Jim Hightower

Jim Hightower America's #1 populist! NYT bestselling author, former twice-elected Ag Commissioner of Texas, radio commentator and populist agitator for over 80 (!) years.

Visit jimhightower.substack.com for essays, commentaries, podcasts & more.

05/28/2026

Coal industry donors gave Trump millions. In return, he got a bronze trophy — "Undisputed Champion of Beautiful Clean Coal." Then he ordered five power plants to reopen.

These plants spew mercury, carbon dioxide, and other toxins into our air and bodies. We already replaced them with wind and solar. Electric bills went down. Mercury pollution plummeted.

Trump brought the poison back. For donor cash and a trophy.

Who's running energy policy — voters, or coal barons?

Read the full commentary at the link in the comments, and take action with Sierra Club's Beyond Coal and End Citizens United.

05/26/2026

Tech billionaires are getting booed off stages at college graduations. 😂

AI CEOs showed up to give commencement speeches hyping their glorious robot future. Students responded with "roaring cascades of boos." This is a real populist revolt, from farm country to college campuses, and these oligarchs still haven't figured out why.

Did they never hear about 1776?

Read the full commentary at the link in the comments.

Grab a drink — this Tuesday is Happy Hour with a historian.Cory Haala spent a decade researching his new book When Democ...
05/23/2026

Grab a drink — this Tuesday is Happy Hour with a historian.

Cory Haala spent a decade researching his new book When Democrats Won the Heartland, and his conclusion is going to make a lot of Democratic consultants very uncomfortable: the Dems who won rural America in the '80s and '90s did it by going harder at corporations, not softer.

I was there. He's right. Come discuss with us!

Tuesday, May 26, 6pm CT — live conversation, paid subscribers can ask questions directly.

What's your drink of choice for a populist Happy Hour?

Link in the comments to join or become a paid subscriber.

05/21/2026

Stanley moved 300 American jobs to Thailand — then competed against its own workers with cheaper imports.

The CEO made $7.6 million last year. The machinists who built the brand? Gone. Their paychecks got reallocated to shareholders.

Who should be held accountable when corporations offshore jobs they could afford to keep?

Read the full commentary at the link in the comments, and take action with Jobs With Justice.

05/19/2026

Bezos, Musk, and Zuckerberg are draining America's water supply — to cool their computers.

They call them "data centers." And they're sucking millions of gallons a day from rivers and aquifers in drought-stricken states like Texas — while communities fight to survive.

Now they want Congress to make it illegal for local governments to stop them.

Whose water is it?

Read the full commentary at the link in the comments, and take action with MediaJustice.

05/14/2026

Trump spent $25 billion on a war he said would be over in days. It wasn't. Now he's focused on a sparkly ballroom for billionaires.

He attacked Iran to serve a corrupt foreign government. Iran's leaders outplayed his Pentagon chief. They now control global oil prices.

And the big fool says to push on.

What would Pete Seeger say?

Read the full commentary at the link in the comments.

Throwback: DeMarco and I living her inspiration of putting the party back in politics in the 1980s.
05/13/2026

Throwback: DeMarco and I living her inspiration of putting the party back in politics in the 1980s.

05/12/2026

My late partner Susan DeMarco had the best political advice I've ever heard.

Democrats have traded door-knocking and potlucks for 21-point plans and Zoom fundraisers. That's not a movement — it's a meeting.

Politics is supposed to be a community effort. So let's make it one.

What would actually get you excited about showing up for a political event?

Read the full commentary at the link in my bio and stories.

05/07/2026

Billionaires want to merge your brain with a computer. Seriously.

Elon Musk is already building implants to fuse human minds with machines. Peter Thiel says transhumanism will make us immortal — so stop worrying about war and climate. Google's Larry Page says unleashing digital minds is "almost certain" to go well.

Almost certain. That's their guess for the future of humanity.

How comfortable are you with tech billionaires designing our post-human future without asking us?

Read the full commentary at the link in the comments.

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