The Dictatorship

The dwindling of America’s middle class wasn’t inevitable; it was a policy choice.

Published

10 months ago

September 2, 2025

The dwindling of America’s middle class wasn’t inevitable; it was a policy choice.

This is an adapted excerpt from the Aug. 23 episode of “Velshi.”

For more than 40 years, we’ve been sold a myth: that America’s rich and powerful were under siege — over-taxed, over-regulated and carrying the weight of the economy on their shoulders.

We were told that if you ease up regulations on the rich, they will prosper and the benefits will trickle down to the rest of the population. But the reality is that economic policy has only succeeded in rewarding the rich — and it’s done so at the direct expense of the middle class, the working class and the working poor.

Let me explain the root of the problem: According to the Economic Policy Institute, largely due to new technology, U.S. worker productivity grew 59.7% from 1979 to 2019, meaning workers have become almost 60% more productive at their jobs in the past four decades.

In industrial towns, that wasn’t just job loss — it was economic identity loss.

However, a worker’s reward for all that extra output over the same period has only been a 13.7% wage increase. That’s a gap of 46% between what workers are being underpaid relative to their output. In more practical terms, that’s about $9 an hour in lost potential earnings for the typical worker.

Let’s focus on just the middle class for a moment: From 1979 to 2019, middle-income workers saw just 13.7% growth in wages, adjusted for inflation. America’s lowest-paid workers fared worse, gaining just 3%. But the already high earners, the top 1%, their income grew by 160% over the same period. For the top 0.1%, their income grew by a staggering 345%.

Consider all the income earned by households in the U.S. in a given year. The share of that total U.S. household income going to the middle class was 62% in 1970. By 2022, it had dropped to 43%. The upper-income share did the opposite: It was 29% in 1970 and rose to 48% in 2022, according to the Pew Research Center.

Right now, our current politics is focused heavily on tradeand trade has been a major culprit in this inequality, as America made choices to be the world’s consumer rather than the world’s factory floor. Trade deals like NAFTA, which Donald Trump renegotiated into the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, displaced nearly 683,000 U.S. jobs, most in manufacturing.

In industrial towns, that wasn’t just job loss — it was economic identity loss.

The theory was that displaced workers would — somehow, magically — find new jobs. But according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, those who did often saw their annual pay drop by an average of $7,900 when forced into new, lower-wage work.

Take Youngstown, Ohio. Once a steel powerhouse, it lost about 50,000 manufacturing jobs in 1977. The U.S. steel industry had over 500,000 manufacturing jobs in the 1970s. By 2015, fewer than 142,000 remained.

Now, here’s the thing: We are still making steel, and productivity in steelmaking has soared in the U.S. In 1980, it took more than 10 labor hours to make one ton of steel. Today, it takes about one and a half hours. That productivity earned the steelmakers billions, but workers didn’t get paid more because of it.

This wasn’t inevitable, it was policy: tax codes that favor capital gains over wages, deregulation that strips workers of protections and trade agreements that prioritize corporate margins over community stability. Every one of these decisions tilted the playing field toward the top.

There is a way that the corporate profits from these trade deals could have been shared by workers, and some of the extra revenue the government earned from them could have gone to retraining and relocating workers to places where jobs were better. But we didn’t do that. We just let the rich get richer and our industrial towns dwindle into nothing.

The steel industry aside, America has, for better or worse, left its position as a global manufacturing titan behind. We are increasingly an information economy. That means we need to lean away from trade wars with no objective and into policy choices that would tilt us back toward regular, working people.

If we want to reverse this, we have to make deliberate, systemic choices, like universal health care, which would end the tie between jobs and health insurance. Countries with universal systems spend 30–50% less per person than we do and get better outcomes. This reduces the economic insecurity that forces workers to cling to bad jobs for the sake of benefits.

We could also implement universal and subsidized child care. Affordable child care would free millions, especially women, to fully participate in the workforce. Quebec’s subsidized child care model increased female labor force participation and paid for itself in new tax revenues from mothers joining the workforce.

We could also use a national affordable housing infrastructure plan: launch a public-private housing initiative to build millions of affordable units and combine that with zoning reform and incentives for mixed-income development. That could be paired with strict anti-speculation measures to keep homes in the hands of residents, not investment funds.

Right now, individual home-buyers are largely being locked out of the housing market because of high home prices and interest rates. But those high prices aren’t scaring away investors who have the money to spend and are dominating the market. According to property analytics firm Cotalityinvestors who buy homes to flip or rent out have made up about 30% of purchases of both existing and newly built single-family homes this year.

For decades, we’ve been told that prosperity trickles down. But it hasn’t, it’s been sucked upward.

But what if the U.S. worked toward building resilient, clean energy infrastructure? What if we invested massively in modernizing the grid; expanding solar, wind and battery storage; and hardening systems against climate shocks? That would create good union jobs while reducing our vulnerability to extreme weather events.

The government could also implement targeted climate policy, like a national carbon price and reinvest revenues into transition assistance for workers in fossil fuel industries. And fund large-scale reforestation, wetland restoration and urban heat-island mitigation projects.

For decades, we’ve been told that prosperity trickles down. But it hasn’t, it’s been sucked upward. While the top 1% have thrived, everyone else has been told to work harder, retrain, move somewhere with better opportunities, and wait their turn.

An economy that works for everyone isn’t a fantasy; it’s a choice. We’ve just been making the wrong one. These policies aren’t radical; they’re a return to the basic American deal: If you work hard, you should share fairly in the prosperity you help create.

Now it’s time for America to choose better.

The Dictatorship

Monday’s Campaign Round-Up, 6.22.26: Why Trump backed both Republicans in a key S.C. race

Published

22 hours ago

June 22, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Monday’s Campaign Round-Up, 6.22.26: Why Trump backed both Republicans in a key S.C. race

Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.

* In South Carolina’s gubernatorial raceDonald Trump endorsed Lt. Gov. Pam Evette last month. Last week, however, ahead of this week’s primary runoff election in the race, the president published an online item telling voters that “you can’t go wrong” with either Evette or state Attorney General Alan Wilson.

If this sounds at all familiar, it’s because Trump has done this before. Around this time two years ago, for example, he endorsed both Republicans running in a congressional primary in Arizona. And two years before that, he endorsed two leading contenders in a Senate primary in Missouri.

Only the president can say for sure why he ended up endorsing Evette and Wilson in the South Carolina race, though it’s worth emphasizing for context that GOP primary voters have already ignored his direction into two gubernatorial primaries this month, and it stands to reason that he hoped to avoid a third.

* We’re one day away from a variety of notable racesincluding but not limited to South Carolina’s gubernatorial race. There are also some congressional primaries in a handful of statesincluding Maryland, New York and Utah.

* In took a while, but the ballots have been tallied under Maine’s ranked-choice systemand we now know that Democrat Hannah Pingree, the former state House speaker, will face off against Republican Bobby Charles, who worked at the State Department during the Bush-Cheney era.

* As for Maine’s closely watched congressional racestate Auditor Matt Dunlap won the Democratic nomination in the battleground 2nd District, defeating state Sen. Joe Baldacci, who enjoyed the backing of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Dunlap will run in the fall against a familiar figure: former Republican Gov. Paul LePage, who had moved to Florida a few years ago, but who returned to run for Congress.

* In California’s congressional special electiontwo Democratic candidates — state Sen. Aisha Wahab and Melissa Hernandez, a Bay Area Rapid Transit director — have advanced to an Aug. 18 special general election. The winner will fill the vacancy left by disgraced former Rep. Eric Swalwell, who resigned in April.

* In a new commercial shared first with MS NOWDemocrat James Talarico has launched his campaign’s first multimillion-dollar ad buy in Texas’ gubernatorial race. In the 30-second spot, Talarico focuses on affordability and the cost of living. The state lawmaker will face scandal-plagued state Attorney General Ken Paxton in the fall.

* And in New Jersey, Republican Rep. Tom Kean Jr.who has been missing from Capitol Hill since early March, will reportedly return to work on June 30according to a statement from his spokesperson. Neither Kean nor his office have offered any public information about why he has been away.

Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”

The Dictatorship

Trump tries dual endorsement in South Carolina as his pick for governor flounders in polls

Published

22 hours ago

June 22, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Trump tries dual endorsement in South Carolina as his pick for governor flounders in polls

Jun. 22, 2026, 11:39 AM EDT

After President Donald Trump’s pick for governor in Iowa lost in the Republican primary earlier this month, the president argued that he “would have endorsed the other person” if he had “the proper information.”

Trump is taking no chances in the South Carolina gubernatorial primary. Over the weekend he rescinded his exclusive endorsement of Pamela Evette, the lieutenant governor, announcing instead that he would support both Evette and her runoff opponent, Alan Wilson, the state’s attorney general.

The move put Evette’s political future in jeopardy: Even before Trump’s dual endorsement, she trailed in limited public polling and was seen by political observers in South Carolina as a weak candidate with little to show besides the president’s coveted endorsement.

“Her chief distinction from Alan Wilson was that Trump endorsed her,” said Dr. Dubose Kapeluck, a professor of political science at the Citadel Military College of South Carolina.

Trump’s dual endorsement “was a kiss of death,” he told MS NOW.

Evette, who moved to South Carolina from Ohio to found a successful payroll and HR company in 2000, has been lieutenant governor since 2019, serving under Gov. Henry McMaster, who is term-limited.

In office, she has pursued meaningful but little-celebrated policies, like a key tort reform bill, according to Gil Gatch, a Republican member of the South Carolina state House and an Evette supporter.

But voters could be forgiven for knowing little about Evette besides the fact that Trump endorsed her, which he did just days before the June 9 primary. Visitors to her campaign website are greeted with a full-screen message labeling Evette as “Trump-endorsed.” The first line in her X bio states the same. Pro-Evette television ads are quick to tout the endorsement.

An accomplishment like tort reform, while noted on Evette’s website, “maybe could have been something that was highlighted more heavily,” Gatch told MS NOW.

The political makeup of South Carolina nearly guarantees the next governor will be whoever emerges on Tuesday between Evette and Wilson. They survived a crowded primary field on June 9, and nearly every challenger who fell short of the runoff publicly endorsed the attorney general.

“She’s just not a good candidate,” Josh Kimbrell, a state senator who failed to make the runoff and has since said he’d back Wilson, said of Evette.

“She kind of assumed this was a coronation, and that was never going to go over that well,” he added.

Even some pro-Trump voters were confused by the president’s initial endorsement of Evette, whom he called “a good friend, fighter, and WINNER” in a social media post in May.

“I have no clue why Trump would endorse Pamela Evette,” Leland Lemmons, a 30-year-old Trump supporter told MS NOW as he exited a polling site in the Greenville suburb of Easley on June 9.

“She’s served, you know, a decent time. I just haven’t seen much fruition of what she’s done in office,” he added.

In a post on Truth Social Friday announcing his dual endorsement, Trump wrote, “I can’t hurt one of them by only Endorsing the other, so, therefore, I am going to Endorse, for Governor of South Carolina, both Pam Evette and Alan Wilson!”

In a subsequent statement on X, Evette said, “I was proud to come in first as [Trump’s] endorsed candidate for Governor on June 9th. Looking forward to doing it again on June 23rd.”

After The Washington Post foreshadowed the dual endorsement last Tuesday, allies of Evette were quick to denounce the possibility.

“I would guess that’s fake news,” Suzanne Pucci, a member of Evette’s finance committee, told MS NOW of the chance Trump would also endorse Wilson. “She’s probably not real worried about it.”

Another close ally and supporter told MS NOW at the time the report was “a total, fabricated lie.”

“[Trump] is invested in Pamela Evette because she invested in him. He’s a loyal guy. That kind of stuff is important to him,” added the supporter, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“With or without Trump, I think she is going to win,” they said.

On Thursday, a senior campaign aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity, brushed off the idea of a dual endorsement, telling MS NOW in a statement, “Pamela Evette has earned the complete and total endorsement of President Trump. She is the only Trump-endorsed candidate in this race and we look forward to delivering a big win for the president on Tuesday.”

Roughly 24 hours later, Trump retracted the exclusive endorsement.

Will McDuffie is a reporter for MS NOW.

The Dictatorship

Fears of an ‘economic catastrophe’ helped push Trump toward an Iran deal

Published

22 hours ago

June 22, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Fears of an ‘economic catastrophe’ helped push Trump toward an Iran deal

As last week’s G7 summit in France got underway, a reporter asked Donald Trump whether his purported deal with Iran was final. “No, it’s not final,” the president replied. Later that day — during a visit to Versaillesof all places — he signed the framework anyway.

But moments after signing his name to the memorandum of understanding, Trump offered an unsubtle hint about what he was thinking at the time. Amid applause from those around him, the American president pointed down and then up while saying“Oil down, stocks up.”

In other words, Trump’s focus had nothing to do with natural security and everything to do with the economy. What’s more, the four-word phrase was part of a larger and underappreciated pattern. The Washington Post reported:

In the more than 100 days since President Donald Trump launched a war with Iran, he has offered a shifting list of reasons for why he started the conflict. But in explaining his push for peace, he named a priority much closer to home: protecting the stock market.

“I didn’t want to see economic catastrophe,” Trump told reporters gathered in the Alpine spa town of Évian-les-Bains, France, after the Group of Seven summit.

As the summit wrapped up, the Republican similarly said“I’ve studied presidents, some good, some bad, some great. Not too many are great and some really bad. … And the one president I did not want to be was the late, great Herbert Hoover. I didn’t want that and who knows what would have happened.”

He pushed the same point in an interview with Axios, which was released over the weekend.

“If I went further, the stock market would be much lower,” the president said. “Now think of this: I have one primary wish as president, in terms of people: I never want to be the late, great Herbert Hoover.”

The comments came days after Trump similarly argued“The alternative to this deal was a global recession. There are stupid people who want to see a global recession. They are just stupid people.”

Whether the president fully appreciates the implications of his own rhetoric, this string of comments doesn’t just shed light on his motivations for accepting a defeat, it also suggests he saw his failed policy in Iran as pushing the global economy toward a dangerous cliff.

In other words, based on Trump’s own comments, the war he started was poised to create an “economic catastrophe,” which he was desperate to avoid — and which led him to accept a framework that empowered Iran to get what it wanted in exchange for effectively no concessions at all.