We are living in a dangerous and unprecedented moment in American history. I’m getting a lot of calls from people who are wondering how we best go forward. Here are my thoughts:
Oligarchs are waging a war on the working class, and they are intent on winning. But this is what I know: The worst fear that the ruling class in this country has is that Americans come together to demand a government that represents all of us, not just the wealthy few.
Elon Musk, the richest guy in the world, is going after USAID, which feeds the poorest people in the world. Next, he’ll go after the programs that impact you: Medicaid, Medicare, community health centers, Pell Grants, affordable housing. We can stop him.
The Palestinian people have suffered unbelievably. 45,000 killed. 100,000 injured. Healthcare, educational system, housing -- all destroyed. Trump's response? Forcibly remove 2.2 million people from their home and turn Gaza into a billionaires' paradise. I don't think so.
In America today, working class people live, on average, 7 years shorter lives than the wealthy. Stress kills. In Altoona, Wisconsin this weekend I asked people how economic stress impacted their lives. The responses I got were painful, but not surprising.
I don’t want to hear any Republicans talk about “freedom” unless they have the guts to call out Trump for the lies that he is telling about Putin and Ukraine. It was Russia that started the war, not Ukraine. Putin is the dictator, not Zelensky.
Today, I answered questions from people around the country about the Trump administration. Someone asked about how we should combat his lies. Here’s what I had to say:
Elon Musk, the richest person in the world, is the most important appointee of the Trump administration. That’s Oligarchy. The function of government under Trump and Musk will not be to serve ordinary people, but to make the wealthiest people in this country even richer.
Trump is right: the system is broken. 800,000 people sleeping on the streets. More wealth and income inequality than ever. Real wages for workers haven't gone up in 50 years. The problem is, Trump is going to make a bad situation even worse.
If you are worried about the state of the country, don't forget: Republicans control the House and the Senate, but their margins are SLIM. They are susceptible to citizen outrage. If they say "drill baby drill," if they want to cut Medicaid: Get on the phone. Fight back.
I have a message for Trump supporters: First, focus not on what he says, but what he does. Second, if you believe in the Constitution, you cannot support the richest guy in the world unilaterally cutting programs that were authorized by Congress.
You may have heard Mr. Musk talking about a superior aristocracy of people with “super high IQs.” Does he want to use technology to improve life for all?@hasanabi No. What he wants is even more wealth and even more power for the people on top.
What is the end goal of the Trump/Musk administration? It’s to make the richest people even richer. How do they do that? By cutting the programs — Medicaid, Social Security, Section 8 — that working people use to get by.
Donald Trump is accumulating more and more power into his own hands. He is usurping Congress and challenging the courts in a way that has never been done before. This country is the longest standing democracy on earth. We cannot let Trump to take us into authoritarianism.
Suing the press into submission sets an incredibly dangerous precedent. If major media outlets succumb to intimidation from the Trump administration, the First Amendment is in serious danger. We need an independent press that reports the truth without fear of retribution.
Let me give you some good news: last week, we held great anti-oligarchy rallies in Iowa and Nebraska. The American people believe in democracy. They do not want to see us move toward oligarchy or authoritarianism. That's true in purple, blue, and red states.
I expect that anybody who watched the President deliver his inaugural address surrounded by the three wealthiest people in the country reached the same conclusion: We are moving rapidly to an oligarchic form of society. And we have got to fight back.
At the end of the day, it's very simple: Trump and his oligarch friends want to cut programs that working class people rely on, and give huge tax breaks to the very rich. The American people have to stop them.