Robert Reich takes aim at Trump in blog posts

A University of California, Berkeley professor recently outlined the reasons why Republicans “must dump Trump” in his blog, simultaneously thanking Bernie Sanders for “igniting a movement” in favor of progressive government.

Robert B. Reich, the Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at UC Berkeley and former Secretary of Labor during the Clinton administration, published a post on his blog on June 11 delineating the reasons Republicans must dispose of their tacit endorsement of Donald Trump for “the good of the country and the world."

According to Reich, Trump divides us “by race and ethnicity and religion."

“He says undocumented Americans “bring drugs, crime, they’re rapists,” and that the Mexican government “sends bad ones over because they don’t want to pay for them,” Reich writes.

He also alleges that after the Orlando shooting last weekend when Omar Mateen killed 49 people and maimed 50 others, that Trump did not mourn the victims, but rather took to Twitter and immediately tweeted “Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I don’t want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart!”

Trump’s twitter shows that Trump actually posted a tweet “praying for all the victims & their families” before exclaiming about “being right on radical Islamic terrorism."

Reich goes on to link a Politifact page debunking Trump’s tweet that claimed 81 percent of homicides against whites are committed by black criminals, calling it a “racist myth."

Yet according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, whites committed 99,403 violent crimes against blacks during the 2012-2013 period, while blacks committed an average of 560,000 violent crimes against whites, calculating to blacks being the attackers in interracial violent crimes against whites 84.9 percent of the time.

“Why are there so few statesmen left in the Republican Party? Are there no principled Republicans whose loyalty to the nation is greater than their eagerness to win back the White House?” Reich asks toward the end of his post.

On June 19, Reich updated his blog with a contemplation of how “terrifying” the prospect of Donald Trump being president is to him, and urging Hillary Clinton to nominate Supreme Court justices who will strike down “Citizen’s United,” the Supreme Court case that tossed out the corporate and union ban on making independent expenditures and financing electioneering communications.

“And because the free market depends on laws and rules,” he asserts, “big money’s political influence has rigged the economic system in favor of those at the top.”

In a post published June 8th titled “ A Public Note to my Friend, Bernie Sanders," Reich praises Sanders for helping to shape a generation of people who will “reclaim our economy and democracy from the moneyed interests," and goes on to commend him for influencing the current and future progressive agenda.

“Your message—about the necessity of single-payer healthcare, free tuition at public universities, a $15 minimum wage, busting up the biggest Wall Street banks, taxing the financial speculation, expanding Social Security, imposing a tax on carbon, and getting big money out of politics—will shape the progressive agenda from here on,” Reich writes.

Reich’s “Rate My Professors” page hosts a series of critiques from students, many of those students warning others to write their essays with a left-wing view or risk being marked down a grade.

“If you take it be sure to write the papers not only well but with a very left wing view. Otherwise it is REALLY hard to get an A, I learned that lesson the hard way,” writes one student.

“The single biggest problem with this class is that most of the readings are strictly lefty views and we never consider the other side. At times, authors chastise [R]epublicans without any facts to back up their statements,” writes another student. “Obviously Professor Reich doesn’t care about the constant feedback regarding this issue, since year after year nothing changes.”

Reich garnishes the end of his letter to Sanders with an impassioned assertion of support for the Senator’s efforts.

“Regardless of what you decide to do now, you have ignited a movement that will fight onward. We will fight to put more progressives into the House and Senate. We will fight at the state level. We will organize for the 2020 presidential election.”

Reich endorsed Bernie Sanders for president in February of this year.

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