Essential, September 23, 2024

A compendium of the best reporting and commentary surrounding the crucial 2024 United States elections. You won’t find horse racing coverage here, or the standard “both sides” nonsense that so often passes for political journalism. What you shall find links, with brief commentary, to work that I believe advances the conversation we should be having about the future of America—and the world. Remember: everything is at stake this year. (Unfortunately, some of the work I link to is behind paywalls.)

Judicial Revenge Department

Headline in the New York Times newspaper: "As president, Trump demanded investigations of enemies. He often got them."

The Kerry investigation was no exception. For the rest of Trump’s time in office, he continued to pressure federal agencies to take action against his perceived enemies, even when dissuaded by advisers like McGahn and John F. Kelly, the White House chief of staff from mid-2017 to early 2019.

This article—you should also check out the sidebar that details every instance of Trump-inspired legal intimidation—connects all sorts of dots, using Trump’s history in the White House to provide a glimpse of what’s to come if he reoccupies it. I say “glimpse” because, as the article makes clear (in its oh-so-polite New York Times fashion), the consistent abuses of Trump’s past will be amplified by orders of magnitude. He’s announced them publicly and proudly, and his apparatchiks would be eager to wage a retaliatory war against opponents, perceived and real, this time around. That’s bad enough, but consider the new legal context in which this would take place: As the article notes, Trump would also “return to the White House, bolstered by the Supreme Court’s July ruling that former presidents have broad immunity from prosecution for official acts performed in office.” Now extend these abuses—and the mind-boggling corruption of Trump’s world—to the entire government. I keep waiting for Big Journalism to wake up and tell the American people what’s coming. I hope this piece, in retrospect, was a great start. (BTW, this piece shows how good the New York Times can be at serious political journalism when they try (which, unfortunately, they don’t often).

Tribute: Michael S. Schmidt

Biden’s FTC Goes After the (Legal) Drug Cartel That’s Scamming Everyone

In fact, the FTC is suing the intermediaries responsible for selling insulin, what are called pharmacy benefit managers or PBMs. The allegation is that the PBMs and the manufacturers themselves form a loose cartel, working together to raise secret prices to specifically target people who have to pay out of pocket for insulin. Basically, like everything else in America, since 2012 a few monopolists have turned buying pharmaceuticals into a weird financial game, with opaque rules and costs. That’s why medical billing, with things like deductibles, co-insurance, co-pays, and the like, is so annoying. It’s designed to extract. And this plan shows how.

This is a Awesome by one of the most effective—at least under the current administration—federal agencies. Stoller is one of the best reporters on the scams of so many industries that have become effective monopolies or cartels. In this piece, he lays out in plain language the predatory slimeballs running the “pharmaceutical benefit managers”—middlemen who are ripping billions off the health care system in ways that will astound you—and how significant the FTC’s action could prove to be. This is, hopefully, just the first of many related cases.

Tribute: Matt Stoller

Related: Watch this “60 Minutes” interview with FTC head Lina Kahn, who I consider Biden’s best regulatory appointment. It won’t come as a surprise that America’s billionaires and biggest corporations are pushing for Harris, if she wins, to replace Kahn and others who are working to protect the interests of all and keep the rich and powerful as honest as possible. If Trump wins, expect a complete purge of the regulators who work for the rest of us.

How to destroy an economy

Headline in Financial Times: "Trumponomics: The Radical Plan That Would Reform the American Economy"

“If Donald Trump were to do half of what he promised, the results for the American economy would be chaotic and negative,” said Jason Furman, a former White House economist in the Obama administration who is now a professor at Harvard. “The most important thing we have on our side against China is that we are part of a bloc of countries that get along reasonably well. If we were to impose tariffs on all those countries, it would tear it apart.”

This Financial Times report is a stark warning, and it’s probably an understatement. There’s something to be said for systematic – not knee-jerk – economic withdrawal from China, but what Trump (apparently) plans to do is downright dangerous.

Tribute: Colby Smith, Claire Jones, James Politi

Spoiler Stein has Republican supporters

Headline in the Wall Street Journal: "Republicans back Jill Stein as potential Harris spoiler Green Party candidate says she challenges two-party system. She also hired a consulting firm that has worked with Republicans."

“When you see the information about Republican operatives who are supporting her candidacy, it’s very easy to see that she was heavily sponsored and purposefully put on the ballot to help Donald Trump,” said Joel Payne, a spokesman for MoveOn, a progressive political action committee. … Polls suggest Stein has support from 1 percent of the electorate, and slightly more in some swing states, but rarely above 2 percent. Even her small share of support could matter, though, because in 2016, Stein’s vote totals in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan were larger than Trump’s margins of victory.

Democrats have occasionally played games with lower-level races in recent years, helping Republican extremist candidates win primaries and thereby help Democrats in the general election. Promoting a third-party candidate to siphon off votes in a presidential race is not. The article’s reference to 2016 is important. Yes, Hillary Clinton ran a lousy campaign that year, and a host of other factors contributed to her loss of the Electoral College. But Stein’s presence on the ballot—remarkably similar to Ralph Nader’s ego-driven candidacy in 2000—ensured enough of the popular vote to keep the national winner of the national popular vote out of the presidency. The fact that she’s doing it again, with cynical help from Republicans, is a reminder that every vote counts. (Meanwhile, in a strange move, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — after saying he was withdrawing and supporting Trump — is suing New York state to keep his name on the ballot there. He previously sued North Carolina to keep his name off the ballot, in a move that forced the state to delay early voting, which historically favors Democrats.)

Tribute: Sabrina Siddiqui

Register to vote (and then vote).

Voting is just one part of democracy, but it’s the essential place to start. Make sure you’re registered. Check in the fall, well before Election Day, because in some states Republican officials are purging people, especially those who tend to vote Democratic, from the voting rolls.