measures, advanced by a burgeoning left, had significant popular appeal.

Faced with this dilemma, the economically and socially privileged and their political parties on the right recognized that, to defeat the drive for the expansion of economic and social equality, it would be useful to fan the flames of popular prejudices (among them, hostility to immigrants), as this would divide the mass base of the left and put it on the defensive. Consequently, they gravitated toward this divide and conquer strategy―a strategy that sometimes worked.

Will it work again in the 2024 U.S. presidential and congressional elections? With the poll numbers so close, it’s hard to say.

Meanwhile, though, it’s worth noting how ironic it is that, in the United States―a nation populated almost entirely by immigrants and their descendants―anti-immigrant sentiment, whipped up by Trump and Vance, has once again come to the forefront of American politics.

It’s happened far more times than I care to remember. Waking up super early on Sunday morning to write my weekend column, I flip on the TV and there’s some dark and fuzzy video of multiple police cars, flashing blue and red outside some urban nightclub or restaurant, as the anchors solemnly report that while we were sleeping, there was yet another mass shooting in America.

But this Sunday morning, the news cut a little differently.

The rapid machine-gun-like fire had lit up a crowded street in Birmingham, Alabama, the city where I lived and worked as a young journalist in the early 1980s. CNN zoomed in with a map, and my heart sank because I instantly knew the exact area where four people were murdered and another 17 were injured, some seriously.

If a mass shooting happens in the dead of a Saturday night and America has forgotten about it by the time Sunday’s 1:00 pm NFL games kick off, did it make a sound?

The shooter, or possibly more than one shooter, fired more than 100 rounds at a packed sidewalk in the Birmingham entertainment district known as Five Points South, a few blocks from the University of Alabama-Birmingham campus. My fading 20-something memories of the place are fond ones—meeting journalist pals for a beer on the Deep South’s brutally humid summer nights, nodding along with the ever-present Alabama or Auburn fans, even drinking my first-ever Long Island iced tea (and, thankfully, one of my last) from a Mason jar.

Some 40 years later, it took just a few seconds for a shooter with a legal semi-automatic and, police believe, a “switch” that turned it into a machine gun, to shatter any happy recollections of the place, and the lives of the people there just out for a fun Saturday night.

“All of a sudden it was just gunshots, gunshots, gunshots,” 24-year-old Gabriel Eslami, who was on the line for the Hush hookah bar, told CNN. “I started running for my life”—but he was struck by a bullet in the leg and fell to the ground. When he looked up, the scene felt like a “horror movie... There are bodies laid out all over the sidewalk, gun smoke in the air. There are shoes. People ran out of their shoes trying to escape. I saw people hiding behind cars, laying under cars.”

It may have sounded like the climax of a gory Hollywood movie, but in 2024 news cycle, the Birmingham mass shooting was something of a blip. NPR did lead its Monday afternoon newscast with the story, but The New York Times buried its print article on page A14. In an age of school shootings and presidential assassination attempts, bursts of gunfire on crowded city streets are getting shorter and shorter shrift. This was, after all, the third quadruple murder in Birmingham this year, including one outside a public library. Didn’t hear about that? Me neither.

And yet like any mass shooting in the only developed nation that routinely has them, the Birmingham incident raised some serious questions about policy. Why has the gun-loving red state of Alabama not banned these switches, given their potential for mass carnage? Why has Birmingham seen its murder rate increase in 2024, even as crime is mostly falling nationally? Are we truly helpless to get high-powered assault weapons—subject to an imperfect but highly effective federal ban from 1994-2004—off the streets of America’s cities?

If a mass shooting happens in the dead of a Saturday night and America has forgotten about it by the time Sunday’s 1:00 pm NFL games kick off, did it make a sound?

Where is the sense of outrage from the Democratic ticket and the media that I felt when I saw that somebody used an assault rifle to carry out an act of terrorism in Birmingham?

One place where the bullets didn’t seem to have much impact was in the presidential race, where guns have been an issue, but not always in the ways one might expect. To be sure, the Democrats are the party that believes government can do something to reduce gun violence. I was there in Chicago’s United Center in August when the loved ones of gunfire victims gave poignant pleas to Democrats, and the party has vowed to again to ban assault rifles and enact common-sense gun laws—in the highly unlikely event it can get around a GOP Senate filibuster. Republican nominee Donald Trump brags that when he was president, “nothing happened” to stop mass killings.

The Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, didn’t release a statement about the Birmingham shooting. Maybe there’s just too many mass shootings in America, or maybe it would be different if Alabama were a swing state. But also, Harris’ recent political messaging about guns has been less about curbing them and more about how she and her running mate Tim Walz possess them.

Harris again confirmed last week to Oprah Winfrey that she owns a gun for her personal protection from her prosecutor days, telling the TV icon that “if somebody’s breaking into my house, they’re getting shot.” First, if someone’s breaking into the vice president’s home, then the Secret Service is in worse shape than we thought. Second, multiple studies have shown that people with guns in their home are more likely to get shot than those who do not, so I’m not sure why Harris encourages that choice. Her campaign then released an online spot that kicked off with highlighting her gun ownership before saying all the right things, including support for an assault-weapons ban.

It’s Politics 101, right? Harris didn’t have to run in any primaries and woo left-wing Democrats as she did for a time in 2019, but now she hopes her affirmation of gun ownership will win over middle-of-the-road undecideds in the general election. Except where is the sense of outrage from the Democratic ticket and the media that I felt when I saw that somebody used an assault rifle to carry out an act of terrorism in Birmingham? Because that outrage is necessary to convince the public that we need some radical changes if people are going to feel safe again going out on a Saturday night, or putting our kids on a school bus.

A good president with a gun wouldn’t have stopped a mass killing in Birmingham. A good president with a moral crusade and a plan just might stop the next one.

Debates over whether Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris’s economic proposals constitute Communist price controls or merely technocratic consumer protections are obscuring a more insidious thread within corporate media. In coverage of Harris’s anti-price-gouging proposal, it’s taken for granted that price inflation, especially in the grocery sector, is an organic and unavoidable result of market forces, and thus any sort of intervention is misguided at best, and economy-wrecking at worst.

In this rare instance where a presidential hopeful has a policy that is both economically sound and popular, corporate media have fixated on Harris’s proposal as supposedly misguided. To dismiss any deeper discussion of economic phenomena like elevated price levels, and legislation that may correct them, media rely on an appeal to “basic economics.” If the reader were only willing to crack open an Econ 101 textbook, it would apparently be plain to see that the inflation consumers experienced during the pandemic can be explained by abstract and divinely influenced factors, and thus a policy response is simply inappropriate.

Comrade Kamala?

For all the hubbub about Harris’s proposal, the actual implications of anti-price-gouging legislation are fairly unglamorous. Far from price controls, law professor Zephyr Teachout (Washington Monthly, 9/9/24) noted that anti-price-gouging laws

allow price increases, so long as it is due to increased costs, but forbid profit increases so that companies can’t take advantage of the fear, anxiety, confusion and panic that attends emergencies.

Teachout situated this legislation alongside rules against price-fixing, predatory pricing and fraud, laws which allow an effective market economy to proliferate. As such, states as politically divergent as Louisiana and New York have anti-price-gouging legislation on the books, not just for declared states of emergency, but for market “abnormalities.”

But none of that matters when the media can run with Donald Trump’s accusation of “SOVIET-style price controls.” Plenty of unscrupulous outlets have had no problem framing a consumer protection measure as the first step down the road to socialist economic ruin (Washington Times, 8/16/24; Washington Examiner, 8/20/24; New York Post, 8/25/24; Fox Business, 9/3/24). Even a Washington Post piece (8/19/24) by columnist (and former G.W. Bush speechwriter) Marc Thiessen described Harris’s so-called “price controls” as “doubling down on socialism.”

What’s perhaps more concerning is centrist or purportedly liberal opinion pages’ acceptance of Harris’s proposal as outright price controls. Catherine Rampell, writing in the Washington Post (8/15/24), claimed anti-price-gouging legislation is “a sweeping set of government-enforced price controls across every industry, not only food…. At best, this would lead to shortages, black markets and hoarding.” Rampell didn’t go as far as to call Harris a Communist outright, but coyly concluded: “If your opponent claims you’re a ‘Communist,’ maybe don’t start with an economic agenda that can (accurately) be labeled as federal price controls.”

Donald Boudreaux and Richard McKenzie mounted a similar attack in the Wall Street Journal (8/22/24), ripping Harris for proposing “national price controls” and thus subscribing to a “fantasy economic theory.” Opinion writers in the Atlantic (8/16/24), the New York Times (8/19/24), LA Times (8/20/24), USA Today (8/21/24), the Hill (8/23/24) and Forbes (9/3/24) all uncritically regurgitated the idea that Harris’s proposal amounts to price controls. By accepting this simplistic and inaccurate framing, these political taste-makers are fueling the right-wing idea that Harris represents a vanguard of Communism.

To explicitly or implicitly accept that Harris’s proposal amounts to price controls, or even socialism, is inaccurate and dangerous. Additionally, many of the breathless crusades against Harris made use of various cliches to encourage the reader to not think deeper about how prices work, or what policy solutions might exist to benefit the consumer.

Just supply and demand

“According to the Econ 101 model of prices and supply, when a product is in shortage, its price goes up to bring quantity demanded in line with quantity supplied.” This is the wisdom offered by Josh Barro in the Atlantic (8/16/24), who added that “in a robustly competitive market, those profit margins get forced down as supply expands. Price controls inhibit that process and are a bad idea.” He chose not to elaborate beyond the 101 level.

The Wall Street Journal (8/20/24) sought the guidance of Harvard economist Greg Mankiw, who is indeed the author of the most widely used economics textbook in US colleges. He conceded that price intervention could be warranted in markets with monopolistic conditions. However, the Journal gently explained to readers, “the food business isn’t a monopoly—most people, but not all, have the option of going to another store if one store raises its prices too much.” Mankiw elaborated: “Our assumption is that firms are always greedy and it is the forces of competition that keeps prices close to cost.”

Rampell’s opinion piece in the Washington Post (8/15/24) claimed that, under Harris’s proposal, “supply and demand would no longer determine prices or profit levels. Far-off Washington bureaucrats would.” Rampell apparently believes (or wants readers to believe) that grocery prices are currently set by nothing more than supply and demand.

The problem is that the grocery and food processing industries are not competitive markets. A 2021 investigation by the Guardian (7/14/21) and Food and Water Watch showed the extent to which food production in the United States is controlled by a limited group of corporations:

A handful of powerful companies control the majority market share of almost 80% of dozens of grocery items bought regularly by ordinary Americans…. A few powerful transnational companies dominate every link of the food supply chain: from seeds and fertilizers to slaughterhouses and supermarkets to cereals and beers.

While there is no strict definition for an oligopolistic market, this level of market concentration enables firms to set prices as they wish. Reporting by Time (1/14/22) listed Pepsi, Kroger, Kellogg’s and Tyson as examples of food production companies who boasted on the record about their ability to increase prices beyond higher costs during the pandemic.

Noncompetitive market conditions are also present farther down the supply chain. Nationally, the grocery industry is not quite as concentrated as food production (the pending Kroger/Albertsons merger notwithstanding). However, unlike a food retailer, consumers have little geographical or logistical flexibility to shop around for prices.

The USDA Economic Research Service has found that between 1990 and 2019, retail food industry concentration has increased, and the industry is at a level of “high concentration” in most counties. Consumers in rural and small non-metro counties are most vulnerable to noncompetitive market conditions.

The Federal Trade Commission pointed the finger at large grocers in a 2024 report. According to the FTC, grocery retailers’ revenue increases outstripped costs during the pandemic, resulting in increased profits, which “casts doubt on assertions that rising prices at the grocery store are simply moving in lockstep with retailers’ own rising costs.” The report also accused “some larger retailers and wholesalers” of using their market position to gain better terms with suppliers, causing smaller competitors to suffer.

Unchecked capitalism is good, actually

If one still wishes to critique Harris’s proposal, taking into account that the food processing and retail industries are not necessarily competitive, the next best argument is that free-market fundamentalism is good, and Harris is a villain for getting in the way of it.

Former Wall Street Journal reporter (and mutual fund director) Roger Lowenstein took this tack in a New York Times guest essay (8/27/24). He claimed Harris’s anti-price-gouging proposal and Donald Trump’s newly proposed tariff amount to “equal violence to free-market principles.” (The only violence under capitalism that seems to concern Lowenstein, apparently, is that done toward free enterprise.)

Lowenstein critiqued Harris for threatening to crack down on innocent, opportunistic business owners he likened to Henry Ford (an antisemite and a union-buster), Steve Jobs (a price-fixing antitrust-violator, according to the Times—5/2/14) and Warren Buffett (an alleged monopolist)–intending such comparisons as compliments, not criticisms. Harris and Trump, he wrote, are acting

as if production derived from central commands rather than from thousands of businesses and millions of individuals acting to earn a living and maximize profits.

If this policy proposal is truly tantamount to state socialism, in the eyes of Lowenstein, perhaps he lives his life constantly lamenting the speed limits, safety regulations and agricultural subsidies that surround him. Either that, or he is jumping at the opportunity to pontificate on free market utopia, complete with oligarchs and an absent government, with little regard to the actual policy he purports to critique.

A problem you shouldn’t solve

Depending on which articles you choose to read, inflation is alternately a key political problem for the Harris campaign, or a nonconcern. “Perhaps Ms. Harris’s biggest political vulnerability is the run-up in prices that occurred during the Biden administration,” reported the New York Times (9/10/24). The Washington Post editorial board (8/16/24) also acknowledged that Biden-era inflation is “a real political issue for Ms. Harris.”

Pieces from both of these publications have also claimed the opposite: Inflation is already down, and thus Harris has no reason to announce anti-inflation measures. Lowenstein (New York Times, 8/27/24) claimed that the problem of high food prices “no longer exists,” and Rampell (Washington Post, 8/15/24) gloated that the battle against inflation has “already been won,” because price levels have increased only 1% in the last year. The very same Post editorial (8/16/24) that acknowledged inflation as a liability for Harris chided her for her anti-price-gouging proposal, claiming “many stores are currently slashing prices.”

It is true that the inflation rate for groceries has declined. However, this does not mean that Harris’s proposals are now useless. This critique misses two key points.

First, there are certain to be supply shocks, and resultant increases in the price level, in the future. COVID-19 was an unprecedented crisis in its breadth; it affected large swathes of the economy simultaneously. However, supply shocks happen in specific industries all the time, and as climate change heats up, there is no telling what widespread crises could envelop the global economy. As such, there is no reason not to create anti-price-gouging powers so that Harris may be ready to address the next crisis as it happens.

Second, the price level of food has stayed high, even as producer profit margins have increased. As Teachout (Washington Monthly, 9/9/24) explained, anti-price-gouging legislation is tailored specifically to limit these excess profits, not higher prices. While food prices will inevitably react to higher inflation rates, the issue Harris seeks to address is the bad-faith corporations who take advantage of a crisis to reap profits.

Between January 2019 and July 2024, food prices for consumers increased by 29%. Meanwhile, profits for the American food processing industry have more than doubled, from a 5% net profit margin in 2019 to 12% in early 2024. Concerning retailers, the FTC found that

consumers are still facing the negative impact of the pandemic’s price hikes, as the Commission’s report finds that some in the grocery retail industry seem to have used rising costs as an opportunity to further raise prices to increase their profits, which remain elevated today.

In other words, Harris’s proposal would certainly apply in today’s economy. While the price level has steadied for consumers, it has declined for grocers. This is price gouging, and this is what Harris seeks to end.

Gimmicks and pandering

Once the media simultaneously conceded that inflation is over, and continued to claim inflation is a political problem, a new angle was needed to find Harris’s motivation for proposing such a controversial policy. What was settled on was an appeal to the uneducated electorate.

Barro’s headline in the Atlantic (8/16/24) read “Harris’s Plan Is Economically Dumb But Politically Smart.” He claimed that the anti-price-gouging plan “likely won’t appeal to many people who actually know about economics,” but will appeal to the voters, who “in their infinite wisdom” presumably know nothing about the economic realities governing their lives.

The Washington Post editorial board (8/16/24) wrote that Harris, “instead of delivering a substantial plan…squandered the moment on populist gimmicks.” Steven Kamin, writing in the Hill (8/23/24), rued “what this pandering says about the chances of a serious discussion of difficult issues with the American voter.”

Denouncing Harris’s policies as pandering to the uneducated median voter, media are able to acknowledge the political salience of inflation while still ridiculing Harris for trying to fix it. By using loaded terms like “populist,” pundits can dismiss the policy without looking at its merits, never mind the fact that the proposal has the support of experts. As Paul Krugman (New York Times, 8/19/24) pointed out in relation to Harris’s proposal, “just because something is popular doesn’t mean that it’s a bad idea.”

If a publication wishes to put the kibosh on a political idea, it is much easier to dismiss it out of hand than to legitimately grapple with the people and ideas that may defend it. One of the easiest ways to do this is to assume the role of the adult in the room, and belittle a popular and beneficial policy as nothing more than red meat for the non–Ivy League masses.

Inflation and economic policy are complicated. Media coverage isn’t helping.

Perhaps the second easiest way to dismiss a popular policy is to simply obfuscate the policy and the relevant issues. The economics behind Kamala Harris’s proposed agenda are “complicated,” we are told by the New York Times (8/15/24). This story certainly did its best to continue complicating the economic facts behind the proposal. Times reporters Jim Tankersley and Jeanna Smialek wrote that

the Harris campaign announcement on Wednesday cited meat industry consolidation as a driver of excessive grocery prices, but officials did not respond on Thursday to questions about the evidence Ms. Harris would cite or how her proposal would work.

Generally, when the word “but” is used, the following clause will refute or contradict the prior. However, the Times chose not to engage with Harris’s concrete example and instead moved on to critiquing the vagueness of her campaign proposal. The Times did the reader a disservice by not mentioning that the meat industry has in fact been consolidating, to the detriment of competitive market conditions and thus to the consumer’s wallet. Four beef processing companies in the United States control 85% of the market, and they have been accused of price-fixing and engaging in monopsonistic practices (Counter, 1/5/22). However to the Times, the more salient detail is the lack of immediate specificity of a campaign promise.

Another way to obfuscate the facts of an issue is to only look at one side of the story. A talking point espoused by commentators like Rampell is that the grocery industry is operating at such thin margins that any decrease in prices would bankrupt them (Washington Post, 8/15/24). Rampell wrote:

Profit margins for supermarkets are notoriously thin. Despite Harris’s (and [Elizabeth] Warren’s) accusations about “excessive corporate profits,” those margins remained relatively meager even when prices surged. The grocery industry’s net profit margins peaked at 3% in 2020, falling to 1.6% last year.

This critique is predicated on Harris’s policies constituting price controls. Because Harris is proposing anti-price-gouging legislation, the policy would only take effect when corporations profiteer under the cover of rising inflation. If they are truly so unprofitable, they have nothing to fear from this legislation.

The other problem with this point is that it’s not really true. The numbers Rampell relied on come from a study by the Food Marketing Institute (which prefers to be called “FMI, the Food Industry Association”), a trade group for grocery retailers. The FTC, in contrast, found that

food and beverage retailer revenues increased to more than 6% over total costs in 2021, higher than their most recent peak, in 2015, of 5.6%. In the first three-quarters of 2023, retailer profits rose even more, with revenue reaching 7% over total costs.

Yale economist Ernie Tedeschi (Wall Street Journal, 8/20/24) also “points out that margins at food and beverage retailers have remained elevated relative to before the pandemic, while margins at other retailers, such as clothing and general merchandise stores, haven’t.” In other words, if you look at sources outside of the grocery industry, it turns out the picture for grocers is a little rosier.

British economist Joan Robinson once wrote that the purpose of studying economics is primarily to avoid being deceived by economists. It takes only a casual perusal of corporate media to see that, today, she is more right than ever.

This week, New York City is hosting the United Nations General Assembly meetings and the annual Climate Week events. With the continued trend of extreme climate-fueled disasters around the world—including deadly and damaging heatwaves, floods, fires, and storms—the urgency of solutions for the climate crisis couldn’t be clearer.

What we hear from world leaders this week will give us an indication of their seriousness in helping to secure an ambitious outcome at the annual U.N. climate talks, COP29, in Baku, Azerbaijan in November. Civil society groups will also be at Climate Week to demand action and remind world leaders of their responsibilities. And business leaders will have the opportunity to show whether they truly want to be part of the solution—or are just engaged in greenwashing while seeking short-term profits from carbon-intensive activities.

Here are three key international climate priorities that I will be paying close attention to this year.

1: Raising the Ambition of National Emissions Reduction Commitments, aka Nationally Determined Contributions

The latest data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the E.U.’s Copernicus climate service show that the 2024 January-August period is the hottest ever by far, putting this year well on track to be the warmest ever on record. Meanwhile, the global emissions trajectory is dangerously off track from where it needs to be to meet global climate goals, with heat-trapping emissions continuing to rise.

When countries signed on to the 2015 Paris agreement, they made initial voluntary commitments (the so-called Nationally Determined Contributions or NDCs) to reduce their heat-trapping emissions, and agreed to revisit them every five years to reflect the “highest possible ambition.” (see Articles 4.2 and 4.3 of the Paris agreement). By February 2025, the next round of NDCs is due and it’s clear that all countries—especially richer nations like the United States—will need to step up significantly if we are to have any chance of meeting the goals of the Paris agreement.

In its last NDC, back in 2021, the U.S. committed to cutting its emissions 50-52% below 2005 levels by 2030. A range of state and federal policies—including the Inflation Reduction Act—currently puts it on track to cut emissions about 32-43% below 2005 levels by 2030. That means we’ll need to quickly add additional clean energy policies and policies to phase out fossil fuels just to meet our 2030 goals.

To meet global climate goals, all nations must increase their emissions reduction commitments and enact the enabling policies to meet them—especially richer nations and major emitting countries.

For the next round of NDCs, the U.S. should commit to cutting its heat-trapping emissions at least 70% below 2005 levels by 2035, a level that UCS modeling shows is possible, but that will require political will and significant new policies to achieve. In this context, the potential increase in energy demand to meet the emerging needs of AI data centers is worrisome and threatens to erode progress unless proactive measures are taken to manage possible impacts on the energy system in line with the pace of the clean energy transition. The next U.S. NDC should also be explicit about commitments to phase out fossil fuels in a fast and fair way and set ambitious sectoral targets for a clean energy transition, while addressing the need to invest in climate resilience as well.

A comprehensive suite of policies is needed to deliver on our NDC goals. For the decade ahead and beyond, we’ve got to think boldly and deploy policies and investments that help cut overall energy demand and enable a thriving lower-carbon economy and healthier lifestyles—including through better land use planning and development; more public transit; and more livable, walkable neighborhoods.

To meet global climate goals, all nations must increase their emissions reduction commitments and enact the enabling policies to meet them—especially richer nations and major emitting countries. In addition to the U.S., that includes the E.U. countries, Canada, Australia, Japan, Russia, China, and India. But we’re not going to get anywhere if each nation tries to dodge its responsibilities and points at the inaction of others. Rather, fostering cooperation and a shared commitment to increased ambition are the needs of the hour as we confront this collective action problem.

2. Increasing International Climate Finance

This year, at COP29, nations will also have to agree on the quantum of international climate finance that richer nations will provide post-2025 to help lower-income nations cut their heat-trapping emissions and adapt to climate change. These outcomes are being determined through multi-year negotiations on the “New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) on Climate Finance” leading up to COP29, which is being billed as the climate finance COP.

Climate action will require considerable resources that low-income nations are unlikely to be able to marshal on their own. Furthermore, countries that have contributed the least to climate-warming emissions are now facing a disproportionate brunt of climate impacts stemming from the failure of richer nations to cut their outsize emissions. Article 2.1(c) of the Paris agreement calls for “Making finance flows consistent with a pathway toward low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development.” The latest IPCC report also underscores how crucial this finance is to meet climate goals.

Back in 2009, richer nations committed to a goal of providing $100 billion a year in climate finance by 2020, a goal that was reaffirmed in Paris in 2015. That goal was finally met in 2022, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

The U.S. and other richer nations should agree to collectively marshaling climate finance on the order of $1 trillion per year, starting in 2025.

The NCQG negotiations are aimed at delivering the next tranche of finance commitments. This time around, it’s clear that much more finance is necessary to meet the moment: funding to dramatically accelerate the clean energy transition and fossil fuel phaseout in lower-income nations, funding to help them adapt to the relentless impacts of climate change, and funding to help address extreme climate loss and damage. Failing to provide this finance not only risks the world’s ability to cut emissions sharply and quickly, it is also imposing an increasingly unjust toll on the least developed nations. A recent report from the World Meteorological Organization shows that, “On average, African countries are losing 2-5%of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and many are diverting up to 9% of their budgets responding to climate extremes.”

The U.S. and other richer nations should agree to collectively marshaling climate finance on the order of $1 trillion per year, starting in 2025. And additional countries in a position to do so should also step up to contribute funding on a voluntary basis. Most of this funding should be grant-based or grant-equivalent to avoid trapping low-income nations in a worsening spiral of indebtedness as is the case currently. Innovative sources of funding—such as pollution taxes and wealth taxes—should be part of the discussion. Reforming international multilateral lending architecture to be fairer and more aligned with climate and sustainable development objectives is also critical.

U.S. contributions to international climate finance have repeatedly fallen short of what’s necessary. Congress, too, must step up since it holds the power of the purse. The United States must also help lead the ongoing negotiations at the OECD to restrict export credit support for all unabated fossil fuel projects, as it committed to do at COP26 in Glasgow, and as we have called for in a recent joint letter to U.S. Treasury Secretary Yellen and U.S. Export-Import Bank Chair Lewis.

3. Defending Against Bad-Faith Actions From Fossil Fuel Interests

Fossil fuel interests are a perennial threat to climate progress, at home and abroad. Their presence at the annual climate talks has been increasing alarmingly. Unfortunately, at COP29 in Baku we are likely to see them out in full force again, trying to undermine and dilute global climate agreements. The crucial question is: Will policymakers stand up to that pressure from polluters and deliver what people need?

Last year at COP28, nations were finally able reach an agreement calling for a phase down of fossil fuels—the first time the root cause of climate change was addressed in a global climate agreement. The follow-through has been pretty mixed globally thus far. The U.S., for example, is still enabling surging levels of production of oil and gas. We need domestic policies that explicitly ensure that fossil fuels are being phased down, alongside ramping up renewable energy and energy efficiency.

Litigation efforts to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for damage caused by their products and for deceiving consumers and investors are gaining ground in domestic and international courts. These additional avenues to secure climate progress are likely to increase in importance, especially if policymakers’ efforts to curtail heat-trapping emissions and stand up to the fossil fuel lobby continue to fall short.

What Does Climate Ambition Mean in 2024?

Around the world, wars and extreme disasters are exacting a punishing toll on people and require urgent action from political leaders to seek solutions that bring peace and safety. The climate crisis, too, requires urgent attention. These intersecting crises must be dealt with at the same time and should not be cynically traded off against each other in competing for political attention or funding.

This year has been extraordinarily volatile politically, with “change” elections around the world inserting uncertainty in the future direction of climate policy. One thing we cannot lose sight of is that the measure of climate ambition is not set by politics but by what science shows is necessary to help limit the worst impacts of climate change. Ambition should also encompass justice, to help ensure that the climate outcomes we strive to secure meet the needs of those with the fewest resources on the frontlines of a crisis that is not of their making. Equally, the necessary phaseout of fossil fuels must be accompanied by just transition policies and investments for affected communities.

Here in the United States, regardless of the forthcoming election outcomes, we know the climate crisis is set to worsen and that without robust action, people and our economy will suffer as a result. That’s why we must push for policy solutions that increase the pace and magnitude of cuts in U.S. heat-trapping emissions, ramp up investments in climate resilience, and significantly increase our commitments toward international climate finance.

This will likely be the hottest year to date, and maybe one of the coolest in the years to come. Will politicians seize this narrowing window of opportunity to do what is both daunting and necessary for safeguarding the future of people around the world especially our children? Right now, the signs are not encouraging. We must demand much more of our leaders.

The Harris campaign hauled in a staggering $24 million in one night of fundraising on Wall Street. Rather than bragging about it the campaign she should be pointing out that Wall Street has killed the jobs of millions of working-class voters, exactly the kind of voters who are needed to defeat Trump in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

During her talk to the financial barons, Harris said what they wanted to hear: That she would “encourage innovative technologies like AI and digital assets while protecting our consumers and investors.”

Unfortunately, she failed to say anything about protecting the jobs of working people who have been virtually slaughtered by Wall Street’s financial maneuvers since the 1980s. Let us count the ways.

• Wall Street’s totally insane and unconscionable derivatives game crashed the economy in 2008-09, leading to more than six million lost jobs in a matter of months. Many have never forgiven the Democrats for bailing out Wall Street, while homeowners went under.
• Wall Street’s private equity companies turned leveraged buyouts into a job-killing art form. Big investors buy companies with borrowed money and then put the debt onto the companies. Inevitably, workers are laid off to service the debt.
• Wall Street successfully lobbied for corporate-friendly trade deals, so that they could make enormous fees by financing the movement of US industrial facilities away from the US. An estimated five million manufacturing workers, many in the Midwest, lost their jobs in the process.
• Wall Street pressures corporations to buy back shares of their corporate stock, which artificially raises their price and makes billions for Wall Street giants. Worker jobs are sacrificed again and again to raise money for those stock buybacks.

In total, 30 million workers have gone through mass layoffs since 1996. Add in their families and about half the working class have been impacted by Wall Street’s shenanigans. (See Wall Street’s War on Workers for how mass layoffs—not racism, sexism or homophobia—have moved workers away from the Democratic Party in key swing states.)

It’s not too late for Harris to show she cares more about worker jobs than Wall Street’s profits.

What Harris needs to do, and soon, is give a major prime-time address that does more than just talk about “the economy.” She needs to talk about job stability and how she will protect working people from being sacrificed on Wall Street’s insatiable profit pyre.

The Harris campaign has an establishment problem: The Democrats look like they are the establishment. Of course, they see it all as win-win: You can let Wall Street profit wildly from AI and crypto-BS, and still protect the rest of us. But not many working-class voters believe that. They resent elites because corporate elites, Wall Street elites, and yes, Democratic Party elites, have been prospering while they have struggled.

It would be far better if Harris showed a willingness to challenge Wall Street, even if it cost her some of her campaign cash she has plenty of already. She could do it with one simple sentence that I’ve been harping about for months. All she has to do is focus on the $700 billion in tax payer money that now goes to corporations for goods, services, and subsidies: Here’s the line:

No taxpayer money shall go to corporations that lay off taxpayers or conduct stock buybacks.

To clarify the point, she should add

For those companies receiving taxpayer money, layoffs must be voluntary, not compulsory, as is already the case for many white-collar employees.

I am confident that such a message would be noticed and welcomed by working-class voters of all persuasions and colors. To be sure, Harris would be attacked as a Marxist, a socialistic flame thrower, but so what? All she would have to say in response is “my first loyalty is to protect the jobs of all Americans.” And then keep repeating, “I am not going to allow taxpayer dollars to go to corporations that are laying off taxpayers.”

Will voters believe her?

That depends in large part on what Harris actually believes. At least she is not burdened with taking personal donations, as was Hillary Clinton after she accepted $675,000 from Goldman Sacks for three speeches. Thank goodness.

What Harris needs to do, and soon, is give a major prime-time address that does more than just talk about “the economy.” She needs to talk about job stability and how she will protect working people from being sacrificed on Wall Street’s insatiable profit pyre.

Today, polling shows that 70 percent of all workers are expecting job cuts in the near future. It is political malpractice not to address this tangible fear. The very fact that we’ve got to remind the Democratic Party to put jobs in the center of its messaging tells us why the race is so pathetically close.

Is Trump is filling the breach?

While Harris was playing footsie with Wall Street, Trump called for a 200 percent tariff on the John Deere company if it moves jobs to Mexico. A thousand jobs may be at stake. Back in June, I begged Joe Biden to intervene to stop this highly profitable company, which does billions in stock buybacks, from needlessly eliminating those jobs.

In a future column, I will explore how the Democrats’ failure to directly intervene may cost them the election. Why are Democrats so blind about job loss? Why are they leaving the working-class field wide-open to Trump?

My name is Frida, and my community is military dependent. (I feel, by the way, like I’m introducing myself at a very strange AA-like meeting with lousy coffee.) As with people who have substance abuse disorders, I’m part of a very large club. After all, there are weapons manufacturers and subcontractors in just about every congressional district in the country, so that members of Congress will never forget whom they are really working for: the military-industrial complex.

Using the vernacular of the day, perhaps it’s particularly on target to say that our whole country suffers from Militarism Abuse Disorder or (all too appropriately) MAD.

I must confess that I don’t like to admit to my military dependency. Who does? In my case, it’s a tough one for a few reasons, the biggest being that I’m an avowed pacifist who believes that war is a crime against humanity, a failure of the imagination, and never (no, not ever) necessary. Along with the rest of my family of five, I live below the taxable income level. That way, we don’t pay into a system that funds war preparations and war-making. We have to be a little creative to make our money stretch further, and we don’t eat out or go to the movies every week. But we don’t ever feel deprived as a result. In essence, I’ve traded career success and workplace achievement for a slightly clearer conscience and time—time to work to end militarism and break our collective addiction!

Those who suffer from Militarism Abuse Disorder can’t even ask the questions, because they’re distracted by the promises of good jobs, nice apartments, and cheap consumer goods that the military-industrial complex is always claiming are right around the corner.

The Peter G. Peterson Foundation estimates that, in 2023, the United States of America spent $142 billion buying weapons systems and another $122 billion on the research and development of future weaponry and other militarized equipment. And keep in mind that those big numbers represent only a small fraction of any Pentagon budget, the latest of which the Pentagon’s proposing to be $849.8 billion for 2025—and that’s just one year (and not all of what passes for “national defense” spending either). A recent analysis by the Costs of War Project at Brown University calculated that, since September 11, 2001, the United States has used an estimated $8 trillion-plus just for its post-9/11 wars. Talk about addiction! It makes me pretty MAD, if I’m being honest with you!

It would be nice to ignore such monstrous numbers and the even bigger implications they suggest, to unfocus my eyes slightly as I regularly drive by the fenced facilities; manicured office parks; and noisy, bustling shipyards that make up the mega-billion-dollar-a-year industry right in my own neighborhood that’s preparing for… well, yes… the end of the world. Instead, I’m trying to be clear-eyed and aware. I’m checking my personal life all the time for compromise or conciliation with militarism: Am I being brainwashed when I find myself cheering for the fighters in that blockbuster movie we splurged on? Am I doing enough to push for a cease-fire in Gaza? Am I showing up with young people in my community who are backing higher salaries for teachers and no more police in schools? And of course, I keep asking myself: How are my daily consumer decisions lining up with my lofty politics?

I don’t always like the answers that come up in response to such questions, but I keep asking them, keep trying, keep pushing. Those who suffer from Militarism Abuse Disorder can’t even ask the questions, because they’re distracted by the promises of good jobs, nice apartments, and cheap consumer goods that the military-industrial complex is always claiming are right around the corner.

But here in my community, they never deliver!

New London: A Profile of Militarism Abuse Disorder

New London is a town of fewer than 28,000 people. The median income here is a little over $46,000—$32,000 less than the state average. We are a very old community. Long part of the fishing and hunting grounds of the Eastern Pequots, Nehantics, Mashantucket Pequot, and Mohegan, the city was founded in the 1600s and incorporated in the late 1700s. You see evidence of our age in the shape of our streets, curbed and meandering, long ago carved out of fields by cows and wagons, and in our architecture—aging industrial buildings, warehouses, and ice houses in the neighborhoods where their workers once lived—now derelict and empty or repurposed as auto repair stores or barber shops.

Sometimes I watch, almost mesmerized by the ferocious energy of all those cars careening up Howard Street on their way to work at General Dynamics. Car after car headed for work at the very break of day. Every workday at about 3:00 pm, they reverse course, a river of steel and plastic rushing and then idling in traffic, trying to get out of town as fast as possible.

As the only nation that has ever used nuclear weapons in war (in 1945) and has tested, perfected, and helped proliferate the technology of ultimate destruction for the last eight decades, the United States should be leading the charge to denuclearize, disarm, and abolish such weaponry.

General Dynamics Electric Boat repairs, services, and manufactures submarines armed with both conventional and nuclear weapons. And it certainly tells you something about our world that the company is in the midst of a major hiring jag, looking to fill thousands of positions in New London, Groton, and coastal Rhode Island to build the Columbia-class submarine, the next generation of nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed subs. Those behemoths of human ingenuity and engineering will cost taxpayers a whopping $132 billion, with each of the 12 new boats clocking in at about $15 billion—and mind you, that’s before anything even goes wrong or the schedule to produce them predictably stretches out and out. The company has already solved one big problem: how to wring maximum profits out of this next generation of planet-obliteration-capable subs. And that’s a problem that isn’t even particularly hard to sort out, because some of those contracts are “cost plus,” meaning the company says what the project costs and then adds a percentage on top of that as profit.

Such a cost-plus business bothers me a lot. I could almost be converted into a hard-nosed militarist if our weapons production industry was a nonprofit set of organizations, run with the kind of shoestring ingenuity that dozens of outfits in New London employ to feed the hungry, house the homeless, and care for the victims of domestic violence.

I break from my traffic-watching fugue on Howard Street to reflect on all that furious effort, all those advanced degrees, all that almost impossible intelligence being poured into making an even better, bigger, faster, sleeker, stealthier weapons-delivery system, capable of carrying and firing conventional and nuclear warheads. Why? We have so many already. And as the only nation that has ever used nuclear weapons in war (in 1945) and has tested, perfected, and helped proliferate the technology of ultimate destruction for the last eight decades, the United States should be leading the charge to denuclearize, disarm, and abolish such weaponry. That, after all, is what’s called for in the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

If we are ever going to break our MAD addiction, one place to start is here on Howard Street with people who make their living working on one tiny component of this incredibly complex system. Economic conversion, moving resources and skills and jobs from the military-industrial complex to civilian sectors, is a big project. And it could indeed begin right here on Howard Street.

You Get What You Pay For

Our small town is also home to the Coast Guard Academy and two private colleges. Add the acreage of those three non-taxpaying institutions to the nearly 30 churches, synagogues, and other houses of worship that enjoy tax-free status here; throw in the dozens of nonprofits that do all the good work and you end up with an awfully small tax base. As a result, the municipal budget leans heavily on commercial taxpayers like General Dynamics Electric Boat, the military-industrial behemoth that moved into 24 acres of prime waterfront real estate in 2009 after it was vacated by the tax scofflaw Pfizer.

General Dynamics, like other military manufacturers, essentially only has one customer to please, the United States government. That makes the cost-plus contracting scheme even more egregious, guaranteeing that, no matter what goes wrong, its profits are always assured. Such a bonkers, counter-capitalist scenario passes all the costs on to American taxpayers and allows the privately held corporation to pocket all the profits, while handing out fat dividends to its shareholders. According to Sahm Capitol, “Over the past three years, General Dynamics’ Earnings Per Share grew by 3.7% and over the past three years, the total shareholder return was 62%.”

Am I to understand that spending money on just about anything else creates more jobs and more economic activity, while not threatening the world with annihilation?

For 2024, General Dynamics Electric Boat is paying taxes on property valued at $90.8 million—almost twice as much as that of the next highest taxpayer in our town. But it is also a bone of contention. The company, which paid CEO Phebe Novakovic $22.5 million in salary and stock awards in 2023, has no trouble taking the City of New London to court when they feel like their property is being overvalued or overtaxed. They win, too, so their property valuations yo-yo year to year when New London has been ordered to repay taxes to General Dynamics. Whether they pay taxes based on $90.8 million in property or $57 million doesn’t really matter to the company. It’s literal pocket change to the Pentagon’s third largest weapons contractor, a company that boasted $42.3 billion in revenue in 2023. But it matters a lot in a place like New London, where the annual budget process routinely shaves jobs from the schools, public works, and the civil service to make the columns all add up.

According to a report by Heidi Garrett-Peltier for the Costs of War Project at Brown University, $1 million of federal spending in the military sector creates 6.9 jobs (5.8 direct jobs and 1.1 in the supply chain). That same $1 million would create 8.4 jobs in the wind energy sector or 9.5 jobs in solar energy. Investing $1 million in energy efficiency retrofits creates 10.6 jobs. Use that $1 million to build streets or highways or tunnels or bridges or to repair schools and it will create “over 40% more jobs than the military, with a total multiplier of 9.8 jobs per $1 million spending.”

Wait, what? Are you telling me that, with their lack of transparency, accountability, and their cost-plus contracts, while building weapons systems for the sole purpose of destruction and wasting a lot of money in the process, the military-industrial complex is a lousy job creator? Am I to understand that spending money on just about anything else creates more jobs and more economic activity, while not threatening the world with annihilation?

As I work on a local level in my small town in Connecticut, I see how municipal policy should prioritize small businesses, mom-and-pop stores made of brick and mortar, over multinational corporations or big business. I see the return on investment from a small business in granular and tangible ways: the grocery store owner who starts each day by picking up garbage in his parking lot, the funeral home that sponsors the Little League team, the woman at the art gallery and frame shop who waters the street flowers, or the self-employed local photographer who serves on the board of the cooperative grocery store.

These businesses don’t employ tens of thousands of people, but they also don’t insist on tax abatements that undermine our local budget or fill our crowded streets with commuters hell-bent on getting away from the office and our town as quickly as possible.

You get what you pay for, right? Garrett-Peltier’s Costs of War report goes on to note that “healthcare spending creates more than twice as many jobs for the same level of spending, while education creates up to nearly three times as many jobs as defense spending… The employment multipliers for these domestic programs are 14.3 for healthcare, 19.2 for primary and secondary education, and 11.2 for higher education; the average figure for education is 15.2 jobs per $1 million spending.”

These are numbers I wish my City Council would commit to memory. In fact, we should all know these numbers by heart, because they counter the dominant narrative that military spending is good for the economy and that good-paying jobs depend on militarism.

The United States is investing trillions of dollars in the military, as well as in weapons contractors like General Dynamics, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin. Every U.S. president in modern history has prioritized the bottom lines of those corporations over a safe and healthy future for the next generation. Consider all of that as just so many symptoms of Militarism Abuse Syndrome. Isn’t it finally time to get really mad at MAD? Let’s kick the habit and get clean!

As we mark National Recovery Month this September, I find myself reflecting on my own journey with Substance Use Disorder, or SUD, and the vital role that community plays in both addiction and healing. My experience is a testament to how crucial a supportive environment is for people to rebuild their lives with dignity, especially now, as communities across our country try to close the door on those who deserve a chance at recovery.

My story is not unique. Like so many others, I struggled in silence. Substance use was a topic never openly acknowledged in my family—it was treated like dirty laundry, something to be disregarded, not diagnosed. As a nurse and a loving mother, I presented a picture-perfect life to those around me. I was in denial myself, too: I believed I was immune to any of the pressures that could lead to substance use, despite living in a city and state where it was so prevalent. And even with my medical background, I was unable to see my own addiction for the health issue that it was.

It wasn’t until I confronted my internalized stereotypes and became vulnerable with others that I began to heal. Since there was a lack of official recovery services in my hometown, I realized recovery cannot occur in isolation, it requires a supportive community and dedicated spaces and professionals. Even with a lack of drug courts, reentry drug courts, and support groups available in my city at the time, my own recovery was made possible because of my friends and family: the very community I had feared to share my truth with.

Shunning and shaming does not stop SUD. Our siblings, children, and friends deserve our support and should not be labeled as “dangerous” or “criminals.”

Once my truth was laid bare, others became more vulnerable with me and began to share their own stories. There were fellow parents, neighbors, and friends all of whom believed they were the only ones struggling. I learned that SUD thrives in secrecy. This experience inspired me to create a recovery center so others could heal within the community and find the support they need, free from stigma.

Alongside my family, I founded Lawrence County Recovery, LLC (LCR), an agency dedicated to breaking the cycle of shame surrounding SUD, and providing recovery services that empower individuals to reenter their communities with pride. Too often, people in recovery are met with judgment instead of compassion, turned away when they should be welcomed. Recognizing that peer and community support makes the recovery process more sustainable, LCR has set up recovery housing, or sober living homes. In these homes, small groups of people in recovery can live together, support one another, and hold each other accountable as a step toward independent living.

Despite these successes, and after more than five years of supporting over 1,500 people in recovery, I am still witnessing firsthand how discrimination harms and stigmatizes LCR’s clients.

This past August, LCR filed a lawsuit against the Village of Coal Grove, Ohio for engaging in a uniquely egregious and discriminatory campaign targeting individuals in recovery from SUD. The complaint alleges that Coal Grove has imposed a moratorium on new recovery homes, enforced invasive and restrictive requirements on existing providers, and pursued criminal charges against LCR’s leadership, all based on unfounded fears and prejudices.

It is deeply painful to watch as some of my local leaders and neighbors turn their backs on members of our community. Shunning and shaming does not stop SUD. Our siblings, children, and friends deserve our support and should not be labeled as “dangerous” or “criminals.”

People in recovery are protected under federal and state disability laws, including the Fair Housing Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act, which are designed to ensure access to the resources necessary to rebuild lives. This lawsuit is about more than just one city or one recovery provider—it represents a broader struggle for recovery justice.

In Lawrence County alone, zoning proposals in Ironton and South Point have threatened treatment facilities. Throughout Ohio and across the country, local governments are enacting policies that actively hinder recovery services, often driven by misinformation, fear, and stigma.

If we are to make real progress, we must dismantle the harmful stereotypes that surround substance use disorder and embrace the true values of community—belonging and acceptance. My hope is that this stand against discrimination sends a message across the state, that hate has no place in our homes and that healing takes a village.

Recovery is possible, but it cannot happen in the shadows. As a society, we must do better—opening our communities and our hearts to those who need support. This National Recovery Month, let us remember that addiction does not discriminate, and neither should we.

Let’s get this straight: Donald Trump is not “good for the Jews,” nor “good for Israel.” Republicans have done a great PR job in conning many wealthy Jews into believing that Trump’s presidency was what it was not: good for the Jews and Israel. Any Republican perceived strength is founded upon and built on myth. With their sinking popularity earned by unrestrained racism, antisemitism, and xenophobia, the Republican agenda is to implement full-bore Fascism under a new Trump presidency, wrapping their myth of the great white savior in deceit and hate, shrouding it in fictions. Let’s unwrap this one:

The driving force behind Trump’s alleged “love” for Israel is to strengthen his hold on the Evangelical community; not the Jewish one. That has driven what Republican support there is for Israel since Christian Zionists took over the party beginning in the 1980s. Trump argues that Jews have an obligation to support him because he’s been Israel’s “best friend;” when in reality, he has abetted and enabled Israel’s political-economic suicide by granting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s (Bibi) entire wish list. This includes appointing David Friedman as ambassador to Israel, whose understanding of Israel-Palestine history is limited to Temple Sunday School myths, which ignores and whitewashes the Palestinian Nabka (Holocaust). It includes Trump and Bibi’s evil political alliance, all but positioning them as running mates on the same ticket.

While he whines about “all he has done for Israel,” the reality is that his policies have severely weakened Israel by granting impunity to its most self-destructive elements, and thus helped turn it into a global pariah by pledging support for the genocide in Gaza.

Trump earned his popularity among wealthy, Republican Jews by pandering. Except when he said, “You have to support me because you’re all brutal killers.” But they forgave that because they believe his con about “loving Israel,” and also buy the myth that he’s been good for the investment economy. There can be destructive ignorance among intelligent people, as not all bright and successful people are deep thinkers.

Many progressive Jews have abandoned support of Israel over the genocide in Gaza and fascist elements of Bibi’s government. The alliance between Bibi and Trump is as destructive as the alliance between Elon Musk and Trump. It’s become a Fascist Axis among very wealthy entrepreneurs and deeply corrupt politicians, more interested in their wealth and political survival, rather than the health, wealth, and security of the countries and corporations they govern. Or in Trump’s case, want to govern again from a purely statist, Fascist standpoint.

Trump is already forecasting his upcoming electoral defeat, and pro-actively placing blame on outside agents, including Jews who don’t vote for him and even Taylor Swift. While he whines about “all he has done for Israel,” the reality is that his policies have severely weakened Israel by granting impunity to its most self-destructive elements, and thus helped turn it into a global pariah by pledging support for the genocide in Gaza, and promising to grant Bibi his wish list of being free to terrorize and murder innocent Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. It was Trump who initiating the move of the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, in violation of International Law. Jerusalem is just as much a Muslim and Orthodox Christian city as it is a Jewish one. (There, I said it!)

The alliance of Trump and Musk has dragged American political discourse to an all-time low. Trump has brought the Republican Party to an unprecedented low of dysfunction, abetted by Musk buying Twitter/X. As Trump has marginalized the Republican Party into a clownish state of lurid sensationalism, Musk has turned Twitter/X into a platform for unfettered defamation, hate, racism, and divisiveness. Musk is allied with Trump to better secure his wealth, and is investing $45 million per month in his campaign.

Why is Musk so deeply invested in Trump’s return to the presidency? Because like Russia in Ukraine, Trump will let Musk “do whatever the hell he wants.” Trump will let Russia take over Ukraine and bully other European countries. He’ll let the Israeli Likud Party continue its reign of terror over Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank; thereby placing more kindling and gasoline onto an already explosive situation. And he’ll let the Supreme Court continue to undo many generations’ worth of protective and progressive judicial rulings.

Trump’s campaign strategy is to tell so many lies so fast and furiously, that it’s hard to keep up, and impossible to address and debunk each one in the time allowed for rebuttal? As Hannah Arendt wrote, “If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer,” enabling totalitarianism. Part of Trump’s strategy is also to undermine the free press, and depict journalists as “the enemy of the people.” That’s the dynamic of gaslighting. Or is it an effort to befuddle and flummox the mases to the point that people don’t know what to believe and stop caring?

This week’s United Nations General Assembly marks nearly 20 years since the body first resolved to restrict bottom trawling on the world’s seamounts, submarine mountains that rise thousands of feet above the sea floor and comprise some of the most biologically rich marine ecosystems on the planet.

Led by Palau and other small island nations with generations-long ties to the ocean, the ensuing decades witnessed a raft of subsequent agreements that expanded protections for more of the deep sea—the dark, cold waters below 200 meters—culminating last year with the adoption of a treaty to protect marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction.

These are important achievements that should be celebrated. But, we have been involved in diplomacy long enough to know that such agreements are often just the beginning of a long and winding journey to full implementation.

Today, for instance, not only does bottom trawling continue on seamounts, it occurs in ever deeper waters, despite scientific evidence of the severe damage it causes to corals and other habitats. In fact, the UN’s most recent World Ocean Assessment found that “fishing, especially bottom trawling, constitutes the greatest current threat to seamount ecosystems”.

A similar story is unfolding elsewhere in the deep sea. Not long ago, the crushing pressure and near total darkness of the mesopelagic layer of the ocean, sometimes referred to as the “twilight zone” (200-1000 meters deep), was thought to be inhospitable to life.

However, technological advances like submersibles and remotely operated vehicles, now offer a window on a world that is alive with deep water fish, squid, and shrimp. It is estimated that this marine realm holds up to 95 percent of all ocean fish by weight and as many as 10 million different species—a level of biodiversity akin to tropical rainforests.

We also now know that the deep sea environment is critical to the health of the ocean’s wider food web, including fish stocks that countless people around the world depend on for food and employment.

Moreover, new research has revealed that the mesopelagic’s staggering biomass plays an indispensable role in the climate system by keeping enormous amounts of heat-trapping gasses out of the atmosphere in a process known as the carbon pump.

However, as overfishing, pollution, and rapidly warming waters continue to take a toll on global fish stocks, nations have increasingly been looking at authorizing their fleets to exploit the deep sea in order to meet the insatiable demand for fish products used in fertilizer, aquaculture, and dietary supplements.

The danger of over-exploitation doesn’t end 1000 meters down. Mining companies have long looked to extend their reach from the land into the deep sea. Today, for example, the UN-affiliated International Seabed Authority, which regulates deep-sea mining, is working on finalizing rules to manage commercial operations on the ocean floor.

It has already permitted exploratory mining voyages in the Pacific’s vast Clarion-Clipperton Zone, where the ships dredge the sea floor 4000-5000 meters below the surface for nodules of nickel, manganese, copper, and cobalt that without government subsidies would never turn a profit.

As elsewhere, the activities could cause irreversible damage to the ecosystem and potentially release carbon that has been stored safely for millennia. If approved, full-scale mining could commence in a few years.

Remarkably (and not without irony), research funded in part by a corporate mining interest recently discovered the presence of “dark oxygen” in the same area of the seabed. It has long been understood that oxygen was created by living organisms in the presence of light through the process of photosynthesis.

However, a study published over the summer suggests that the electrochemical properties of the aforementioned nodules can generate oxygen in total darkness. The findings could have far-reaching implications that help us understand the origins of life and demonstrate the high stakes involved with mining.

As we have begun to unravel the mysteries of the deep sea over the past two decades, the wisdom behind the international community’s commitments to protect it is clearer than ever. Our imperative task today is to fully implement them before it is too late.

In its most recent year-end letter, the private equity firm Blackstone gave its stockholders a seemingly counterintuitive assurance: the lack of new housing stock was reason for optimism.

Why does a stagnant growth in new living spaces benefit Blackstone? Because it is the nation’s largest corporate landlord. For the firm and its investors, chronic housing shortages mean more power to set prices and more leverage to extract wealth from vulnerable working-class tenants.

Blackstone’s letter reveals the malevolent and distortionary role private equity plays in our residential real estate market and underscores the fundamental problem with housing commodification writ large.

Our market-based system simply does not give the private sector incentives to meet the public’s demand for high-quality, permanently affordable housing. Providing it would be against the sector’s economic interests since new supply would bring down prices and negatively impact profitability.

Social housing will make certain that housing is treated as a public good that satisfies a social need, not a financial asset to profit off of.

The negative effects of housing commodification are all around us. For-profit investors are snatching up properties at an alarming rate – 1 in 6 of all residential homes in the second quarter of this year – giving them the power to charge residents junk fees on top of rent increases.

As a result, a record number of renter households – 22.4 million individuals and families, half of all renters – are now paying more than 30 percent of their income on rent and other housing-related expenses. This places a significant strain on household budgets and contributes to a range of problems related to mental health including anxiety and depression.

Tenant unions and working-class institutions across the country have spent years fighting back against the financialization of housing, organizing their communities against speculators in favor of greater tenant protections and fighting for housing to be a human right.

A promising step in this direction was taken last week when Senator Tina Smith (D-MN) and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) introduced new legislation designed to solve our acute affordability crisis.

The Homes Act would invest in the construction of new social housing while dedicating resources to rehabilitate the existing stock. The bill proposes to establish a Housing Development Authority, authorizing $300 billion over the next ten years for the new department to finance and develop permanently affordable housing. It would also repeal the obsolete Faircloth Amendment, a provision that effectively limits the availability of public housing, removing structural barriers to the construction of new public units.

Rents would be capped at 25 percent of a household’s income for tenants, greatly easing the burden of housing for them.

Perhaps the most innovative aspect of the bill is the importance it places on equity and democracy. The new units will be built by union workers; priority will be given to protect underserved communities of color from displacement; a significant share of the affordable housing stock will be earmarked for households with low incomes; and many of the new homes will be placed under democratic and community control when transferred to eligible entities like community land trusts and tenant-owned cooperatives.

The emphasis on permanence in the provision of social housing is critical for understanding housing struggles today. Permanent affordability will not only begin the process of decommodification, but it will also protect buildings from private equity firms who see affordable housing as another sector they can plunder.

Affordable housing already accounts for eight percent of Blackstone’s BREIT portfolio, but there is no genuine commitment to providing reasonably priced homes to working-class households. The firm has opened its coffers more than once to defeat rent control ballot initiatives and it exploits programs like the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) to secure the tax benefits that come with investing in affordable housing. Yet Blackstone still raises rents, evicts tenants, and underinvests in maintenance.

The permanence of affordability is the cornerstone of social housing. Social housing will make certain that housing is treated as a public good that satisfies a social need, not a financial asset to profit off of. Only when speculators and concentrated wealth are reined in will we solve the housing crisis and guarantee safe, healthy, affordable, and dignified homes for all.

Incredibly and unabashedly, in the midst of incendiary and wholly debunked claims about immigrants in Ohio, former U.S. President Donald Trump and his running mate Sen. JD Vance declare that Vice President Kamala Harris' characterization of Trump as a "threat to democracy" incites political violence.

"Their rhetoric is causing me to be shot at," Trump recently told Fox News Digital.

While Harris and Walz regularly declare that Trump threatens democracy, that he will take away women's rights and imperil Americans' rights to vote, they do not issue violent rhetoric to convince voters to support them. The Republican candidates, however, employ ruthless, inflammatory language on a daily basis. Just last Thursday, before an audience of Jewish Americans, Trump warned that Israel will endure "total annihilation" if Harris is elected. Earlier this month in Wisconsin, he predicted, referring to his promised mass deportation of immigrants, "getting them out will be a bloody story."

Trump's vitriolic rhetoric is the twisted declarations of a would-be dictator.

These morally debased and provocative statements imperil American society. They have extremely dangerous consequences. NBC News reported on September 16 that "At least 33 bomb threats have been made in Springfield, Ohio," since Trump and Vance spread false claims about Haitians living there. Elementary schools were targeted, and two medical facilities were forced into lockdowns.

Trump has traded in political violence since he first ran for president. In Iowa, in January 2016, he famously declared, "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters, OK?" At another campaign rally in Vermont he ordered security to "Throw them [Sander's protesters] out into the cold... No coats! Confiscate their coats."

A month later in Las Vegas, as reported in Politico, he made a physical threat against a protester. "The guards are being very gentle with him," Trump said. "I'd like to punch him in the face, I'll tell you that." He amplified the threat of physical harm to the protester by adding, "You know what they used to do to a guy like that in a place like this? They'd be carried out on a stretcher, folks."

In his 2022 book A Sacred Oath: Memoirs of a Secretary of State During Extraordinary Times, Mark Esper, former defense secretary in the Trump administration, recalls the vindictive rancor and reckless tendencies of former president Trump. "Complaining loudly" about protesters in the streets of Washington, D.C., Trump asked insistently, "Can't you just shoot them? Shoot them in the legs or something?" And, just last year, as widely reported in the press, Trump actually insinuated that former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley could have been executed for the assurance he gave to China after the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Indeed, the nation witnessed Trump's penchant for violence on television on January 6, 2021. His impassioned speech, his false assertion about a stolen election, agitated his supporters at the very moment that Congress was certifying the 2020 presidential election. "And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore." Their angst was undoubtedly fueled by his words, provoked into action against the government. Violence quickly followed. According to the sworn congressional testimony of an aide in the White House at the time, Trump, watching the violence unfolding on screen, said then-Vice President Mike Pence "deserves" the insurrectionists' chants of "Hang Mike Pence."

Candidate Trump seeks revenge on his political enemies. He calls the press the "enemy of the American people." He threatens lawyers, donors, political opponents, and election officials. He holds particular venom for those on the political left, casting them as "communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country, that lie and steal and cheat on elections." He pledges that "we will root [them] out."

Trump further promises violence if he does not win in November. His promise threatens the entire nation: "Now, if I don't get elected, it's gonna be a bloodbath. That's going to be the least of it. It's going to be a bloodbath for the country."

Donald Trump's vicious attacks on anyone who opposes him clearly demonstrates who is fomenting political violence. His assertion that Harris and Walz are promoting such violence is patently absurd and certainly threatens all Americans. Trump's vitriolic rhetoric is the twisted declarations of a would-be dictator. If he is elected, Trump has made it abundantly clear that he will use the government as a weapon against anyone who stands in his way. The pathology of his intentions will unleash not only political violence but actual violence in the streets of America.

At the heart of Buenos Aires lies the lovely Calle Florida. The experience of walking through this street that is exclusively dedicated to pedestrians was anything but lovely though, since in the one kilometer from one end to the other I was besieged—albeit politely–by some 200 men and women barking, “Cambio, cambio,” competing to give me the most pesos for my dollars.

It’s a seller’s market, with the “Benjamins”–$100 notes—especially valued. When I began my walk at one end of the street, I was offered 1,100 pesos to the dollar; by the time I reached the other end, the offer had climbed up to 1,400. The online price that morning was 963 pesos. I thought I had a good deal, but an Argentine friend later told me I could have done better.

The Argentine Disease

The daily depreciation of the peso relative to the dollar is a key indicator of inflation, which everyone says is the country’s prime economic problem. The conventional analysis is that the uncontrolled rise of prices stems from the government’s equally uncontrolled printing of pesos to cover its budget deficit. Thus, the peso has lost its function as a store of value, forcing people to resort to the black market for dollars. With the private sector hoarding dollars and international creditors hesitant to lend, owing to Argentina’s having defaulted on its $323 billion sovereign foreign debt in 2020, tourists have become a prime source of dollars for ordinary Argentines and small- and medium-sized enterprises.

The inflation rate for 2023 was over 211%. This was not in the order of the 3,000% annual inflation rate in 1989 and 1990, but as in that earlier period, inflation has resulted in the coming to power of regimes touting radical stabilization policies. In the 1990s, Carlos Menem, the populist Peronist turned neoliberal, famously imposed, among other stringent measures, the one-to-one peso-to-the-dollar exchange rate. The experiment led to chaos, with the country declaring itself unable to service its sovereign debt in 2001.

Last November came the turn of the self-described “anarcho-capitalist” Javier Milei, who has promised not only to make the dollar the medium of exchange in place of the debauched peso but to also lop off whole ministries of government and thousands of government jobs. His controversial but winning image during the November 2023 elections was his going around with a chainsaw to symbolize his determination to radically slim down government, which he regards as a “criminal operation.”

The question on everyone’s mind is, will Milei succeed where previous regimes failed?

Milei Wields His Chainsaw

Milei has been in office for less than a year, but he has taken his chainsaw to the government, as he promised. He chopped off half of the government ministries, devalued the peso by 50%, and slashed fuel subsidies. That was just the beginning. In the teeth of bitter opposition in Congress and in the streets, he got his “Bases Law” passed, which would allow him to roll back workers’ rights; provide tax incentives to foreign investors in extractive industries such as mining, forestry, and energy; reduce the tax burden on the rich; and provide him with the power to declare a one-year state of economic emergency with special powers to disband federal agencies and sell off about a dozen public companies. In order to get the Bases Law through Congress, Milei has postponed his plans to adopt the dollar as the national medium of exchange and “blow up” the Central Bank, as he puts it, deliberately invoking an image associated with Khmer Rouge’s destruction of the Central Bank of Cambodia when they came to power in the late 1970s.

As anticipated, the austerity measures are leading to the contraction of the economy, with the International Monetary Fund, which has signalled its approval of Milei’s policies, expecting a 2.8% decline in GDP in 2024. Still, according to some polls, his approval ratings are above 50%. “This shows that despite suffering in the short term, the people are willing to give the president the benefit of the doubt,” said the Argentine ambassador who gave me an unexpected 45-minute briefing when I claimed my courtesy visa to visit the country. Others, like radio personality Fernando Borroni, assert the president’s popularity ratings reflect not no much approval of him as rejection of the failed policies and personalities of the past.

Milei is perhaps the most colorful and controversial personality to come to power in Latin America in the last few years. Though he is nominally a member of a right-wing party, he has no organized political base but acquired national influence through wide exposure on television, where he poured his vitriol on ideological opponents, indeed, on anyone proposing any kind of government intervention in the economy. He is an unabashed animal lover, making sure to pay homage in his speeches to what he calls “mi hijitos de cuatro patas,” or my four-legged children. There is nothing wrong with that, but people look askance when he claims that he talks to his dead dog, Conan—named after the comics character “Conan, the Barbarian”—through a medium.

He has professional advisers, but the person who controls access to him and is said to be the power behind the throne is his younger sister, Karina Elizabeth Milei, who has been criticized for lacking any previous experience in government and having a background in business that consists mainly of selling cakes on Instagram. Still, she has elicited admiration for her micromanagement of her brother’s successful electoral campaign, prompting some to compare her to Evita Peron and Cristina Kirchner, the wife and successor of the late President Nestor Kirchner.

Mileinomics

Milei is personally quirky, and so, some say, is his economics. His intellectual hero is the radical libertarian economist Murray Rothbard. Reading an essay by Rothbard titled “Monopolies and Competition” was for Milei an experience akin to Paul’s conversion on the road of Damascus. “The article was 140 pages long,” Milei writes. “I went home to eat and began to read it. I could not stop reading, and after reading it for three hours, I said to myself, everything I had been teaching over the last 23, 24 years was wrong.” In addition to Rothbard, those in Milei’s pantheon of intellectual heroes are the paragons of neoliberal thinking, among them Friedrich Hayek, Leopold Van Mises, Milton Friedman, and Robert Lucas of the University of Chicago. (Milei has honored Lucas, Rothbard, and Friedman by naming his dogs, cloned with cells from the dead Conan, after them.)

It is not surprising that Milei condemns socialists, communists, Keynesians, and “neo-Keynesianos” like Paul Krugman. It is also not surprising that, like Friedrich Hayek, he considers the pursuit of social justice as a big mistake that is unjust and disruptive of the efficient working of the market and eventually leads to the “road to serfdom” by an all-powerful regulatory state.

What is unusual is that he includes a number of economists working in the neoclassical tradition in his sweeping condemnation of “bad influences.” Formerly an economics professor, he faults economic modelling promoted by the mathematization of economics for having led some analysts to the illusion that the market can lead to imperfect outcomes.

One fundamental tenet of neoclassical economics that elicits his ire is “Pareto Optimality,” which says that economic outcomes can be achieved that can make people better off without making anyone worse off. According to Milei, pursuit of Pareto Optimality by neoclassical economists has led them to the illusion that government action can improve market competition or make up for “market failure.”

Pareto Optimality, in his view, is the opening wedge that has led to the formulation and legitimation of other concepts such as imperfect competition, asymmetric information, public goods, and externalities—the solution or provision of which would require government intervention. The fundamental error of the economists who have generated these ideas is that they are so enamored with their models that “when their model does not reflect reality, they attribute the problem to the market instead of changing the premises of their model.”

Milei is, in fact, vulnerable to the same error he accuses neoclassical antagonists of committing: that when theory and reality diverge, it is reality that is the problem.

Interfering with the operation of the market always has dangerous consequences. Indeed, breaking up monopolies to bring about a state of perfect competition is erroneous, since monopolies, instead of being aberrations, are, in reality, positive. “In fact, within a framework of free exchange, if a producer is able to capture the whole market, they have done so by satisfying the needs of consumers by providing them with a better quality product…The existence of monopolies in a context if free entry and exit is a source of progress, and the constant obsession of politicians to control them will only end up damaging the individuals they are trying to help.” In short, the market can’t make a mistake, and trying to rectify its supposed errors will only lead to a worse outcome for everyone.

Another classical economist that Milei has placed in the company of Marx, Pareto, and Keynes as an ideological baddie is Malthus, who held that the law of diminishing returns would create a situation where rapid population growth would not be supported by economic growth, leading eventually to general impoverishment. Milei claims that Malthus’ law has been disproven by the tremendous economic growth since the 19th century owing to technological advances made possible by the market, and Malthus’ only use these days is to provide intellectual support for the pro-choice movement, whose advocacy of abortion and family planning he despises.

The Opposition

Not surprisingly, Milei’s hostility has been reciprocated by the women’s movement, which fears that their successful effort to legalize abortion in 2020 will be reversed by the president.

Another sector of society that feels threatened by the new government is the human rights movement. Milei is not so much the object of hostility of human rights advocates as his vice president, Victoria Villaruel, who has defended the so-called dirty war waged by the military dictatorship of General Jorge Videla in the late 1970s and early 1980s that took over 30,000 lives. Villaruel, whose father and uncle were members of the military during the dictatorship, has opposed the trials of those being prosecuted for crimes against humanity and has threatened to begin investigation and prosecution of members of the Montoneros and ERP (Armed Forces of the People) accused of “terrorist crimes.” At the rallies of the two groups representing the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo that take place every Thursday afternoon at the Plaza de Mayo, participants are warned that Milei might allow Villaruel to pursue her vendetta against the memory of the disappeared.

The strongest opposition to Milei is the Peronist movement, which was the base of the governments of Nestor Kirchner, Cristina Kirchner, and Alberto Fernandez that have ruled Argentina for most of the last 24 years. It continues to have the support of some 30% of the electorate. The problem is that neither Peronism nor the rest of the opposition has a counternarrative to Milei’s, admits Martin Guzman, former minister of the economy in the Peronist government of Alberto Fernandez and currently professor of economics at the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) at Columbia University.

Two obstacles lie in the way of the formulation of such a counternarrative. One is that while Peronism is a mass populist movement, its leaders have pursued conservative policies when in power, leading to the demoralization of the base. The second, and more significant obstacle, is that “the language and policies that animated Peronism’s working class base in the mid-20th century no longer connect with today’s young workers that are engaged in the gig economy perpetuated by savage capitalism,” according to Borroni, the radio journalist.

Milei and the Youth Vote

It bears noting that the strongest supporters of Milei are male voters in the 16-30 age group, 68% of whom said they would vote for Milei in a poll taken before the November 2023 elections. Argentines who have grown up in the last 30 years have done so in a country that has been constantly in crisis, besieged by inflation, recession, and poverty, which now engulfs an astounding 55% of the population, or 25 million people. To them, both the center-left governments of Kirchner and Fernandez and the center-right regime of Mauricio Macri were abject failures in turning the economy around, making them vulnerable to the inflammatory rhetoric of Milei during the 2023 elections.

Argentina is a proud country, but for many young Argentines, there is little these days to be proud of except perhaps Lionel Messi and the national soccer team (and even they have been tainted by a recent incident where some players were captured on video singing a racially offensive song regarding the African origins of many of those in the French national team that fought Argentina in the World Cup finals in 2022).

Destined to Fail?

Milei has promised to restore Argentina to its 19th-century status as one of the richest countries in the world. But it is difficult to see how Milei will get Argentines out of their economic conundrum and restore their morale as a country. His vision is that of an Argentina of the future purged by the fire and sword of radical austerity and shorn of the “political caste and army of parasites whose only objective is to perpetuate itself in power by sucking the blood of the private sector.” The measures he is taking, however, are likely to follow the well-trodden path of similar programs in the Global South and in Greece and Eastern Europe after the 2008 financial crisis, that is, continuing economic contraction or prolonged stagnation. What is remarkable is that despite the record of unremitting failures of neoliberal programs to deliver sustained growth over the last quarter of a century, there are still intellectual and political leaders like Milei who continue to embrace them. Milei is, in fact, vulnerable to the same error he accuses neoclassical antagonists of committing: that when theory and reality diverge, it is reality that is the problem.

At some point a program of vigorous government action to trigger growth, redistribute income, and reduce poverty may perhaps become attractive again and voters may turn on Milei’s counterrevolutionary economic project. “I have no doubt that Peronism will again come to power,” asserts Borroni. “Whether it will come to power as a a genuine popular movement or in the guise of a popular movement led by the right is the question.” But the bigger question is: will such a new and improved version of Peronism be able to finally lick Argentina’s poisonous galloping inflation while promoting growth and reducing inequality?

“Other countries have been able to control inflation. Why can’t we?” one Argentine I interviewed asked in frustration. That same question is on everyone’s lips, but for the moment, people seem to have suspended their skepticism and given the mercurial Milei some slack.

One year ago the Illinois Pretrial Fairness Act went into effect. By ending the use of money bail in courts across the state, it both reduced the number of people in jail pending trial and made the legal system more fair and just—at no cost to our safety. After 12 months, the impressive results are in, and policymakers across the country should take note.

Recent data released by Loyola University’s Center for Criminal Justice indicates that the Pretrial Fairness Act has not only curbed incarceration rates but also maintained public safety. Jail populations decreased by 14% in Cook County and other urban jurisdictions and 25% in select rural counties. As these jail numbers have dropped, so have crime rates across Illinois—for example, statewide violent and property crime rates dropped by 12%. As a case study for the practicality and necessity of bail reform, the Pretrial Fairness Act has proven its impact.

In passing the law, leaders in Illinois followed a robust body of evidence that finds wealth-based detention undermines both safety and justice. A two-tiered legal system where someone who is wealthy can afford to pay bail and return home pending trial while someone who cannot afford their freedom languishes in jail—for weeks, months, or even years—is not just. Moreover, years of research shows that pretrial detention is counter to public safety, as even a few hours in jail is so destabilizing that it makes a person more likely to be arrested again in the future.

Illinois’ success shows there is no false choice between being safe or having a more just legal system.

Loud opponents of bail reform in Illinois claimed that the law would empty jails and compromise public safety. They spent $40 million on a high-profile campaign to undermine the Pretrial Fairness Act even before it went into effect, calling the law “the Purge” and using racist dog whistles to peddle sensational and false stories about crime. But the evidence speaks for itself, and Illinois’ success is not an outlier. Data from New Jersey, which enacted bail reform over seven years ago, shows the jail population declined and the number of people awaiting trial in jail fell by 40% while crime rates went down. Even in New York, where bail reform has been much maligned, a recent study found that the reform has not contributed to a rise in crime.

A significant cross section of Illinois stakeholders came together in support of the Pretrial Fairness Act: Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Attorney General Kwame Raoul, the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus, law enforcement leaders from across the state, and advocacy groups like the Coalition to End Money Bond, the Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice, The Network: Advocating Against Domestic Violence, and the Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation, to name just a few.

Importantly, victims and survivors of violence were a key part of the movement to end money bail in Illinois. What motivated this diverse group of champions for reform? For one, the shocking racial disparities that result from a money bail system, where Black and brown families, and families experiencing poverty, disproportionately bear the brunt of making an impossible choice between paying for the freedom of their loved one versus making rent, putting food on the table, and paying for other basic necessities.

A money bail system also forces people to make the impossible choice of staying in jail to insist on their day in court or pleading guilty to go home. Ending the money bail system in Illinois was also a matter of gender justice. Mothers, sisters, daughters, aunts, and other women are most often the ones to pay bail when their loved one is incarcerated. And, of women who are incarcerated, 70-80% have experienced intimate partner violence. Taking money bail out of the equation and having fewer people—including women—behind bars begins to right some of those wrongs.

There are many other important statistics that drive home the point that we need to eliminate money bail not only in Illinois, but across the United States. Black people represent 13.6% of the United States population but account for 53% of exonerations. People incarcerated for as little as 72 hours are 2.5 times more likely to be unemployed one year later. Illinois’ success shows there is no false choice between being safe or having a more just legal system. As we celebrate a year of the Illinois Pretrial Fairness Act, people around the country should take note. Wealth-based detention has always been an obstacle to a safer future, but we have real solutions that deliver both safety and justice.

As historians and as anti-Zionist Jews active in our communities, we know that unqualified support for Israel has been widespread among American Jews, built on the idea that only Israel could prevent another Holocaust and keep Jews safe. But crucially, there has never been a complete pro-Zionist “consensus.”

What we understand is that there has always been a small, vocal, articulate American Jewish minority—many with direct ties to the devastation of the Holocaust—who fundamentally questioned the role of Zionism and Israel in American Jewish life and asserted that Zionism and democratic ideals are incompatible. Our own lives and research agendas illuminate that for over a century, since the beginning of the modern Zionist movement with Theodor Herzl in 1897, some American Jews have drawn attention to the brutality and racism inherent in the modern Zionist project.

Marty’s mother Molly and her mother Clara fled the Nazis from Heidelberg, Germany, in 1938 and 1940, respectively. The Nazis murdered many in their family. In 1934, the Blue Card was established in Germany to assist Jews fleeing the growing persecution and subsequently re-established in 1939 in the United States to provide direct financial assistance to needy Holocaust survivors. Over a span of nine decades, Marty’s grandmother and mother and Marty, three generations, made a donation every single year to the charitable organization. And now Marty has concluded, painfully, that he can no longer contribute. The Blue Card Passover appeal highlighted the need to “combat the rising tide of antisemitism.” In an August 9 email, the organization noted that many Holocaust survivors are “…triggered by anti-Israel street protests that remind them of Nazi rallies…” The Blue Card has not uttered a single word of condemnation against the Israeli genocide in Gaza and the West Bank. There are several Holocaust survivors who have forcefully condemned the Israeli onslaught. In a message to the Blue Card executive director Masha Pearl, which she has not responded to, Marty wrote: “With my family background, I am appalled by what Israel is doing to the Palestinians….As an American Jew, I condemn the brutal violence of Israel and say – Not in my name.”

How can we move forward out of the current nightmare? We call upon every American Jew to reject the genocidal policies of Israel.

As analyzed in Marjorie’s book, Threshold of Dissent, American Jewish critics of Zionism have long observed that Israel does not ensure Jewish safety. Yiddish and English-language journalist William Zukerman, based in New York City, wrote in his Jewish Newsletter in the 1950s that Israel and Zionism contributed to hostility toward Jews around the world. Together with Israeli diplomats, Jewish leaders forced him out of journalist jobs and removed his communal funding. He incurred the wrath of many American Jews for pointing out their hypocrisy, for example, in this comment in 1959: “How can the American Jewish Congress and other outspoken Zionist organizations honestly fight segregation in the South if opposition to integration of Jews with non-Jews is the basic principle of Zionism?”

Also, Marjorie relates in her book that in 1973, Marty taught a course in Tufts University’s Experimental College titled “Zionism Reconsidered,” which cast a critical eye on Israel’s history, teaching students about the Nakba (the forced dispossession of 750,000 Palestinians at Israel’s founding) and about U.S. support for Israel’s brutalities. The Jewish Defense League (JDL) and the mainstream Jewish community each attacked him and the course. The JDL called the course “an anti-Jewish outrage” and distributed a flyer that declared: “Not since Germany in the days of Hitler has any university dared to offer a course presenting a one-sided view of any national movement.” Not to be outdone, Boston’s Jewish Community Relations Council labeled Blatt’s course “an insult to the Jewish community” that was part of an “anti-Israel propaganda effort.”

Since the early 20th century, and especially since the strong Cold War alliance between Israel and the U.S. dating back to the 1960s, in the name of Jewish safety, American Jewish communal leaders have marginalized American Jewish critics of Israel. These leaders categorize them as “self-hating Jews” or antisemites. Though their lives were profoundly upended by the virulent communal response, many, including Zukerman and Marty, remained steadfast in their commitment to providing more and diverse American Jewish opinions about Israel and Zionism.

The horrific brutality of the present Israeli genocidal onslaught is instead rooted in the Zionist project itself which focuses on dispossession and hence is characterized by oppression of the indigenous non-Jews, i.e., the Palestinians. Uncovering the history of dissenting American Jews may help a community that has terribly lost its way. American Jews need to open up to honest conversations about Israel’s brutal past and American Jewish communal complicity in that past.

Many of the thousands of student protesters in the encampments were Jewish, acting as part of this long tradition of dissent. Drawing from an old playbook, communal leaders charged them with antisemitism and self-hatred. However, this remains a big lie used to attack and defame and smear. These student activists reject, as we do, the false equation of antisemitism with anti-Zionism.

How can we move forward out of the current nightmare? We call upon every American Jew to reject the genocidal policies of Israel. We stand with Jewish organizations including If Not Now and Jewish Voice for Peace who declare: “NOT IN OUR NAME.” We call for an immediate cease fire; exchange of all hostages, including Palestinian prisoners; cessation of arms supplies by the U.S. to Israel; substantial negotiations for a lasting peace with justice for Israelis and Palestinians. Some sort of confederal state will be required as Israel has effectively crushed the possibility of a two-state solution.

In the name of Jewish and global sustainability and safety, American Jews must end their long standing, unquestioned allegiance to Zionism and Israel. By embracing an understanding of the voices of American Jewish dissent, past and present, perhaps American Jews can play a constructive role moving forward to end the genocide carried out today in our names in Gaza and the West Bank.