James Allen Hightower (born January 11, 1943) is an American syndicated columnist, progressive[1][2] political activist, and author. From 1983 to 1991 he served as the elected commissioner of the Texas Department of Agriculture. He publishes a monthly newsletter that is notable for its in-depth investigative reporting, The Hightower Lowdown.
Born in Denison in Grayson County in north Texas, Hightower comes from a working-class background. He worked his way through college as assistant general manager of the Denton Chamber of Commerce and later landed a spot as a management trainee for the U.S. State Department. He received a Bachelor of Arts in government from the University of North Texas in Denton, where he served as student body president. He later did graduate work at Columbia University in New York City in international affairs.
In the late 1960s, he worked in Washington, D.C., as legislative aide to U.S. SenatorRalph Yarborough. In 1970, Hightower co-founded and worked at the Agribusiness Accountability Project in Washington, D.C., which resulted in two of his early books.[3] After managing the presidential campaign of former Senator Fred R. Harris of Oklahoma in 1976, he returned to Texas to become the editor of the magazine The Texas Observer. His first attempt at public office was an unsuccessful bid for the Democratic nomination for the Texas Railroad Commission, which regulates the oil and natural gas industries, rather than the railroads the name of the commission would seem to indicate.
In 1982, Hightower was elected Agriculture Commissioner, having unseated fellow Democrat Reagan V. Brown, who had ordered a quarantine of fruit coming into Texas from California. He served as agriculture commissioner until he was unseated in 1990 by the Democrat-turned-RepublicanRick Perry, later the governor of Texas. His tenure was noted for fostering organic production, alternative crops, direct marketing by small farmers, and strong gross materials[clarification needed] regulations.[4][5] During that time, he also became a leading national spokesman for Democrats and endorsed Jesse Jackson for president in 1988. Three of Hightower's aides at the Agriculture Commission, Mike Moeller, Pete McRae, and Billie Quicksall, were convicted on bribery charges related to procuring contributions to Hightower's reelection campaign from seed dealers who were subject to the department's oversight. While Hightower was not involved in the plot, it contributed to his defeat by Perry.[6]
Soon after Clinton was elected, Hightower became a critic of the president. He criticized Clinton for having accepted corporatesoft money contributions, his support of NAFTA, his health care plan, and his refusal to crack down on "corporate welfare", as well as what Hightower viewed as inadequate efforts at fighting unemployment and poverty.
In 2000, he joined with talk show host Phil Donahue and actress Susan Sarandon to co-chair the presidential campaign of Ralph Nader. He also appeared at Nader's "super-rallies" and stumped across the country for him.
After the disputed outcome of the 2000 election, Hightower voiced the opinion that it was Vice President Al Gore himself, who lost his home state of Tennessee, and not Ralph Nader, who caused Gore's defeat at the hands of Governor George W. Bush of Texas.[7] Although he issued no endorsement of any candidate during the 2004 presidential primaries, he spoke and wrote approvingly of since defeated U.S. RepresentativeDennis Kucinich of Ohio, calling him a "clear populist with a lifelong history of unambiguous advocacy of populist principles."[8] Once Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts won the nomination, Hightower endorsed him and urged fellow progressives to work for his election, saying, "I don't care if he's a sack of cement, we're going to carry him to victory."[9] During this election, he also campaigned in support of the U.S. Senate bid of Doris "Granny D" Haddock, a friend and fellow activist who was running as a Democrat against incumbent Republican Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire.
Since 1993, Hightower has produced Hightower Radio, a daily two-minute commentary carried by over 130 affiliates. He also hosted a weekend talk show on the American Broadcasting Company radio network and a weekday midday talk show on the United Broadcasting Network (later called America Radio Network). Hightower's Chit & Chat aired in thirty-eight markets around the United States.[citation needed]Floyd Domino was his music director[10] and co-host. Susan DeMarco was also a co-host of the program and continues to work with him.[citation needed]
Hightower endorsed Bernie Sanders for president in 2016, actively campaigning for the Democratic candidate.[11] In summer 2016, after Hillary Clinton won the party's nomination, Sanders supporters formed the progressive group Our Revolution, and Hightower joined the board of directors.[12][13] Despite the Democratic party losing both houses of Congress in the United States, Hightower talked of his optimism toward a greater progressive revolution after meeting with Sanders.[14] Hightower cited the large number of progressive initiatives passed to counter the idea that Donald Trump and right-wing populism were supplanting progressive ideals.[15] In addition to being on the national board of Our Revolution, Hightower has been working with Our Revolution Texas.[16]
Hightower writes a monthly newsletter, The Hightower Lowdown,[19] which has more than 135,000 subscribers.[18][17] The newsletter is notable for its in-depth investigative reporting and criticism of George W. Bush's administration, which Hightower claimed was beholden to corporations and extremist conservatives. It has received both the Alternative Press Award and the Independent Press Association Award for best national newsletter.[18]
In January, 2022, Hightower noted his support for the Rights of Nature movement. After reviewing some history of the movement, he declared that the initiative to put a state constitutional amendment on the 2024 ballot for voters to consider, has made Florida "the epicenter" of today's Rights of Nature movement in the United States.[20]
Doug Jones Average
The "Doug Jones Average", a concept created by Jim Hightower, is the proposal that in order to check the true health of the American economy, it is less useful to look at the Dow Jones Industrial Average than it is to check up on how the average worker down the street (Doug Jones) is doing. If Doug Jones is on welfare, cannot feed his family, is blowing his savings, and is three weeks behind on his bills, the Doug Jones average is "down". If Doug just got a raise, can pay his bills and Doug and his family are looking into owning a nice but not too expensive house, the Doug Jones average is "up".[21]
Bernard Sanders is an American politician and activist who is the senior United States senator from Vermont. Sanders is the longest-serving independent in U.S. congressional history, but maintains a close relationship with the Democratic Party, having caucused with House and Senate Democrats for most of his congressional career and sought the party's presidential nomination in 2016 and 2020.
Democracy for America(DFA) was a progressive political action committee headquartered in Burlington, Vermont. Founded by former Democratic National Committee Chair Howard Dean in 2004, DFA led public awareness campaigns on a variety of public policy issues, trains activists, and provided funding directly to candidates for office, until it ended operations in 2022. At its peak, the organization had dozens of local chapters and more than a million members in the United States and internationally.
David J. Sirota is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Lever, a reader-supported investigative news outlet focused on exposing the negative influence of corporate corruption on American society. Sirota was a speechwriter and senior adviser for the Bernie Sanders 2020 presidential campaign. In 2022, he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay for conceiving the story for Netflix's Don't Look Up alongside co-writer and director Adam McKay.
Common Dreams NewsCenter, often referred to simply as Common Dreams, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, U.S.-based news website with a stated goal of serving the progressive community. Common Dreams publishes news stories, editorials, and a newswire of current, breaking news.
i.e. America Radio Network was a Detroit-based radio network consisting primarily of liberal talk and lifestyle shows. They were owned by the United Auto Workers (UAW) and broadcast nationally from 1996 to 2004, via radio stations and a webcast.
Zack Exley is an American political and technology consultant.
Phillip Frazer is a writer, editor and publisher. He was a founder of the weekly teen pop newspaper Go-Set in 1966, which was a popular Australian music paper from 1966 to 1974. He also published the more explicitly counterculture magazines Revolution, High Times and The Digger. He launched the Australian edition of Rolling Stone magazine, first as a supplement in Revolution in 1970, then as a full-fledged magazine in 1972. From 1976 to 2011, Frazer lived in the United States, where he launched and edited numerous political publications, most notably The Hightower Lowdown and Multinational Monitor.
Nina Hudson Turner is an American politician, and television personality. A member of the Democratic Party, she was a Cleveland City Council member from 2006 to 2008 and a member of the Ohio Senate from 2008 until 2014. Turner was the Democratic nominee for Ohio Secretary of State in 2014, but lost in the general election against incumbent Jon Husted, receiving 35.5 percent of the vote. A self-described democratic socialist, her politics have been variously described as progressive, left-wing, or far-left.
Larry Cohen is the former president of the Communications Workers of America, a 700,000 member labor union representing workers in Canada and the United States. Cohen was first elected to his most recent position, by acclamation, in 2005, and left in 2015 succeeded by Chris Shelton.
Troy Dale Jackson is an American logger and politician from Allagash, Maine serving as president of the Maine Senate. Jackson represents Senate District 1, representing northern Aroostook County, including the towns of Fort Kent, Madawaska and Caribou. Jackson has served as Senate President since 2018.
Douglas R. Hoffer Jr. is an American policy analyst from Burlington, Vermont, who is currently serving as the Vermont State Auditor. He took office on January 10, 2013.
The 2018 United States Senate election in Vermont was held November 6, 2018, alongside a gubernatorial election, U.S. House election, and other state and local elections. Incumbent independent Senator Bernie Sanders won re-election to a third term, defeating Republican nominee Lawrence Zupan. The primaries were held on August 14. This was one of two independent-held Senate seats up for election in a state that Hillary Clinton won in the 2016 presidential election.
Bernie Bro, collectively Bernie Bros, is a term coined in 2015 by Robinson Meyer of The Atlantic as a pejorative to describe young male supporters of presidential candidate Bernie Sanders in the 2016 United States presidential election. The term remained in use for the 2020 United States presidential election.
Our Revolution is an American progressive political action organization founded as a continuation of Senator Bernie Sanders's 2016 presidential campaign. The organization's mission is to educate voters about issues, get people involved in the political process, and work to organize and elect progressive candidates. Our Revolution is also the title of a book by Sanders released in November 2016.
Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In is a book by U.S. Senator from Vermont Bernie Sanders, published by Thomas Dunne Books in November 2016.
The 2018 California lieutenant gubernatorial election was held on November 6, 2018, to elect the lieutenant governor of California. Incumbent Democratic lieutenant governor Gavin Newsom was ineligible to run for reelection due to term limits and ran for governor of California instead. Democrats Eleni Kounalakis and Ed Hernandez faced each other in the general election, as no Republican finished in the top two positions of the nonpartisan blanket primary that was held on June 5, 2018.
The media coverage of Bernie Sanders, a U.S. Senator from Vermont, became a subject of discussion during his unsuccessful 2016 and 2020 presidential runs. His campaigns, some independent observers, as well as some media sources have said that the mainstream media in the United States is biased against Sanders. Others say that coverage is unbiased or biased in his favor. The allegations of bias primarily concern the coverage of his presidential campaigns.
Populism in the United States reaches back to the Presidency of Andrew Jackson in the 1830s and to the People's Party in the 1890s. It has made a resurgence in modern-day politics in not only the United States but also democracies around the world. Populism is an approach to politics which views "the people" as being opposed to "the elite" and is often used as a synonym of anti-establishment; as an ideology, it transcends the typical divisions of left and right and has become more prevalent in the US with the rise of disenfranchisement and apathy toward the establishment. The definition of populism is a complex one as due to its mercurial nature; it has been defined by many different scholars with different focuses, including political, economic, social, and discursive features. Populism is often split into two variants in the US, one with a focus on culture and the other that focuses on economics.
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