Bob Karp/Staff Photographer
On January 20, 2018, more than 10,000 people march in Morristown, New Jersey. It was one of hundreds of marches conducted around the nation to mark the one-year anniversary of the 2017 Women’s March, the largest single-day protest in American history.
First and foremost, thank you.
Readers of The Progressive from all over responded to our appeals in the last issue for help in our time of dire financial need. We received more than 1,600 contributions large and small. The magazine’s finances remain precarious. We are still tens of thousands of dollars in debt. But for now, our heads are off the chopping block. And we know that, in our 109th year, our readers are there for us. You will sustain us into the future.
Here are some suggestions for ways to help do that:
Renew your subscription and consider giving more than the basic price. The cost is nominal because we want to reach as many people as possible, but we rely on subscribers who give more.
Buy gift subscriptions for people you know, and talk up the magazine. Consider becoming an ambassador of The Progressive, calling attention to the excellent work being done. The writers and staff who contribute to this magazine deserve far more recognition than they get.
Steve Apps
Our Madison editorial staff, left to right: Alexandra Tempus, Lucas Sczygelski,Mrill Ingram, Bill Lueders, Norman Stockwell, Fighting Bob La Follette.
Follow us on Facebook and Twitter (@theprogressive) and check us out online. We devote a great deal of energy to producing high-quality content for our website. We have daily dispatches on important issues and developments, archives of the op-eds we produce for use by hundreds of U.S. newspapers, and hysterically funny videos by Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Mark Fiore. (See our ad listing some recent stories on page 24.) And subscribe to our free weekly newsletter, at http://tiny.cc/ProgressiveNewsletter, which highlights what we do online.
Remember: In a political climate dominated by a President who has open contempt for the institutions of American democracy, including a free press, our readers have the power to keep us going. We’re here and viable because of you.
The theme for this issue is One Year of Trump, but the pieces it includes are not as depressing as that sounds. For every outrage, there is pushback. The battle has been joined. This President can and must be defeated.
Melissa Ryan explores Trump’s ties to the haters and lunatics known as the alt-right, which constitutes “a key constituency and a significant portion of his political base.” Bryce Covert probes Trump’s propensity to lie about the economy, leading to “a mass distrust in reality and an atrophied policy debate.” Mark Anthony Rolo looks at how Trump has revived the federal government’s longstanding efforts “to end Indian identity and nationhood.” James Goodman reports on Trump’s use of detention for immigrants fleeing persecution. “Comment” ponders how he is casually endangering military service people. Norman Stockwell reviews several books that raise the prospect of American authoritarianism.
We also draw from Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Cay Johnston’s blistering new book, It’s Even Worse Than You Think, which catalogues Trump’s colossal failures and unfitness, subject by subject. Our excerpt focuses on how Trump has signaled a willingness to disregard the law to punish his enemies and reward his friends—a frightful inclination as the probe into the possibly treasonous ties to Russia by Trump and those around him intensifies.
In all of these areas, people are fighting back—in the courts and in the streets.
In all of these areas, people are fighting back—in the courts and in the streets. Annelise Orleck reports on the global struggle to achieve wage fairness for workers in the fast-food industry. Edgar Franks relates how a struggle to extend protections to migrant workers in Washington State offers lessons for others fighting worker exploitation, racism, and climate chaos. Erik Gunn looks at opposition to Trump by people of religious faith, and tops it off with an interview with the Reverend William J. Barber II, one of the leaders of that movement.
But wait, there’s more: Thomas Fox Parry’s blockbuster investigation into a mortgage servicer that drives people from their homes, with the active assistance of the U.S. government; Ron Soodalter’s superb report on the efforts to protect the site of one of America’s most deadly labor clashes; and exonerated death row inmate Anthony Ray Hinton’s bone-chilling portrait of the horrors of state-sanctioned murder.
Add in our usual array of columnists—minus Kate Clinton, who is taking a sabbatical in 2018—and what we have on our hands here is one heck of an issue. Let it serve as a reminder that The Progressive is still very much alive and kicking.
Bill Lueders
Managing Editor