I’m going to tell you something that I’m pretty sure you don’t know—and that you probably won’t even believe. Ready? Real wages are now growing in the United States at a pace faster than the spike in the cost of living since the pandemic. More than that: For the first time in decades, wage growth is consistently stronger in the middle and at the bottom than at the top.

“Importantly, the real wages of the middle quintile are not only higher today than they were before the pandemic, but slightly higher than we would expect based on 2015-19 trends. In other words, the typical American worker’s purchasing power has grown at least as much as it likely would have in the absence of the global challenges posed by the pandemic and geopolitical conflicts.”

If you’re waiting to see this reported in the mainstream media, except by me and my colleague Tim Noah and a small handful of other people, I advise you to stop. It’s not going to happen. In the mainstream media, there’s still largely one Joe Biden–era economic story: inflation, gas prices, people feeling worse off than they did four years ago, and ooh, did he just forget someone’s name again?

Trump’s jobs numbers in his first two years lagged behind Barack Obama’s in his last two, 4.5 million to 5.2 million. And both are way behind Biden’s first two-year total of nearly 11 million. And wages, as I noted above, are up. And they’re especially up for the middle class and the poor. This is what “middle-out economics” means.

Trump inherited a good economy and didn’t screw it up—until a crisis hit that he was completely unprepared for and lied about constantly and refused to take responsibility for.

Biden inherited a horrible economy, got us out of that crisis, suffered through a price crisis that also affected the rest of the developed world, but is now presiding over the greatest monthly job growth in history (yes, at 289,000 a month) and is keeping his core campaign promise of shifting wealth from the top to the middle and the bottom.

Why is it so hard to tell that story, Democrats?

Donald Trump has embraced fascist rhetoric and made bald declarations of his desire for dictatorial powers as he seeks a return to the White House in 2024. This is not politics as usual. The inflammatory language puts Trump a world apart from any presumptive, major-party nominee in modern American memory.

And it’s getting worse.

At a March 16 rally near Dayton, Ohio, the former (guy) wove two potent strands of far-right extremism, when he twinned the dehumanization of marginalized populations — referring to migrants as “animals” — and predicted a “bloodbath” if he fails to win in November.

In 2024, Trump has gone from playing footsie with fascists to quoting them openly.

He has repeatedly used the same words Hitler did about immigrants “poisoning the blood” of the country — privately bragging it’s a “great line.” And he has painted the criminals who stormed the Capitol, attempting to reinstall Trump as president through violence, as patriots and heroes.

Experts caution that dismissing Trump’s extremism is a mistake. “He’s becoming as explicit as it’s possible to be rhetorically,” says Jason Stanley, a Yale scholar and author of How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them.

“Some people think he’s trolling, but we know that the worst regimes in history, people also thought they were joking. It wouldn’t be fascism without that feature.”

Stanley adds that the only open question is whether Trump will succeed in matching his rhetoric to action in a return to the White House, warning: “We may have to find out.”

Friday's bill encompassed roughly 70% of federal government funding, including the Pentagon, the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security, and other agencies.

The other 30% was contained in a separate funding bill passed roughly two weeks ago, but that bill contained far more earmarks, especially for House members. Nonetheless, 42 House members who secured earmarks voted against it anyway, 40 of whom were Republicans.

More than 100 million people with pre-existing health conditions could lose critical protections.
Up to 24 million people could lose protection against catastrophic medical bills.
Tens of millions of people could be at risk of lifetime benefit caps.
Millions of people could lose free preventive care.
Over $1,000 average increase in medical debt for millions covered through Medicaid expansion.
Tens of millions of people could see their prescription drug coverage scaled back.
40 million people’s health insurance coverage would be at risk.
An additional 69 million people with Medicaid could lose critical services, or could even lose coverage altogether.
Thousands more preventable deaths each year.
Over 7 million seniors and people with disabilities could receive worse home care, with ballooning wait lists for those still in need.
Hundreds of thousands of nursing home residents would be at risk of lower quality of care.
Millions of people could lose access to substance use treatment or mental health care.
34 million children at risk of losing guaranteed access to mental health care.
More of the over 500 rural hospitals at risk of closure could close.

Digital World Acquisition Corp. (DWAC), is an American special-purpose acquisition company, founded in 2021. In October 2021, the company announced a proposed merger agreement with Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), the owner of Truth Social. In March 2024, the company approved a deal to merge with TMTG.

DWAC was created with the help of ARC Capital, a Shanghai-based firm specializing in listing Chinese companies on American stock markets that has been a target of U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigations for misrepresenting shell corporations.

In 2021, the DWAC Trump venture was linked with another company, China Yunhong Holdings, based in Wuhan.

In February 2022, Reuters reported that the connection between Shanghai-based ARC Capital and Digital World was more extensive than thought, with ARC having offered money to get the SPAC off the ground.

On June 29, 2023, three people were arrested on charges that they had illegally traded DWAC based on nonpublic knowledge before the proposed merger was announced in 2021.

In late 2021, the SEC and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority asked DWAC for information about stock trading and communications with TMTG prior to their deal being announced.

The company disclosed in June 2022 that the SEC was expanding its inquiry, and days later said a grand jury seated by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) had subpoenaed DWAC and each member of its board, as well as documents.

On July 3, 2023, DWAC announced its intent to settle by paying an $18 million fine to the SEC and revising some of its filings.

the concerns about birth control’s fate don’t seem so far-fetched anymore. Last week, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals handed a major victory to Jonathan Mitchell, the former Texas solicitor general who has masterminded many of the key post-Dobbs anti-abortion strategies, in a case on birth control that offers a chilling sign of things to come. As I write with Naomi Cahn and Maxine Eichner in an article forthcoming in the Michigan Law Review, conservatives have used arguments about parental rights to attack actions pertaining to school programs on race, sexuality, and gender identity—and to limit travel for abortion. Now, Mitchell is hoping to use a similar strategy to start undermining access to contraception.