The most played episodes among Podcast App listeners.

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   Number 1: Billionaires Say America’s Founding Value of Egalitarianism Is Not For Them

   Growing up, I received a wealth of working-class values from my parents, including this nugget about egalitarianism: “Nobody is better than you,” they said, “and you’re no better than anybody else.” That’s the ethical underpinning for “We’re all in this together” – it’s what Thomas Jefferson enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and it’s what Lincoln consecrated in his Gettysburg address; it’s in our own pledge of allegiance to “liberty and justice for all;” it’s what the Statue of Liberty welcomes; it’s Woody Guthrie’s anthem to the Common Good; and… well, it’s AMERICA! Unless, of course, you’re Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, or other far-out, plutocratic supremacists who do indeed consider themselves better than the rest of us. For this ilk of technocratic elites, government’s role is not to promote the Common Good, but to protect their wealth from the Common Good. Their grandiose sense of self-esteem is as silly as it is dangerous, but it is not new, and we commoners have risen up many times in our history to beat down such crushing arrogance. For example, John C. Calhoun, a venerated “statesman” of the mid-1800s, led a national crusade to convert all workers to slave laborers owned by monied masters; and in the Civil War, a family of profiteering bankers got one of their sons exempted from duty in the Union Army by asserting “there are plenty of lives less valuable” than his; and in the 1920s, a prominent, anti-woke academic proclaimed that races are inherently un-equal, so “democracy is an unrealizable absurdity.” This is the legacy of moral and political failure that Musk, Thiel, et al are trying to ride to victory today. Let’s rise up… and crush them again. Do something! Did you know that there are wealthy people in America who don’t think the economy should be rigged for them? Us either! Check out patrioticmillionaires.org. Also, we’re hearing great things about Gil Durán’s new book, The Nerd Reich. (Several of you also mentioned it in the comments on our AI explainers, thank you!) He’s got a newsletter here! Jim Hightower's Lowdown is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jimhightower.substack.com/subscribe

   September 08, 2026·3min
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   Number 2: Billionaires Playing Cowboys… At Our Expense

   Let’s all gather ‘round the campfire, Buckaroos and let Ol’ Cactus Jim here tell you about some of today’s hardy, hard-working cowboys. Yes, those manly men who live free-spirited, yippy-ti-yi-yo, cowboy lives out in the rustic ranch country of the Rocky Mountain West. Oh, wait – that was a century ago. The “cowboys” who’re now humming “Home On The Range” across Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming are multimillionaire and billionaire corporate titan and celebrities like Rupert Murdoch and Bill Gates. They don’t really live there nor mix with locals, no do they actually “ranch” their spectacular 300,000-acre spreads, since they don’t know how. So they hire real ranching outfits to bring in some cattle, sheep, and other ranching accruements, then they fly in on private jets occasionally and strut around like John Wayne. They are in a word, pathetic. But they surely are land barons, spending up to $200 million each for their vast spreads. Indeed, these dilettantes rule the availability of ranchland and scenic wilderness, pricing out people who really want to ranch and locking out families who want to experience some of nature’s most majestic rivers and mountains. Fifteen years ago, the biggest private landowners held 27 million acres; now they’ve grabbed 42 million acres for themselves. Well, say apologists for wealth concentration, they bought the land with their money, so it’s fair and square. But hold on slick. They don’t come just for the views, hunting, and exclusivity – their ranches get generous land subsidies, plus, states like Wyoming provide no-tax hideaways for their wealth. This is Jim Hightower saying… So, even though you and I are shut out of these gated land baronies, at least we can take pride in knowing that it’s our tax dollars that help the rich buy them… and lock the gates. Jim Hightower's Lowdown is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jimhightower.substack.com/subscribe

   September 03, 2026·3min
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   Number 3: Who’s Behind The GOP’s Assault on Homeless People?

   Memo from corporate headquarters to staff: “Notice – the beatings will continue until employee morale improves.” That corporate joke would also fit the perverse ethic of the Republican Party’s latest assault on homeless Americans. Believe it or not, the Party’s new homeless policy – officially embraced by the Trump regime and already enacted by 16 right-wing state governments – is to blame homelessness on (guess who?) the homeless! Yes, hundreds of thousands of individuals and families living on the streets in our Land of Plenty are being ordered to go inside – even though they have no “inside.” But pious GOP politicos are not merely chiding the poor. They’re using Big Government’s authoritarian might to criminalize, arrest, incarcerate, and forcibly medicate some of the hardest-hit people in our country. It’s a raw, disgraceful example of the aristocratic arrogance of today’s billionaire brat class. Such as Silicon Valley Trumpster, Joe Lonsdale. He’s been on a sadistic crusade to ban homeless indigents from making alleys, underpasses, and other vacant spots into their “home.” A multi-billionaire profiteer of the Palantir espionage conglomerate, Lonsdale lives in splendor in his mansions, but he doesn’t want to be “bothered” by the poor who might be perturbed by the inequality he perpetuates. Indeed, Jon recently demanded that angry poor people who might pose a threat to upright, uptight royals like him should be subjected to public hangings. In a democratic society, government’s role is not to protect the privileged from the people, but to protect the people from the oppression and ever-grasping greed of royal wannabes like Lonsdale. To keep track of the Republican assault on the poor, go to the National Homelessness Law Center: homelesslaw.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. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jimhightower.substack.com/subscribe

   September 01, 2026·3min
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   Number 4: Big Tech Is the New Feudalism: How to Fight Back

   “If you find that you’ve dug yourself into a hole, the very first thing to do is quit digging.” That old country saying has a newly-urgent relevance to us today, for Big Tech, Big Finance, and Big Government are colluding to dig us into the unfathomable hole of artificial intelligence. All across the country, entire communities are in an uproar as they learn that thousands of massive, billionaire-financed data centers are quietly being approved by their government officials, usurping farmland, local water supplies, and each area’s electric grid. Why? So über-rich prigs like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos can impose their grandiose, zillion-dollar schemes to displace us human workers with super-intelligent bots. What’s not to like about that? But wait… there are other major problems, including the sickening drone of gigantic cooling systems in each data center, running non-stop year-round, destroying community tranquility and people’s sanity; the sudden rise of global warming emissions caused by data center use of fossil fuels; the creation of easy targets for drone attacks on these sprawling interconnected computer networks; and the wholesale diversion of America’s research funding and talent to the private projects of billionaires. Far worse, though, is that AI is the key for Musk, Bezos, and whoever to impose a feudal, fascist, technocratic, rule over the rest of us – all in the name of progress. Maybe we should question this “future” before surrendering to it! To help guide us, New York Times columnist Tressie McMillan Cottom recommends such useful books as “The Nerd Reich,” “Technofeudalism,” and “End Times Fascism” – plus Pope Leo’s encyclical letter on AI. Follow Tressie’s series on battling Big Tech at JimHightower.com/TMC. Do something! Here are some organizations and coalitions that are fighting this technofascist/feudalist future: * AI Now: An independent research institute providing expert analysis on AI in the public interest * Athena Coalition: Originally focused on fighting Amazon, this huge coalition is taking on AI invasions and data center exploitation Jim Hightower's Lowdown is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jimhightower.substack.com/subscribe

   August 18, 2026·3min
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   Number 5: Moneyed Powers Are Forcing Art and Artisans Out of Our Towns

   The great thing about “art towns” is, of course, the artists who live there and their art. So why are so many art town officials deliberately and stupidly driving artists out of town? I live in such a place: Austin, Texas. For beaucoup years, it welcomed and nurtured a blessing of creators – from buskers to tap dancers, muralists to neon sign artists. Neon Signs? Yes, magical artisans who can bend glass tubes into delightful expressive shapes that light-up to identify a community and culture as something more than just another concrete-and-steel erection of corporate power. One such creative is Todd Sanders, an Austin pop artist who for three decades has preserved and advanced this eclectic community’s proud claim to be “Keeping Austin Weird.” I was personally plugged into that identity when Susan DeMarco, Floyd Domino, and I broadcast a two-hour daily radio talk-show across America from a down-home Austin restaurant named Threadgill’s. Behind us on the stage, was a Todd Sanders gem – a 3x5 foot neon sign, flashing “Hightower Radio… On the Air.” But multimillion-dollar developers – backed by a city council now promoting Austin as a mecca for high-tech billionaires – have no room for funky grassroots “weirdness.” They’ve jacked-up city property taxes and artists rents in a corporate gentrification frenzy that has squeezed Sanders’ neon shop and others out of Austin. The good news is that art perseveres, so Sanders’ studio and art gallery found a welcoming spot 80 miles east of us in the small town of Round Top. But Round Top artisans will be next if we keep letting profiteers, with no values beyond money, define who we are, restricting who we can become. Do something! When we had an office in east Austin, we shared it with Austin Creative Alliance—check them out to help keep Austin’s arts scene thriving. Jim Hightower's Lowdown is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jimhightower.substack.com/subscribe

   August 13, 2026·3min
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