Dear John,

In 1994, when I was serving as Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration, I gave a speech warning that America was becoming a two-tiered society and that rising wealth inequality would eventually tear the fabric of our society and bring democracy to its knees.

Unfortunately, instead of heeding my warnings, top Democrats, including senior members of President Clinton’s White House staff, scolded me for not being a “team player” by delivering my speech.

Now, almost 30 years later, with Donald Trump leading in the polls and America teetering on the brink of fascism, we’re running out of time to save our ailing democracy.

Over the last several weeks, I’ve been working with the team here at Inequality Media Civic Action to develop and test the most effective videos to convince voters to reject Trump’s lies and make them go viral on social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube.

Some of these videos are among the most persuasive we’ve ever tested, and now we just need to get them in front of the key swing voters who will decide this election.

That’s why I’m asking you today: Will you make a donation to Inequality Media Civic Action and help get these videos out and stop America’s slide into authoritarianism?

This is the key portion of the speech I gave that day in 1994, which generated major headlines and made a lot of top Democrats very angry at me:

My friends, we are on the way to becoming a two-tiered society composed of a few winners and a larger group of Americans left behind, whose anger and disillusionment are easily manipulated. Once unbottled, mass resentment can poison the very fabric of society, the moral integrity of society, replacing ambition with envy, replacing tolerance with hate. Today the targets of that rage are immigrants and welfare mothers and government officials and gays, and an ill-defined counterculture. But as the middle class continues to erode, who will be the targets tomorrow?

I take no joy in the fact that my speech has turned out to be so prescient. In fact, I would have been delighted to be proven wrong. And I dearly wish that my warnings had been heeded back then to forestall the crisis we now face.

But since our elected leaders didn’t listen back then, the next best time for action is right now.

The most urgent goal we must accomplish right now is to stop Donald Trump from winning the presidency in 2024. He’s openly running on a campaign of suspending the Constitution and concentrating all government authority in his hands. That’s why I’m so excited to see the initial test results we’ve gotten for our latest series of videos — some of which are moving voters’ opinions on key issues by double digits.

In addition, to end the long-term threat to democracy, we must convince our elected leaders to put policies in place that will actively reduce income inequality, such as raising the minimum wage, strengthening labor unions, enforcing antitrust laws to break up giant corporate monopolies, reducing the cost of college, making housing more affordable, and more.

The key to both of these goals is to educate the public and build an informed electorate that will use the tools of democracy to demand the change we need to make our economy more fair and to stop authoritarianism.

I still believe that we can save democracy, but the time to act is now. Will you make a donation to Inequality Media Civic Action and connect with the voters we need to win?

Thank you for standing up for democracy,

Robert Reich
Inequality Media Civic Action

P.S. If you want to watch a video of that speech, click here.