podhorzer

@podhorzer@threads.net

Former political director of the AFL-CIO. Senior Fellow at CAP.

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podhorzer , to random

1/ At long last, can we all stop pretending that Alito, Thomas, Barrett, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh are legitimate jurists? They are politicians who were effectively “appointed” to the Court by the Federalist Society, which has turned the Supreme Court into an unaccountable super-legislature.

Their mission is to repeal and replace the 20th Century—to destroy the guardrails protecting Americans from civil rights violations and corporate predations.

podhorzer OP ,

2/ Alito, Thomas, Barrett, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh are the only five of the 116 justices to serve on the Supreme Court to have been confirmed by senators representing less than one half of the US population.

The left panel shows how dramatically different that was just 24 years ago. With the exception of Thomas, every justice was confirmed by senators representing at least two thirds of the US population, and six were confirmed by senators representing 90 percent of the US population.

podhorzer OP ,

3/ In previous eras, SCOTUS justices took care to reach consensus when overturning major precedents with profound impacts on our lives.

Not anymore.

podhorzer OP ,

4/ The Roberts court has completely remade federal elections to advantage Republican interests—in nearly every instance on a straight party-line vote.

podhorzer OP ,

5/ This has amounted to decades of election interference—from helping return the former Confederate states to one-party rule, to shielding Trump from legal accountability before ballots are cast in November.

podhorzer OP ,

6/ In 2018, the American Constitution Society compiled a list of 73 cases in which the Roberts court has handed down narrow 5-4 rulings that advanced one of four MAGA-friendly agenda items. And, of course, there have been many more since then.

podhorzer OP ,

7/ The Court’s fundamental illegitimacy has been obvious to most Americans for many years now.

podhorzer OP ,

8/ For more, read “Tipping the Scales: The MAGA Justices Have Already Interfered with the 2024 Elections” https://www.weekendreading.net/p/tipping-the-scales-the-maga-justices

And “Breaking the Law: Trump Is the Means, Not the End” https://www.weekendreading.net/p/breaking-the-law-trump-is-the-means

podhorzer , to random

It’s often said that the rising income inequality in the US reflects worldwide trends due to globalization.

But when we compare the US with Western Europe—where unions have not suffered the same erosion—we see a different story.

We see why attacks on unions hurt all of us. 🧵

podhorzer OP ,

In 1980, the shares of pre-tax national income in the US and Western Europe held by the bottom 50% vs top 1% were similar.

Since, these shares have changed slightly in Europe, but in the US the share held by the top 1% has radically increased, at the expense of the bottom 50%.

podhorzer OP ,

Indeed, while there has been some erosion in the relative shares of income held by the two groups in Western Europe, in the US, the relationship has reversed—with the top 1% holding 5% more pre-tax income than the bottom 50%, compared to 1980, when the bottom 50% held 10% more.

podhorzer OP ,

Now looking at wealth: the wealth gap between the two groups was smaller in Europe than in the US in 1995, and this gap widened more since in the US. In the last 30 years, the bottom half of the wealth distribution in the US hasn’t gained any wealth, and was often in debt.

podhorzer OP ,

Attacks on US unions by corporations and their political allies have played an essential role in this divergence. The chart below shows how the adoption of the Wagner Act in 1935 rapidly ameliorated inequality, and how that inequality has returned as unions have been eroded.

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