Recent polling confirms what you’d hear if you talked to people at most any Chat & Chew Café across America – namely, our political system is broken.

In fact, nearly all of us feel that way. While people strongly believe that representative democracy is the best system, they can plainly see that what we have today is neither democracy nor representative. Washington and most state governments routinely enact policies and budgets benefitting über-rich political donors, while cutting programs that regular people want and need.

It’s not just that the system is failing to do what grassroots America wants done, while doing what most people oppose, but that the insiders in charge, whether Republican or Democrat, don’t listen… or really care.

At the core of this dangerous disconnect is the fact that our highly-touted democratic ambitions have devolved into a moneyed autocracy, a self-perpetuating political system operating independent of the popular will. The issue of all 2026 issues is this: Money rules. Very Big Money, mostly anti-democracy, billionaire money.

Trump, Congress, the courts, governors – and especially the billionaires – know this. They wink at it, rely on it, and even cynically proclaim that giving and receiving unlimited, secret, political money is the new coin of democratic policy making – even superior to winning electoral votes.

Now, however, We the People are also clearly seeing this perversion of our fundamental democratic ideals and rights. Some 80 percent of Americans (including 72% of Republicans) say people who donate to campaigns have too much influence. Our job in 2026 is to confront the billionaire corrupters and political takers head-on, turning people’s rising awareness and anger into “little-d” democratic action.

Do something!

To fight the influence of big money in politics, check out these organizations’ work:

* Public Citizen

* Our Revolution

* Common Cause

* Brennan Center

* Move to Amend

Jim Hightower's Lowdown is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

There’s greed… and then there’s the nauseating greed of profiteering corporations that make a killing – literally – by knowingly contaminating people’s water, air, land, and families.

Such rank, moral corruption is hard to fathom... but it’s not hard to find. For one breathtaking example, consider Freeport-McMoRan.

This global mining behemoth is one of America’s most aggressive spoliers of land, air, water, and health – including from its sprawling copper smelter near Phoenix, Arizona. This operation is a major spreader of lead pollution, a neurotoxin that’s particularly harmful to children, causing pain, seizures, and learning disabilities.

But wait, where’s our Environmental Protection Agency? Good question. In fact, until last year, EPA was requiring Freeport to install technology to cut those poisonous emissions. The giant squealed like a stuck pig, though, crying that the $60 million cost for the lifesaving equipment was too “burdensome” – even though that wouldn’t even be a drop in Freeport’s $2-billion-a-year bucket of profits.

Sure enough, in October, Trump’s new EPA honcho rushed to provide pollution protection. Not for the children, but for the polluter! Indeed, Trump’s corporate-coddling agency “super-streamlined” the regulatory process by essentially eliminating it – no public hearing required, no presentation of facts, to chance for victims to object. All Freeport had to do was send an email requesting regulatory relief, and – BAM! – Trump promptly exempted its Arizona smelter from having to clean up its act.

Not only is this “free pass to pollute” a blunt proclamation of corporate rule, it also expresses Trump’s deep contempt for working-class people. Imagine if that smelter was in Florida, poisoning the elites in his Mar-a-Lago resort. Then, he’d jump on it like a gator on a poodle.

Do something!

The Environmental Defense Fund was one of the primary organizations working on the Freeport-McMoRan issue; they've launched a Trump EPA Pollution Pass map that shows you all the places that have applied for presidental exemptions from pollution laws. Support their work by getting involved at edf.org.

Jim Hightower's Lowdown is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Dare we think that the New Year holds tremendous promise for progressive change?

Yes! As practically every pundit notes, Trump’s White House menagerie of billionaires, grifters, haters, prima donnas, and ideological kooks has soured even many MAGA faithful. More importantly, grassroots progressives have been organizing and mobilizing across the country, and – like eager ball players looking forward to a good season – they’re pumped up!

So, what could go wrong?

Don’t look now, but the National Democratic Party’s “Washington Club” of high-dollar donors, clueless consultants, corporate lobbyists, and old-line politicos are still controlling much of the Party’s money, strategy, and message. Possessing all the magnetism of their go-slow leader, Chuck Schumer, their game plan is the same as always: Run a Big Money, don’t-rock-the-boat, Washington-based campaign, shove-aside grassroots activists, rely on negative attack ads, and tell everyone (again) that Trump will defeat himself.

As Casey Stengel wailed when he managed the comically inept 1962 New York Mets baseball team – “Can’t anyone here play this game?”

Luckily, though, those insider losers are no longer our real Democratic team. While they’ve been piddling around in Congress playing wiffle ball with the Trumpers, Bernie-style progressives have been rebuilding the Party of the People in every state with hard-hitting, slick-fielding, big-league DEMOCRATS.

And voters are responding with an enthusiastic YES! From Coast to coast – already lifting Zohran Mamdani to victory in New York, Katie Wilson in Seattle, and state legislative races in Iowa, Georgia, and Mississippi.

Let’s keep pushing to make 2026 the year we quit moaning about the lackluster Democratic Party… and turn it into the bright new majority party.

Jim Hightower's Lowdown is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

As we head into a momentous election year, with state and national legislative seats up for grabs, even let-them-eat-cake Republicans are scrambling to sound sympathetic to today’s hard-hit working-class families.

Of course, tongue-clucking concern doesn’t mean actually doing anything to help this majority of Americans – and most legislatures are doing exactly that: Nothing.

In fact, you’d think the ones hurting in America are billionaires, for those same tongue-clucking lawmakers have been laser-focused this year on delivering monopoly protections, multibillion-dollar government subsidies, exclusive tax breaks, and even top government positions to the richest and greediest corporate profiteers. This is personally disgraceful and socially destructive… yet it has become business as usual.

Why? What’s causing America’s so-called “representatives” to disregard the needs of a majority of their own constituents? The corrupting power of corporate money, of course, but a more fundamental cause is this: The class make-up of practically every legislative body. Millionaires-and-up now dominate. But most-telling, is who you don’t’ see: Working stiffs.

While more than half of Americans are wage workers who overwhelmingly support progressive reforms to advance economic fairness and social justice, the elitist legislative structure shuts them out. Consider America’s 7,300 state legislative seats – only one percent of Republican members and two percent of Democrats are working class! Ten states have zero working class members!

As an old adage notes: If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu. Labor laws, health care, campaign finance, AI regulation… again and again, workers are put on the corporate menu, because the lawmaking system is rigged to keep them from being at the table to represent themselves.

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In keeping with the season, I offer a little political anecdote about Christmas.

More specifically, it’s about the moral teachings of the biblical Jesus, which formed the ethical foundation of Christmas and gives Christianity itself its true gravity.

The story is about a political clash some 60 years ago in Houston, when a boorish right-winger accosted the feisty mother of a renowned progressive populist lawmaker, US Rep. Bob Eckhardt. Bob, whom I later got to know and learn from, was a fierce battler for racial equality in a time when not all Texans were singing in Kumbaya harmony.

Sure enough, at a public forum where Bob’s mom was representing him, this bonehead loudly demanded to know why her son was trying to make “them [Black people] equal to whites.” Ms. Eckhardt cut off the fellow’s ugly diatribe by, of all things, offering an apology! Her son’s advocacy, she said, was not his fault, but hers: “You see, I raised him to be a Christian.”

Today, however, Mother Eckhardt’s put down might lack the clarity it had back then. This is a strange Christmas – concluding a year in which far right extremists have relentlessly perverted the profound and love-based Christianity of Jesus into a partisan ethic promising brutish rule. As we’ve seen, their “beatitudes” include repression of the poor, worship of Mammon, turning away strangers, hatred of thy neighbor… and so awful much more that rejects the values of Jesus – all in the name of establishing something they call “Christian Nationalism.”

This is Jim Hightower saying… God bless America. And please hurry! But remember, God helps those who help themselves. That means you and me. So, let’s work together to create a merrier, truer Christmas next year.

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The high priests of Holy High Tech are in a huff, wailing that they’re being bothered by you busybodies, Luddites, and commoners – ie, The People.

Grandiose gabillionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos assert that they’re not merely rich, but visionary pioneers! Stand back, they bark, for we’re going to re-populate the world with a new species of artificially-superintelligent humanoids. Yet, to their astonishment, rather being hailed as geniuses, the oligarchs are being widely berated by us old-fashioned humans. Indeed, the level of public outrage has goaded lawmakers in all 50 states to enact some minimal protections for workers, communities… and humanity.

Of course, Musk, Bezos, & Company have no tolerance for the democratic will, so they jetted to Congress, demanding passage of a 10-year ban on enforcing any state law regulating artificial intelligence. Shockingly, however the US Senate, normally a total corporate toady, rose up 99 to 1 to vote against the Silicon Valley potentates. Ninety-nine to one!

So, the billionaires are now playing their trusty Trump card. Having greased the corrupt pay-to-play president with about a billion-dollars in campaign cash and personal deals, the AI profiteers got their payback this month. Quicker than you can say “quid pro quo,” Trump issued an executive order that – get this – orders himself to block our state governments from enforcing their own AI laws.

This is Jim Hightower saying… And here’s an extra fun fact: Trump didn’t even have to write the special interest executive order himself. A Silicon Valley AI profiteer generously sent a draft for the president to sign, effectively awarding more power and wealth to the profiteer. And that’s how Big Money rigs the system against you and me.

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Ho-Ho-Ho, wait till you hear about the gifts I’m giving to some of America’s power elites for Christmas.

To each of our Congress critters, I give my fondest wish that from now on they receive the exact same income, health care, and pensions that we average citizens get. If they receive only the American average, it might make them a bit more humble – and less cavalier about ignoring the needs of regular folks.

To the stockings of GOP leaders who’ve so eagerly debased themselves to serve the madness of Donald Trump, I’m adding individual spritzer bottles of fragrances like “Essence of Integrity” and “Eau de Self-respect” to help cover up their stench. And in the stockings of Democratic congressional leaders, I’m giving “Spice of Viagra” and “Bouquet du Grassroots” to stiffen their spines and remind them of who they represent.

For America’s CEO’s, my gift is a beautifully boxed, brand-new set of corporate ethics. It’s called the golden rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Going to pollute someone’s neighborhood? Then, you have to live there, too. Going to slash wages and benefits? Then, slash yours as well. Going to move your manufacturing to sweatshops in China? Then, put your office right inside the worst sweatshop. Executive life won’t be as luxurious, but CEO’s would glow with a new purity of spirit.

To the Wall Street hedge-fund hucksters who’ve conglomerated, plundered, and degraded hundreds of America’s newspapers, I’m sending copies of “Journalism for Dummies” and offered jobs for each of them in their stripped-down, Dickensian newsrooms. Good luck.

And what better gift to the Trump family – Donald, Ivanka and Jared, Eric, Donnie Jr., and the whole nest of them – than to wish that they live with each other constantly and permanently. No, really, each of you deserve it.

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Ahh, Christmas time! The joy of children’s laughter! A time for caring, sharing, and giving!

So, why not make this Christmas a time for giving something that most American children, families, and communities are now denied – and desperately need: a good child care system.

This is a basic element of civilization, yet the leaders of our fabulously-rich nation have not only failed to provide a world-class care system, but they’ve left the pre-school children of working-class families with a failed, expensive mishmash that is no system at all. These are the same so-called “leaders” who’re frantically spending trillions of dollars to create a new humanoid species powered by artificial intelligence – but they lack the common sense to invest a fraction of that on an early care network to nurture the human potential of America’s human infants and pre-school children.

The good news, however, is that we do not have to sit helplessly, wishing that Congress, Trump, or Santa Claus would deliver universal childcare to us. Rather We the People can give this gift to ourselves… and to our children’s future. For inspiration, look to New Mexico.

Twenty years ago, this very-low-income state ranked dead-last in child well-being. Finally, though, agitated parents, teachers, and children themselves became the agitators. Forging a fast-growing coalition called Invest in Kids Now, they organized, protested, confronted and ran against the state’s moneyed establishment. With perseverance, their grassroots activism is now producing the change they want. 70 percent of voters approved the coalition’s constitutional amendment requiring state funding for early childhood education. And last month, New Mexico became the first state in America to offer free childcare to every family.

For more on the work of the coalition, go to InvestInKidsNow.org.

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Having grown up in a small-business family, I’m a big proponent of free enterprise. But I detest corporatism.

The corporate powers try to co-opt the enterprise label, but in fact they are direct opposites and opponents. Indeed, the word “free” in free enterprise is not a benign adjective, but a fiery verb. It expresses the constant struggle by families like mine – Main Street businesses, farmers, artists, co-ops, and others – to free-up their enterprises from the monopoly control and raw political force of domineering financial elites.

That’s why I admire the spunk of Azalea Fresh Market in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s a new supermarket offering high-quality fresh foods at affordable prices to the people in a poor, inner-city neighborhood. Until Azalea opened, a few sad convenience store bananas were the only “fresh” grocery items sold in the area. City officials kept trying to entice major corporate grocery chains to open a store to serve that community. But it was always “no.” Mayor Andre Dickens says: “That totally burned me up.” So, “Screw it,” he declared, “We’re gonna do it ourselves.”

And they have! Partnering with a small local chain of enterprising grocers, Atlanta’s public development fund financed Azalea, which is now providing good food at good prices for customers long disdained by corporatists.

Corporate ideologues mindlessly bark that the public should not be involved in business. Hogwash! When the corporate establishment fails to deliver such basic needs as healthy food, housing and health care, the public can – and must – step into the void. To learn more about the benefits and potential of public enterprises, go to Institute for Local Self-Reliance: ilsr.org.

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What a mess.

I mean America’s corporatized, bureaucratic, profiteering medical system. It’s as though the Marx Brothers and Franz Kafka conspired to create it.

Yet, in the midst of that mess, there is one saving grace – namely the everyday workforce of dedicated nurses, therapists, hygienists, and other skilled, hands-on professionals who are the true heart of health care.

Astonishingly, though, when Trump & Co. bellowed this year that they intended to reform the medical system and slash costs, guess who they targeted for cuts? Certainly not the lavishly-paid CEOs and corporate price gougers who donate billions to Trump. Instead, they’re going after our frontline caregivers, the one segment of the system that prioritizes patient health over corporate profits.

Yet, channeling Kafka’s surrealism and Groucho’s slapstick, Trump and his GOP Congress are not only downgrading this vital workforce, but denigrating it. They’ve directed the US Education Department to decree that nurses are no longer “professionals.”

One immediate impact is that many young people who want to pursue careers in patient care will no longer be eligible for the government’s student loans for advanced medical courses. This means that non-rich students will effectively be blocked from earning specialized degrees … and higher salaries. In the bigger picture, Trump’s insult to these essential medical professionals amounts to government-enforced plutocracy, mandating inequality, as well as inferior health care.

Moreover, three-fourths of the health-provider jobs Trump wants to degrade are filled by women. Apparently, it’s part of his increasing attempts to belittle and bully women. As one nurse says of his attack on her profession: “It’s just a smack in the face.” For information and action, go to NationalNursesUnited.org.

Jim Hightower's Lowdown is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.