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 serving as the senior United States senator from Vermont. Sanders is the longest serving independent in U.S. congressional history but has 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, coming second in both campaigns. He is often seen as a leader of the U.S. progressive movement.
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 an American journalist, columnist at The Guardian, editor for Jacobin, author, television writer, and screenwriter. He is also a political commentator and radio host based in Denver. He is a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist, political spokesperson, and blogger. In March 2019, he began working as the senior advisor and speechwriter on 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. He is founder of The Lever, an independent investigative news outlet.
New Democrats, also known as centrist Democrats, Clinton Democrats, or moderate Democrats, are a centrist ideological faction within the Democratic Party in the United States. As the Third Way faction of the party, they are seen as culturally liberal on social issues while being moderate or fiscally conservative on economic issues. New Democrats dominated the party from the late 1980s through the mid-2010s, and continue to be a large coalition in the modern Democratic Party.
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.
The 2016 Democratic National Convention was a presidential nominating convention, held at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from July 25 to 28, 2016. The convention gathered delegates of the Democratic Party, the majority of them elected through a preceding series of primaries and caucuses, to nominate a candidate for president and vice president in the 2016 United States presidential election. Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was chosen as the party's nominee for president by a 54% majority of delegates present at the convention roll call securing it over primary rival Senator Bernie Sanders, who received 46% of votes from delegates, and becoming the first female candidate to be formally nominated for president by a major political party in the United States. Her running mate, Senator Tim Kaine from Virginia, was confirmed by delegates as the party's nominee for vice president by acclamation.
The 2016 United States elections were held on Tuesday, November 8, 2016. Republican nominee Donald Trump defeated Democratic former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the presidential election, while Republicans retained control of Congress. This marked the first and most recent time Republicans won or held unified control of the presidency and Congress since 2004.
In the 2016 presidential campaign, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders sought the Democratic Party's nomination in a field of six major candidates and was the runner up with 46% of the pledged delegates behind former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who won the contest with 54%. Sanders, the junior United States senator and former Representative from Vermont, began with an informal announcement on April 30, 2015, and a formal announcement that he planned to seek the Democratic Party's nomination for President of the United States on May 26, 2015, in Burlington, Vermont. Sanders had been considered a potential candidate for president since at least September 2014. Though he had previously run as an independent, he routinely caucused with the Democratic Party, as many of his views align with Democrats. Running as a Democrat made it easier to participate in debates and get his name on state ballots.
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 was re-elected to a third term. The primaries were held on August 14.
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.
Gerald Carl Friedman is an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He became nationally prominent during the 2016 U.S. presidential election after writing an analysis of Democratic Party candidate Bernie Sanders campaign's policies in which Friedman concluded that these policies would produce significant economic growth in the United States if they were enacted. Friedman also received strong backlash for these remarks, from editorial pundits and fellow academics.
Our Revolution is an American progressive political action organization spun out of Senator Bernie Sanders's 2016 presidential campaign to continue its work. 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.
Bernie Sanders Guide to Political Revolution is a 2017 bestselling political book authored by U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, published by Henry Holt and Co. It is primarily aimed at teenage readers.
Where We Go from Here: Two Years in the Resistance is a book by U.S. Senator from Vermont Bernie Sanders, published by Thomas Dunne Books on November 27, 2018.
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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