This is a compendium of the reporting and commentary that best explains the America's political, economic, and social conditions – and, most important, how we can find a way back from the dark days ahead. You will rarely find anything here from the New York Times or Washington Post or any of the other Big Journalism companies that failed us so completely during the 2024 elections and are now sucking up – even more than usual – to Donald Trump, his cult, and corporate oligarchs. My focus will be on smaller, more honorable outlets (and individuals). I hope you'll support them with your attention and your money.
John Rawls and our moment in history
New York Times Op-ed
Rawls argued that we should choose two guiding principles for how we design society’s core political and economic institutions, its “basic structure.” First, all citizens should be free to live according to their own beliefs and to participate in politics as genuine equals. Second, we should organize our economy to achieve equal opportunities and widely shared prosperity, only tolerating inequalities where they improve the life prospects of the least advantaged.
In the late 1970s, as I was finishing a political science degree and trying to figure out what I should do next, a professor I admired suggested that I read a book called “A Theory of Justice” by a political philosopher named John Rawls. It deepened and expanded my understanding of America and appreciation of its possibilities. That's why I'm pointing to this New York Times op-ed. It makes a case that Rawls' powerful ideas should be central to how the Democratic Party in the U.S. – and center-left parties around the world – think about their missions. I'm not endorsing everything Rawls (or the op-ed author) wrote, but this is a fresh and useful contribution to the discussion that we all – not just angst-ridden Democrats – need to be having. (Here's the revised edition of Rawls' pivotal volume; see also this synopsis/analysis from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.)
A side note: Many years after my graduation, in a conversation with a university president whose journalism program I was considering joining, I pitched the idea of creating an academic outpost whose purpose was to teach and support journalism aimed at fostering social and economic justice. He asked me why that felt like the right thing to do. "I've read John Rawls," I replied, and he nodded with complete understanding.
“High costs, particularly for groceries, have been a top priority that many Kansans mentioned while Rep. Davids was on the campaign trail,” said Zac Donley, communications director for Rep. Sharice Davids, who won her re-election race in a purple district in deep-red Kansas. “She is working hard to reduce these costs through a variety of solutions.” Among her solutions was calling for more rigorous antitrust enforcement. In the final week before Election Day, Davids wrote a letter to the Federal Trade Commission calling on the agency to enforce the Robinson-Patman Act, a long-dormant antitrust law specifically aimed at instilling greater competition among grocery stores and other retail sectors. Davids argued in the letter that the lack of competition has allowed grocers to raise prices for consumers during a time of inflation.
This American Prospect commentary goes against expectation, given so many Democrats' (and analysts') loud certainty that moving left gave the election to Trump. (Harris did anything but go left, of course.) It seems increasingly clear that Democrats do better when they emphasize antitrust and other policies aimed at enhancing competition and ending the hegemony of the cartels and monopolists. It's not yet clear that the Biden administration's enthusiasm for enforcing pro-competition laws – for the first time in decades – will be jettisoned by the incoming Trump administration, though that's probably a safe bet. The reason I hedge is that some very right-wing members in the House and Senate are also enthusiastic about these laws, though in at least several cases the motivation appears to be loathing for the tech giants. But I suspect John Rawls would be applauding the (somewhat) bipartisan mood on these issues.
True to character, Donald Trump is already flouting ethics laws and norms even before he takes office as president in 2025. The president-elect is accepting secret donations to fund his transition while refusing to sign ethics pledges or deliver an ethics plan mandated by the Presidential Transitions Act. The transition also has not signed an agreement with the Federal Bureau of Investigation that would allow the agency to do background checks on Trump nominees.
The people running Trump's transition operation have made repeated promises that they would obey the law. They haven't. (Surprise!) What's going on here? As the Rolling Stone article explains in plain language (citing a NY Times report), this isn't merely a sleazy politician's desire for keeping his sleazy operations secret. It also looks like a move to rake in big bucks from undisclosed "donors" – they should more properly be called investors or influence-purchasers – who will expect, and get, favors from the crook-in-chief when he takes office. Please keep in mind that Trump was by far the most corrupt president in American history the first time around. This time, he has a get-out-of-jail-free card from the Supreme Court, absolute immunity for his "official" acts as president. The upcoming presidency will be an order of magnitude more corrupt than his earlier one.
Although his previous books have all found publishers in the UK and America, there has been silence on the Elon Musk project, despite the fact that it has already been translated into French and published in France to positive reviews. His French publishers, Delcourt, shopped it around at the Frankfurt book fair last month, and French newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche called it “rich and thought-provoking”. Cunningham said in a post on his Patreon website last week: “Its publication in other countries looks unlikely. I’m told that there was interest from various international publishers at the recent Frankfurt book fair, but there was concern over possible legal consequences.”
Right-wing oligarchs are fond of abusing the legal system to punish – or thwart outright – any critical coverage of their misdeeds. This case, reported by the Guardian, is a stark warning of how much worse this is likely to get. Authoritarians and dictators sue authors and other creators, draining them of financial and emotional resources – while the legal fees for the billionaire abusers of the system are not even a nuisance fee. We will never see some of the work that publishers are too fearful to support. So it becomes crucial for the rest of us to a) demonstrate that there is a solid market for work that uncovers and/or explains oligarchs' activities; and b) help establish robust alternative channels if corporations remain cowards.
Luke Goldstein
Peter Wade
David Barnett
