Dear John,

If you’re of a certain age and a close follower of the news, you might remember a little controversy I created back in 1994.

Back then, I was serving as Bill Clinton’s Secretary of Labor, and I gave a speech warning that rising wealth inequality was creating a two-tiered society in which the anger and disillusionment of those left behind could be manipulated by an aspiring authoritarian.

I thought it was an important warning about the fragility of democracy. But top Democrats — including senior White House staff — thought I should have just kept my mouth shut. And now, 30 years later, those dark predictions are coming true.

I still believe we can halt our slide toward authoritarianism, if we finally put income inequality and democracy at the heart of our agenda. And that’s exactly what I’m working for today, not as a member of any administration, but as co-founder of Inequality Media.

Every day we’re using social media to build support for progressive economic policies and pushing elected officials to deliver results, and it’s working. But as a nonprofit organization, we rely on donations from people like you to make it all possible.

That’s why I’m asking you today: Will you make a donation to Inequality Media and help uphold democracy and stop America’s slide into authoritarianism?

Here again is the key portion of the speech that got me in hot water all those years ago:

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

Over the last several months, I’ve been working with the team here at Inequality Media to develop a series of videos about the need to break up big corporations and other bold proposals that would actually make this economy work for everyone.

Some of these videos have turned out to be among the most effective at changing minds that we’ve ever tested. Now we just need to get them in front of as many people as possible — and after squandering so much of the last 30 years, we don’t have much more time left.

I still believe that we can save democracy, but the time to act is now. Will you make a donation to Inequality Media today?

Thank you for helping us defend our democracy,

Robert Reich
Inequality Media

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