Building Bridges

 

California Governor's Race

 I need to lay it all out on the table, Duane.

A new poll shows us tied with MAGA-backed Republican Steve Hilton, and right behind him is our other Republican opponent, Chad Bianco, waiting to take the second spot and advance to the general election.

Xavier Becerra 

Here’s the cold and hard truth: if we lose even an ounce of momentum now, less than a month from the primary, then both of my Republican opponents are not only going to lock me out of the general election, but lock ALL Democrats out of the Governor’s office. 

They will virtually guarantee that California is governed by a Republican who is ready to slash benefits working families need and rubber-stamp Donald Trump’s agenda.

We cannot let them succeed.

A plan for voting to follow. 

Steyer's Ads are Deceptive

The anti Becerra  ads funded by Tom Steyer are endless and deceptive. Becerra is being blamed for Trump  era immigration failures.  The failures  were created by the overcrowding of immigrants detention facilities during the Trump era. 

 

The Truth is Xavier Becerra inherited the failures at HHS caused by the Trump era assault on immigrants and immigrant children. 

See Here. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SntyYRugBgY&t=1224s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SntyYRugBgY&t=1224s

Why MayDay : Robert Reich

 Friends,

Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders voted last Thursday on the Ellison family’s purchase of the company. Some 1.743 billion shares were cast in favor of the sale; 16.3 million were cast against it, a ratio of roughly 99 to 1.

1. Great for a Handful of Super-Wealthy, but Bad for Workers and Bad for America

This vote came soon after more than 4,000 workers in the media industry — directors, screenwriters, producers, actors, editors, cinematographers, musicians, and composers — signed a letter predicting an industry disaster if the sale went through.

That’s because, as my friend Harold Meyerson from The American Prospect has noted, such deals typically saddle the purchased companies with gigantic debts that buyers incur to make the deal — in the case of Warner Bros. Discovery, $79 billion — and this debt, in turn, requires that buyers slash costs (especially payrolls) to pay off some of it. 

More than 70 percent of all the shares in Warner Bros. Discovery are held by institutional investors — including the Vanguard Group, BlackRock, and State Street. These institutions voted for the sale because they believe it will make their shares more valuable. 

The sale will also make certain individuals a lot of money. David Zaslav, the CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, stands to collect some $886 million for shepherding it, in addition to his regular pay package (which was $51 million in 2024). Oracle’s Larry Ellison and his son, David, the new owners of Warner Bros. Discovery, are already among the richest people in the world. 

But what about the workers in the industry who’ll lose their jobs as a result of the sale? What about all the people whose wages will be slashed? What about Los Angeles, which may lose a sizable portion of its major industry? 

And what about the concentration of so much of the news business — so much of what Americans learn about what’s happening — under these two Trump suck-ups? 

If Trump’s Justice Department approves the deal (do birds fly?), CBS News and CNN — along with CBS entertainment (home to Stephen Colbert, whose contract is about to run out and who will be taken off the air because of his criticisms of Trump) and Comedy Central (home to Jon Stewart) and HBO (John Oliver) and TikTok (where 1 out of 5 Americans now get their news) — are all about to become one giant mega-media monopoly under the control of Trump allies, the Ellisons.

2. The Moral Bankruptcy of Shareholder Capitalism 

At the heart of modern American capitalism is the assumption that a corporation exists for only one purpose: to make its shares more valuable. 

That goal trumps (excuse me) all other goals — such as raising workers’ wages, improving workers’ job security, creating more jobs, enhancing the quality of life for the community where a company is headquartered or does business, making life better for the inhabitants of the nation and the world, even protecting democracy. 

In fact, if shareholders can make more money by shafting these other “stakeholders” and destroying these other values, that’s thought to be perfectly fine. It’s simply the way “impersonal market forces” work. It’s “efficient.”

Before the 1980s, American capitalism ran on a very different principle: that large corporations had responsibilities to all their stakeholders. “The job of management,” proclaimed Frank Abrams, chairman of Standard Oil of New Jersey, in a 1951 address, “is to maintain an equitable and working balance among the claims of the various directly affected interest groups … stockholders, employees, customers, and the public at large.” 

The sentiment may seem quaint or inauthentic today, but in the three decades after World War II, it laid the basis for rapid economic growth and, with strong unions, an equally rapid expansion of the American middle class. 

It reflected the sincere views of corporate executives. Many had endured the Great Depression and the war and felt some responsibility for America’s future well-being. These views helped legitimize the role of the large corporation in the public’s mind.

Today, shareholder capitalism has replaced stakeholder capitalism — and most Americans are excluded from its benefits. 

Over 92 percent of the value of all the shares of stock owned by Americans is owned by the richest 10 percent. More than half is owned by the richest 1 percent. And even they have turned over their votes to giant institutions like Vanguard, BlackRock, and State Street, which have no concern for the well-being of anyone or anything other than the short-term value of the shares they buy or sell.

We are witnessing the logical ending point of shareholder capitalism. 

As the share values of America’s biggest corporations continue to soar — even as (and in many cases, because) they eliminate tens of thousands of jobs — the goal of “maximizing shareholder returns” is revealing itself to be morally bankrupt and economically rotten. 

And as Artificial Intelligence takes over a growing amount of the work Americans do, the gap between share values (including the wealth of top investors and executives) and the incomes of most Americans will widen into a chasm. 

3. Toward a New Stakeholder Capitalism

But here’s the good news: We don’t have to stick with shareholder capitalism. We don’t have to be victims of “impersonal market forces” over which we supposedly have no control. 

We can have control. The market is a human creation. It is based on laws that humans devise. We can make laws that alter market forces to serve the interests of the vast majority instead of mainly the oligarchs at the top. 

Over the last four decades, corporate laws have been shaped by wealthy individuals to channel a large portion of the nation’s total income and wealth to themselves. 

If America’s super-wealthy continue to have unbridled influence over laws and gain control over the assets at the core of Artificial Intelligence, they will end up with almost all the wealth, all the income, and all the political power. Under such conditions, our economy and society simply cannot endure. 

Laws can and should be changed to produce a new version of stakeholder capitalism that shares the wealth more widely. 

How? For example, corporations could be required to provide long-term employees with the same number of shares as are held by investors. Profitable corporations could be required to provide their workers a portion (a quarter?) of their profits. 

Corporations whose highest-paid executives earn more than 100 times their lowest-paid employees should have to pay a surtax. Corporations over a certain size (worth, say, $1 trillion or more) or having more than a certain share of their markets (say, 25 percent) should be broken up. Unfriendly (hostile) takeovers should be banned (as they were, in effect, before 1980).

The “stepped-up basis” rule that allows the wealthy to pass assets to their heirs without ever paying capital gains taxes on them should be eliminated. Vast accumulations of private wealth (say, in excess of a billion dollars) should, after a certain number of years, automatically be turned over to a fund providing subsistence incomes — a universal basic income. 

State corporate laws shouldn’t empower corporations to make any campaign donations (effectively reversing Citizens United). 

Sound radical? Maybe it is. But shareholder capitalism doesn’t work — as illustrated by the Warner Bros. Discovery fiasco. Unless radical changes are made, that fiasco is just a taste of what’s to come. If Artificial Intelligence isn’t to destroy capitalism and obliterate democracy, we’re going to have to come up with something that does work, and soon. 

Happy May Day, 2026. 

Robert Reich, 

May Day With Class

 

This May Day—when, traditionally, labor and immigrant activists have honored the struggles of workers’ fight for a better life—was already going to be different. As of earlier in the week, over 5,000 actions were scheduled, to make clear a workers’ agenda, not a billionaires’ agenda, should be the priority in America. May Day organizers are union and nonunion alike, and it’s the first time I can remember so many nonunion workers participating in a labor action. I hope you can join us to stand up for our rights; find your local actions here. Then, just yesterday, the Supreme Court took away more rights from Americans by gutting the Voting Rights Act, which was passed during the depths of Jim Crow racism to assure that people historically discriminated against had representation. But if you don’t believe that was yet another power grab—like the 2018 Janus case that eliminated the obligation for people with union representation to pay union dues—just look at what the governor of Louisiana did immediately after yesterday’s decision. Gov. Jeff Landry announced he will suspend a primary that was already in progress, to redraw congressional lines to give the Republicans a shot at keeping the majority in Congress. The announcement came less than 24 hours after the Supreme Court’s Louisiana v. Callais decision was issued. Billionaires and their allies know, like you know, that elections are key to who has power. Once again, they are attacking the power of regular folks to vote.  The folks seeking to take power away from workers are acting with intention—and we must act with intention too. One way to take action is to protest, but another is to vote. So tomorrow, let’s show up to register to vote. The billionaires and their allies are trying to silence us. Don’t let them. Check your registration now. Thank you if you’re already registered to vote; that’s fantastic! I would ask one more thing of you: Please ask one person to register to vote—a co-worker, a neighbor, a voting-age family member. If they are not registered, tell them to visit aft.turbovote.org. The people trying to rig the rules are counting on us to feel overwhelmed and give up. But we will not. Just like Janus didn’t end our voice at work, Callais will not stop us from exercising our voice in our government. We care. We fight. We show up. We vote. And we’re not done fighting. Thank you In solidarity, Randi Weingarten. American Federation of Teachers. P.S. So, what do you have planned for May Day? Reply with what you’ll be doing, and if you have great photos, be sure to tag us on social media!

Speaking Truth: And May Day

 The only good way to take down an authoritarian is democratically. Here’s another truth: Every mass mobilization that Indivisible has helped organize -- from Hands Off a year ago to No Kings I, II, and III -- has been historically large, powerful, and joyfully nonviolent. We defend our constitutional rights by using our constitutional rights. Sometimes we use those rights to say uncomfortable truths loudly.

So here are some more truths: Trump is an authoritarian. He's a convicted rapist who's all over the Epstein files. His secret police force has murdered Americans. His regime serves billionaires and himself at the expense of everyone else. He violates the Constitution constantly, including recklessly starting a war with Iran. He's deeply unpopular. His own coalition is fracturing. And he's currently on track for an electoral blowout in midterm elections that he's openly threatening to sabotage.

Proclaim some truth with your community this Friday on May Day. Earlier this year, the heroes of Minnesota organized the “Day of Truth and Freedom” -- a day where the people of the Twin Cities flexed their economic power to raise the alarm against the occupying regime. Indivisible is backing the May Day Strong coalition for a similar, national effort this Friday. In many communities we’ll see schools closed down, workers off the job, and stores empty. This is a tactical escalation -- the kind of peaceful action we’ll have to supercharge if Trump tries to sabotage the midterms.

The more we insist on the truth, the more inevitable it becomes that members of this regime will have to face that truth one day. That day is coming, and the people doing No Kings are bringing it.

---

Your weekly to-dos

1. Join May Day Strong's Mass Call ahead of Friday’s day of action (Weds 8pm ET/5pm PT). You’ll hear from organizers mobilizing across the country about the importance of economic disruption as a tactic in fighting authoritarianism and how you can take part in the day of action this Friday (If you haven’t already, find a May Day event near you. There are already more than 3,000 events planned across the country.)

 It’s time to talk about truth, organizing, and strategic nonviolence again. Anybody even a little acquainted with Indivisible knows we believe political violence is a threat to democracy, full stop. This is a core belief in no small part because we know authoritarian regimes use political violence to justify repression of the nonviolent opposition. 

The truth is Trump is an authoritarian, and it’s important that we say the truth. After a fringe extremist attacked the White House Correspondents’ dinner this weekend, Trump immediately tried to blame nonviolent, pro-democracy protests. He told 60 Minutes, “The reason you have people like that is you have people doing No Kings.” 

Well, as one of the millions of “people doing No Kings,” I call bullshit.

This is all right out of the authoritarian playbook. In a deeply researched piece looking for practical lessons on global democratic backsliding, Zack Beauchamp found that authoritarians succeed in consolidating power by preventing their opposition from raising the alarm about their efforts to consolidate power. Trump may be in mental decline, but he still understands that much. Democracy dies in darkness, so it’s the pro-democracy organizer’s job to keep the lights on.

The regime does not like that. Like clockwork, regime-aligned media kicked in over the weekend to blame Democrats and call for them to “tone down” the rhetoric. Even putting aside the hypocrisy and concern-trolling from Trump and his allies, the correct response to the tone police is to refuse to tone down the truth. Sugarcoating the truth only serves those who want us to believe lies.  

 

In solidarity,
Ezra Levin 
Co-Executive Director, Indivisible

 

May Day Actions. Sacramento