Robert Reich's writes at robertreich.substack.com. His latest book is "THE SYSTEM: Who Rigged It, How To Fix It." He is Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley and Senior Fellow at the Blum Center. He served as Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration, for which Time Magazine named him one of the 10 most effective cabinet secretaries of the twentieth century. He has written 17 other books, including the best sellers "Aftershock,""The Work of Nations," "Beyond Outrage," and "The Common Good." He is a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine, founder of Inequality Media, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and co-creator of the award-winning documentaries "Inequality For All," streaming on YouTube, and "Saving Capitalism," now streaming on Netflix.
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NEW: The System
Who Rigged It, and How We Fix It
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Why we must restore the idea of the common good to the center of our economics and politics
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Economics in Wonderland
A cartoon guide to a political world gone mad and mean
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Saving Capitalism
For the Many, Not the Few
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Aftershock
The Next Economy and America's Future
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Beyond Outrage:
What has gone wrong with our economy and our democracy, and how to fix itPreorder the Trade Paperback:
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Supercapitalism
The Transformation of Business, Democracy, and Everyday Life
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Reason
Why Liberals Will Win the Battle for America
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Locked in the Cabinet
A memoir of four years as Secretary of Labor
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PBS, JANUARY 13, 2020
UCTV, DECEMBER 22, 2017
CNN, DECEMBER 13, 2017
TRAVIS SMILEY, NOVEMBER 30, 2017
MORNING JOE, NOVEMBER 9, 2017
ABC, APRIL 30, 2017
ABC, FEBRUARY 26, 2017
CNN, FEBRUARY 21, 2017
CNN, FEBRUARY 2, 2017
CNN, DECEMBER 10, 2016
CNN, DECEMBER 7, 2016
CNN, DECEMBER 7, 2016
DEMOCRACY NOW!, AUGUST, 2016
C-SPAN BOOK TV, OCTOBER, 2015
COLBERT REPORT, NOVEMBER, 2013
WITH BILL MOYERS, SEPT. 2013
DAILY SHOW, SEPTEMBER 2013, PART 1
DAILY SHOW, SEPTEMBER 2013, PART 2
DEMOCRACY NOW, SEPTEMBER 2013
INTELLIGENCE SQUARED DEBATES, SEPTEMBER 2012
DAILY SHOW, APRIL 2012, PART 1
DAILY SHOW, APRIL 2012, PART 2
COLBERT REPORT, OCTOBER, 2010
WITH CONAN OBRIEN, JANUARY, 2010
DAILY SHOW, OCTOBER 2008
DAILY SHOW, APRIL 2005
DAILY SHOW, JUNE 2004
TRUTH AS A COMMON GOOD, APRIL, 2017
MUNK DEBATE ON THE US ELECTION, OCTOBER, 2016
WHY WORRY ABOUT INEQUALITY, APRIL, 2014
LAST LECTURE, APRIL, 2014
INEQUALITY FOR ALL, NOVEMBER, 2013
THE RICH ARE TAXED ENOUGH, OCTOBER, 2012
AFTERSHOCK, SEPTEMBER, 2011
THE NEXT ECONOMY AND AMERICA'S FUTURE, MARCH, 2011
HOW UNEQUAL CAN AMERICA GET?, JANUARY, 2008
Unrigging the GOP’s Minority Rule
The Republican Party is shrinking. It’s lost the popular vote in seven of the past eight Presidential elections. Since Trump’s attempted coup, more Americans are abandoning it every day.
Yet even as a shrinking minority party, the GOP intends to entrench themselves in power over the majority. Here’s their playbook – and what the rest of us can do to stop them.1. In presidential elections, they’ll continue to try to win enough swing states to dominate the Electoral College and win the presidency.
The answer is to make the Electoral College irrelevant by having states join the growing movement to pass laws giving all their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote.
2. In the Senate, they’ll continue to try to win enough seats in mostly white, sparsely populated rural states to outvote highly populated urban states.
The answer here is for Congress to grant statehood to Washington D.C., and to work with Puerto Rico, which recently voted in favor of statehood, on a concrete path to self-determination.
3. They also aim to use the Senate filibuster to block the majority. The answer is to eliminate the filibuster, which Senate Democrats can do without a single Republican vote.
4. Finally, the GOP will use its control over state governments to gerrymander congressional districts and gain disproportionate power in the House. And they will pass even more laws making it harder for Democrats to vote.
The answer is to prevent gerrymandering and voter suppression by passing the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act – which Democrats can do with a simple majority of 51 votes once they eliminate the filibuster. The values of the Republican Party do not reflect the values of most Americans. It should not be allowed to silence the voices of the majority.
How to Beat Republicans at Their Own Game
I keep hearing from progressives who lament that even if Biden wins, Trump and McConnell have tilted the playing field forever.
They point to McConnell’s rush to confirm Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, after blocking President Obama’s nominee for 293 days because it was “too close” to the next election. And to the fact that Republicans in the Senate represent 11 million fewer Americans than their Democratic counterparts, and are still able to confirm a Supreme Court justice and entrench minority rule.
But that’s not the end of the story.
The Constitution doesn’t prevent increasing the size of the Supreme Court in order to balance it. Or creating a pool of circuit court justices to cycle in and out of it. In fact, the Constitution says nothing at all about the size of the Court.
I also hear progressives express outrage that this imbalance of power exists in the Electoral College, which made Trump president in 2016 despite having lost the popular vote by 3 million, and made George W. Bush president in 2000, despite losing the popular vote by about half a million.
But this doesn’t have to be the end of the story, either. From granting statehood to Washington, D.C. to abolishing the Electoral College, nothing should be off the table to strengthen our democracy.
There is no reason to accept the structure of our democracy when it repeatedly empowers a ruthless minority to impose its will over the majority. Or when it denies full representation to U.S. citizens, as is the case for Puerto Rico, which absolutely deserves self-determination.
Pay no mind to those who argue that these moves would be unfair abuses of power. Unfair, after what Trump and McConnell have done?
Abuses of power? When Trump is urging his followers to intimidate Biden voters? When he won’t even commit to a peaceful transition of power and refuses to be bound by the results? When he’s already claiming the election is rigged against him and will be fraudulent unless he wins? When he’s threatening to have states that he loses declare the votes invalid and certify their own slate of Trump electors in January?
I’m sorry. There’s nothing unfair about making our democracy fairer. There’s no abuse of power in remedying blatant abuses of power.
