I share your fears about what’s to come.

Yet I remain hopeful about the future of America. Here’s why.

Trump hoodwinked average working Americans into believing he’s on their side and convinced enough voters that Kamala Harris and Democrats were on the side of cultural elites (the “deep state,” “woke”ism, “coastal elites,” and so on).

But Trump’s hoax will not work for long, given the oligarchy’s conspicuous takeover of America under Trump II.

CT attorney general releases message as nation awaits Trump inauguration. ‘I will never surrender’

Even before Trump’s regime begins, it’s already exposing a reality that has been hidden from most Americans for decades: the oligarchy’s obscene wealth and its use of that wealth to gain power over America.

Seated prominently where Trump is giving his inaugural address today will be the three richest people in America — Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg — each of whom owns powerful media that have either boosted Trump’s lies or refrained from telling the truth about him.

Musk sank a quarter of a billion dollars into getting Trump elected, in return for which Trump has authorized him, along with billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy, to target for elimination programs Americans depend on — thereby making way for another giant tax cut for the wealthy.

The oligarchy’s conflicts of interest will be just as conspicuous.usk’s SpaceX is a major federal contractor through its rocket launches and its internet service, Starlink. Bezos’ Amazon is a major federal contractor through its cloud computing business. Zuckerberg is pouring billions into artificial intelligence, as is Musk, in hopes of huge federal contracts.

Ramaswamy, whose biotech company is valued at nearly $600 million, wants the Food and Drug Administration to speed up drug approvals. His investment firm has an oil and gas fund. His new Bitcoin business would benefit if the federal government kept its hands off crypto.

Trump himself has already begun to cash in on his second presidency even more blatantly than he did the first time. He just began selling a cryptocurrency token featuring an image of himself — even though cryptocurrency is regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission, to which Trump has already said he’ll name a crypto advocate as chair.

Trump returns to a changed Washington, this time with a full embrace from Republicans

Not to mention the billionaires Trump is putting in charge of key departments to decide on taxes and expenditures, tariffs and trade, even what young Americans learn — all of whom have brazen conflicts of interest.

They’ll all be on display today with Trump. Then, many will take their private jets to Davos, Switzerland, for the annual confab of the world’s most powerful CEOs and billionaires.

Watch live: Donald Trump’s inauguration

Not since the Gilded Age of the late 19th century has such vast wealth turned itself into such conspicuous displays of political power. Unapologetically, unashamedly, defiantly.

This flagrancy makes me hopeful. Why? Because Americans don’t abide aristocracy. We were founded in revolt against unaccountable power and wealth. We will not tolerate this barefaced takeover.

The backlash will be stunning.

I cannot tell you precisely how or when it will occur, but it will start in our communities when we protect the most vulnerable from the cruelties of the Trump regime, ensure that hardworking families aren’t torn apart, protect transgender and LGBTQ+ people, and help guard the safety of Trump’s political enemies.

We will see the backlash in the 2026 midterms and the 2028 presidential election, when Americans elect true leaders who care about working people and the common good.

And just as we did at the end of the first Gilded Age of the late 19th century when the oligarchy revealed its hubris and grandiosity, Americans will demand fundamental reforms: getting big money out of politics, taxing huge wealth, busting up or regulating giant corporations, making huge social media platforms accountable to the public rather than to a handful of multibillionaires.

Friends, we could not remain on the path we were on. The sludge had been thickening even under Democratic administrations. Systematic flaws have remained unaddressed. Inequalities have continued to widen. Corruption and bribery have worsened.

It’s tragic that America had to come to this point. A few years of another Trump regime, even worse than the first, will be hard on many people.

But as the oligarchy is conspicuously exposed, Americans will see as clearly as we did at the end of the first Gilded Age that we have no option but to take back power.

Only then can we continue the essential work of America: the pursuit of equality and prosperity for the many, not the few. The preservation and strengthening of a government of, by, and for the people.

(Robert Reich, former U.S. Secretary of Labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of “The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It.” Read more from Robert Reich at https://robertreich.substack.com/) (C)2025 Robert Reich. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

In 2017, Trump inherited a strong economy from President Obama and never stopped congratulating himself for it. He claimed that “we created the greatest economy in the history of the world.”

Rubbish. Trump tanked the economy with his trade wars and his botched pandemic response.

Now, Trump is inheriting an even stronger economy.

On Friday, the Department of Labor reported that the nation added 256,000 jobs in December, significantly more than economists expected.

The total number of jobs created under Biden’s four years is 16.6 million. That makes him the only president in history to have presided over an economy that created jobs every single month.

He has also presided over the lowest average unemployment rate of any president in a half-century, ending at 4.1 percent.

The nation gained more jobs in Biden’s four years than it did under Trump’s first term of office, or under either of Barack Obama’s or George W. Bush’s terms of office.

Working-age women are now employed at record levels.

The gap in employment between Black Americans and their white counterparts is at the lowest level ever.

Biden has also presided over an economy that has grown faster and created more jobs than any other advanced economy around the world. Under Biden, the American economy grew faster than did the pre-pandemic Trump economy.

Yes, the United States and every other country had to deal with inflation, but Biden brought inflation down to below 3%– lower than in most other countries.

Americans have every reason to be outraged at decades of policies that prioritized corporations over people. But the Biden administration cracked down on corporate price-gouging, monopolization, and trickle-down nonsense.

All this means that Trump begins his second presidency with the best economy a president has inherited in living memory.

Will he claim credit for it? You betcha.

In addition, some of the most important Biden initiatives will start to pay off only during the Trump presidency (assuming Trump doesn’t reverse them).

Biden took on Big Pharma by capping out-of-pocket drug costs for millions of seniors on Medicare. That lowered the price of 64 drugs. These changes will take place throughout 2025. More drugs are scheduled to get cheaper in the following years.

Will Trump claim credit? Of course he will.

Biden’s infrastructure law will give us better roads, bridges, public transit, and broadband access. But most Americans won’t see those improvements for a year or two, well into Trump’s term of office.

Biden’s CHIPS and Science Act will provide more American-made semiconductors, but we won’t see them for a few years, so during Trump’s presidency.

Biden’s clean energy initiatives will also pay off with greater fuel efficiency and less pollution. But here again, not for several years.

Will Trump claim credit for these successes as well? Do birds fly?

His whole life, Trump has taken credit for things he simply inherited, starting with his own personal fortune.

Just as he avoids accountability for the bad stuff he’s done, such as his attempted coup against the United States, he congratulates himself for the good stuff others have done.

If Trump doesn’t wreck the economy with his bonkers tariff plans or cruel mass deportations, you can be sure he’ll take a bow for what Biden built.

Don’t let him. Don’t let Republican politicians claim credit. Don’t let the media allow Trump or other Republicans to claim credit. Speak out. Remind America that these good things happened because of Joe Biden.

Robert Reich, former U.S. Secretary of Labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of “The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It.” Read more from Robert Reich at https://robertreich.substack.com/ (C)2025 Robert Reich. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Over the next two weeks, the Senate will hold confirmation hearings on them. As soon as they’re completed and Trump takes the oath of office on Jan. 20, the Senate will vote on them. Most if not all Senate Democrats will vote against them, so Trump can afford to lose the votes of only three Senate Republicans.

The question, therefore, is whether at least four Senate Republicans have enough integrity to refuse to confirm the worst of them. The worst of the worst are:

Pete Hegseth, Trump’s pick for secretary of defense. Hegseth has a reputation for alleged sexual harassment, including an allegation of assault in 2017. (His own mother accused him in writing of repeatedly abusing women but subsequently disavowed the statement.) According to a recent report, Hegseth was ousted from leadership roles in two military veterans organizations following allegations of financial mismanagement, aggressive drunkenness, and sexist behavior.

Nonetheless, Hegseth has appeared to win over key Senate Republicans. Iowa Senator Joni Ernst, an Armed Services Committee member and the Senate’s first female combat veteran, has been deeply concerned about sexual harassment and assault in the military (where she says she was assaulted). But Trump Republicans have threatened to run a primary challenger against her if she doesn’t support Hegseth — which seems to have changed her attitude toward him.

Of all Trump’s nominations, Hegseth is probably closest to Trump in character and temperament, which should be damning enough to stop his confirmation. He’s scheduled to appear before the Senate Armed Services Committee for his confirmation hearing on Jan. 14. Stay tuned.

Kash Patel, Trump’s pick to direct the FBI. He has called for firing the top ranks of the FBI, prosecuting leakers and journalists, and replacing the national security workforce with “people who won’t undermine the president’s agenda.”

Patel has even created a list of whom he dubs “government gangsters” — headlined by outgoing FBI Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland — who he says “must be held accountable and exposed in 2024.” He has pledged to investigate Trump’s political opponents and “come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens who helped Joe Biden rig the presidential election.”

Of all Trump’s picks, Patel may be the most dangerous.

Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s pick for director of national intelligence. She has publicly called for the U.S. to allow Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad to remain in power and traveled to Syria to meet with him. She even challenged U.S. intelligence that found Assad’s forces had used chemical weapons.

Gabbard is close to Russian President Vladimir Putin and a favorite on Russian propaganda. In 2022, she used her platform to amplify a Russian talking point that the U.S. had somehow provoked Putin to invade Ukraine.

Why in the world would Trump want her to head national intelligence — unless, of course, Trump himself is compromised?

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s pick for heading the Department of Health and Human Resources. Kennedy Jr. is a well-known anti-vaxxer who has made the baseless claims that COVID-19 was “targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people” and that “the people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”

Kennedy Jr. keeps repeating the long-debunked claim that vaccines cause autism in kids, along with his insistence that the COVID-19 vaccine has killed more people than it’s saved, which is another lie.

He’s a wacko. Nonetheless, his critiques of corporate influence over food and drugs might possibly gain the votes of two Democrats: Bernie Sanders and John Fetterman.

The Constitution (Article II, Section 2, Clause 2), gives the Senate the power of “advice and consent” over a president’s key appointments. Advice and consent require careful screening, not outright submission to the will of an incoming president.

If you live in a state with Republican senators (or in Sanders’ Vermont or Fetterman’s Pennsylvania), you might remind them that they have a constitutional duty to not allow the U.S. government to fall into the hands of unqualified and potentially dangerous people like the four mentioned in this column.

Robert Reich, former U.S. Secretary of Labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of “The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It.” Read more from Robert Reich at https://robertreich.substack.com/. (C)2025 Robert Reich. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

When I first heard these ideas I thought he was joking, but as with all things Trump, he’s not … quite.

While naming a new ambassador to Denmark (which controls Greenland’s foreign and defense affairs), Trump made clear that his first-term offer to buy Greenland could, in the coming term, become a deal the Danes cannot refuse.

He seems to want Greenland because of its strategic location at a time when the melting of Arctic ice is opening new commercial and naval competition. He’s also interested in Greenland’s reserves of rare earth minerals needed for advanced technology.

But Trump isn’t stopping there. He also wants to annex Canada. This proposal appears more a public needling of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau than a serious plan.

Yet Trump has continued to tease the idea of annexing Canada on social media. “I think it’s a great idea,” he wrote in a recent post.

This is all bonkers, of course.

But as long as we’re considering changing national borders, why not do it in a more sensible way?

How about the West Coast states of Washington, Oregon, and California becoming the 11th province of Canada? After all, the politics of these blue states would fit much better with Canada’s than with Trump’s America.

Meanwhile, the New England states (Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut) and New York could become the 12th Canadian province, for much the same reason.

While Trump is toying with the idea of annexing Canada, these blue American states should bid him goodbye and be annexed by Canada.

Hell, Trump might just go along. He doesn’t like these blue states anyway. They all voted against him in 2016, 2020, and again in 2024. He’s been looking for ways of getting even. Why not simply disown them?

Letting Canada annex these blue states would also simplify Trump’s war on undocumented immigrants, since many of them reside in these states.

America First Legal, a nonprofit run by Trump’s incoming deputy chief of staff for policy, Stephen Miller, has already written to local elected officials in California and New York warning them not to try to become sanctuaries — threatening that the officials could be personally “criminally liable” if they refuse to support federal government efforts to detain and deport illegal immigrants.

But if California, New York, and other blue states were annexed by Canada, the problem disappears.

Of course, this leaves the pesky question of whether Canada would accept America’s West Coast as its 11th province and New York and New England as its 12th? I’ll leave that question to Canadians. (Please, Canadians, let us know your thoughts.)

Robert Reich, former U.S. Secretary of Labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of “The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It.” Read more from Robert Reich at https://robertreich.substack.com/. (C)2024 Robert Reich. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

You have every reason to be worried about what happens after Jan. 20. Many people could be harmed.

Yet I continue to have an abiding faith in the common sense and good-heartedness of most Americans, despite the outcome of the election.

Many traditional Democratic voters did not vote, either because they were upset about the Biden administration’s support for Benjamin Netanyahu or they were unmoved by Kamala Harris. Others chose Trump because their incomes have gone nowhere for years and they thought the system needed to be “shaken up.”

Shutdown averted: What’s in the federal funding bill for CT

An explanation is not a justification.

There have been times when I doubted America. I think the worst was 1968, with the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and then Bobby Kennedy, the riots and fires that consumed our cities, the horrific Democratic convention in Chicago along with protests and violent police response, the election of the dreadful Nixon, and the escalating carnage of Vietnam.

It seemed to me then that we had utterly lost our moral compass and purpose.

But the Watergate hearings demonstrated to me that we had not lost it. Democrats and Republicans worked together to discover what Nixon had done.

I had much the same feeling about the brilliant work done by the House’s special committee to investigate Jan. 6, 2021 including the work of chair Bennie Thompson and vice chair Liz Cheney.

I think it important not to overlook the many good things that happened under the Biden-Harris administration — the most aggressive use of antitrust and most pro-union labor board I remember, along with extraordinary legislative accomplishments.

When I think about what’s good about America, I also think about the jurors, prosecutors, and the judge in Trump’s trial in Manhattan, who took extraordinary abuse. Their lives and the lives of their families were threatened. But they didn’t flinch. They did their duty.

I think about our armed services men and women. Our firefighters and police officers. Our teachers and social workers. Our nurses who acted with such courage and dedication during the pandemic. I think about all the other people who are putting in countless hours in our cities and towns and states to make our lives better.

A few days ago, I ran into an old friend who’s spending the holidays running a food kitchen for the unhoused.

“How are you?” she asked, with a big smile.

“Been better,” I said.

“Oh, you’re still in a funk over the election,” she said. “Don’t worry! We’ll do fine. There’s so much work to do.”

“Yes, but Trump is …”

She stopped me, her face turning into a frown. “Nothing we can do about him now, except get ready for his regime. Protect the people who’ll be hurt.”

“You’re right.”

After a pause she said, “we had to come to this point, you know.”

“What do you mean?”

“Biden couldn’t get done nearly enough. The reactionary forces have been building for years. They’re like the puss in an ugly boil.”

“That’s the worst metaphor I’ve heard!” I laughed.

“The boil is on our collective ass,” she continued, laughing along with me. “And the only way we get up enough courage to lance the boil it is for it to get so big and so ugly and so mean that no one can sit down!”

“I don’t know whether you’re an optimist or a pessimist,” I said, still laughing.

“Neither,” she explained, turning serious. “A realist. I’ve had it with wishy-washy Democratic ‘centrists.’ A few years of the miserable Trump administration and we can get back to the real work of the country.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“And now I have to get back to work. Lots of people to feed! Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy New Year!”

With that, she was gone.

Robert Reich, former U.S. Secretary of Labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of “The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It.” Read more from Robert Reich at https://robertreich.substack.com/. (C)2024 Robert Reich. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Today I want to share their plan to gut Medicaid.

Medicaid is less politically popular than Social Security or Medicare, because it mainly supports poor children and families who have little or no political voice.

But Medicaid covers far more Americans.

Medicaid insures nearly half of all children in the United States. It covers 1 in 5 women of childbearing age. It also pays for a large portion of the nation’s nursing home care and mental health treatment. States and the federal government share its costs, which totaled $880 billion last year.

How are the DOGE billionaires planning to gut it?

First, by turning Medicaid into “block grants,” in which states get lump sums regardless of how many people sign up for the program. Republican senator and founding DOGE caucus member John Cornyn has already publicly stated that he favors this approach.

As more poor children and needy families sign up, block grants will force states to increase their own spending on Medicaid or restrict who gets it. Given the strain on state budgets and the negligible political voice of Medicaid recipients, it will almost surely be the latter.

A second method for gutting Medicaid favored by Musk, Ramaswamy, Cornyn, and other DOGE caucus members is to impose work requirements on Medicaid recipients. They claim this would save the federal government at least $100 billion over the next decade.

But the reason for the saving is that work requirements would cause more than half a million people — most of them unable to work — to lose coverage (according to estimates from the Congressional Budget Office).

The third idea DOGE is considering is to cut back on the expansion of Medicaid that came with the Affordable Care Act. That expansion enabled adults in families earning up to $43,000 a year to get health care coverage. (Under it, the federal government pays 90% of the costs.)

Step back for a moment and consider what’s being proposed.

If the Affordable Care Act’s expanded Medicaid is cut back, hundreds of thousands of Americans in families earning up to$43,000 a year will lose their health care.

If Medicaid is turned into block grants or if work is required of people unable to work, many hundreds of thousands more will lose their only access to health care, including large numbers of children.

The presumed goal of the DOGE exercise is to reduce the federal budget deficit.

Yet Trump and his billionaires are planning to extend the 2017 Trump tax cuts, which disproportionately have benefited large corporations and wealthy people like themselves, along with additional tax cuts and loopholes for the wealthy.

The estimated cost of extending the Trump tax cuts is at least $5 trillion– more than twice the amount Musk has stated DOGE will cut in “wasteful” government spending.

The richest man in the world and his billionaire colleagues are seeking to reduce money spent for the health care of the poorest and most vulnerable Americans, at the same time they’re seeking to reduce taxes on themselves and others who are the richest and most privileged.

Anything wrong with this picture?

Many of the Americans who will be shafted by all this voted for Trump in 2024.

They may never discover that Trump is behind this because Trump won’t have his fingerprints on the Medicaid cuts. He’ll hide behind Musk and Ramaswamy’s DOGE and the newly formed DOGE caucus in Congress.

Not even their fingerprints will be obvious because block grants to the states, work requirements, and elimination of the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion will all do the dirty deed quietly.

Nor will working Americans discover that big corporations and the wealthy are reaping most of the savings from the gutting of Medicaid in the form of lower taxes. Most working Americans haven’t yet discovered how skewed the 2017 Trump tax cut has been to the wealthy and big corporations, so why should they discover it in future years?

One more thing.

Employer-sponsored health insurance — available to most salaried workers in large corporations but rarely to hourly workers or contract workers — remains untaxed.

This is one of the largest tax expenditures in the federal government.

As I said, Medicaid costs about $880 billion a year. The exclusion from taxes of employer-provided health insurance costs the federal government a very large fraction of that — the Joint Committee on Taxation estimated $299 billion in 2022; the Congressional Budget Office projects $641 billion by 2032.

It’s another well-disguised benefit for the privileged that’s underwritten by the non-privileged. Yet I’d be astonished if DOGE touched it.

Why go after the costs of Medicaid and not the costs of employer-provided health insurance? For the same reason Trump’s billionaires will happily cut taxes on themselves even as they gut health care for millions of poor kids and working-class families.

What’s considered “waste and fraud” often depends on whether one is looking downward or upward, and the billionaire DOGEs look only downward. But the biggest waste and fraud is found at the high rungs — in tax loopholes and tax expenditures used by wealthy individuals and big corporations. (Did I hear anyone say “carried interest?”)

When Trump chose Dr. Mehmet Oz, the multimillion-dollar celebrity doctor (who infamously promoted hydroxychloroquine while holding over $615,000 in shares of the drug’s distributor) to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Trump said Oz will “cut waste and fraud within our country’s most expensive government agency.”

Believe that, and you should believe in hydroxychloroquine.

(Robert Reich, former U.S. Secretary of Labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of “The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It.” Read more from Robert Reich at https://robertreich.substack.com/) (C)2024 Robert Reich. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

But on the transcendent issue of American democracy and Trump’s culpability in trying to destroy it, she’s been a rare voice of clarity and courage — and continues to be.

On Sunday, Cheney called out Trump’s threat, which he made on “Meet the Press,” to imprison her and other members of the House select committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.

She said Trump’s threat was an “assault on the rule of law and the foundations of our republic.” Precisely right.

She went on to say:

“Here is the truth: Donald Trump attempted to overturn the 2020 presidential election and seize power,” she said in a statement. “He mobilized an angry mob and sent them to the United States Capitol, where they attacked police officers, invaded the building and halted the official counting of electoral votes. Trump watched on television as police officers were brutally beaten and the Capitol was assaulted, refusing for hours to tell the mob to leave.

Biden is considering preemptive pardons for officials and allies before Trump takes office

This was the worst breach of our Constitution by any president in our nation’s history. Donald Trump’s suggestion that members of Congress who later investigated his illegal and unconstitutional actions should be jailed is a continuation of his assault on the rule of law and the foundations of our republic.”

She rejected Trump’s claim that the select committee destroyed evidence during its investigation and his assertion that “for what they did, honestly, they should go to jail.”

In fact, the committee released an 800-page report as well as 140 transcripts of testimony and various memos, emails and voice mail messages. The evidence remains online.

Cheney hit back hard:

“Donald Trump knows his claims about the select committee are ridiculous and false, as has been detailed extensively, including by Chairman Thompson. There is no conceivably appropriate factual or constitutional basis for what Donald Trump is suggesting — a Justice Department investigation of the work of a congressional committee — and any lawyer who attempts to pursue that course would quickly find themselves engaged in sanctionable conduct.”

Cheney went on to urge special counsel Jack Smith to make public the evidence he and his assistants have gathered in his investigation of Trump’s role in trying to overturn the 2020 election.

On pardons, Biden weighs whether to flex presidential powers in broad new ways

“The Justice Department should ensure that all that material is preserved and cannot be destroyed. As much of that information as possible should be disclosed in the special counsel’s upcoming report.”

At a time when most current and former Republican officials are mouthing Trump’s lies or keeping quiet — because they’ve sold their souls to their political ambitions or they’re intimidated by potential violence from Trump and his MAGA thugs — Cheney continues to serve the nation with courage and honor by telling the truth about the despicable traitor who will become president six weeks from now.

She doesn’t need a pardon from Biden, because Trump’s claim wouldn’t last an instant in federal court. What she deserves from Biden is a Presidential Medal of Freedom.

(Robert Reich, former U.S. Secretary of Labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of “The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It.” Read more from Robert Reich at https://robertreich.substack.com/) (C)2024 Robert Reich. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Musk, the richest person in the world, is not only claiming presidential authority to fire federal workers, but he’s posting the identities of those whose jobs he wants to eliminate — with the clear intention that his followers harass and threaten them so they quit.

Musk is utterly unaccountable. He has never been elected to anything, but he spent $120 million helping Trump become the president-elect and is now acting as if he’s Trump’s co-president, calling himself Trump’s “First Buddy.”

After buying Twitter for $44 billion, Musk turned it into a cesspool of disinformation and conspiracy theories and manipulated its algorithm to give himself 205 million followers, to whom he is now distributing treacherous lies.

In recent days, Musk boosted posts on his website singling out the names and job titles of four federal employees working in climate policy and regulation who have done nothing other than hold titles Musk dislikes. All four targets are women.

In one instance, Musk quote-tweeted a post highlighting the role of 37-year-old Ashley Thomas, a little-known director of climate diversification at the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation.

Musk’s repost — “So many fake jobs” — garnered 32 million views, triggering a tsunami of taunts against Thomas, such as, “Sorry Ashley Thomas Gravy Train is Over” and “A tough way for Ashley Thomas to find out she’s losing her job.”

Musk apparently took the word “diversification” in Thomas’ title to mean the “D” in “DEI,” which Musk considers “woke.”

Thomas (who holds degrees in engineering, business, and water science from Oxford and MIT) is focused on climate diversification to protect agriculture and infrastructure from extreme weather events.

Following Musk’s tweet, Thomas shut down several of her social media accounts.

In another repost, Musk mocked Alexis Pelosi, a relative of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who works as a senior adviser to climate change at the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

“Nancy Pelosi’s niece should not be paid $181,648.00 by the U.S. Taxpayer to be the ‘Climate Advisor’ at HUD,” the original account wrote. “But maybe her advice is amazing,” Musk snarked.

Musk also singled out the chief climate officer in the Department of Energy’s loan programs office and shared the name of an employee serving as senior adviser on environmental justice and climate change at the Department of Health and Human Services.

In my humble opinion, Musk’s targets should sue him for defamation.

This is hardly the first time Musk has targeted specific people, and he obviously knows how dangerous such targeting can be.

After taking over Twitter in 2022, Musk targeted Yoel Roth, the platform’s former head of trust and safety, who had recently left the company. Musk tweeted, incorrectly, that it looked like Roth had argued “in favor of children being able to access adult Internet services.” Some platform users interpreted this as Musk calling Roth a pedophile, and they posted calls for Roth’s death.

Roth moved out of his house because of the threats.

Musk has also singled out specific civil servants. In 2021, he targeted Missy Cummings, a former fighter pilot and senior adviser at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, whom Musk claimed was “extremely biased against Tesla” because she questioned the safety of Tesla’s advanced driver-assistance system.

Cummings said she received death threats and was forced to leave her home as a result of Musk’s posts.

Musk’s current targeting is even more dangerous because he has the apparent authority of the president-elect. Although the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” that Musk is co-heading (with Vivek Ramaswamy) isn’t a real department and has not been authorized by Congress, Musk is acting as if it’s real.

Cummings says Musk’s personal intimidation is already leading some longtime federal employees to leave their jobs: “He intended for them, for people just like this, to be intimidated and just go ahead and quit so he didn’t have to fire them. So his plan, to some extent, is working.”

I worked in the federal government between 1974 and 1980, first at the Federal Trade Commission and then at the Justice Department, and from 1993 to 1997 I served as secretary of labor.

Most of the federal employees I came to know cared deeply about the common good. The vast majority did their work carefully and thoughtfully. We owe them a huge debt of gratitude.

But ever since Richard Nixon attacked “unelected bureaucrats” as America’s enemy and Ronald Reagan blamed “liberal bureaucrats” for government’s failings, government employees have been scapegoated. And now Trump is preparing to attack the so-called “deep state.”

In fact, America spends less each year on the federal government’s civilian workforce (roughly $200 billion) than we spend annually on federal contractors ($750 billion).

Much of the “fat” is found in these private, for-profit contractors, who aren’t accountable to anyone except the office that draws up the contracts.

The biggest waste is in the Defense Department, where many contractors have avoided competitive bidding because they have a monopoly over critical technologies.

Which brings me back to Musk, whose businesses are fast becoming among the government’s largest contract monopolists. According to USASpending.gov (the government database that tracks federal spending), Musk’s SpaceX and his Starlink satellite division have signed contracts totaling nearly $20 billion.

I don’t know how much waste and inefficiency are to be found in Musk’s government contracts, because I haven’t been able to find any reports on them — which is precisely the problem.

While Musk seeks to intimidate federal civil servants whose job titles he dislikes, forcing some to leave government because his postings have elicited threats to their lives, Musk is distracting attention from himself and his own profitable dips into the taxpayer trough.

Grimes says Elon Musk became ‘unrecognizable’ amid nasty custody fight

I invite any of you with an inclination to root out waste and inefficiency to find out what you can about any likely abuses in Musk’s government contracts, and let us know what you come up with.

Robert Reich, former U.S. Secretary of Labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of “The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It.” Read more from Robert Reich at https://robertreich.substack.com/. (C)2024 Robert Reich. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

It feels like an eternity because of the immensity of the loss — not just the loss of the election but the seeming loss of America. Not just America, but the apparent loss of the world as we knew it.

The Bible, ‘American values’ and federal funding: How Trump could change CT schools

In reality, we lost by a relatively small number of votes, but in our winner-take-all system of government, that doesn’t much matter. We lost.

A few weeks in, and the magnitude of the loss may be hitting you differently than it did on the night of Nov. 5.

It has been coming to me in the early morning, just as dawn is breaking and I’m starting to awaken. It has been coming to me in the form of dread.

What exactly do I dread? Trump, and all the anger he has exploited. Trump, and all the people he has manipulated. Trump, and all the power he will have to do atrocious things. Trump, and all the dreadful people he is surrounding himself with or is seeking to appoint. Trump, and his use of the military on hardworking people in my community.

Some of you probably awaken as I do.

Alternatively, some of you are using coping mechanisms — not reading the paper or listening to the news, or giving up on politics, or relying on music or poetry or the beauty of nature to blot out what is occurring.

I get it.

However you might be coping with the loss and the shock, it’s very important that you know what they’re trying to do.

What they want most is to take away our hope.

If they can make us hopeless, they win everything. If they can abscond with our hope, we will stop fighting for a more just society, stop defending those who are most vulnerable to them, stop protecting what’s left of our democracy.

If they can destroy our hope, we won’t join together to try to stop them. They will win everything. They will get it all.

I understand if at this point, two weeks after a grievous election, you feel depressed. Dispossessed. Empty. Angry.

I understand if you feel the grief of losing what should never have been lost.

Connecticut, Donald Trump and the environment. What could change for clean air and water.

I understand if you feel the gross, mind-numbing unfairness of a system that rewards horrendous lies backed by big money.

I share all these feelings.

Some of you ask: Even if I had a shred of hopeful energy remaining inside me, what would I do? Trump has it all — the entire executive branch of government, which he wants run by dangerous people who will do whatever he wants. He has both chambers of Congress. He’s got an election-denying Republican Party purged of people with integrity. He’s got a pliable Supreme Court.

Given all this, many of you feel powerless. You ask: As a practical matter, what can I do?

First and perhaps most importantly, connect and reconnect with people who share our values — who want a decent society, who reject bigotry, who treat people equally and respectfully, who seek social justice, and who keep in mind the common good. All of us need the support and reassurance that come with connection to these kindred souls.

Don’t be an election-only activist. Practice your activism. Meet regularly, in person or online. Hear each other’s stories. Listen to the grieving of others. Know you’re not alone in this.

Second, sketch a plan for your activism. You don’t need to put it into effect right away, but have it ready. Work with others to organize and mobilize.

Maybe it involves protecting people in your community who are most vulnerable to Trump’s dragnet. Or people who are (or will be) on Trump’s enemies list.

Or women and girls of childbearing age who will need help, advice, encouragement, and resources if they’re to exercise their rights over their own bodies.

Maybe it involves establishing new and more reliable sources of news and analysis, and sharing those sources with others.

Maybe it involves boycotting X, or companies that advertise on X or on Fox News. Or other products and services generated by billionaires who supported Trump.

Or cutting back on buying things you don’t need and putting your money into the work of groups advancing the common good.

And joining such groups. Starting chapters in your community. Getting others involved.

Third, pace yourself. Don’t try to do it all immediately. The fight we’re engaged in will not be won anytime soon. There are likely to be elections next November in your community and state. The next major federal engagement will be the midterm elections of 2026.

Don’t expect clear and decisive victories. We are up against forces that use bigotry and lies to entrench their power. It will take time, patience, and tenacity to change course.

Fourth, avoid the blame game. There’s nothing to be gained by picking on Biden or on Harris or on Democrats in general or on this or that identity group.

But an accurate explanation for what has occurred can be a precursor to making necessary changes.

An explanation is not a justification. To my mind, there is no moral justification for electing Trump, although I think I understand why people voted for him.

At the most basic level, they voted for him because for many decades they have not benefited from the fruits of their hard work. The median wage of the bottom 90% buys less today than it did 40 years ago. For decades, most of the gains have gone to the top.

Grotesque inequalities of income, wealth, opportunity, and power have caused most Americans to feel angry, surly, cynical, and ready to take a wrecking ball to the whole system.

But Trump’s wrecking ball will only hurt most Americans and further enrich oligarchs like himself. We must help people understand this.

Fifth, please be kind to yourself. You are not alone, and you’re not crazy. You will have bad days.

Many of us are still in shock. Many are experiencing a kind of trauma. Sometimes these sorts of shocks and traumas dredge up shocks and traumas from our past.

The rising price of paying the national debt is a risk for Trump’s promises on growth and inflation

Get plenty of rest. Read a good novel. Watch a good streaming series. Find things to laugh at — and share laughter with others.

Most of all — even if you don’t feel it now at all — don’t lose hope.

Find green shoots of hope wherever you can.

Some people, some communities, and even some states, continue to do great things. Celebrate them.

Others are doing small but important things. Thank them.

Others are doing courageous things. Appreciate them.

Keep hope strong. Keep hope alive. Don’t let them take it away.

We are together in this.

Robert Reich, former U.S. Secretary of Labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of “The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It.” Read more from Robert Reich at https://robertreich.substack.com/) (C)2024 Robert Reich. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Lutnick had been in the lead but a few days ago, according to the The Wall Street Journal, he heard from Trump’s allies that he might not get the nod.

So Lutnick turned for help to Elon Musk, who now calls himself Trump’s “First Buddy.” Bessent’s supporters also reached out to Musk to endorse Bessent, which tells you a lot about the palace intrigue going on now in Mar-a-Lago, and how much power Musk is now wielding.

Saturday, Musk, posted on his X that Lutnick would be a better choice for treasury secretary than Bessent:

“My view fwiw is that Bessent is a business-as-usual choice, whereas @howardlutnick will actually enact change. Business-as-usual is driving America bankrupt, so we need change one way or another.”

I’ve spent quite some time around presidents and presidents-elect and even advised them about personnel decisions. The most basic rule of such advice-giving is you never make your advice public.

Doing so puts the president-elect in an impossible position: If he does what you’ve publicly urged him to do — even if he was going to do it anyway — your public advocacy makes it look as if you pushed him into it, so he seems to be your patsy.

If the president-elect is Donald Trump, who thinks mainly in terms of dominance and submission, you’re playing with fire.

Bad enough that Musk broke this basic rule. He went even further, publicly encouraging his nearly 205 million followers on X to weigh in, in favor of Lutnick.

So Musk has very publicly cornered Trump. If Trump names Lutnick, it looks as if all Musk needs to do from now on is publicly urge Trump to do this or that, with the implicit threat of getting his 205 million followers stirred up to follow suit, and Trump will do it. Musk becomes de facto President.

I don’t know what Trump will do but I’m sure he’s seething. The most likely outcome is Trump doesn’t offer the job to either Lutnick nor Bessent, and fires Musk.

Musk’s public advocacy of Lutnick because he will “enact change” rather than “business-as-usual” also signals Musk’s and Trump’s criterion for filling high-level positions (besides unbridled fealty to Trump): The picks don’t need to know anything or share any large vision of the public good. They just have to be bomb-throwers who’ll shake things up.

The worst that can be said of any candidate is he’ll govern as usual.

Trump is well on his way to “crush the system,” as he promised — which most Americans appear to want because the “as usual” system has for decades been rewarding big-money donors, monopolists, CEOs living off government contracts (like Musk) and fat-cat denizens of Wall Street (like Lutnick and Bessent) — all of whom have been siphoning off most economic gains for themselves.

But if the new system that Trump installs (with or without Musk’s help) siphons off even more of the gains for those at the top, while destroying what’s left of our democracy, most Americans will find themselves even worse off and more resentful.

Robert Reich, former U.S. Secretary of Labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of “The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It.” Read more from Robert Reich at https://robertreich.substack.com/. (C)2024 Robert Reich. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.