Selections from the February 15, 2025 issue

 COVER/Sharon Lerner p. 1

A storm-battered Louisiana town voted for Trump. He has vowed to overturn the law that could fix its homes. 

EDITORIAL p. 2
Trump the merciless rules

JIM HIGHTOWER p. 3
Yes,you can fight the bastards ... and win! | Who will organize a progressive majority | The billionaire bros do the immigrant worker two-step | A billionaire vs. a cartoonists. I’m betting on the cartoonist

FRANK LINGO p. 3
Trump’s tribe attacks Earth

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR p. 4

DON ROLLINS p. 4
Trump’s master plan: Undoing

RURAL ROUTES/Margot McMillen p. 5
Local producers provide quality food at affordable prices

DISPATCHES p. 5
Trump’s plan to relocate Gazans to Jordan and Egypt triggers outrage.
Dems slam Trump for bailing on pledge to lower grocery prices.
Trump’s mass deportation promise is failing, so why is he still bragging?
Tramp back to golfing after demanding fed workers return to office.
GOP grapples with Trump’s release of violent rioters and backlash.

ART CULLEN p. 6
The oligarchs are coming!

ALAN GUEBERT p. 6
Rural America has enough problems; why create new ones? 

ELI TAYLOR GOSS and TREASURE MACKY p, 7
Trump wants to cut taxes on the rich. States can choose differently. 

JOHN YOUNG p. 7
Suffering amid disaster? Enter the scorn chasers

LARRY COHEN p. 9
Loosening GOP’s grip on rural America

JOE CONASON p. 9
Welcome to the grifters ball

THE BIG PICTURE/Glynn Wilson p. 10
Whiplash 2.0: A split-personality, now the most powerful man in the world

GRASSROOTS/Hank Kalet p. 10
Trump 2.0: The vulnerable are in the crosshairs

JOEL D. JOSEPH p. 10
Six ways to bring manufacturing back and stop them from leaving the country

ROBERT KUTTNER p. 11
The next financial crisis: Insurance

THOM HARTMANN p. 12
Presidential payola: The evolution of political bribery

SABRINA HAAKE p. 12
Hogseth’s thin line between lethality and legality

DAVID MONTGOMERY p. 13
‘Anything we can do to help’: This Texas county is poised to play a key role in deportations

ROBERT B. REICH p. 13
Why I remain hopeful about America

SULMA ARIAS p. 14
Anti-immigrant legislation doesn’t serve anyone but prison contractors

LINDSAY OWENS p. 14
Trump plans a supersized tax giveaway for corporations and the wealthy

HEALTH CARE/Joan Retsinas p. 15
Manifest destiny revisited: Greenlanders should scream “no”

SAM URETSKY p. 15
It’s getting a little dark at the Washington Post

BOOK REVIEW/Ken Winkes p. 15
Picketty’s ‘Nature, Culture and Inequality’ follows up on ‘Capitalism in the Twentieth First Century’

WAYNE O’LEARY p. 16
Billionaires’ ball

JUAN COLE p. 17
Trump’s envoy Witkoff on Gaza deal: “Now we have to implement it”

N. GUNASEKARAN p. 17
Beyond the 1.5ºC threshold: Deepening the climate crisis

JAMIE STIEHM p. 18
Tragic irony in the rotunda

BARRY FRIEDMAN p. 18
Sen. Mullin’s greatest hits

SATIRE/Rosie Sorenson p. 18
Thinnest of skins 

RALPH NADER p. 19
What Donald Trump has revealed about our country

DAVE MARSTON p. 20
Los Angeles is a wake-up call for the West — especially Durango

ROB PATTERSON p. 20
The pleasures of literate police mysteries (take 2)

SETH SANDRONSKY p. 20
An emerging environmental proletariat?

FILM REVIEW/Ed Rampell p. 21
Euthanasia takes a holiday: Is there room for room at Christmastime and beyond? 

GENE NICHOL p. 23
Based on merit again?

From The Progressive Populist, February 15, 2025

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