Here is the current state of the races most likely to matter in this quest.

Arizona: Democrat Mark Kelly vs. Republican Martha McSally. Kelly has led McSally forever, coming close to even or behind in very few polls. However, the most recent polling is concerning. A long term 6+ point average lead has devolved since the middle of October to a present near tie, and in the most recent poll, McSally has pulled ahead.

Republicans often have a major negative push in a campaign during the last two weeks, and that often pushes the poll numbers closer, but often, that does not seem (in my opinion) to change the actual voting, depending on the local culture. For example, in Minnesota, that usually backfires. But I don’t know what is likely to happen in Arizona.

Conclusion: Tossup.

Colorado: Democrat John Hickenlooper vs. Republican Cory Gardner. Gardner was essentially elected by accident in 2014, and Hickenlooper is popular. This race is considered to be so obviously Hickenlooper’s that there is hardly any polling.

Conclusion: We’ll assume this is a Democratic takeway.

Georgia: Democrat Jon Ossoff vs Republican David Perdue. There is no particular reason to expect Ossoff to win this race, but right now Georgia is undergoing a shift that could put him in position. As of late, the polling puts the two candidates at dead even, but that is probably a temporary quirk.

Conclusion: Republicans retain seat.

Iowa: Democrat Theresa Greenfield against Republican Joni Ernst. Challenger Greenfield has shown strong polling since mid summer, but once again, due to some last minute Republcian mojo, the race is suddenly essentially tied. This is coming down to how annoyed people might be with Ernst for not cleaning out the swamp, vs how concerned Iowans are with protecting their way of life, which is silly because Democrats are actually better at growing corn than Republicans are.

Conclusion: Tossup

Maine: Democrat Sara Gideon vs Republican Susan Collins. Susan Collins is one of the most annoying Republican Senators, because she is always pretending she will ultimately do the right thing, then never does. Not once. Ever. Challenger Sara Gideon is taking the fight right to Collins and is going to wump her in the final vote.

Conclusion: Democrats win, followed with 18 months by an indictment against Collins. What for? I don’t know, but obviously somebody owns her and once the spell is broken, which is till be on November 3rd, that can lead to indictmentitis.

North Carolina: Democrat Cal Cunningham vs Republican Thom Tillis. Cunningham essentially threw this race away and guaranteed a Republican win, and thus, no Democratic control of the Senate, because he couldn’t keep his SMS in his pants. But, on the other hand, Republican Thom Tillis is so disliked in his state that he is still losing anyway. Cunningham’s indiscretion basically shifted polling from a farily strong chance of winning to a race that is within the margin of error.

Conclusion: Tossup. Anything can happen in this race, but either way, somebody’s gonna lose them a trailer.

South Carolina: Democrat Jamie Harrison vs Republican Lindsey Graham. Graham is a long time frequently re-elected figure in South Carolina, so it is his race to lose. But he could. Graham is ahead in most polls, but has tied in three Quinnipiac polls in a row. There are indications that there is a rapidly turning tide. I’m going to assume this will not be a change, but the race is interesting enough that I put it on this list so you will know what to fret over on election night (and a while after).

Conclusion: Republican win. Or will it be?

Most likely outcome: Democrats take Colorado and Maine, and maybe one other race, and Republicans stay in control of the Senate. This causes all useful legislation to stall for another few years, and global warming gets so bad it can’t be fixed.

Most hopeful outcome: Despite Democrats stepping on their own SMS, as it were, and that fact that in most sates Republicans can out campaign Democrats with their eyes closed, Democrats take Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Iowa, Maine, North Carolina, and scare the bejesus out of Graham but he keeps his seat. That’s one more than needed.

Another possible scenario: Democrats also lose Smith’s seat in Minnesota. Suddenly, she is on the verge of falling behind. Minnesota voters are unreliable. It could happen.

From the US Constitution:

“All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.”

Clumsio-gendered terms such as Congressman Congresswoman, Congressperson, and Congresscritter actually have no meaning. They do not refer to specific members of a body of congress, but rather, the set of individuals who are either Senator or Representative.

Note that the terms Senator and Representative are not gendered.

Why are we using gendered terms when we have non-gendered terms staring us in the face, wondering why we are not using them?

Montana is considered a toss-up state, but I do not regard it as one. Tester is well established and has been ahead in polls, including good polls. Democratic incumbent senator John Tester will pass the ultimate test and put his challenger on the mat.

Nevada is a tossup. Democratic challenger Jacky Rosen has had a strong showing in several polls, and was gaining on incumbent Dean Heller. It is possible that there is a Kavanaugh effect. In my first iteration of an an analysis across the Senate, I’d put Nevada in Heller’s pocket. But there if urban labor can get organized, and if the Kavanaugh effect blunts over time, I can see Rosen clear to a victory. So, I’ll put Democrat Jacky Rosen in the win column in my Plan B analysis.

Arizona is going to be interesting. Democrat Kyrsten Sinema was strong through the summer, but McSally’s campaign sallied forth and caught up in September. One could see the last month in Nevada as a volatile horse race. What looks like a last minute Kavanaugh backlash may wear off. I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that Sinema will win in Arizona.

I hate to say it, but Democratic Senator Heidi Heitkamp, in North Dakota, is going to lose, and the Republican Kramer is going to win. This race is considered by many as a tossup, but it is more of a toss-out.

If Beto O’Rourke wins in Texas, I’ll eat my cowboy hat. He never really had a chance of beating Cruz. Texas is an asshole state, and everything is Texas is extra big,and Cruz is a the biggest asshole of them all. Too bad.

Some analyses put Senator Tina Smith in an uncertain column for her return to represent Minnesota. I would have done so a couple of weeks ago as well, but the North Star state is coming together. Probably a Kavanaugh effect in favor of the DFL. Smith will win in Minnesota.

In Missouri, incumbent Democrat Claire McCaskill seems to be losing. But if there is a race the Democrats can pull out of the ditch by doing things like sending lots of money, allowing Mich McConnell to ram through 16 right wing judges so the Dems could go home and campaign, and that sort of stuff, it is this race. I will not underestimate McCaskill. She’ll be returned. And, no, there was no Kavanaugh effect there.

Democrat Donnelly is solid in Indiana.

Democrat Nelson is taking off in Florida and will win there.

All of the other races are going as they are going. There will be Democrats in Wisconisn, Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Republicans in Mississippi, Tennessee, and the other usually Republican states.

The only uncertainty is Nevada. Leaving Nevada out of the count, there will be 49 Democrats and 50 Republicans. If Nevada actually goes, as currently seems likely, to the GOP, the Party of Hate will have two more Senators than the Democratic Party. But, it is distinctly possible that Nevada will send a Democrat to the Senate instead, which will cause the Senate to break 50.

Of those I’ve assigned, obviously, Missouri is the most uncertain. Everything seems to depend on Missouri and Nevada.

Since early days in the process leading up to the 2016 election, it was apparent that our process suffered by the simple fact that a lot of people who were engaged – in on line conversations, volunteering for candidates, etc. — were poorly informed about the process itself. An example of that, which took many specific forms, was the conflation between an election to constitutional office and a primary (or caucus) in a given state pursuant to nominating a candidate for constitutional office. A lot of people thought that the primary and caucus process was legally the same thing as a general election. This is an easy mistake to make. In a certain version of this universe, not very different from the one we actually have, political parties could cough up the name of their preferred candidate using pretty much any process. The governed and closely regulated election is the one that happens on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. The primary and caucus process is not that. It is a state level process, but even there, there is no necessary connection to the state government. But the conflation and confusion is understandable. Elected officials are generally politicians and members of a particular party, and over time, in each state, they saw fit to pass various laws and create various governmental (state level) functions to mange and even fund various aspects of the primary and caucus process. So, there is a lot of government doings and don’tings along the way. But those acts, while creating laws, are emergent and not required. A state could decide to drop the whole thing tomorrow, throw out all its primary and caucus support and laws governing the process, and simply ask each political party to handle all this on their own, with their own resources, their own time, and their own procedure, as long as it is not otherwise illegal. More or less. The point here is, when we speak of democracy and how it works, and focus on the election, we have to remember that the process that a party uses to put a candidate forward is that party’s process. If you want to change election law, go see a your two US Senators and your one US Representative. If you want to change how the party does it, become an active member of a party and fuss around with that for a few years.

So let’s talk about State legislative bodies for a moment. As you know, the US government has a Congress. The Congress has two houses, an upper house called the United States Senate, and a lower house called the United States House of Representatives. We shorten this to say Senate and House. A member of the House is often referred to as a “Congressman” or “Congresswoman,” to the exclusion of Senators, but really, they are all members of Congress. We use the term “Congressperson” to refer to just members of the House sometimes, and to refer to any member of Congress other times. Both are probably correct. However, to call the House “Congress” (to the exclusion of the Senate) is totally wrong, don’t do that. Even though people do sometimes. Simple, right?

But what about the states? I now live in a state that has a “House” and a “Senate” and that actually causes some degree of confusion. A lot of people get this confused and are often unsure of who someone or some thing is. I grew up, however, in a state that did not have a House. Rather, it had an Assembly, or more accurately, a “State Assembly.” (And a Senate.) I attribute my early understanding of the difference, even as a child, to this terminology. Otherwise I’d probably still be confused.

The very name of the state legislative body varies across state, and not one of them is called The Congress. Nineteen states call their state legislature a “General Assembly.” Two use the term “General Court.” Two have a “Legislative Assembly.” Twenty have a “Legislature,” and seven have a “State Legislature.”

Nebraska does not have a lower and upper chamber, just one house, which they call the “Legislature.” Three have a lower house called a “State Assembly,” one has an “Assembly” and one has a “General Assembly.” There are three that have a “House of Delegates”. All the rest use the term “House of Representatives” to name the lower house.

The upper chamber, outside of Nebraska, is called either the “Senate” or the “State Senate” in all states, though even in states where “Senate” is the technical term, it is wise to refer to that as the “state Senate” just to avoid confusion with the United States Senate.

Those were the states. The other US territories and districts vary. DC has a council (and a mayor), because it is, essentially, a city (though it wasn’t always). Guam and the Virgin Islands have a unicameral “Legislature” while American Samoa, Mariana Islands and Puerto Rico have a House of Representatives and a Senate.

I’m not sure if you regard these distinctions as important, but I think they are. This is basic vocabulary, part of the vocabulary of civics. And civics is life or death, for civilization. So at the very least, knowing what to call the nuts and bolts of government is as important as knowing what to call the nuts and bolts of a car, if you are an auto mechanic.

So, which member of your state’s legislature, or the US legislature, did you call or email to day to tell them to do the right thing, or avoid doing the wrong thing? To support the transition to clean energy, or to turn down NRA money?

Batter up: Mitt Romney.

The most senior Senator of the party in control is normally the president pro tempore of the Congress and thus in the line of presidential succession. This is not a law. In fact, the Senate can elect a president pro tempore any time they want, and in the old days, typically elected a new one every time the Vice President was not presiding. This is one of those things that has always been done a certain way but need not be. The Senate can in theory elect any Senator of any party or any age at any time for this job.

I am a bit surprised that the Trump administration has not figured out that the Senate is following a tradition here, and interfered with it, just for fun. I assume they are ignorant of how this works.

Anyway, if they follow the pattern, the next president pro tempore might be Patrick Leahy, Thad Cochran, Juck Trasssley, Mitch McConnell or Richard Shelby. McCain is next in line, but he is leaving. Feinstein is after McCain, and she is being seriously challenged in the election.

There are many things to consider, including who among these very old people is alive, who is re-elected, and what party is in charge.

It is important because the individual will be third in line for the presidency. With Hatch retiring, I expect the whole thing about the president pro tempore will be discussed in the white house and Tump will insist that this spot be filled by Roy Moore or somebody.

The first is short and sweet and I’ll give it to you straight.

Tweeden and Senator Franken get together, possibly with their families, and have a pow wow. They emerge from this to announce a newly formed organization to destroy the patriarchy in government. Franken throws his viability as Senator to the voters, and stays in the Senate, but the two of them launch a major campaign to rethink and rebuild gendered relationships at the levers of public power in America. All is well.

The second hypothesis is a bit different, and in this one, Franken resigns. Here’s why.

To understand this there are a few things you need to know about that have not to my knowledge been noted by the press or commentators, but that are very important.

Each US state has two senators, each elected for six year terms. Minnesota has Senator Klobuchar, who will be running for re-election during 2018. Senator Franken will be running for re-election in 2020. This means that Klobuchar has to campaign with a guy living under a cloud, or to avoid him, which is difficult because of the way they have campaigned in the past.

Franken is more liberal than Klobuchar. Franken appeals to voters in the Twin Cities and Klobuchar is more popular with voters out state. The state of Minnesota is largely divided into Twin Cities vs. outstate, with the former liberal and the latter conservative. Some will say that is an oversimplification, and it is, but note that Congressperson Keith Ellison represents the core of the Twin Cities and Michele Bachmann represented a big outstate district.

When one of our two senators runs, the other helps in their own zone. Senator Klobuchar campains with Franken outstate, and Senator Franken campaigns with Klobuchar in the cities. Franken explains to the extremely liberal people of South Minneapolis that he needs Amy, and they should overlook the fact that she says it is OK to hunt wolves. Klobuchar explains to the people outstate that she needs Al, never mind the fact that is a flaming libard. And so on. That’s how a state like Minnesota gets to have two such great Senators.

It might be better for Amy, the party, and the state, to jettison Al and run with a different strategy.

We are going to have a gubernatorial election in 2018, as two-term Democratic governor Mark Dayton will not seek re-election.

Minnesotan governors are in office for notoriously short periods of time, despite the absence of term limits. The governorship became a 4-year gig in 1958, and no governor ever served more than two terms consecutively since. More importantly, the last time we’ve had a single party in office for more than two term was a series of Republicans starting with Harold Stassen in 1939, and ending with Elmer Anderson in 1955.

Combining these last two facts, we normally would expect that the Republicans will take back the governorship of Minnesota in 2018.

(Remember the 2016 Presidential election? History said a Republican would win. Common sense said a Democrat would win. Who won?)

Minnesota Democrats (called locally DFLers) have been running some outstanding candidates for the DFL endorsement this year, and the Republicans have not gotten their acts together. It is widely thought that, with Trump in the White House, and the Minnesota Republicans behaving badly in various other ways, that the DFL, which is currently in the minority in both houses of the legislature, will probably take the state Senate, maybe the state House, and have a very good chance of taking the governorship.

But taking the governorship is not at all certain. Any DFLer running for governor in Minnesota right now is living with this very uncomfortable uncertainty.

If Franken resigns, Democratic Governor Mark Dayton appoints his replacement. He will replace Franken with a woman, obviously. If you look at the candidates running or very likely to run for Governor, for the DFL endorsement/primary, most of them are women, including one who is not officially running yet but will. Two of those, Rebecca Otto and Lori Swanson, are constitutional officers. Otto is the Auditor, a position Dayton once held, and that is seen as a pre-governor position by many. Swanson is the Attorney General. Both are widely liked and very well regarded in their parties, across the state (except by some Republicans, of course), and nationally. Both would make excellent Senators.

If Franken leaves the office of Senate prior to June 30th (I may be off by one or two days on that date) 2018, there will be an election in 2018 for that seat. Presumably the appointee will run for that office. If the vacancy begins after that date, the election will be the following November (2019).

Here is a very important added point folks outside of Minnesota may not know about and need to understand. Within the state, it has suddenly become apparent that there is a lot — A LOT — of horrible behavior by men in the Minnesota state house. Lots of physical sexual attack, harassment, etc. by elected legislators (and others, I think) against women, including the elected women in the legislature. This is all suddenly coming to light locally, just as it has been nationally for Hollywood and other venues. The Governor has come out with strong condemnation of that sort of thing, and you can expect him and everyone else in the state to be on the war path against patriarchy-sanctioned bad male behavior against women. If Senator Al Franken is a piece of bread, this situation is a Sunbeam toaster.

Putting this all together, we have enhanced pressure for Franken to commit to leaving the US Senate. We have a strategic reason for him to leave in several months rather than right away, but that would be difficult. Unless, of course, there was a lengthy (as they always are) investigation. Insisting on an investigation may even be a way of controlling timing.

Ideally, from a Minnesota DFL point of view, Franken would leave on July 4th weekend or so, just about six weeks before the primary in which Otto, Swanson, and the others, are running. Dayton picks one of them to be Senator, the other goes on to win the Primary, and that person becomes governor.

It does not have to be either of those two women sent to Washington. It could be Erin Murphy or Tina Liebling, also running for the DFL nomination to run for governor. I don’t think the governor would appoint Tina, she is fairly anti-Dayton in her current campaign. Erin maybe, she’s well respected, but I have no idea how she stands with Dayton. It could be his Lt. Governor, Tina Smith.

It won’t be any of the men running, including Congressman Tim Walz, who has largely unqualified himself for statewide DFL support by being too close to the NRA in an era of concern over guns, and too easily sided, in the past, with anti-environmental causes. Also, he and the other men in the race are not women at this time, and I really think Dayton has to appoint a woman, would appoint a woman, and he has no shortage of high caliber talent who are women.

At the moment, Otto is the head and shoulders above the rest best candidate in the governor’s race, on all the issues, and it would be a shame to see the state lose her to DC. But, it would be a huge gain for the country. On the other hand, Swanson being moved out of the race would make it more likely for Otto to win in Minnesota in a year which is jinxed by the historical trend.

Time will tell.

In a sense, there were three branches of government, the monarchy (king), the aristocracy (we might call them the 1% today), and the democratic branch, aka, the unwashed masses. This conceptualization of the British government is neither new nor mine. In the words of “Massachusettensis,” quoted by John Adams,

“the British constitution consisting of king, lords and commons, is formed upon the principles of monarchy, aristocracy and democracy, in due proportion; that it includes the principled excellencies, and excludes the principal defects of the other kinds of government—the most perfect system that the wisdom of ages has produced, and Englishmen glory in being subject to and protected by it.”

When the Founders famously founded, they created a different set of three branches, but with echoes of the British system. The Senate, of course, is the analog to the House of Lords. The Senate was not meant to be staffed by blue blooded stiffs, but it was meant to be kept separate from the rabble, not elected. Rather, Senators were to be sent to the Federal City (later to be Washington DC) by the states. According to Article I Section 3 of the US Constitution,

The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof, for six Years; and each Senator shall have one Vote.

The hope was that by linking the Senate to the politics of the states, there would be a more seamless ratification of the Constitution. Lots of stuff was like that in the Constitution; compromises or payoffs of some kind to get the thing ratified or to satisfy some whiney faction or another, while standing against the central principles. This is how things like slavery got through that filter.

This got messy. A state legislature “chooses,” or for that matter, does anything, by passing a law (usually) so “chosen by the Legislature” meant “you figure it out” and from this many systems emerged. If I recall correctly, some states actually had a popular vote for Senate which was then recommended to the Legislature of the state and ignored or not. Some states had a ruling party pick a senator. The point of all this was to have the Senate be staffed by a better class of people as one might expect those already elected to be. The people elect and thus exert a Darwinian process on themselves, and among these, the better survive to elect others. By the time you get to the top you’ve got one fine class of leaders.

What the founders failed to grok is that within a few decades the entire American political system would be taken over by organized crime, and eventually, become the organized crime. With the exception of the occasional true leader, many elected officials were on the take or otherwise not particularly interested in governing. They were, essentially, paid off to keep their hands off the process of industry and commerce, not to represent the people. As for the people themselves, they were not much interested. Little known fact: early voting rates were lower than today’s. Voter apathy is not one of those problems our ancestors did not have and somehow we got. (Voting rates did go up by the end of the 19th century and stayed high for a while in the early 20th century, but this happened as the corruption in government started to become more of a problem, labor got organized, and totally fake leadership like we usually had in the US was being given a rather stern look by the populous. Then they went down again for reasons.)

So, for much of the 19th and early 20th century, the Senate was a mess. It was very common for a state to send only one, or even zero, Senators, for several months or years in a row to DC. Basically, what could have been a Darwinian process of selection for the best became a Darwinian process for of selection for the dirtiest in State governments, and having a Senator in Washington was not a priority at that level. Infighting and incompetence led to lack of representation in the American version of the House of Lords; Those who showed up tended to be those who best handled that ugly process. The British had a House of Lords. We had a House of … something else.

The people of some states rebelled, and forced their states to allow the direct election of Senators. After a while, there were enough of these Senators in the Senate, and thus favorable to this idea, to create a draft Constitutional Amendment. This was eventually supported by the House as well, voted on, and over a period of a few years, ratified. A process that started in the late 19th century finally culminated in 1913 with the 17th Amendment. This change happened:

The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote….

So, that was interesting, but what happens when a Senator dies in office or leaves for some other reason?

The 17th Amendment goes on to say,

When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, That the legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct.

Once again, the US Constitution trusts states to do the right thing. Oh boy.

For the most part, in most states, if a Senate seat is suddenly vacant, the governor of that state appoints a replacement until either a special election is held, or the end of the term. Usually, there is a special election, but if the vacancy occurs after the typical November election before the normal expiration of the term, most governors will not bother with the election, and the appointed Senator simply holds office until the normal election.

In Wyoming and Utah, the governor is required to pick a temporary senator from a list of three put forth by the political party held by the Senator who left office. Alaska, Oregon, and Wisconsin require the special election and does not allow the governor to appoint. Oklahoma either calls for the special election or a governor’s temporary appointment, depending on the timing of the vacancy.

Hawaii and Arizona require the governor to appoint a temporary Senator from the party that the Senator who left office was from. So, for example, if Senator Mazie Hirono were to get a new job, the governor of Hawaii would appoint a Democrat to fill her spot. If a Senator from Arizona flaked out, the governor of Arizona would appoint a Republican, as both Senators from Arizona are Republicans. So there would not be a change in representation by party in the US Senate.

Feinstein is well liked and respected, but she is old-school, and still seems to believe in things like, Republicans can be talked to, and no matter how bad they are every single day, maybe some day one will do something that isn’t totally bone-headed and nefarious. It seems to be Senator Feinstein’s recent comment that maybe Trump could be a good president after all is the straw that set this particular camel’s back in motion, if you will pardon the mixing of metaphors. Also, Dianne Feinstein would be 91 in her last year in office, which is kind of old.

Personally, I think that some of Feinstein’s rhetoric is just the way Senators talk, they pretend things are normal when they are not, and they are all hauty tauty because they are the Senate, after all, and not the House.

One theory I’ve heard is that Feinstein, who is a bit old to run, will win, then in a year or so, step down and be replaced by an appointee of Jerry Brown. That is a really bad idea because it will be so obviously inside trading that it will backfire, and we don’t need that bad will going on right now. The best outcome is probably that de León simply wins. But, I’d love to hear from Californians what they think of all this?

The Senators need to be reminded that the critical choices made by the Trump administration tend to be poor ones. Look, for example, at the first NSA choice. General Flynn was caught engaged in acts that were at least unethical and annoying, if not downright illegal and, worst case scenario, treasonous. Why would we expect the Trump administration to had better choices to the Senate for their approval?

The total number of Senators voting for each of Republican President Trump’s nominees is less than usual, with many, sometimes most, Democrats voting against the various and often very unqualified nominees. The Democrats who did vote for these individuals will be held to account over coming years, especially those who voted for Tillerson, and others who may ultimately be linked to currently developing scandals.

But now we have an interesting development. One of the most awful choices ever put forth for a high cabinet post ever, in any government by any president — equal to in level of insult and injury to the Betsy DeVos nomination which Congress narrowly approved — was Andrew Puzder as labor secretary.

The public outcry about putting this particular fox in charge of that particular hen house should not have exceeded the outcry against Tillerson or the others, but the general public and, certainly, Trump’s Republican Congress, appear not to understand too much about what happens in government and why it is important. But an attack by Oprah, armed with withering truth, seems to have mattered. Outrage over Puzder’s misconduct in business and personal life, some of which could be an embarrassment even to the Trump administration and to Republicans generally, was too much.

Moments ago, Puzder made a move we wish so heartily that Republican Donald Trump’s father had done years ago: he withdrew just in the nick of time.

By the way, have you read Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few by former actual good Secretary of Labor Robert Reich?

America was once celebrated for and defined by its large and prosperous middle class. Now, this middle class is shrinking, a new oligarchy is rising, and the country faces its greatest wealth disparity in eighty years. Why is the economic system that made America strong suddenly failing us, and how can it be fixed?

Leading political economist and bestselling author Robert B. Reich presents a paradigm-shifting, clear-eyed examination of a political and economic status quo that no longer serves the people, exposing one of the most pernicious obstructions to progress today: the enduring myth of the “free market” when, behind the curtain, it is the powerful alliances between Washington and Wall Street that control the invisible hand. Laying to rest the specious dichotomy between a free market and “big government,” Reich shows that the truly critical choice ahead is between a market organized for broad-based prosperity and one designed to deliver ever more gains to the top. Visionary and acute, Saving Capitalism illuminates the path toward restoring America’s fundamental promise of opportunity and advancement.