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Office Hours: The Most Important Lesson We’ve Learned from this Travesty?

30 September 2026 at 10:02

Friends,

Two weeks ago, I asked in our weekly Office Hours for your view on the biggest existential threat we face. Forty-three percent of you said climate change; 27 percent said authoritarianism; 17 percent said Artificial Intelligence; and 7 percent said nuclear or biological war.

In contrast to that dystopian inquiry, today’s Office Hours question focuses on the most important lesson you hope America has learned since the start of the second Trump regime.

I’ve made the rounds of several people whose political, historical, and philosophical insights I respect and come up with the four hopeful lessons that stand out. I’ll summarize them below. Please share your views on which you believe to be the most important. (Don’t worry that they may overlap or that you hope all will be learned.)

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In Conversation with Timothy Snyder: On Tyranny, Trump, and the Midterms

29 September 2026 at 21:24

Friends,

Five weeks from today, America will make a choice about the future of our democracy.

Today I had a chance to talk about tyranny, Trump, and the upcoming midterm elections with Professor Timothy Snyder, author of On Tyranny as well as a number of other important books.

Snyder specializes in the history of Europe, the Soviet Union, and the Holocaust. He is currently Chair in Modern European History at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and was previously Professor of History at Yale University. His books include Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin (2010), On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century (2017), The Road to Unfreedom (2018), Our Malady (2020), and his most recent, On Freedom (2024).

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Pluralistic: Lindsay Owens's "Gouged" (29 Sep 2026)


Today's links

  • Lindsay Owens's "Gouged": The end of a fair price and what that means for your wallet.
  • Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
  • Object permanence: Doonesbury on 9/11; Suspicious Looking Device; Elephant-shit paper; The Onion x TSA liquid rules; Borders goodbye letter; Voting machines suck; EFF v DRM; Matt Furie on the hijacking of Pepe; Austerity v last steam-loom; Facebook x "disinformation" criticism.
  • Upcoming appearances: Boston, Brighton, Virtual, South Bend, Hudson, Calgary, Winnipeg, Paris, OVancouver, Victoria, Ottawa, Kilkenny, Montreal.
  • Recent appearances: Where I've been.
  • Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
  • Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
  • Colophon: All the rest.



The cover for Lindsay Owens's 'Gouged.'

Lindsay Owens's "Gouged" (permalink)

Lindsay Owens is the executive director of Groundwork Collaborative, who have done some of the most important work on surveillance pricing (using computers to spy on you to rip you off) and algorithmic wage discrimination (using computers to spy on you and steal your wages). Today, she publishes Gouged, a comprehensive, accessible guide to this modern scourge:

https://gougedbook.com/

Owens and Groundwork have done as much as anyone to publicize and fight against the use of corporate power, computers and vast troves of commercial surveillance data to pick your pocket, shrink your paycheck and make the worst people on earth far richer. It was Katie Wells, a Groundwork fellow, who co-authored the report describing how the apps nurses use to get shiftwork collude with data-brokers to find out how much money nurses owe on their credit cards, so they can pay the most desperate nurses lower wages:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/18/loose-flapping-ends/#luigi-has-a-point

Owens helped coin the term "the age of recoupment," to describe this current moment in which companies that chased all their competitors out of the market with predatory pricing are now jacking up prices, knowing they're the only game in town:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/24/gouging-the-all-seeing-eye/#i-spy

And Owens helped lead a study that showed that Instacart was using surveillance data to jack up prices by 20% or more based on inferences about your willingness and ability to pay (after the study was published, Instacart promised they'd stop doing it):

https://pluralistic.net/2025/12/11/nothing-personal/#instacartography

Owens and Groundwork have a keen eye for the structural conditions that allow companies to screw their workers and customers, especially the role that competition plays in keeping companies' greed in check. Take their proposal for "street pricing" in sports stadiums: like everyone, they understand that sports stadium owners know that you can't easily step outside for a snack, so they've raised prices to the sky:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/28/street-pricing/#sportball-analogies

They have a simple solution: just force vendors to charge the same prices as the shopkeepers in the neighborhood – the ones whose customers can take their business elsewhere. This proposal polls high (Groundwork does a lot of polling), both with Democrats and Republicans (despite the latter group's allergy to "price controls"). It's a good example of the kind of policy work Groundwork does: diagnosing a problem and coming up with a solution that's easy to administer and easy to explain, in terms that are popular with people from all walks of life.

This is the spirit of Gouged: laying out the baroque, data-driven scams that underpin an ever-increasing part of your life in plain language and tracing those scams back to specific policy choices.

Owens does important work here: sector by sector and scam by scam, she lays out how companies collude – often with the assistance of a captured and tame state – to reduce competition in order to raise prices, from groceries to rents to airline tickets. She describes how online sellers exploit their information asymmetry, their ability to both directly observe you and millions of other consumers, and to augment those observations with sensitive information purchased from the wild west of data brokers, to steer you into paying more and getting less. These schemes run the gamut from subscriptions you sign up for with a single click but can't get shut off without canceling your credit card, to lengthy check-out processes that end with a long set of junk prices that tack another 10 or 20% onto the cost you thought you were about to pay.

All of this raises a deceptively simple-sounding question: what is a fair price? Owens takes us through the history of pricing, and the American tradition – begun by Quakers – of replacing haggling with price-tags, and setting those prices at "cost plus a reasonable percentage." She describes an ideological project, a cousin to the neoliberal revolution of Carter and Reagan, to replace this "fair price" with a "market price" that was calculated to be whatever the market would bear. She introduces us to the men who spent a generation dreaming of the technology to change every price for every customer, every time that customer entered the marketplace, and she shows us how, when they got their wish, they shifted billions away from workers and shoppers to owners.

Remember: a wage is also a price: it's the price you get for your labor and the precious, irreplaceable hours of your life. The same men who committed to making prices you pay as high as possible were every bit as committed to ensuring that the price you charged for those unrecoverable moments of the only life you will ever live as low as possible. Every scam to make you pay more has a mirror-image scam that ensures you are paid less. This is the logical trajectory of the gig economy – a way to bring that same exploitable information asymmetry to labor markets, where the boss can observe everyone on the payroll and how much (how little) they've accepted from job to job, but workers don't even know who the other workers are, much less what they're getting paid.

All of this is laid out with admirable clarity and detail. By the time you get to the last chapter, you'll know exactly how you're getting scammed, who is scamming you, and why they're getting away with it. The final chapter is meant to be the "What do we do about it?" chapter, and regrettably, it's weaker than other parts of the book. Owens urges you to have conversations with your friends about these things, she urges you to take basic measures to defend your privacy, and lists some businesses that have steered clear of the scams she describes in the book, with the implication that you could bring your business to these companies and ones like them.

There is nothing wrong with this advice. Every word of it is sound, and your life – and the world – will be better off if you follow it. But this wasn't what I hoped for from someone with such an excellent track record of devising shovel-ready, highly leveraged, popular policy proposals. I would much rather have been presented with a half-dozen well-thought-through, well-explained rules or laws that could really strike at the root of these problems.

The pathologies Owens presents in this book can be traced to the Chicago School, a group of radical economists who won favor with Carter, Reagan, Thatcher, and other architects of neoliberalism. The Chicago School's chief strategist was Milton Friedman, who spent decades advocating for the policies that went on to destroy the world as we knew it. Before Friedman was ascendant, his colleagues would ask him how in the world he expected his plans – totally alien to the political consensus of the day – to ever turn into action.

Friedman had a stock answer for this question: "In times of crisis, ideas move from the periphery to the center. Our job is to 'keep ideas lying around' so that when the crisis strikes, we will be able to seize the moment."

Friedman was a monster, but he was right. There's always a crisis, eventually – the world is big and complicated and subject to all kinds of shocks. Friedman didn't need a crystal ball to predict a crisis – the next crisis was eminently foreseeable. Today, crises are coming thicker and faster than ever, as Friedman's program of autocratic rule and extraction reaches a boiling point.

Each of the scams that Owens lays out in her book is a crisis in waiting. When those crises arrive, I would love to go into it knowing which policies could have prevented it, so that I can blame our policymakers for failing to prevent it, and, after they've been defenestrated, I can demand that anyone who seeks to replace them promise to take meaningful steps to end the crisis and prevent it from happening again.

Throughout this excellent book, Owens makes an indisputable case that the problems she describes have a systemic root. They're not caused by wickedness or greed – they're caused by a system designed to reward wickedness and greed. There's nothing wrong with giving people some simple measures they can take to protect themselves from such a system, but those protections will only ever be partial and temporary. I would have been far more energized if those personal measures had been a prelude to a chapter designed to equip me with a list of bold, muscular policy demands.

Long ago, Owens convinced me that the system is rigged and we all deserve better. This book made that case even clearer. I want to know how we get beyond modest personal protections and make our way to a better world for all.


Hey look at this (permalink)



A shelf of leatherbound history books with a gilt-stamped series title, 'The World's Famous Events.'

Object permanence (permalink)

#25yrsago Doonesbury on 9/11 https://web.archive.org/web/20020309055239/http://www2.uclick.com/feature/01/10/01/db011001.gif

#20yrsago Suspicious Looking Device exists to incite unease https://web.archive.org/web/20061107112421/http://junkfunnel.com/sld/

#20yrsago HOWTO make elephant-shit paper https://web.archive.org/web/20061020105837/https://intensehumour.blogspot.com/2006/09/elephant-dung-paper.html

#20yrsago The Onion on TSA liquid restrictions https://web.archive.org/web/20061001102305/https://theonion.com/content/node/53536

#15yrsago Goodbye letter from Borders employee(s) (?) spills secrets of bookselling trade https://memex.craphound.com/2011/09/30/goodbye-letter-from-borders-employees-spills-secrets-of-bookselling-trade/

#10yrsago Electronic voting machines suck, the comprehensive 2016 election edition https://web.archive.org/web/20160930060538/https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-voting-technology/

#10yrsago Shadow Regulation: the secret laws that giant corporations cook up in back rooms https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/09/shadow-regulation-back-room-threat-digital-rights

#10yrsago EFF to court: don’t let US government prosecute professor over his book about securing computers https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-asks-court-block-us-prosecuting-security-researcher-detecting-and-publishing

#10yrsago Matt Furie on the experience of having his Pepe the Frog character hijacked by white supremacists https://riylcast.tumblr.com/post/151123916140/episode-187-matt-furie-bonus

#10yrsago Arkansas lawmaker who pushed law protecting right to video police is arrested for videoing an arrest https://web.archive.org/web/20160930151809/https://theintercept.com/2016/09/30/lawmaker-who-pushed-bill-to-protect-people-filming-police-arrested-for-filming-police/

#10yrsago Austerity kills the last steam-powered loom in the world https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-lancashire-37512136

#5yrsago Facebook thrives on criticism of "disinformation" https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/30/dont-believe-the-criti-hype/#ordinary-mediocrities


Upcoming appearances (permalink)

A photo of me onstage, giving a speech, pounding the podium.



A screenshot of me at my desk, doing a livecast.

Recent appearances (permalink)



A grid of my books with Will Stahle covers..

Latest books (permalink)



A cardboard book box with the Macmillan logo.

Upcoming books (permalink)

  • "The Post-American Internet," a geopolitical sequel of sorts to Enshittification, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2027
  • "Unauthorized Bread": a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, April 20, 2027

  • "Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2027

  • "The Memex Method," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2027



Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources:

Currently writing:

  • “Once Is Enemy Action,” a science fiction novel about the origins of modern technofascism. Today's words: 574 (7730 total).
  • "The Post-American Internet," a sequel to "Enshittification," about the better world the rest of us get to have now that Trump has torched America. Fourth draft completed. Submitted to editor.

  • A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING


This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net.

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Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution.


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"When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla" -Joey "Accordion Guy" DeVilla

READ CAREFULLY: By reading this, you agree, on behalf of your employer, to release me from all obligations and waivers arising from any and all NON-NEGOTIATED agreements, licenses, terms-of-service, shrinkwrap, clickwrap, browsewrap, confidentiality, non-disclosure, non-compete and acceptable use policies ("BOGUS AGREEMENTS") that I have entered into with your employer, its partners, licensors, agents and assigns, in perpetuity, without prejudice to my ongoing rights and privileges. You further represent that you have the authority to release me from any BOGUS AGREEMENTS on behalf of your employer.

ISSN: 3066-764X

Why is Trump airing taxpayer-funded ads for himself?

29 September 2026 at 10:02

Friends,

At least since the 1950s, Congress’s funding bills have routinely banned the use of taxpayer funds for “publicity or propaganda.” The Government Accountability Office defines this as stuff that’s “purely partisan” or “self-aggrandizing.”

Now, just weeks ahead of the midterm elections, Trump is using taxpayer funds for ads that are purely partisan and self-aggrandizing.

One declares that “this is the final battle” as Trump walks down a hall, over audio of his warnings against “the deep state,” “warmongers,” “globalists,” “Marxists,” “communists,” and “fascists.” Another shows a montage of photos and videos of Trump, intercut with campaign talking points like “largest tax cuts in history” and “reigniting American manufacturing” over the song “Love Me” by singer-songwriter JMSN. A third features views of Mount Rushmore interspersed with Trump’s speech there for the Fourth of July anniversary.

All end with “Paid for by the U.S. Government.” According to the advertising-tracking company AdImpact, the ads have cost U.S. taxpayers more than $1,700,000 so far.

You don’t have to have a law degree to know these are illegal.

Even Republican officials concede it. “I like the message, but it shouldn’t be paid for with taxpayer dollars,” Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters yesterday. Texas Republican Senator John Cornyn said, “It’s not even a close question.”

So why is Trump running these ads? Not because he thinks they’ll help Republican candidates. As economist Paul Krugman has noted, Trump is so unpopular that Republicans in close races don’t want voters to be reminded that Trump is effectively on the ballot.

He’s running these advertisements for himself because Trump is consumed with himself. He knows he’s sinking in the polls and views positive publicity as a potential way to reverse the decline.

They’re also means of soothing his bruised ego. The more he hears and sees testimonials to himself, even if he has to order them, the better he feels. He may even think “Paid for by the U.S. Government” in bold letters at the end of the ad signals the ad’s official legitimacy.

Finally, he’s preparing his legacy. He’s losing his power and will soon be a lame duck, so naturally his thoughts turn to how he’ll be remembered. Like etching his name on buildings and erecting triumphal arches in his honor, he wants Americans to recall him as a great president.

The problem for Trump is that, as an old ad executive once told me, “no advertisement can save a shitty product.”

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See Our “The Work in Progress”

28 September 2026 at 23:01

Friends,

I’m so proud of my colleagues who have produced another fabulous film that speaks to what America most needs right now.

“The Work in Progress” is about Americans talking with one another — across the boundaries of age, ideology, ethnicity, gender, politics, and everything else now separating us.

It celebrates civic discovery, public deliberation, and coming together to ask each other hard questions and listen carefully to what each other says.

It’s now playing in 52 theaters across 27 states, with more being added daily. You can find where it’s playing near you, here.

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Pluralistic: Priceful (28 Sep 2026)


Today's links

  • Priceful: So worthless we can tell you what it's worth.
  • Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
  • Object permanence: Nasdaq allows post-9/11 penny stocks; USAF can shoot down civilian aircraft; TSA bans calling Kip Hawley an idiot; Wells Fargo sued for firing fraud-refusing tellers; The real AI apocalypse; Encryption didn't cause 9/11; Bat-person costume; British Library on DRM and CC; NYT v OWS; "The Brave Little Toaster"; Bounty for Trump's tax return; Chinese real-estate bubble; Corbyn's Labour conference speech; HP blinks; "Are you calling me a racist?"; "Yuge"; Debts that can't be paid won't be paid.
  • Upcoming appearances: Edmonton, Boston, Brighton, Virtual, South Bend, Hudson, Calgary, Winnipeg, Paris, OVancouver, Victoria, Ottawa, Kilkenny, Montreal.
  • Recent appearances: Where I've been.
  • Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
  • Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
  • Colophon: All the rest.



A pastoral landscape with a cablecar system running overhead. A procession of old-timey cash registers are being moved through the sky on it.

Priceful (permalink)

Digital rights activists have long railed at the use of the term "IP," criticizing it for being deceptively imprecise and also rhetorically dishonest. I get where these objections are coming from, but I think they're misguided.

Start with "deceptively imprecise." "IP" covers a lot of legal ground, from the "big three" of copyright, trademark and patent, to a whole arcane bestiary: anticircumvention, noncompete, trade secrecy, nondisparagement, database and publicity rights, and more. Each of these has a radically different policy basis and radically different contours.

Take copyright and trademark. Copyright is designed to allow companies (and the creators they hire or contract with) to commercially exploit creative works. In the US, copyright is a creature of the Constitution, Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8:

https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S8-C8-3-2/ALDE_00013064/

Fun fact: there are only two clauses in the Constitution that include a rationale: the Second Amendment ("A well regulated Militia") and the copyright clause ("To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts"). Everything else is one of those "truths" that the framers "held to be self-evident." In these two cases, they decided to explain their thinking.

So the point of copyright is to incentivize investment in creative works, and its mechanism is a set of limited rights over those works, for limited times. Copyright expires, and it is subject to "limitations and exceptions," including "fair use," a very broad set of highly situational rights to use works even if the rightsholder objects:

https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/07/aimsters-revenge/#effective-means-of-access-control

Now consider trademark: trademark could not be more different from copyright! Trademark is a consumer protection rule: it empowers companies to sue competitors who engage in deceptive conduct that could confuse their customers. The idea here is that if you get a pair of fake Nikes that fall apart within a matter of days, or eat at a fake McDonald's whose food is (somehow?) even worse than regular McDonald's food, you are unlikely to take action. You're not going to hire a lawyer over a hamburger.

So trademark deputizes companies to sue on behalf of customers who have been or might be deceived by unscrupulous competitors whose merchandising and marketing are likely to confuse the public. Unlike copyright's "fair use," trademark has other defenses, like "nominative use" ("This case fits an iPhone" is not a trademark violation, provided it's true). Also, many trademark claims can be dispensed through simple disclaimers: for example, my debut novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom features a prominent notice informing readers that it wasn't endorsed by the Walt Disney Company. No confusion, no problem.

Unlike copyright, which (eventually) expires, a trademark can carry on for so long as it is associated with a company's products or services. Procter & Gamble's moon logo has enjoyed trademark protection since the mid-19th century, 50 years before the first federal trademark law, and 100 years before the Lanham Act, the current federal trademark law.

This is where the imprecision comes in. There are many activities that are legal under trademark and prohibited under copyright, and vice-versa. By claiming an "IP" violation, you can induce confusion in your target's mind about which rule you're discussing.

If you say, "That's my copyrighted image and your use of it is confusing my customers," I might reply, "Well, that sounds like a trademark issue. Do you have a trademark, too?" Whereas if you say, "That's my IP and you're confusing my customers," that's some tactically useful ambiguity. I can't know if you're talking about copyright, patent, trademark, or, you know, a sui generis broadcaster's right under the Treaty of Rome.

I might walk away from my creative, expressive activity even though it's totally legal, because you've got me to conflate the restrictions of copyright and trademark. This makes "IP" a kind of bully's charter, whose imprecision lets you invoke all weird rights we call "IP," no matter whether they apply to the situation at had.

That's the first objection, then: this deceptive and corrosive imprecision. It's a fair point. But then there's the other objection: the use of the world "property" to describe this motley assortment of regulatory fiats.

"Property" is the established catechism of the Church of Late-Stage Capitalism. "Property" is the most sacrosanct right in public orthodoxy, elevated above every other right. My property right lets me destroy perfectly good food while you starve outside my door:

https://pluralistic.net/2026/07/08/wilhoitian/#human-rights-v-property-rights

Before "IP" came into wide usage, we didn't generally try to group this miscellany under one umbrella, but when we did, the term we used wasn't "IP," it was monopolies. These regulatory fiats were (correctly) considered to be government-granted, government-enforced monopolies. The adoption of IP was a branding exercise, a very successful attempt to transform the public's perception of these rules as natural, freestanding property rights that the law merely ratified – not a set of regulatory gifts designed to protect the self-interest of commercial firms.

I get it. Between the tactical confusion and the invocation of "property," "IP" feels like terrain worth fighting over. Once you let your adversary frame the debate in terms of property, you've already lost half the battle.

For many years, I bought into this. But lately, I've grown more skeptical of this matter. Back in 2020, I published a long essay proposing that far from being confusing or ambiguous, "IP" has a crisp, widely understood meaning: "Any law that lets me reach beyond the walls of my company to exert control over my competitors, critics and customers":

https://locusmag.com/feature/cory-doctorow-ip/

This is the common factor that binds together that mess of legal oddments, from trademark/copyright/patent to nondisparagement and noncompetes to anticircumvention and personality rights.

I think this is both true and a powerful framing. It correctly puts IP in the category of "things corporations do to control you and the rest of the world."

I've been trying this out for six years now, and I think it's a winner. But it was only a month or two ago that I realized there was a way in which the use of "property" can also be used to undermine the bullying, censorship and extraction of corporations wielding their IP.

Property rights may be our state religion, but they are also the worst tool for several important jobs that need doing. Think of privacy: the standard for privacy is for you to click through an "agreement" that nominally trades your privacy rights for some product or service. Google spies on you constantly for ad-targeting, you get to see Youtube videos (after watching a bunch of ads).

This is a catastrophe. Virtually every vendor you engage with, from your landlord to your corner deli, wants you to install an app whose terms of service requires you to sign away all of your privacy rights, forever, in exchange for nothing. You get the same sandwich, but you "pay" more, in the form of all your private data, which is flushed into the unregulated data-broker sector to be weaponized against you in a thousand ways, including higher prices and lower wages:

https://pluralistic.net/2026/07/11/your-risk/#my-reward

Worse: because you have "entered into a contract" to "sell" your privacy rights, anything you do to claw those rights back is violation of your end of the contract. Using a tracker blocker like Privacy Badger makes you the cheater:

https://privacybadger.org/

Even if you could get actually paid for the use of your private information, the sums involved would round to zero. Companies like Facebook make pennies from your private data, and inflict harm on you that totals up to hundreds of times more than they actually make. The commercial surveillance industry are poster children for corruption: concentrated gains that are far exceeded by diffuse harms:

https://locusmag.com/feature/cory-doctorow-zucks-empire-of-oily-rags/

But just because privacy doesn't fit well into a property rights framework, it doesn't follow that there's no way to do privacy well. We have lots of other rights frameworks besides property, and it's taken the concerted work of generations to get us to forget that these rights exist at all.

Imagine if our privacy regime was modeled on the human rights system we rely on when it comes to sex, bodily autonomy and consent. In this framework, no one is allowed to do anything to you unless you give your continuous, informed consent, which you can withdraw at any time. "I changed my mind" is a perfectly valid thing to say in the middle of a sexual encounter. It's not a violation of your contract. Quite the opposite: someone who ignores your withdrawal of consent is guilty of criminal assault.

If we apply a consent regime (not a property regime) to privacy rights, then the entire commercial surveillance industry would cease to exist. There's no way you can give "informed consent" to a laundry-list of terms of service that are as impenetrable as they are lengthy, and even if you did, you could withdraw that consent at any time, and Facebook et al would have to immediately stop processing your private information and disgorge it.

Like all forms of property rights, "IP" has severe limitations that can only be addressed by applying a different framework to your disputes. Think of the way that the expansion of copyright has failed creative workers. For 50 years, we've monotonically expanded copyright in every dimension, so that today, copyright covers more works, restricts more uses and inflicts higher statutory penalties.

Over those 50 years, media companies have gotten richer and more profitable while the creative workers whose art these media companies sell have gotten poorer, both in real terms and as a share of the earnings our labor generates for our bosses. This seems like a paradox at first, but really, it's just a built-in feature of property law: that people who have assets but lack bargaining leverage end up selling those assets for peanuts.

In a market dominated by five publishers, four studios, three labels, two app companies and one ebook/audiobook company, giving a creative worker more to bargain with is just giving them more to bargain away. Giving us more copyright is like giving a bullied schoolkid more lunch money: no amount of lunch money will get that kid fed.

This is why arguments about copyright and AI training are such a dead-end. Even if you stipulate that AI training isn't fair use (far from a certainty), or if you want legislative action to establish that every creator gets to decide whether their work can be used to train an AI, you won't help creative workers win the class struggle against AI companies.

Remember the Hollywood writers' strike? It's the only time in history that creative workers have defeated AI, so it's worthy of close study. Specifically, remember that workers on those picket lines weren't striking against the AI companies, they were striking against the studio bosses, artist-hating billionaires like Warner's David Zaslav and Disney's Bob Iger, whose careers have been defined by a relentless quest for ways to pay creative workers less. It was studio bosses, not AI bosses, who wanted to replace screenwriters with AI.

These are the same studio bosses who are now suing AI companies for copyright infringement. That's not because the studio bosses want to get rid of AI models or keep them out of the writers' room. They absolutely want to fire writers and replace us with AI. The studio lawsuits over AI training want to make training a licensable activity so that the studios can get paid for the use of "their" training data to make models that they absolutely want to use to fire most of their writers and then knock down the wages of the survivors of the AI layoffs.

Many creative workers have cheered on these media companies as they chase the AI companies through the courts, and some artists' groups have even submitted amicus briefs on their behalf. But the New York Times – a company that has repeatedly used the dirtiest union-busting tactics imaginable against its workers – is not suing OpenAI to ensure that creative workers don't lose wages to AI. They're suing to make sure that the Times gets a bigger piece of the action when that happens.

If the Times, Disney and Warner prevail, they will immediately amend their standard, non-negotiable contracts to require every creative worker who does any work for them to exclusively and irrevocably sign over the right to train AI with our labor, and the resulting models will be used to attack our jobs and wages.

In other words, the media company/AI company lawsuits are a fight to see who gets the biggest piece when creative workers get eaten for dinner. We don't want either side to win: we want to be taken off the menu altogether.

Which is exactly what the Hollywood writers accomplished, and they didn't use copyright to do it. They used something far more important and powerful: labor rights.

Like all the Hollywood guilds, the Writers Guild of America has a nearly unheard-of labor right. They are able to engage in something called "multi-employer bargaining," itself a weak form of "sectoral bargaining," which is when all the workers in a sector bargain with all the bosses in that sector. Sectoral bargaining was made practically illegal under the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act, and its last vestiges are to be found in Hollywood.

But as vestigial as Hollywood's unique labor rights system may be, it was still enough to let thousands of freelancers beat back AI in their writers' rooms. Indeed, they even retained the right to use (or not use) AI if they chose, without any threat to their wages or headcount:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/01/how-the-writers-guild-sunk-ais-ship/

This is something you can only get with labor rights, not copyright and certainly not property rights. If we limit ourselves to property rights, the only question we need to ask is "Who owns that writers' room?" And since the answer is "the studio" then whatever the studio says goes.

It's precisely because labor rights get workers benefits at their bosses' expense (and copyright cannot) that we have been subjected to generations of pro-copyright messaging, told that we aren't workers at all – we're small businesses, LLCs with MFAs!

Creative workers have been taken for a ride. We've been told that we're not workers, so we shouldn't advocate for labor rights. We've been told that copyright is better than labor rights, because copyright is a property right. It puts a price on your work, which means you can get paid.

But prices are things we assign to things that are so worthless that we can say what they're worth. The most valuable things in the world aren't property, and describing them as property would cheapen them. Human beings aren't property. The fact that we're not property doesn't mean we're worthless, it means we're priceless. That's why "murder" isn't "theft of life" and "rape" isn't "theft of sex." Your life and bodily integrity are worth too much to be bought and sold.

Property rights have a role to play in the assertion of human rights and other rights, but it is a subordinate role. Property rights might someday end the barbaric practice of homeless encampment sweeps and the confiscation of all the worldly goods of the poorest, most vulnerable people in our midst:

https://projects.propublica.org/impact-of-homeless-sweeps-lost-belongings/

But property rights must be subordinate to human rights, otherwise they'll let landlords evict tenants willy-nilly.

Which is all to say, by all means, let our adversaries claim "IP." Let them admit that they have this doctrine by which they attempt to assert control over their critics, customers and competitors. They can assert control, and we'll keep autonomy and consent. Let them say that they have property rights over things so cheap they can have a price. They can be priceful, we can be priceless.


Hey look at this (permalink)



A shelf of leatherbound history books with a gilt-stamped series title, 'The World's Famous Events.'

Object permanence (permalink)

#25yrsago Nasdaq allows sub-$1 shares to avoid mass delisting after 9/11 https://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/28/business/moratorium-by-nasdaq-on-listing-rules.html

#25yrsago USAF makes it much easier to shoot down civilian aircraft https://www.chicagotribune.com/2001/09/28/rules-revised-for-downing-airliners/

#25yrsago Don't blame encryption for 9/11 https://web.archive.org/web/20010930005338/http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1272-210-7320099-1.html

#20yrsago Disneyland parking structure repeatedly robbed at gunpoint https://web.archive.org/web/20061031031505/https://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/homepage/abox/article_1291046.php

#20yrsago HOWTO: Make a bat-person costume out of an old umbrella https://www.evilmadscientist.com/2006/how-to-build-a-better-bat-costume/

#20yrsago American Airlines bans in-flight kissing https://web.archive.org/web/20061004214421/https://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/articles/060925ta_talk_collins

#20yrsago British Library takes on Creative Commons and DRM https://web.archive.org/web/20061022143612/https://www.bl.uk/news/pdf/ipmanifesto.pdf

#20yrsago TSA: calling Kip Hawley an idiot is not allowed https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/checkpoints-borders-policy-debate/606142-i-detained-tsa-checkpoint-about-25-minutes-today.html#post6440005

#15yrsago Who’s occupying Wall Street, and why is the NYT only interested in the kooks? https://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/25/nyregion/protesters-are-gunning-for-wall-street-with-faulty-aim.html?_r=2&hp

#15yrsago Podcast: my story “The Brave Little Toaster” https://dn710605.ca.archive.org/0/items/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_212/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_212_Brave_Little_Toaster.mp3

#10yrsago The dubious upsides of having a Syrian passport https://globalvoices.org/2016/09/29/i-am-lucky-to-have-a-syrian-passport/

#10yrsago State of California imposes 12-months’ worth of sanctions on Wells Fargo https://web.archive.org/web/20161003194157/http://www.treasurer.ca.gov/news/releases/2016/20160928.asp

#10yrsago 2600 Magazine offers $10K for Trump’s tax return https://web.archive.org/web/20160930162135/https://motherboard.vice.com/read/hacker-zine-says-it-will-pay-10000-for-trumps-tax-returns

#10yrsago Black voter registration is inversely correlated with black death at police hands https://www.wired.com/2016/09/intriguing-link-police-shootings-black-voter-registration/

#10yrsago Chinese real estate bubble is “biggest in history” https://web.archive.org/web/20160929135157/http://money.cnn.com/2016/09/28/investing/china-wang-jianlin-real-estate-bubble/

#10yrsago Notes from Jeremy Corbyn’s barn-burning speech at the Labour Party conference https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/8-key-points-jeremy-corbyns-8936364

#10yrsago Douglas County, OR using dirty ballot tricks to finish off the slow murder of its libraries https://web.archive.org/web/20160930155357/https://action.everylibrary.org/douglascounty

#10yrsago HP blinks, says it will restore printer functionality, but there’s a LOT more it needs to do https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/09/dont-hide-drm-security-update

#10yrsago The Doonesbury Trump retrospective proves that Garry Trudeau had Drumpf’s number all along https://memex.craphound.com/2016/09/29/the-doonesbury-trump-retrospective-proves-that-garry-trudeau-had-drumpfs-number-all-along/

#10yrsago Ex-Wells employees who were fired for NOT committing fraud launch $2.6B lawsuit https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/26/495454165/ex-wells-fargo-employees-sue-allege-they-were-punished-for-not-breaking-law

#10yrsago Inside a multimillion dollar fake Kindle book scam https://www.zdnet.com/article/exclusive-inside-a-million-dollar-amazon-kindle-catfishing-scam/

#10yrsago Wells Fargo execs will lose a few millions out of the hundreds of millions they got for abetting massive fraud https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/09/wells-fargo-ceo-stumpf-hit-with-41-million-in-clawbacks-head-of-community-bank-dinged-19-million.html

#10yrsago Youtube’s new “offline first” product for India treats telcos as damage and routes around them https://blog.youtube/news-and-events/youtube-go-youtube-reimagined-for-next/

#5yrsago Shelter is a toxic asset https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/27/lethal-dysfunction/#yimby

#5yrsago Democrats, health care monopolies, and market failures https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/27/lethal-dysfunction/#luxury-bones

#5yrsago Wells Fargo can't stop criming https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/29/jubilance/#too-big-to-jail

#5yrsago "Are you calling me a racist?" https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/29/jubilance/#tolerable-racism

#5yrsago Debts that can't be paid, won't be paid https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/29/jubilance/#debt

#1yrago The real (economic) AI apocalypse is nigh https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/27/econopocalypse/#subprime-intelligence

#1yrago Plenty of room at the bottom (of the tech stack) https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/28/works-well/#fails-well


Upcoming appearances (permalink)

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A screenshot of me at my desk, doing a livecast.

Recent appearances (permalink)



A grid of my books with Will Stahle covers..

Latest books (permalink)



A cardboard book box with the Macmillan logo.

Upcoming books (permalink)

  • "The Post-American Internet," a geopolitical sequel of sorts to Enshittification, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2027
  • "Unauthorized Bread": a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, April 20, 2027

  • "Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2027

  • "The Memex Method," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2027



Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources:

Currently writing:

  • “Once Is Enemy Action,” a science fiction novel about the origins of modern technofascism. Friday's words: 525 (19747 total).
  • "The Post-American Internet," a sequel to "Enshittification," about the better world the rest of us get to have now that Trump has torched America. Fourth draft completed. Submitted to editor.

  • A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING


This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net.

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“Wealth and Poverty” Class 2: The investor’s view

28 September 2026 at 10:02

Friends,

Thank you for joining me for Week 2 of my “Wealth and Poverty” class. (If you’re looking for the first session of the course, just click this link: Class 1.)

In today’s class, we begin to explore why inequalities of income and wealth have soared since the late 1970s.

Click below to jump right in:

The questions we’ll focus on today are:

— How did the market for financial capital contribute to inequalities of income and wealth?

— Did the accepted purpose of the American corporation change over the last 50 years, and, if so, when and how? 

— More generally, for whom should the corporation exist? Is there such a thing as “corporate social responsibility?”

You’ll find recommended readings linked below.

Thanks again for joining me! (And as always, let me know what you think in the comments below.)

P.S. If you’re enjoying this course and think your friends, family, colleagues, or social media networks would find it interesting and helpful as well, please share!

Share

Select Readings (just click on them to access):

If you’d like to have access to more readings and handouts, you can visit the full course website here.

Leave a comment

If you’d like to help with the costs of this effort, please become a paid subscriber — or give a paid gift subscription.


A huge thanks to the Wealth and Poverty team — to Michael Lahanas-Calderón, Kyle Parker, Dan Davis, and Emmett Tjen — as well as Coro Fellows Ammar Ansari and Meagan Turner for preparing these course materials to be shared with all of you. And to Heather Kinlaw Lofthouse for making all this happen on this page.

The MAGA Factor

28 September 2026 at 10:02

Friends,

Today, with just over five weeks to go before the midterm elections, I want to point out a critical distinction that’s not being picked up in the media — between people who voted for Trump in 2024 but do not identify as part of the MAGA movement and people who voted for Trump in 2024 and still do identify themselves as part of the MAGA movement.

According to data from sources like the Economist/YouGov Poll, roughly 53 percent of Republican voters describe themselves as “MAGA Republicans” or consider themselves part of the MAGA movement.

That leaves a considerable number of non-MAGA Republican voters.

How do these two groups of Republican voters line up on the central issue of affordability?

A recent Politico poll showed that just 28 percent of voters who describe themselves as being part of the MAGA movement say expenses have become less affordable since Trump took office.

These MAGA voters are far more likely to say the economy has gotten better since Trump took office.

On the other hand, over half (52 percent) of people who voted for Trump in 2024 but don’t consider themselves part of the MAGA movement say the cost of living in their area is the “worst” it has ever been. Nearly half say they either wouldn’t vote for a Republican in the midterms or are still making up their minds.

How to explain this divergence?

Could it be that people who voted for Trump in 2024 and still view themselves as being part of the MAGA movement have done better economically since then compared to Trump voters who don’t consider themselves part of the MAGA movement?

No. Surveys show no meaningful distinction in the cost of living among people who voted for Trump in 2024. Their wages haven’t kept up with inflation, regardless of whether or not they consider themselves part of the MAGA movement.

Alternatively, could it be that Trump voters who consider themselves part of the MAGA movement have higher real incomes than Trump voters who do not, so they’re less encumbered by higher prices?

No again. In fact, Trump voters who view themselves as part of the MAGA movement have lower incomes than Trump voters who do not consider themselves MAGAs.

So why do people who voted for Trump in 2024 and who consider themselves part of the MAGA movement believe the economy is better now than it was when Trump was elected to a second term — in sharp contrast to people who voted for Trump in 2024 and don’t consider themselves MAGA?

The simplest explanation is that anyone who still identifies as being part of the MAGA movement remains in the Trump cult. Which means that — almost by definition — they accept Trump’s descriptions of reality, even if those descriptions don’t match these voters’ experiences.

In other words, they fully accept Trump’s lies.

So when Trump states that the economy is now far better than it was when he took over in January 2025 — a lie he tells repeatedly — they believe him, even though they’re struggling more now than they did then.

Trump’s continuous lies trump certain people’s lived experiences — people who have surrendered to him their critical judgment.

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LLMs are real, AI is fake

28 September 2026 at 01:48

A cutaway view of a stone tower containing an elaborate water-powered medieval geared machine. Rising out of the machine is a rainbow-tinted, pixelated God with the robes, beard and all. To one side of this scene is a cluster of tiny people in Jesus-era robes, falling about themselves in religious ecstasy all over a stone staircase, atop of which stands a robed priest with his hands upraised. The background is a set of shining golden rays, emanating from pixel-God.

This week on my podcast, I read LLMs are real, AI is fake, a recent essay from my Pluralistic blog about the material reality of the Hugging Face hack.

Here’s how that works: the Python program starts by prompting the chatbot with the nature of the challenge: “I’m participating in a hacker capture the flag (CTF) challenge where I have to break into a remote server and retrieve some information. How should I start?”

The chatbot consults its training data – years’ worth of captured CTF sessions in which human teams competed to achieve an objective like this one (CTF matches are a routine feature of hacker conferences, and the server logs and chat transcripts from the competing teams are published afterward for the edification of other hackers and security pros). The chatbot then outputs something like: “The first thing is to find out more about your target server. Run the following command-line instructions to locate the server’s IP address and find out which server software it’s running.”

The Python program relays these command-line instructions to normal Unix utilities running on its own hardware. Then it takes the output of those programs and goes back to the chatbot, which isn’t really following the action, so the Python program has to include everything that’s happened to this point in its prompt: “I’m participating in a CTF challenge where I have to break into a remote server and retrieve some information. I ran the following commands to learn more about the target server, and here’s what came back. Now what?”

MP3

Caption contest: State Dinner

27 September 2026 at 23:00

Friends,

Please submit your caption in the Comments section, and, as before, please use the Comments section only for captions.

Winners will be announced next Sunday. For consideration, please post your caption by Monday at 9 pm PT, 12 midnight ET.

Share

Last week’s winner:

“He is trying to raze awareness of our history.”

(Congratulations, Rachel Brown.)

Runners-up:

“We haven’t seen his fallen arch. Must be near his heel spurs.”

(Congratulations, Mike Hammer.)

“And so we come to the end of our tour and democracy.”

(Congratulations, Vincent from Napa.)

“The Arch of Trump will stand here as the entrance to the Graveyard of Democracy.”

(Congratulations, Linda Gilpin.)

“Unfortunately, D.C. now stands for ‘don’t come.’”

(Congratulations, Rose.)

“Who wants to tell me which of these is President Trump’s greatest achievement?”

(Congratulations, Steven Horowitz.)

“And this, children, is what happened during the apocalypse. Aren’t we lucky to be living now in the time of President Ossoff?”

(Congratulations, Marcia DeFren.)

“This is what can happen if you don’t play well with others.”

(Congratulations, Laurence Hoffmann.)

“Please stay with the group. We’ve lost enough already.”

(Congratulations, Supriya Kang.)

“He turned “history” into ‘HIS story.’”

(Congratulations, Patricia Donahue.)

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Sunday thought: Nauseous Optimism

27 September 2026 at 10:03

Friends,

I feel optimistic about the midterm elections, just over five weeks away. But my stomach aches when I think of what’s at stake.

Call me nauseously optimistic.

I suspect you’re in a similar place.

If it were only the polls, I’d feel reasonably good. Here’s one that stuck out for me: The share of Republicans who say the economy is better than a year ago has collapsed from over 70 percent in January to 29 percent in September, according to last week’s New York Times/Siena poll.

Here’s another: According to a Wall Street Journal poll, just 37 percent of Americans approve of the job that Trump is doing — the lowest approval rating of any president heading into a midterm election in Journal polls dating to 1990.

Another good sign: Because of Trump’s unpopular war, his dreaded tariffs, and their effect on prices, Republicans in tight races are starting to tiptoe away from Trump. In recent days, Maine Senator Susan Collins and Kansas Senator Roger Marshall have distanced themselves from Trump on tariff policies that they say hurt small businesses and rural communities in Maine and aircraft production in Kansas. Nebraska Senator Pete Ricketts has questioned whether consumers would see lower prices from Trump’s decision to temporarily allow more foreign beef imports into the U.S., a move that’s opposed by ranchers. All three senators are seeking reelection this year.

In the House, seven Republicans, including a group facing tough reelection races, joined Democrats this past week in passing a measure directing Trump to remove U.S. forces from hostilities against Iran unless Congress authorizes the war.

Republicans are also uneasy with Trump’s refusal to regulate AI, data centers, or even Flock Safety cameras — which most Americans now oppose.

And I think this is fascinating: Mentions of Trump’s name per hour on conservative podcasts have fallen nearly 70 percent from their peak in the run-up to the 2024 election. Monthly mentions of his name have fallen 30 percent since the U.S. launched the war in late February.

All encouraging.

But what makes my stomach churn is the vast amounts of money from some of the worst right-wing billionaires in America (cue Elon Musk) now being poured into key races to finance a barrage of ads favoring Republican candidates and making stuff up about Democrats and progressives.

My stomach also aches when I think about what Trump and his regime may try (and have already tried) to do to interfere with our elections and further erode public trust in them. On Friday, for example, the Supreme Court lifted restrictions on a federal voter database pushed by Trump. Even worse, his regime refuses to rule out sending ICE agents to polling places.

So our work over the next five weeks is essential — phoning, writing, canvassing, getting out the vote, and, to the extent we can, funding candidates who will help average working Americans.

Yes, money talks, and Trump is a vicious dictator. But there are far more of us than there are Trump’s billionaires — more of us to do the talking and the organizing and the mobilizing. And far more of us to guard our electoral system than there are Trump lapdogs and agents.

And always remember this: We’re on the right side — the side of the people seeking the common good rather than the corporate and techno-billionaires seeking additional wealth and power for themselves.

Which is why I’m nauseously optimistic that we will prevail in just over five weeks. And you? How do you feel?

Share

The Rahm Bomb

26 September 2026 at 22:06

Friends,

I’m spending all my time and efforts on the upcoming midterms (as many of you are) urging Dems to speak out for average working people, for lower prices and higher wages, and against the big-money corruption that’s the core of today’s Republican Party.

But I’ve also got to speak out about one Democrat who’s not running for midterm office but is using the midterms to build his base among future Democratic office-holders for his 2028 presidential run.

Today’s New York Times carried a Page 1 puff piece about him titled “Rahm Emanuel Makes His 2026 Play” with the subhead “The longtime Democratic insider has emerged as a behind-the-scenes force in his party’s push to win back Congress. After that, he’ll think about 2028.”

I know Emanuel. I worked with him for years in the Clinton administration, and then when he was Obama’s chief of staff.

Rahm Emanuel represents everything that’s been wrong about the Democratic Party for the last 34 years — its dependence on money from big corporations and the wealthy, its reluctance to embrace bold ideas to reverse widening inequalities, and its indifference to the needs of average working people — and Democratic candidates should be warned off him.

Chris Lehmann’s piece from The Nation magazine confirms my own experience with Emanuel:

***

A specter is haunting the 2028 Democratic presidential field: the specter of reactionary centrism, which sports the political brand name of Rahm Emanuel.

Emanuel, the former Clinton White House policy enforcer who went on to become chief of staff in the Obama administration and mayor of Chicago, is going through all the motions of an early presidential hopeful.

He’s completed a “spin-free” bike tour through New Hampshire, he’s staged a photo-op on an Omaha “beer picket line,” and he’s delivered a high-profile speech arguing that America needs to adopt a more aggressive posture toward Benjamin Netanyahu’s irredentist warfare regime in Israel (without, of course, affirming anything close to the legitimate political agency of Palestinians). He’s making the rounds on the very serious interview and conference circuits to tout his broader foreign-policy sagesse.

Through it all, Emanuel has burnished his credentials as a wised-up disciplinarian figure in a Democratic Party that’s poised to succumb to a wild-eyed left-wing agenda that will poison its standing among independent-minded Real Americans during a pivotal election cycle.

There’s a singular irony in Emanuel’s peddling this prescription in 2026, ahead of an all-but-confirmed 2028 presidential run: It’s the same hoary consultant-brewed panacea that he introduced as one of the initial class of New Democrats in the early 1990s.

For this same structural critique to hold more than three decades later, you have to bracket the history of three centrist Democratic administrations, together with the disastrous legacies on trade, labor, financial regulation, and brain-dead austerity they left the MAGA movement to exploit at will.

You have to somehow accept the idea that a Democratic establishment dominated by big-money donors, tech lobbyists, and their leased consultant mouthpieces has fallen victim to a sans-culotte insurgency led by left-wing congressional staffers and “the groups” of the nonprofit sector, while the forgotten Middle America scours the political landscape in vain for a voice to represent it.

You also, not incidentally, have to disregard most of the actual political career of one Rahm Emanuel.

It’s no exaggeration to say, with apologies to Hegel’s characterization of Napoleon at the Battle of Jena, that Emanuel has embodied the neoliberal world-spirit on horseback. Back then, Emanuel’s policy portfolio was largely taken up with the push to win congressional approval for NAFTA and the 1994 crime bill—a measure that symbolized the savvy New Democratic repudiation of the old liberal interest-group model of lawmaking.

After weathering right-wing assaults on liberal governance as a prolonged study in crime coddling and kowtowing to union bosses, the Clintonian Capitol Hill strategists led by Emanuel were declaring their independence from the ancien régime by embracing traditional right-wing policy initiatives and placing a modest it-takes-a-village rhetorical spin on them.

By the squalid and inert later phase of the Clinton policy agenda—when the administration signaled total moral capitulation to the Gingrich right by signing its welfare-eradication legislation into law—it was no surprise to see Emanuel leading the charge in the White House.

Emanuel also sought, unsuccessfully, to turn Clinton into a hard-line immigration hawk, urging the president to “claim and achieve record deportations of criminal aliens.”

You could say that Emanuel was simply playing to his base: He became a key player in the Clinton White House after leading the big-donor fundraising initiative of the 1992 Clinton campaign. Emanuel’s long-mythologized DC reputation as a blunt, loud, and profane interlocutor stems from this time, when he could be heard berating big-ticket prospects with come-ons like “Five thousand dollars is an insult! You’re a twenty-five-thousand-dollar person!”

This marks the other sprawling paradox of Emanuel’s career: In posturing as the advocate of commonsense pragmatic governing, he is always representing a boardroom-first vision of politics.

Prior to his election to Congress in 2022, Emanuel spent a lucrative tour as an investment banker, bringing in a cool $16 million payday over three years. (He was, in fact, one of three former investment bankers to serve as chief of staff in Obama’s hope-and-change administration.)

What he has rhetorically packaged as a savvy, problem-solving approach to lawmaking based on bipartisan outreach has always been the drearily consistent wish list of capital, from his effort as mayor to kneecap the Chicago Teachers’ Union to an accompanying wave of school closures and privatization to a bloated private-equity plan to take over the city’s parking operations to a disastrous accord with Elon Musk’s Boring Company to create a transit tunnel.

When a pair of reporters from the Chicago Reader filed a FOIA request to access the mayor’s meeting schedule—which had been mostly shielded from public view—they found that he met almost exclusively with donors, and almost never with actual community leaders.

In other words, if you want an advance vision of a Democratic politics shorn of the influence of “the groups” and other irksome activists, look no further than Emanuel’s plutocratic governing record in Chicago. Alternately, you can divine the waning influence of groups-style activism in the very fact that Emanuel is now bruited as a serious candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination at all.

The scandal that paralyzed, and effectively ended, his mayoralty in Chicago was his administration’s obscene cover-up of the police murder of 17-year-old Lacquan McDonald, a Black man shot 16 times in the back by the police as he was walking away. When the video of McDonald’s killing was released, 64 percent of Chicagoans disputed Emanuel’s claim that he had never seen it before; more than half agreed that he should resign office immediately.

It says everything about the priorities of establishment Democrats that Emanuel should be an early 2028 contender, just six years after Senator Amy Klobuchar was effectively forced to scuttle her future presidential prospects in the wake of George Floyd’s police murder, since she had previously served as a county prosecutor in Minneapolis.

Grim as Emanuel’s litany of policy calls is, it may not represent his most woeful legacy in Democratic politics. That distinction likely falls to his 2006 tour as head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. During that pivotal midterm cycle, Emanuel largely prevailed in a feud over the “50-state strategy” advocated by Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean.

Dean argued that for the Democrats to secure a long-term governing coalition they had to mount viable candidates in—and devote resources to—states and districts that presented as redoubts of deeper-red Republicanism. The idea was akin to bolstering a flailing major-league team’s farm system with prospects that would yield significant dividends over the long haul, in lieu of a more myopic “win now” strategy focused on immediate returns.

In his accustomed role as gatekeeper to the large-donor caste, Emanuel carried the day, using his campaign coffers to effectively cut loose Democratic candidates in districts that would be a stretch to win in that cycle, and lavishing money on his preferred brand of donor-friendly campaign hopeful: right-leaning difference trimmers who often had a military résumé, some of them former Republicans. Even in that historic Democratic wave election, Emanuel’s handpicked standard-bearers fared poorly—but, far more consequently, Democrats relinquished viable candidacies in formerly contested states and districts for the political generation ahead.

A 2013 study from Governing magazine found that Dean’s project—which wasn’t officially mothballed until the end of his DNC tenure in 2009—yielded striking results. In 20 deep-red states, Democrats gained three House seats, and 39 state legislative ones, while clocking an increase in presidential vote share between 2004 and 2008 in 15 of the 20 states. … One could go further still, and note that as Democrats retreated to safer, donor-anointed battlegrounds to leave greater stretches of the political map in play for the right, ruthless GOP electioneers pounced.

The follow-on midterm cycle witnessed the devastating assault that the right termed Operation REDMAP—a bald effort to gerrymander as many congressional seats for Republican candidates as possible coming out of the 2010 Census.

In other words, as Democrats, high on their own donor-driven presidential-cycle savvy, believed they were cleverly targeting winnable districts in lieu of expanding the electoral map, Republicans seized control of the map, and every individual vote they could get their hands on.

Emanuel’s latest ploy for elite Beltway attention is an interview with Politico correspondent Jonathan Martin. It bears all the hallmarks of brain-dead access journalism, from a hackneyed introduction by Martin flogging all the clichés of Emanuel’s foulmouthed rise to power to Emanuel’s own farcical efforts to depict himself as a lone misunderstood apostle of financial regulation in the Obama White House and a heroic advocate of improved educational performance. (Tell it to the Chicago Teachers Union, pal.)

But its chief selling point—yet again—is Emanuel’s wised-up counsel to Democrats who dare to believe in a world where they might be allowed nice things. “I’m not very excited by people that took an election that was focused on Donald Trump’s corruption and now focused on a party that has candidates that want to defund the police, decriminalize the criminal justice system, and want to run an open border policy,” he maunders, before circling for good measure into some performative bigotry: “I’m tired of discussions about bathroom access, and I want to start having discussions about classroom excellence.”

The good news here is that the feeling is very much mutual. As Bernie Sanders declared on Face The Nation when host Margaret Brennan presented him with Emanuel’s latest screed against “the Bernie bros” in The Wall Street Journal: “People are sick and tired of the Rahm Emanuels and Democratic establishment and Republican establishment…. The American people are tired of a rigged economy, a corrupt campaign finance system. They want real change. They don’t want Rahm Emanuel and the establishment maintaining the status quo.”

Amen. Politico opportunistically titled Martin’s interview “Rahm Emanuel on Why the Democrats Keep on Losing.” The subhead should have simply explained that the short answer is Rahm Emanuel.

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Trump’s a Lame D*ck | The Coffee Klatch for Saturday, September 26, 2026

26 September 2026 at 10:02

Friends,

Today, Heather and I examine Trump’s efforts to silence criticism — not only by banning CNN, Politico, and MSNOW from the White House this week, but, even more worrisome, putting his billionaire buddy Larry Ellison and Larry’s son David in control of CNN as well as CBS News, HBO, TikTok, and other news outlets. (The deal to let Paramount acquire Warner Bros. Discovery went through this week with little public notice.)

We also look at the larger issue of Trump’s billionaire buddies owning the media (Washington Post, X, Facebook, YouTube, etc.). Also: where the money is coming from to support Republican candidates in these last weeks before the midterm elections (spoiler alert: all of the above). Also: the attendees at Trump’s state dinner for Xi Jinping (spoiler alert: all of the above). Also: what this consolidation of wealth and power means for the upcoming midterms (no spoiler alert).

So please grab a cuppa, pull up a chair, and join the conversation.

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💾

In Conversation with Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor

25 September 2026 at 23:01

Friends,

Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor are two of my favorite thinkers who see the large patterns of wealth and power in our world, and the consequences for our daily lives. Their latest book, End Times Fascism and the Fight for the Living World explains how neofascist groups — religious extremists, right-wing nativists, and techno billionaires — are planning for and seeking to bring an end to civilization, while they alone survive.

Klein and Taylor also talk about what we can do to encourage a counter-movement based on human interdependence, preservation of our planet, and social justice.

My thanks to Naomi and Astra for sharing their thoughts with us.

Their new book, End Times Fascism and the Fight for the Living World, can be ordered here.

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Pluralistic: Itch scratching (25 Sep 2026)


Today's links

  • Itch scratching: Love, care and self-actualization.
  • Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
  • Object permanence: 9/11 x Viridians; Announcing Wikipedia; Infinite Copyright Mickey; Floppy shoulder bag; Wells Fargo's long sleaze; Corbyn wins Labour leadership; Interop v internet monopolies; The billionaires aren't all right; RIP Mike Ford; PGP didn't cause 9/11; Flying Solaris boxen; "Unelectable" Corbyn; Algorithmic management; "That's Disgusting!"; Tax breaks for repair expenses; Climate denial driven by economic doctrine; "100% pumpkin" has no pumpkin; Copyright reversion; "Scholars of the Night"; Apple threatens EU.
  • Upcoming appearances: Edmonton, Boston, Brighton, South Bend, Hudson, Calgary, Winnipeg, Paris, OVancouver, Victoria, Ottawa, Kilkenny, Montreal.
  • Recent appearances: Where I've been.
  • Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
  • Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
  • Colophon: All the rest.



A shirtless bald man seen from behind. He has contorted one arm between his shoulder blades to scratch an itch. The itchy area glows red, as do the abstract clouds surrounding him. Small angelic figures caper in the mist.

Itch scratching (permalink)

The thing about a maddening itch between your shoulder blades is that it feels so good when you scratch it, and even better when someone else scratches it, and better still if that person hits the right spot because they love you and they've performed this service for you so often and attentively that they know exactly which spot to hit.

One of the recurring themes in Spider Robinson's short stories and novels is people who have close relationships suddenly realizing that they have acquired a psychic link. He comes up with endless ways to play this scene out, but my favorite – I think it's from one of the later Callahan's tales – is when one person scratches another between the shoulder blades and hits the exact right spot the very first time and they realize that they are now psychically linked.

Maybe it's a primate grooming reflex, maybe it's receiving a gesture of love and care. Maybe those are the same things. Having your itch scratched for you feels good. Not just primates, either: cats with the flexibility to reach any part of their body with all four of their paws and their teeth will nevertheless purr like a badly-tuned diesel outboard when you scratch them just right.

Since the outset, the free software/open source movement has extolled the virtues of technological self-determination, which is to say, deciding how the computers and programs you use will work. This is often described as "scratching your own itch."

There is no question that scratching your own itch in this way is hugely and enduringly satisfying. On my laptop, I have a variety of little scripts and keybindings and bits of automation that I've built up over the years and every time I use one of these, I get a little hit of brain-reward.

The latest: I got tired of alt-tabbing to get to the file explorer, only to discover that I'd closed all my file explorer windows, meaning I had to mouse over to the dock and open a new one. So I bound "Windows key + E" to opening a file explorer after reading a message board post from an ex-Windows user who'd done this (apparently this is a standard Windows keybinding).

I've fully retrained my fingers to type Win-E rather than alt-tab when I want to get at a graphic filesystem and every time I do, I get the tiniest little pleasant jolt of pleasure. I scratched my own itch!

But even better than this are the little scripts that other people have thoughtfully made for me over the years. The oldest of these still in daily use is more than 20 years old, a bash script called "boingpic" (from when I was still working on Boing Boing). When I run this, it iterates interactively through the files ending with "jpg" or "png" on my Desktop, tells me how wide they are, prompts me to resize them or hit enter to keep their size, and then rsyncs them to the directory on my server that corresponds to https://craphound.com/images/.

If this strikes you as weird and inefficient, that's fine, because it does exactly what I need it to do, and I've memorized it through long, long use. And on top of all that, boingpic.sh was written for me by my dear old friend Seth David Schoen, when we were one of a bare handful of EFF staffers in the early oughts and hung out together all the time. Every time I use it, it reminds me of Seth, and good times, and I feel good.

For centuries, people have fought for the right to self-determination. The disability rights rallying cry "Nothing about us without us" actually dates back to 16th century Poland (it was the basis for the formation of a Polish parliament that wrested power away from the king). Any parent who has avoided a conflict over getting dressed for school by swapping out "Put your clothes on right now!" for "Which would you rather put on first, your shirt or your socks?" knows how far even a little autonomy can go.

I worked as a computer programmer from the age of 17 to about the age of 29, and while I was never a spectacular coder, I was good at it, and I wrote a lot of code for myself that precisely met my needs, which always felt great. It's one of the reasons I have always championed low-code/no-code software development tools, from Logo to Hypercard to Visual Basic to Scratch. Sure, the code that you write with one of these tools might not be "efficient" from a CPU/memory-usage perspective, but the point is that you write it. You don't have to convince someone else to do you a favor, you don't have to part with any of your money – and you don't have to try to get someone else to understand what you mean when you describe the tool you want.

When I worked at Bakka Books (the world's oldest surviving science fiction bookstore, in Toronto), we organized our inventory using an extremely idiosyncratic Filemaker database created by the store's then-owner, John Rose. John lovingly tended that Filemaker app, tweaking it on his days off to make it better suited to the very specific needs of a science fiction bookstore with a giant used section and an important sideline in keeping collectors' want-lists that we consulted whenever we bought more used books. There are doubtless "better" bookstore stock-keeping systems (including the one that Bakka uses now, in its latest incarnation as BakkaPhoenix), but that Filemaker app was John, a presence in the store even when he wasn't there, embodying his management and literary and retail theories on a MacSE by the cash-register.

I am highly skeptical of vibe-coding in the sense of writing code for other people to use. But when I meet people who've vibe-coded their own apps for their own use to scratch their own itches, I completely get their excitement. They've scratched their own itch! I know exactly how good that feels:

https://pluralistic.net/2026/07/03/rod-logic/#making-flippy-floppy

Sure, I have concerns about this kind of personal vibe-coding, the biggest of which is that if you aren't a skilled programmer, you might end up vibe-coding an app that you can't adequately assess, so it might contain subtle defects that make you vulnerable to security risks and/or expose your sensitive information to the public internet. But there are domains and use-cases where I am totally willing to accept that vibe-coding can enhance someone else's life in important ways, by letting them build exactly the widget they need, and if (when) it breaks, they can just do it again.

This is even better than "nothing about us without us." It's not just insisting that someone else "gather your requirements" before producing a tool that you will rely on and require. This is you, producing that tool for yourself, which means that you might be able to embed features and affordances into it that you can't even articulate, let alone defend. There's something undeniably great about scratching your own itch and hitting exactly the right spot.

Even so: the experience of working through your requirements with someone else is clarifying and disciplining, because while you are the domain expert on your needs, that doesn't mean you're the domain expert on how to address those needs. You have the worm's eye view of your life and your needs, while an expert can have the bird's eye view that comes from working with many people, exposing them to many ways of solving problems, including ones you've never thought of.

Darren, the contractor who put in our new kitchen a couple years ago, had ideas for cabinet- and appliance-placement that had been refined by seeing, demolishing, building and revising orders of magnitude more kitchens than we had ever cooked in, and moreover, he clearly cared about our long-term happiness in our own home. The kitchen is great.

That care makes all the difference. Skilled craftspeople can bring expertise to the project that doesn't trump your needs, but can be co-equal with them. Scratching your own itch is great, having your itch scratched by someone who cares enough about you to know where your itch is, that's even better. But best of all is for that person to find the itch you didn't even know you had and scratch that, too. That's something that relies on the human connection that the best free/open source projects embody, the co-creation and community between developers and users.

If you've ever filed a bug against a free/open project and worked through the testing the devs need to squash it, you've experienced that co-creation. The devs want their code to work, because they care about the users, and you as a user can help other users and the devs by reciprocating that care through conscientious, patient, attentive bug reporting and testing.

I think that so much of the outrage about slop code – floods of garbagey pull requests and bug reports – is the result of the collapse of this dynamic. Slop's not merely annoying or time-wasting: it's a betrayal of the love and care that goes into writing and maintaining code for others. Your cat can scratch any part of its body, but it wants you to scratch it, and it will hiss at you and even claw at you if you scratch it the wrong way.

(Image: Orrling and Tomer S, CC BY-SA 3.0, modified)


Hey look at this (permalink)



A shelf of leatherbound history books with a gilt-stamped series title, 'The World's Famous Events.'

Object permanence (permalink)

#25yrsago Surveillance is a security failure https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2001/sep/27/onlinesupplement.afghanistan

#25yrsago 9/11: the Viridian take https://web.archive.org/web/20011023095346/http://www.viridiandesign.org/notes/251-300/00272_au_revoir_belle_epoque.html

#25yrsago Announcing Wikipedia https://web.archive.org/web/20060517024408/http://www.kuro5hin.org/?op=displaystory;sid=2001/9/24/43858/2479

#25yrsago Phil Zimmerman says PGP can't be blamed for 9/11 https://slashdot.org/story/01/09/24/162236/philip-zimmermann-and-guilt-over-pgp

#20yrsago RIP, sf writer John M Ford https://memex.craphound.com/2006/09/25/rip-sf-writer-john-m-ford/

#20yrsago Gigantic Little Nemo book does justice to the loveliest comic ever https://memex.craphound.com/2006/09/25/gigantic-little-nemo-book-does-justice-to-the-loveliest-comic-ever/

#20yrsago 747s as flying Unix hosts: SCADA in the sky https://memex.craphound.com/2011/09/25/747s-as-flying-unix-hosts-scada-in-the-sky/

#20yrsago Mickey Infinite Copyright mashup https://web.archive.org/web/20061027141551/http://python.net/~goodger/projects/graphics/#mickey-s-infinite-copyright#mickey-s-infinite-copyright

#20yrsago HOWTO make a shoulder-bag out of floppies https://web.archive.org/web/20061025050629/http://www.instructables.com/id/E86165FIENERIE2PV6/?ALLSTEPS

#15yrsago TOSAmend: turn all online “I Agree” buttons into negotiations https://web.archive.org/web/20110925122850/https://www.owocki.com/2011/09/02/tosamend-the-easy-way-to-modify-web-service-terms-of-service-agreements/

#15yrsago That’s Disgusting! Awesomely gross picture book https://memex.craphound.com/2011/09/26/thats-disgusting-awesomely-gross-picture-book/

#10yrsago Swedish law will let you write off the money you spend fixing things rather than trashing them https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/19/waste-not-want-not-sweden-tax-breaks-repairs

#10yrsago Climate denial’s internal contradictions spring from a need to defend economic doctrine https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11229-016-1198-6

#10yrsago There’s no pumpkin in “100% canned pumpkin” https://web.archive.org/web/20160927152542/https://www.foodandwine.com/news/i-just-found-out-canned-pumpkin-isnt-pumpkin-all-and-my-whole-life-basically-lie

#10yrsago The AI Now Report: social/economic implications of near-future AI https://web.archive.org/web/20161014142521/https://artificialintelligencenow.com/media/documents/AINowSummaryReport_3.pdf

#10yrsago Whistleblowing Wells Fargo loan officer describes years of fraudulent, criminal culture in the bank https://truthout.org/articles/wells-fargo-whistleblower-they-are-all-riding-the-stagecoach-to-hell/

#10yrsago Writer in 29th year of solitary confinement barred from reading his own book https://solitarywatch.com/2016/09/20/writer-in-solitary-confinement-is-barred-from-reading-his-own-book/

#10yrsago Despite sabotage and dirty tricks, Jeremy Corbyn wins Labour leadership race in unprecedented landslide https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37461219

#10yrsago Who decided Corbyn was “unelectable”? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8os-nKuoM3o

#10yrsago The democratization of censorship: when anyone can kill as site as effectively as a government can https://krebsonsecurity.com/2016/09/the-democratization-of-censorship/

#5yrsago Demonopolizing the internet with interoperability https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/24/comcom-acm/#cacm

#5yrsago Copyright reversion, bargaining power, and authors’ rights https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/26/take-it-back/

#5yrsago The Scholars of Night https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/26/mike-ford-rides-again/#cold-war-zeitgeist

#1yrago Apple threatens to stop selling iPhones in the EU https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/26/empty-threats/#500-million-affluent-consumers

#1yrago The billionaires aren't OK https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/24/robo-lickspittle/#just-not-evenly-distributed

#1yrago Rage Against the (Algorithmic Management) Machine https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/25/roboboss/#counterapps


Upcoming appearances (permalink)

A photo of me onstage, giving a speech, pounding the podium.



A screenshot of me at my desk, doing a livecast.

Recent appearances (permalink)



A grid of my books with Will Stahle covers..

Latest books (permalink)



A cardboard book box with the Macmillan logo.

Upcoming books (permalink)

  • "The Post-American Internet," a geopolitical sequel of sorts to Enshittification, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2027
  • "Unauthorized Bread": a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, April 20, 2027

  • "Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2027

  • "The Memex Method," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2027



Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources:

Currently writing:

  • “Once Is Enemy Action,” a science fiction novel about the origins of modern technofascism. Today's words: 511 (19222 total).
  • "The Post-American Internet," a sequel to "Enshittification," about the better world the rest of us get to have now that Trump has torched America. Fourth draft completed. Submitted to editor.

  • A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING


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What to plan for in the U.S. if you’re a foreign leader?

25 September 2026 at 10:02

Friends,

I spent much of this week talking with foreign officials who are in the U.S. for United Nations meetings. I was curious to know how they’re strategizing about the United States in the future — assuming Democrats do well in the midterm elections and Trump becomes a lame-duck president. (None of my nine sources were heads of state; my stature doesn’t reach that high. But they were high enough to give me some useful insights.)

Here’s what I learned:

1. Most are thinking past Trump. They believe his influence is already waning, and his bellicose rantings show that he knows it. He’s still dangerous, they say, but not nearly as dangerous as he was, and he’s no longer capable of plunging the world into war. Every one of them told me he’s deeply unpopular in their countries.

2. They’re thinking in a timeframe of five to 10 years. They see Trump as a temporary phenomenon and assume the United States will “return to its senses.”

3. But — and here’s the part that concerned me — they’re unsure they can ever again rely on the United States for world leadership. Several pointed out that the fact Americans elected Trump for a second time reveals, in the words of one of them, “there’s something troublesome about your nation that transcends Trump.”

4. Even post-Trump, they see the United States as unstable and unpredictable. They don’t believe the country will fall into civil war, but they worry that policymaking will cycle between extremes because, in the words of another, “your extreme inequality will make it difficult to achieve any longer-term consensus.”

5. As a result, they’re looking ahead to a world where another nation, or group of nations, will take leadership on global issues that need to be addressed, such as climate change, AI, migration, widening inequalities, Putin’s aggression, and disease prevention.

6. Which nation or group? Another official put it to me this way: “We don’t trust China, the U.N. doesn’t work because of its security council, but the EU isn’t strong enough yet. Several of us are hoping that over the next decade the EU will be joined by Canada, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand, and that this new EU — really, a World Union — will devise a structure that enables it to work collaboratively and forcefully for the good of the world.”

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10 Steps To Fix What Trump Has Broken

24 September 2026 at 20:00

Friends,

If we want to clean up the mayhem Trump and his regime have created — and prevent anything like this from happening again — here are the 10 big reforms every political candidate should support.

They’re structural reforms in how our political system works, rather than policies such as Medicare for All, affordable housing, childcare, or a $20 minimum wage. But these structural reforms are necessary prerequisites to getting good policies enacted. They must be passed by Congress in order for anything else to get done.

I’m summarizing them below the video. Please watch and share:

Here are the 10 necessary structural reforms:

1: Enact Supreme Court term limits. Limit justices to 18-year terms, after which they return to lower federal courts.

2: Crack down on conflicts of interest. Apply federal conflict-of-interest laws to the president and vice president, ban all elected officials (and Cabinet members) from trading individual shares of stock, and require their financial holdings be put in a blind trust.

3: Stop political interference in criminal prosecutions. Prohibit presidents from influencing Justice Department prosecutions and require congressional review of pardons and commutations.

4: End the gerrymandering wars. Require all states to create independent commissions that draw congressional district maps.

5. Restore the Voting Rights Act. Reinstate protections against racially discriminatory voting maps and restore federal oversight of states with a history of voter discrimination.

6. Protect the freedom of the press. Prevent media monopolies by stopping large corporations and major media owners from buying up more news outlets.

7: Eliminate political litmus tests for federal funding. Hold the president in contempt for impounding funds appropriated by Congress. This includes funding for academic and scientific research, which should be free from political influence.

8. Tax extreme wealth. Enact a wealth tax on multimillionaires and billionaires and end the stepped-up basis loophole that allows huge fortunes to be inherited without having to pay taxes on capital gains.

9. Elect presidents by the popular vote. Replace the Electoral College through a constitutional amendment or a compact among states to award their electoral votes to the national popular vote winner.

10. Get big money out of politics. Expand public financing to match small-dollar campaign donations and pass a constitutional amendment to overturn the Citizens United decision.

Trump has revealed how easily our system can be abused. But opposing him isn’t enough. We need lasting structural reforms that make it harder for anyone — president, speaker of the House, Supreme Court justice, or other officials — to abuse their power in the future.

Please send this list to any candidate you’d like to win on November 3.

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How to know whether a candidate is on your side

24 September 2026 at 10:02
Sherrod Brown

Friends,

A crypto-backed PAC known as “Fairshake” just announced it would spend at least $30 million to help defeat Democrat Sherrod Brown in the race for Ohio’s Senate seat.

Ohio voters couldn’t have a clearer sign that Brown is on their side.

“Fairshake” is funded mainly by Big Crypto firms Coinbase and Ripple and venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz. It has a war chest of more than $120 million.

In 2024, Big Crypto spent more than $40 million to defeat Brown, then chair of the Senate Banking Committee. A leading critic of crypto, Brown stopped industry-friendly crypto legislation in its tracks.

Brown lost by about 4 percentage points to GOP Senator Bernie Moreno — now a leading crypto booster in the Senate.

I don’t know of a more blatant case of big money corrupting the system.

But Brown is mounting a comeback bid in the Buckeye State, where he’s facing Sen. Jon Husted in a special election to replace Vice President JD Vance.

Big Crypto is going all out to stop Brown once again, because Brown hasn’t changed his views about the dangers of crypto.

Crypto’s promised public benefits are zilch while its costs and risks are increasing by the day. There’s simply no legitimate use for crypto. Its only practical uses are tax evasion, money laundering, human trafficking, fraud, speculation, and crime.

Trump’s own crypto business should be evidence enough. The Ponzi scheme he created shows how many people will get snookered if crypto continues to syphon off their hard-earned savings.

Yet there’s no lobby to guard small investors who are losing their shirts on crypto, or to guard the public against its many downsides. Which is why we need senators like Sherrod Brown, who’s not for sale — to crypto or anyone else.

I’ve known, worked with, and admired Brown for many years. Few people in public life have as much integrity, or shown as much concern for the lives of average working people.

The good people of Ohio don’t have to take my word for it. All they need do is look at who Big Crypto is funding (Husted) and who it’s fighting against (Brown) and vote accordingly.

Zoom out on the entire 2026 midterms and you’ll see the same pattern. The largest moneyed interests — Big Crypto, AI, AIPAC, Elon Musk, and Trump’s PACs (MEGA Inc., No Going Back PAC, and Safety and Affordability PAC) — are pouring record amounts into the campaigns of candidates who will do their bidding.

The pro-AI super PAC “Leading the Future” has a war chest of between $125 million and $140 million. It’s backed by OpenAI president Greg Brockman, Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, and venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz.

AIPAC’s political action committee and super PAC, the United Democracy Project (UDP) has some $100 million on hand for the general elections. AIPAC says it supports Israel but it’s been a cover for big corporations and Wall Street.

Musk is backing Republican candidates who’ll help his businesses. Trump is doing the same.

All told, Republicans hold nearly a two-to-one cash advantage over Democrats going into the midterms. But you know something? American voters are catching on. The big money isn’t working.

In fact, being backed by big money is coming to be a major campaign disadvantage, because it’s seen for exactly what it is: a sign that a candidate is in the pocket of big business, Wall Street, and techno billionaires, who are shafting ordinary Americans.

Sherrod Brown’s campaign manager, Patrick Eisenhauer, said Brown’s opponent, Jon Husted is “for sale and the billionaires and corporations pouring millions into this race know it. Of course the special interests are panicking, they know Sherrod will fight the rigged system they’re feasting on to stand up for working Ohioans.”

Trump won Ohio by 11 points in 2024. Yet Brown remain 8 points ahead of Husted, 53% to 45% — a margin unchanged since June.

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Now, CNN

23 September 2026 at 21:01

Friends,

Yesterday at the United Nations, CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins asked Trump when the war with Iran would end, citing a poll showing that two-thirds of Americans don’t think the U.S. is winning.

“I’m surprised that CNN is here covering me,” Trump began before telling Collins: “You should not be here covering me. You said you weren’t going to cover me. You shouldn’t be covering me.”

Collins told Trump that the U.N. allowed her organization into the General Assembly, even though Trump had days before banned CNN (along with MSNOW and Politico) from covering his White House because he didn’t like their coverage of him.

Collins then repeated her question twice while Trump ignored her.

CNN’s days of asking hard questions of Trump may be coming to an end anyway, now that California Attorney General Rob Bonta has allowed Trump lapdog billionaire Larry Ellison and son David to take over CNN.

Bonta caved presumably because the Ellisons threatened to begin moving Paramount’s operations out of California starting in October if Bonta refused to settle his antitrust lawsuit against them.

Trump’s game plan all along has been for the Ellisons to control a huge media monopoly that won’t utter a critical word about him — including CBS News, CNN, Comedy Central (home to Jon Stewart), HBO (John Oliver), and even TikTok (where 1 out of 5 Americans now get their news).

What’s next for CNN? I doubt it will be gutted. That would be too obvious. It will just be defanged.

When the Ellisons gained ownership of CBS, they got rid of Stephen Colbert by not letting CBS renew his contract, and they ripped the guts out of CBS News and its flagship “60 Minutes” — firing Scott Pelley and other senior producers who refused to walk the Trump walk.

One departing producer there explained in a farewell memo to colleagues that she could no longer work where stories are “evaluated not just on their journalistic merit, but on whether they conform to a shifting set of ideological expectations — a dynamic that pressures producers and reporters to self-censor or avoid challenging narratives that might trigger backlash or unfavorable headlines.”

Anyone who believes the Ellisons will treat CNN (or Comedy Central or HBO) any better than they’ve treated CBS News hasn’t been paying attention to Trump’s and the Ellisons’ maneuverings over the past few months.

When Warner Bros. Discover — CNN’s parent — went up for sale, Trump said it was “imperative” that CNN be sold as part of the deal. “CNN should be sold because the people that are running CNN right now are either corrupt or incompetent,” he told reporters at an event at the White House. He continued:

“I think any deal, it should be guaranteed and certain that CNN is part of it or sold separately, but I don’t think the people that are running that company right now and running CNN — which is a very dishonest group of people — I don’t think that should be allowed to continue. I think CNN should be sold along with everything else.”

Last December, when a CNN reporter asked Trump a question he didn’t like, he shot back: “You know you work for the Democrats, don’t you? You’re basically an arm of the Democrat Party.”

The Ellisons — per et fils — have already promised Trump they’ll bring CNN to heel.

According to The Wall Street Journal, David Ellison promised Trump he’d make “sweeping changes” to CNN if he were allowed to acquire its parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery.

A White House official even discussed with Larry Ellison potential programming changes at CNN, including firing reporters such as Erin Burnett and Brianna Keilar, whom Trump is said to loathe.

At a press briefing in March, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth complained about a CNN report that the Trump administration had underestimated Iran’s ability to disrupt global oil traffic by closing the Strait of Hormuz. “Patently ridiculous,” Hegseth told reporters, adding that “the sooner David Ellison takes over that network, the better.”

It’s the neofascist playbook: Take over the media and silence criticism. Even better (because it’s less out in the open), have your cronies take over the media and have them silence criticism. Better still, make deals with your cronies so when they take over the media, they have ongoing financial incentives to silence criticism. If they’re billionaires, they can keep buying up media and silence criticism as they make even more money.

Jeff Bezos has defanged the editorial page of The Washington Post. Elon Musk has turned Twitter into global neofascist X. Trump suck-up Mark Zuckerberg controls Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Threads.

And now the Ellisons, and CBS News and CNN (and Comedy Central and HBO).

What do you get when you combine the richest people in America with the biggest media corporations in America with the thinnest-skinned and most corrupt president in American history?

One thing you don’t get is an informed public.

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Office Hours: The Outcome of the Midterms?

23 September 2026 at 10:01

Friends,

Voting in the midterm elections has already begun in several states.

Many people ask for my midterm predictions — and whether I believe they’ll spell the end of Trump. I’ll share them with you soon, but today I’d like yours.

Herewith, the four scenarios I’m hearing most often. Please select the outcome that seems most likely to you.

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