News and commentary for understanding and coping with the years ahead...
Turning universities into right-wing propaganda factories
The authoritarian parallels
A compendium of the best reporting and commentary surrounding the pivotal 2024 elections in the United States. You will rarely find horse race coverage here, or the standard "both sides" BS that passes so often for political journalism. What you will find are links, with brief commentary, to work that I believe advances the conversation we should be having about America's – and the world's – future. Remember: Everything is at stake this year. (Unfortunately, some of the work I point to is behind paywalls.)
In between the two FNC events were two others that also told a story, this one about how the Republican Party’s descent into MAGA is creating a new political coalition to defend American principles.
I recommend that you read Richardson's entire newsletter post from yesterday. It's a nifty demonstration of dot-connecting and context. She contrasts the Trump and Harris appearances on Fox "News" – they were not just a triumph for Harris and (if democracy and truth are relevant at this point) the standard debacle for Trump, but also the clearest possible demonstration of how relentlessly the Murdoch family's TV channel injects poison into our civic bloodstream. (I put quotes around the "News" when referring to the channel, because it is continuing demonstration of contempt for honorable journalism.) Richardson's contextual mastery was evident in her framing of the other two big campaign events of the day. One was a Trump lie-fest before Latino voters (who asked way better questions than the political press corps does). The other was a bipartisan call to arms, led by Harris but featuring scores of Republicans who've pledged to vote for her. The event was powerful to watch, and Richardson captures its essence well.
There are many ways to figure out whether Republicans are serious about welcoming unions, and much of the evidence for “no” has been pointed out already. A few weeks after the Republican convention, its presidential nominee Donald Trump praised Elon Musk’s decision to fire striking workers. Not a single Republican senator supports the PRO Act, a law that would actually do what Hawley says he wants. In a short time in the Senate, Vance has established a record of opposition to pro-labor NLRB nominees, and voted with his fellow Republicans to kill the Board’s critical rule on joint employment. The list goes on and on. But there’s another important window into what the GOP believes about workers and the labor movement: what’s been going on at the state level over the last year. Just as Vance, Hawley, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), and a handful of other Republicans in Washington have been talking about supporting unions, GOP leaders at the state level have been deploying their governing power to try and kill them.
Labor policies aren't decided only at the federal level. State governments have been playing a growing role. As you might expect, Republican-controlled states are hell on unions – and they are accelerating their pro-corporate, anti-worker policies, as this article explains. Yet some Republicans have gotten the press to cover their pious utterings about the need for unions, even as they vote otherwise.
Biden bailed out the Teamsters’ pension funds, effectively transferring $36 billion to 350,000 of the union’s members. The president also appointed a staunchly pro-union federal labor board, encouraged union organizing at Amazon, walked a picket line with the United Auto Workers, and aligned Democratic trade and education policy with the AFL-CIO’s preferences. And although he failed to enact major changes to federal labor regulations, that was not for want of trying. In the estimation of labor historian Erik Loomis, Biden has been the most pro-union president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. But the political return on Democrats’ investment in organized labor has been disappointing.
This piece, published in Vox, does a good job of explaining why the Biden administration's pro-union activities haven't translated, at least not immediately, into votes. It offers due deference to the idea that the policy could have longer-term political potential. But even if fewer union members were voting for Democrats this year, the administration's admirable solidarity with working people would have been worth the effort. Why? It was, and remains, the right thing to do.
[C]onsolidation has its most pernicious effects in areas like north-eastern Indiana and north-western Ohio, where Parkview has established itself as the dominant player: semi-rural parts of the country which already had comparatively few healthcare providers and are even more vulnerable to consolidation and price hikes. “That’s where you start to see these 10 to 15% price increases over time,” said Cooper. “Outside of New York, LA, Chicago and Houston, often the hospitals are really the biggest employers in town. They’ve got these beautiful campuses and rolling grass lawns, and you say, ‘Oh gosh, this is good for the economy.’ But what we’re starting to see is that many of our local health systems are boa constrictors just tightening around and squeezing the life of some of these local economies.”
This fine, in-depth Guardian article describes a case that reflects a phenomenon unique in the industrialized world: The U.S. healthcare system is by far the world's most expensive, yet produces poor results overall. Due to unchallenged consolidation – almost no American healthcare markets have serious competition – it's getting more expensive and even less responsive to community needs. The Biden administration is the first in decades to take antitrust seriously, but its pro-competition forays into the medical system – while very welcome and overdue – have been mostly at the edges. We don't know what a Harris administration would do, though she's been supportive of the antitrust changes. We do know that Trump is not inclined to curb corporate power – much the opposite, in fact – except to punish people who've offended him.
Voting is just part of democracy, but it's the essential place to start. Make sure you're registered. Doublecheck in the fall, well before Election Day, because in some states Republican officials are removing people, mostly those who tend to vote for Democrats, from voting rolls.
Take your personal contact list, compare it to the national voter file, and find out which of your actual friends, family, co-workers and past acquaintances live in swing states and districts where a call or text from you could be hugely influential.
Please read Micah Sifry's advice – and heed it! You still have time to make a huge difference.
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I spend a lot of time looking for essential coverage, and hope you'll help me by letting me know about the good stuff you find. Let me know.
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Heather Cox Richardson
Sharon Block, Benjamin Sachs
Eric Levitz
George Joseph
Micah L. Sifry
