Tag: Juan Williams

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Poverty: A State of Mind?

CREDIT: Dreamstime | Richard Koele

Representative Maxine Waters stirred up a big crowd in New Orleans recently by using extreme language to critique Ben Carson, the secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Waters, the top Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, said Carson “knows nothing” about the housing agency’s mission and “doesn’t care about people in public housing,” adding that she would not be polite if and when Secretary Carson came before her to testify. “If he thinks … I am going to give him a pass,” she said, “I am going to take his ass apart!”

Waters also said that an earlier comment from Carson, in which he drew a parallel between the aspirations of black slaves and the hopes of people who voluntarily immigrated to America, was evidence that he “doesn’t know the difference between an immigrant and a slave.”

Yes, Waters was throwing around strong words to stir up laughter at the expense of President Trump’s only black cabinet secretary. But beyond the trash talk there is an important political debate for black America.

The heart of Waters’ anger at Carson goes to what he said about poverty in a May radio interview with Armstrong Williams. Carson said: “I think poverty, to a large extent, is also a state of mind.”

Given the high poverty rate among black Americans (24 percent), especially black children (near 40 percent), Waters reacted with alarm. Poverty is not just a mental state to her. She knows the horrid reality of poverty in her Los Angeles district.

Overall, more than 43 million Americans lived in poverty in 2015 — about 13.5 percent of the population, according to the Census Bureau. That number includes over 14 million children — about 20 percent of all American children.

Dreamstime | Richard Koele

Ben Carson

But Carson was not putting down the poor. He grew up in poverty in Detroit with a single mother. He cares about poor people and speaks with evangelical passion about the power of personal responsibility to push young people out of poverty. Carson’s belief in personal responsibility puts him at odds with people who point at the capacity of “systemic poverty” to defeat even the smartest, most ambitious young person.

Those voices say that a combination of broken families, bad neighborhoods, bad schools, and the persistence of racism can snare anyone and keep them on the margins of society, regardless of their personal character.

But the critics are missing a key point. Liberal or conservative, we can all agree it is important to encourage anyone living in poverty to look for a way out, to find the path to a better life. If the poor wait on the government to end their poverty, they will be waiting a long time.

I have known Carson for several years. My son Raffi is his press secretary. But my view, which is sympathetic to Carson’s description of poverty as a “state of mind,” is not a result of loyalty to him. I grew up in Section 8 housing and have experienced being poor. Social science data confirms that the best ways for people of all colors to avoid poverty is to stay in school and graduate, take even a menial job to build a resumé and connections, don’t marry until you have a career on track, and don’t have a child until you are married. People who follow that prescription have close to zero chance of living in poverty.

I think major black voices should join Carson in stating that there are steps individuals can take — and advise their children to take — to win their personal fight against poverty. Conservatives who favor small government are currently intent on limiting federal entitlement programs. Trump’s budget includes harsh cuts that would make poverty worse for many — including the $6.2 billion proposed cuts to HUD. Those conservatives are deluding themselves if they think big cuts are going to help the poor. But liberals are deluding themselves if they don’t see the good in Carson offering hope to people in need of inspiration.

Republicans and Democrats need to support the inspiring message that fired up the growth of the black middle class a generation ago: We shall overcome.

Juan Williams is an author and a political analyst for Fox News Channel.

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Trumpcare?

How can President Trump and the GOP Congress escape the political damage from their failed pledge to produce a better health-care plan than Obamacare?

If Congress can’t pass the current flawed Republican plan, Trump told leading conservative groups last week, he has a Plan B. It is to keep badmouthing the Affordable Care Act (ACA) as a “disaster” and then blame Democrats when Obamacare collapses.

He is going to need a Plan C, because there is a big problem with Plan B.

If the ACA ever fails, it will be because of Republicans. It was Senate Republicans, led by Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, who drained money from “risk corridors” created to protect insurance companies from losing money. And Republicans in 19 states refused to expand Medicaid, keeping about 4 million eligible Americans away from health insurance offered by Obamacare.

It was Trump who cancelled advertising aimed at bringing more people into the program. Congressional Republicans also made a point of scaring away sports teams and celebrities ready to join in public service campaigns to tell people about the benefits of getting health insurance under the ACA.

Who can forget all the scary claims coming from Congressional Republicans and candidate Trump about skyrocketing premiums under Obamacare? They sounded the alarm without saying that most people in Obamacare had nothing to fear because of federal subsidies. They also did not mention that premiums would have been higher without Obamacare.

Despite the Republican effort, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected enrollment in Obamacare would jump from 10 million in 2017 to 13 million in the next 10 years. 

Actual enrollment for Obamacare in 2017, despite the nonstop GOP chorus predicting its death, came in at 9.2 million, about 500,000 less than in 2016. “Open enrollment was a success, and it would have been even higher without the Trump administration’s efforts to suppress enrollment,” Leslie Dach, director of the Protect Our Care Coalition, told CNBC in February.

Standard and Poor’s investment ratings service said an increasing number of insurance companies participating in the Obamacare program would make money this year. And the CBO reported last week that Obamacare would cost one-third less than originally projected.  

Opinion polls also show rising public support for Obamacare. Pew Research Center and Kaiser Family Foundation both report record high levels of support for Obamacare, with Pew finding 54 percent of the public approving of the health-care program while 43 percent remain in opposition.

A Monmouth University poll released last week also found that a majority of Americans — 51 percent — say they want Congress to keep the ACA and improve it. 

These polls are evidence that Republicans are so intent on damaging Obamacare that they are no longer listening to voters.

Critics on the left and right have been fiercely critical of the House Republicans’ replacement plan, the American Health Care Act. And the CBO estimates on how many people it will leave uninsured are daunting. 

Even among conservative hardliners, there is opposition to the House version of a new health-care plan. Tea Party pressure groups like Heritage Action and Koch brothers-funded groups like Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks came out swinging against the bill. 

Perhaps the most important foe of the House bill is the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), which represents over 38 million senior citizens. 

“This bill would weaken Medicare’s fiscal sustainability, dramatically increase health-care costs for Americans aged 50-64, and put at risk the health care of millions of children and adults with disabilities and poor seniors who depend on the Medicaid program for long-term services and supports and other benefits,” wrote AARP senior vice president Joyce A. Rogers. 

Also standing in opposition to the GOP plan are the American Medical Association (AMA), the American Nurses Association (ANA), the American Hospital Association (AHA), and the American College of Physicians (ACP). 

According to exit polls, voters over the age of 65 backed Trump over Clinton, 52 percent to 45 percent. The blowback from those voters over the GOP failure to produce a better health-care plan could produce a nightmare for Republicans in the 2018 midterms.

President Trump, however, is pushing the bill, and Congressional GOP leadership say they are confident that it will pass. Perhaps they have been in the right-wing media bubble so long that they can no longer discern reality from their talking points when it comes to Obamacare. 

Juan Williams is an author and a political analyst for Fox News Channel.

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Enter the Prosecutor

In 40 years of covering Washington politics, I have never seen anything like President Trump’s amazing rise to power. I have seen presidents laid low by botched Congressional investigations that lead to special prosecutors. That’s why I’m starting to feel like I’ve seen this movie before.

Spoiler Alert: This political thriller ends with the president’s top aides striking plea bargains with federal prosecutors to reduce prison sentences.

Juan Williams

The U.S. has a rich recent history of special prosecutors. The odds are rising that one more is coming to look into alleged links between the Trump campaign and Russia.

The dwindling trust in the GOP majority in Congress to conduct such a probe is due to the fading credibility of the Senate Intelligence Committee. The Republican chairman of that panel, Senator Richard Burr, is widely perceived as a Trump acolyte. 

When FBI director James Comey announced shortly before last year’s election that his agents had reopened their investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails, Burr bragged there is “not a separation between me and Donald Trump.”

Senator Charles Schumer, the top Democrat in the Senate, was slow to bury Burr with a call for a special prosecutor, perhaps seeking to avoid charges that he was politicizing the probe. But on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, Schumer made that call. A special prosecutor was necessary, he asserted, to probe “whether the Trump campaign was complicit in working with the Russians to influence the election.”

Now Republicans, including Senators Lindsey Graham, Marco Rubio, and Susan Collins, are starting to peel away. Graham has said that if Attorney General Jeff Sessions spoke with Russian diplomats, “then, for sure, you need a special prosecutor.”

On cue, last week Sessions had to recuse himself from the FBI’s probes into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia after The Washington Post revealed he met with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. twice last year. Those details seemed to contradict sworn testimony he gave during his Senate confirmation hearing. 

If trust in the Senate probe is weak, then the credibility of any House investigation is even weaker. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) served with Sessions on Trump’s presidential transition team. Nunes was also one of the lawmakers actively recruited by Reince Priebus to counter stories about Trump’s ties to Russia. In a rambling press conference last week, he said he did not want the committee’s investigation to turn into a “witch hunt” and warned of “McCarthyism,” where innocent Americans were “haul[ed] before Congress.”

Representative Adam Schiff, the lead Democrat on the committee, further diminished trust in any House probe when he said last week that the FBI director refused to share with the committee more than “a fraction of what the FBI knows.”

Last week, we learned that the Trump White House Counsel’s office issued a memo to all White House staff instructing them to preserve all documents related to Russia. If history is a guide, all that is left now is for public pressure to build on the GOP and the special prosecutor to be named.

Here’s a quick look at that history: During the Iran-Contra affair, President Reagan tried to put the scandal behind him by agreeing to the appointment of a special prosecutor, Lawrence Walsh. Walsh indicted several of Reagan’s top aides, including Defense Secretary Caspar “Cap” Weinberger.

During President Clinton’s first term, shady controversies from his time as governor of Arkansas led to the appointment of the special prosecutor Kenneth Starr and set the stage for the Monica Lewinsky sex story that resulted in Clinton’s impeachment.

President George W. Bush’s Attorney General, John Ashcroft, recused himself from a White House probe. His deputy then appointed an independent special counsel to find out who leaked the name of a CIA agent. That special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, won the conviction of the Vice President’s chief of staff,  Lewis “Scooter” Libby. 

Senator John McCain said that he has “more hope than belief” that the GOP Congress will properly investigate Trump’s ties to Russia. “Have no doubt, what the Russians tried to do to our election could have destroyed democracy,” McCain said.

Julius Caesar feared the Ides of March with good reason. As the middle of the month approaches, President Trump and his GOP supporters will be under fearsome pressure to go along with the naming of a special prosecutor.

Juan Williams is an author and a political analyst for Fox News Channel.

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Appeasing the Bern

What does Bernie Sanders want in exchange for endorsing Hillary Clinton?
And what can Clinton and the Democratic Party give Sanders to get him to campaign aggressively for her in the fall, harnessing the voting power of the passionate, mostly young, white, left-wing voters who favor him?

Obviously, Sanders expects a prime-time speaking slot at the Democratic National Convention. Neither the Clinton camp nor the party’s leadership will have a problem with that demand. But wh

at if he wants to be the vice presidential candidate on a Clinton-led ticket? That’s a reach.

Sanders’ “socialist” label is a liability in a general election. The Vermonter will hurt Clinton’s effort to win support from political moderates, especially older voters. Sanders would also be a bridge too far for Republicans disenchanted by their party’s wild primary season and the prospect of either Donald Trump or Sen. Ted Cruz as the GOP’s presidential candidate.

But if Sanders is not to be made the prospective veep, Democrats will have to find something else to give him. He has exceeded all expectations during the primary season. The depth of his support was underlined by his three strong victories in Alaska, Hawaii, and Washington. And Democrats fear him mounting a third-party run along the lines of the populist campaign run by Ralph Nader in 2000 that arguably gave the White House to George W. Bush.

The heart of this troublesome political puzzle for Democrats is how to get Sanders’ passionate supporters to line up behind Clinton. In early March, a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found a third of the people voting for Sanders saying they “cannot see themselves voting for Hillary Clinton in November.” The Nation magazine reported recently that “nearly 60,000 people have signed the ‘Bernie or Bust’ pledge,” vowing to remain loyal to him even if Clinton wins the nomination.

President Obama is now getting involved in this escalating debate. According to The New York Times, the president privately told Texas Democrats that Sanders’ continuing campaign against Clinton stalls party organizers, donors, and activists from getting started on beating the GOP in the fall campaign.

The president and leading Democrats in Congress are all but calling for Sanders to get out of the race now. The Democrats’ unstated anxiety is that Clinton, while a clear winner among primary voters, does not set the campaign trail on fire. Sanders and Trump, the leading candidate for the GOP nomination, are arsonists by comparison. Sanders has continued to condemn a “corrupt campaign finance system which is undermining American democracy.” Clinton’s campaign is taking money from political action committees while Sanders’ is not.
Sanders is also casting an unfavorable light on Clinton by celebrating the “energy and excitement” of his crowds and claiming that it is because “we are telling the truth.” He does not mention Clinton, but the comparison is obvious, if implicit.

Sanders’ big issue is income inequality. He continues to accuse Clinton of being too close to Wall Street, further arguing that this makes it implausible that she will rein in wealthy bankers and hedge-fund managers. It is easy to see how his followers might be convinced Clinton is the no-change, establishment candidate and become permanently turned off to her.

Sanders’ lack of formal connection to the Democratic Party is another part of the problem. At an Ohio town hall meeting, he admitted having considered running for president as an independent but decided to run as a Democrat because “in terms of media coverage, you have to run within the Democratic Party.”

Last year, former New York Congressman Anthony Weiner (D), whose wife Huma Abedin is a top Clinton aide, publicly expressed the reservations Democratic insiders still have about Sanders.

“What exactly does he think he’s doing in a Democratic presidential primary?” Weiner wrote in Business Insider last July. “Why is he asking for the nomination of a party he always avoided joining? Now he wants to not only be a member of the party but its standard bearer?”

To bring Sanders inside the camp, Democrats will have to do more than make him a TV star at the convention. They will also have to put Clinton, union organizers, and money behind his issues, creating a permanent movement inside the party for a living wage, for lower-cost college education, and a sharper critique of Wall Street.

The party is going to have to buy into Sanders if they want him to buy into them.

Juan Williams is an author and political analyst for Fox News Channel. His latest book is We the People.

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Pope and Change

Pope Francis

Name the biggest 2015 event on Capitol Hill — the one event it was near impossible to get a ticket to attend. 

It is not close: the pope’s visit.

Who said: “If someone is gay and searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?” 

If you said the pope, you win again.

Speaking to a Congress that is 31.7 percent Catholic, and within earshot of a Supreme Court with six Catholics on the bench, who said this:

“Here we have to ask ourselves: Why are deadly weapons being sold to those who plan to inflict untold suffering on individuals and society? Sadly, the answer, as we all know, is simply for money, money that is drenched in blood. It is our duty to confront the problem and to stop the arms trade.”

Did you answer, the pope? Right once again. Those words came from a leader with a higher approval than any American politician — a 59 percent favorable rating among the population at large.

And who called for Congress to make a courageous effort to halt “environmental deterioration caused by human activity”?

Some wild, lefty tree hugger? Well, if you consider the pope a tree hugger, yes.

On issues ranging from climate change to gun control to gay rights, the liberals in Congress found a surprising ally in 79-year-old Pope Francis.

The pope’s visit was a mind-bender for the GOP, given the party’s reliance on opposition to gay marriage and abortion rights, two key elements of Catholic doctrine. Those wedge social issues have stirred the Republican base since President Nixon adopted a “silent majority” strategy to defeat Democrats on issues of sexuality and race.

Pope Francis is changing the religion-politics dynamic in a way that is sure to ripple through the 2016 presidential and congressional elections.

“The contemporary world, with its open wounds, demands that we confront every form of polarization which would divide it into these two camps,” the pope said to a Congress paralyzed by division.

Instead of politicians taking advantage of fear, anxiety, and anger, the pope called for Congress to engage with a “renewed spirit of fraternity and solidarity, cooperating generously for the common good.”

The pope’s willingness to step into Congress’ big political fight over immigration reform really stung the “deport them all” caucus among Republicans.

Standing next to President Obama at the White House, who, in the face of Congressional inaction, issued an executive order shielding 5 million illegal immigrants from deportation, the pope said he is “the son of an immigrant family,” and was pleased to be visiting a nation “which was largely built by such families.” Francis said the members Congress have to reject a “mindset of hostility” toward refugees and undocumented immigrants.

And later, speaking to America’s bishops, he added: “Perhaps you will be challenged by their diversity. But know that [immigrants] also possess resources meant to be shared. So do not be afraid to welcome them.”

The pope’s blessing of compassionate immigration policies came as the front-runner for the Republican nomination won standing ovations for calling Mexican illegal immigrants “rapists” and later proposed a halt to the flow of refugees from war-torn Syria and a block on all Muslim immigrants.

Congressional Republicans did not publicly criticize the pope. But conservative talk radio did not hold back. Rush Limbaugh, the top-rated talk radio host, trashed the pope as a Marxist.

“We have a president and a pope who speak down to us,” radio host Mark Levin said. “Whether it is immigration, whether it is poverty, frankly they do not appreciate American history.”

Among the Republican presidential contenders, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a Catholic, also turned thumbs down to the pope. “I just think the pope is wrong. His infallibility is on religious matters, not political ones.” 

Another GOP contender, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, said he “doesn’t get economic policy from my bishops or my cardinals or my pope.”

Republican candidates in 2016 will try their best to close their ears to what Pope Francis is saying. But Democrats have found a surprising voice to counter the conservative tendencies of churchgoers, especially evangelical Christians.

Juan Williams is an author and political analyst for Fox News Channel.

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Paul Ryan and Bernie Sanders

In keeping with the polarized politics on Capitol Hill, I have one winner for Republicans and a very different winner for Democrats. Speaker Paul Ryan and Senator Bernie Sanders perfectly embody the polarization that prevents Congress from getting anything done on the nation’s most pressing issues, from immigration to stopping gun massacres to fighting the Islamic State. 

This dysfunctional Congress deserves its dismal 13 percent approval rating from the American people. The Republican majorities in the House and Senate reached a new nadir in broken politics by inviting a foreign leader, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to use the Congress as a setting to disrespect the American president back in March. They acted without first consulting with the White House. And then there was the refusal to hold confirmation hearings on the president’s nominees for judicial posts or to the Foreign Service.

Congressional Republicans have made it their everyday practice to obstruct initiatives from the twice-elected leader of the nation.

The GOP antipathy toward President Obama is not new. The bigger change is the out-of-control elbowing inside the Republican tent that came to define the year on Capitol Hill. Republicans in the House successfully launched a coup earlier this year against then-Speaker John Boehner, forcing out a man who is by any measure a strong conservative but still not conservative enough for the party’s far right. The eventual winner after several weeks of embarrassing party infighting was the 2012 GOP vice presidential candidate Ryan. But Ryan won without winning the official endorsement of the rebellious Freedom Caucus, who dictated Boehner’s departure. All this led the new speaker, in his very first speech as the top Republican in the House, to stare failure in the face. 

“Let’s be frank: The House is broken,” he said. “We are not solving problems. We are adding to them.”

The real story is that he is the most conservative speaker in recent times. Ryan rose to prominence as the defiant right-winger who proposed, as top Republican on the budget committee, to change Medicare from a guaranteed health-care program for the elderly to a limited, untested voucher plan. He also backed massive tax breaks for the wealthy and large corporations. He has been a reliable opponent of abortion rights and gay rights, and he supported President George W. Bush’s push to privatize Social Security.

Despite that very conservative record, the new speaker had to deflect charges from the Freedom Caucus, conservative talk radio, websites, and bloggers that he is just one more establishment Republican. That outrageous indictment fits with a Pew Research poll from May that found 75 percent of Republican voters want congressional Republicans to obstruct, defy, and challenge President Obama more frequently.

The GOP’s deference to the far right has resulted in a backlash from liberal Democrats around the nation and on Capitol Hill, and that finds expression in the presidential bid of Sanders.

Democratic voters still strongly back former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the party’s 2016 nomination, but the defiant roar of the party in 2015 can be heard at Sanders’ political rallies.

He has been a political sensation all year long, in every corner of the nation. He attracts energized, loud crowds by identifying the Republican majority in Congress as the tool of big business and extremely wealthy Americans, including Charles and David Koch and other plutocrats. Sanders’ anger at the power of big money is resonating among left-wingers looking to identify those responsible for rigging the economic and political system against workers, unions, students, immigrants, and minorities.

Sanders succeeded in forcing Clinton to do a flip-flop and become an opponent of Obama’s Asia trade deal. He lashed out at her for being slow to oppose the Keystone XL Pipeline. He critiqued her 2002 vote to authorize the war in Iraq.

“He [Sanders] is where the economic heart and soul of the party is right now And he’s got the outsider thing, which is so big this year,” New York Times columnist David Brooks said recently.

Sanders and Ryan are the year’s political leaders in Congress because they captured that “outsider thing” for the left and the right. 

As the year ends, both parties and their leading men are in a critical struggle over whether the outsiders are now in charge.

Juan Williams serves as a Fox News political analyst and is the author of the bestseller, Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965.

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The Buck Passes on Obama’s Economy

Senator Bernie Sanders

In the GOP primary race, the economy is the dog that has not barked. Given low unemployment, low gas prices, and low inflation, it is easy to understand the GOP’s silence. The current unemployment rate is 5.1 percent, the lowest since April 2008.

Under President Obama’s stewardship, the economy has added over 7 million private sector jobs. The Dow Jones has more than doubled, and the NASDAQ has more than tripled. The president has exceeded every promise for speedy economic recovery made by his Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, in the 2012 campaign.

But now Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders is drawing crowds with harsh indictments of the American economic system as unfair to the poor, the working class, and the middle class. Sanders recently described the nation as having a “rigged economy, designed by the wealthiest people in this country to benefit the wealthiest people in this country at the expense of everybody else.”

His criticism echoes that of Senator Elizabeth Warren who has blasted erstwhile Obama economic officials such as Larry Summers and Tim Geithner for being too cozy with the Wall Street banks they were supposed to be regulating.

Unions have for decades been suffering from declining membership and declining leverage at the bargaining table. That was before the president beat them and their Democratic supporters in Congress on the trade deal in question, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). He stood with the Chamber of Commerce and the GOP majority in Congress to win approval for fast-track authority pertaining to TPP.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Sanders, and other top Democrats give Obama credit for leading the nation’s steady economic growth after the 2008 recession. But, as with the unions, their current focus is on income inequality and stagnant wages.

“The defining economic challenge of our time is clear,” Clinton, the Democratic front-runner, said in July. “We must raise incomes for hard-working Americans so they can afford a middle-class life.”

The president, however, prefers to emphasize how the nation has recovered from an extraordinarily deep recession, pointing out the errors of his past Republican critics. In a recent speech to the Business Roundtable, the president focused on those Republican criticisms, not the new carping from Democrats.

‘”Seven years ago today was one of the worst days in the history of our economy,” he said, going on to note that in September 2008 “stocks had suffered their worst loss since 9/11, businesses would go bankrupt, millions of Americans would lose their jobs and their homes, and our economy would reach the brink of collapse.”

Obama then offered a contrasting picture of the current economy:

“Here’s where we are today,” the president said. “Businesses have created more than 13 million new jobs over the past 66 months — the longest streak of job growth on record. The unemployment rate is lower than it’s been in over seven years. There are more job openings right now than at any time in our history. Housing has bounced back. Household wealth is higher than it was before the recession.”

Obama’s victory lap might also include a mention that this year’s Republican candidates have no answer for income inequality. In fact, with the exception of Donald Trump, the current Republican candidates consistently call for tax cuts for the rich that would worsen inequality by widening the wealth gap.

These are facts. They are powerful ammunition for any Democrat who wants to run on the strength of the Obama economic record in 2016. But as debates begin next month among the Democrats, you can expect that consultants will be advising the candidates that they need to distance themselves from Obama because of stagnant wages and income inequality.

In light of the actual economic facts, perhaps a winning message for Democrats would be to promise to continue and improve on the president’s record by dealing with stagnant wages as they seek “Obama’s third term.” Yet, even among Democratic candidates, that seems to be too much to ask.

My advice for President Obama? Just bite your tongue, and let it go. A fair reading of history will show the economy came back to life on your watch.

Juan Williams is an author and political analyst for Fox News Channel.

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Trumped

Donald Trump is blunt about his primary qualification to be president: “I’m really rich!”

Yes, he is — and so are most of the other people running for the White House. All but four of the 22 prominent candidates across both parties are millionaires. The only non-millionaires are Senator Bernie Sanders, former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, Senator Marco Rubio, and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker.

And people with even more money than the candidates are bankrolling their campaigns. The New York Times reported that “fewer than 400 families are responsible for almost half the money raised in the 2016 presidential campaign, a concentration of political donors that is unprecedented in the modern era.”

The Times found an especially astounding concentration of wealth among contributors to GOP campaigns. “Just 130 or so families and their businesses provided more than half the money raised through June by Republican candidates and their super PACs,” the paper reported. 

The Washington Post followed up with an editorial warning of an emerging “American oligarchy.” The Post wrote that big donations from the super-rich have “the potential to warp the political system.” In this sea of money, Trump still stands out. He is so rich that he doesn’t need to raise money to run his campaign. He recently took to Twitter to slam Republican candidates for going to a conference held by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch. He said the politicians who went to the event were guilty of begging for money.

Trump’s derision drew lots of snickers, but his surprisingly successful campaign — built in part upon boasts about the power of big money — has traction with voters. Pew Research reported last December that the nation’s rich now have a “median net worth that is nearly 70 times that of the country’s lower-income families, [and there is now] also the widest wealth gap between these families in 30 years.” The top 1 percent now controls more than 80 percent of the nation’s wealth. 

Sanders gets a rousing response when he states that the gap between the very rich and everyone else in America is wider today than at any time since the 1920s. Senator Elizabeth Warren has become a folk hero on the left by calling for more help for middle- and working-class families while pushing a crackdown on the rich — specifically, on Wall Street’s risky but high-profit business ventures, which rely on government bailouts when they go sour. 

But somehow the richest of the rich candidates leads the GOP race. Trump says his wealth is evidence of his ability to make deals and thus become “the greatest jobs president that God ever created.” Trump offers no specifics about how he will produce those jobs.

Conversations with voters — right or left — deliver one consistent theme: Economic anxiety is high. But there is no consensus on how to level the playing field. Polls show most conservatives do not want government action — other than lowering taxes. Among Democrats, more than 90 percent tell Pew that they want government intervention, such as raising the minimum wage, but only 40 percent of Republicans agree. Hillary Clinton has endorsed a proposal to raise the minimum wage in New York. So has Sanders, who calls the current $7.25 federal minimum wage a “starvation wage.” Trump and most of the GOP contenders oppose raising the minimum wage. They favor tax cuts, which they say would ignite growth.

Last year, President Obama proposed raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. The Republican Congress blocked his effort. According to 2012 exit polls, voters with annual family incomes under $51,000 made up 41 percent of the electorate. They voted for President Obama by 22 percentage points over Republican Mitt Romney. 

Today, most Americans polled say the economy is better than it was when President Obama came to office. Unemployment is down, and Wall Street profits are up to record levels. But wages are stagnant and median household income has not gone up for 20 years.

Meanwhile, loopholes and deductions taxes on the wealthy remain near historic lows, in part because of the extension of Bush-era tax cuts. And now the wealthy, under the new, more permissive campaign finance rules approved by the Supreme Court in the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case, are exerting more financial influence to mute any response to the populist impulse.

If politics is a mirror to the nation’s soul, then Trump and his boastful billions are a true reflection of America.

Juan Williams is a Fox News political analyst.

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Fixing the Lines

This week marks the 271st birthday of the politician who first approved of “gerrymandering.” As governor of Massachusetts, Elbridge Gerry (also the nation’s fifth vice president) agreed to the idea of drawing congressional districts in odd shapes to ensure that the political party in power won the majority of the state’s seats in the House. His enduring legacy is the partisan split in Congress that dismisses compromise and disdains bipartisan solutions to the nation’s biggest problems.

But last month, the Supreme Court took a first step toward burying the corruption of gerrymandering. In a 5-4 decision, the justices approved of voters deciding by referendum to create independent, nonpartisan commissions to draw a state’s congressional map. Last week, the Florida Supreme Court followed up by ruling that parts of a current redistricting plan violate the state constitution by being crassly political.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s majority opinion said voters have the right to go around politically skewed state legislatures and “address the problem of partisan gerrymandering — the drawing of legislative district lines to subordinate adherents of one political party and entrench a rival party in power.”

“Entrench” is the right word. One popular joke around Washington is that redistricting by state legislatures allows members of Congress to pick their voters instead of voters picking their members of Congress.

When it comes to 2016 House races, more than 400 of the 435 seats in the House are rated as “safe” for incumbent Republicans and Democrats because of gerrymandering. That leaves only about seven percent of the seats in Congress open to a meaningful contest.

Gerrymandering has distorted congressional politics by eliminating the need for either party to appeal to the political middle. Instead, the members of Congress live in fear of a challenge from the far right (in the case of Republicans) or the far left (in the case of Democrats).

Gerrymandering is the mother of the “Tea Party Caucus” that undermines the Speaker, John Boehner (R-Ohio), by denigrating him as insufficiently conservative when he tries to make budget deals with Democrats.

Gerrymandering is the reason President Obama tells supporters the best thing they can do to help him is to move to a red state and help break the GOP hold on Congress.

In the 2014 cycle, an off-year election, Republicans had the edge in voter enthusiasm as well as control of more state legislatures. As a result of the power of gerrymandering, the GOP won 57 percent of all House seats even though they had just 52 percent of the votes.

Even in election years when majority control of the House changes from one party to the other, the reelection rate tied to gerrymandered districts is staggeringly high. In 2006, when Democrats won the House, 94 percent of incumbents were reelected. In 2010, when Republicans rode a Tea Party wave back to the majority, 85 percent of representatives retained their seat. This is the politics of back-room congressional mapping.

This era of unprecedented polarization and dysfunction borne of gerrymandering has current congressional approval ratings down to 15.8 percent, according to the RealClearPolitics polling average. Obviously, Republicans as well as Democrats disapprove of what is going on in this broken Congress.

Senator John McCain has often said that the only people approving of Congress these days are “paid staffers and blood relatives.”

The adoption of independent state commissions to draw congressional maps is by far the most important step available to voters longing for a Congress that works. Seven states already have nonpartisan commissions in place: Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, New Jersey, and Washington state. With the Supreme Court’s recent ruling, the door is open to more. It is not as sexy as the court’s recent rulings on gay marriage and Obamacare, but this high court ruling also has historic potential. It opens the door for voters in more states to get referendums on the ballot calling for nonpartisan panels to set the lines for congressional districts — and so revive a functional Congress.

Juan Williams is an author and political analyst for Fox News Channel.

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Opinion Viewpoint

Fight or Lose

Congressional Democrats, wounded by the November midterms, are failing to capture the political energy of the youth movement that has sprung up in the wake of recent incidents in Ferguson, Missouri, Cleveland, Ohio, and New York City. President Obama has met with young activists in the White House. He has gone on television to endorse peaceful protests and has spoken of his personal discontent with the “deep unfairness” in how the grand jury process can be manipulated by prosecutors to favor police. But the president, even the first black president, can only do so much.

It is up to Congress to address the cancerous distrust that young people and minorities harbor for the criminal justice system. Only Congress can bring the nation’s attention to high alert with public hearings and legislation to repair a broken judicial structure.

The Congressional Black Caucus has called for hearings on the shooting death of Michael Brown. But it will be up to the House Republican majority to call the hearings and set the agenda.

Speaker John Boehner and Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers have said they are “absolutely” open to hearings on the death of Eric Garner, a New York man choked by police as he was arrested for selling cigarettes. Boehner told reporters the deaths of Brown and Garner are “serious tragedies.”

But Boehner’s base voters — older, white Southern conservatives in particular — are reflexively quick to defend all police and are therefore likely to resist him if he allows hearings to take place. Unyielding pressure from House Democrats will be needed to force the Speaker’s hand.

The same dynamic is also now coming into play around Obamacare.

The incoming Republican majority on Capitol Hill is looking for ways to dismantle the law. It is clear who will get hurt if that happens. Before the Affordable Care Act took effect, 28 percent of Americans between the ages of 25 and 34 lacked health insurance, as did 10 percent of children under 18. Those young Americans are looking to the Democrats to replicate the fury of the Tea Party caucus on the far right and become loud, unabashed advocates for the success of national health care.

President Obama can talk about the success of Obamacare, specifically the 25 percent drop in the total number of Americans without insurance. He can veto efforts to defund and repeal the health-care act. But it will be up to Democrats on Capitol Hill to wage the day-to-day fight and open eyes to the benefits of a program that is lagging in polls because of unyielding attacks from the GOP.

Don’t expect to see Senate Democrats make the fight. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is already blaming Obamacare for the party’s declining fortunes in Congressional races. The liberal heart of the party is going to have to find its blood, its passion in the House.

On both fronts — the police killings and health care — the central political audience is young America, the voting base that will determine Democrats’ fortunes in 2016 and beyond. Almost a quarter of the U.S. population is under the age of 18. Another 36 percent of Americans are between the ages of 18 and 44. And these groups are filled with minorities, immigrants, and children of immigrants, as well as a disproportionate share of college graduates and single women of all races.

Congressional Democrats gave those voters little reason to go to the polls in 2014. No one on Capitol Hill was standing up for their agenda. As a result, exit polls from this year’s midterms gave Democrats only an 11-percentage-point edge over Republicans among 18 to 29 year olds and a mere 3-point edge among 30 to 44 year olds.

Basically, the Democrats’ lead over Republicans among young voters was cut in half in 2014. And among 18 and 19 year olds, turnout dropped from 19 percent in 2012 to 13 percent in the midterms, a loss of about 14 million voters.

The exit polls also showed a five-percentage-point jump in young voters who self-identify as Republicans — 31 percent this year as compared to 26 percent in 2012. The big question for the coming Congress is whether the House Democrats will get off the floor and fight for the interests of young voters.