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Robert L. Borosage is the president of the Institute for America's Future and co-director of its sister organization, the Campaign for America's Future. The organizations were launched by 100 prominent Americans to challenge the rightward drift in U.S. politics, and to develop the policies, message and issue campaigns to help forge an enduring majority for progressive change in America. Most recently, Borosage spearheaded the Campaign's 2006 issues book, StraightTalk 2006, providing activists and candidates with distilled messages on kitchen table concerns, from jobs to affordable health care. Borosage also helped to found and chairs the Progressive Majority Political Action Committee, developing a national base of small donors and skilled activists. Progressive Majority recruits, staffs, and funds progressive candidates for political office.
Mr. Borosage writes widely on political, economic and national security issues for a range of publications including The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the Philadelphia Inquirer. He is a Contributing Editor at The Nation magazine, and a regular contributor to The American Prospect magazine. He is a frequent commentator on television and radio, including Fox Morning News, RadioNation, National Public Radio, C-SPAN and Pacifica Radio. He teaches on presidential power and national security as an adjunct professor at American University's Washington School of Law.
A graduate of Yale Law School, with a graduate degree in International Affairs from George Washington University, Borosage left the practice of law to found the Center for National Security Studies in 1974. The Center focused on the tension between civil rights and the national security powers and prerogatives of the executive branch. It played a leading role in the efforts to investigate the intelligence agencies in the 1970s, curb their abuses, and hold them accountable in the future. At the Center, he helped to write and edit two books, The CIA File and The Lawless State.
In 1979, Borosage became Director of the Institute for Policy Studies, a research institute that drew its inspiration and fellowship from the major democratic movements of our time -- anti-war, women's, environmental and civil rights movements. Borosage helped to found and guide Countdown 88, which succeeded in winning the congressional ban on covert action against Nicaragua. Under Borosage's direction, the Institute expanded its fellowship, launched a successful publications program, and developed a new Washington School for congressional aides and public interest advocates.
In 1988, Borosage left the Institute to serve as senior issues advisor to the presidential campaign of the Reverend Jesse Jackson. He traveled the country with Jackson, writing speeches, framing policy responses, and providing debate preparation and assistance. He went on to advise a range of progressive political campaigns, including those of Senator Carol Moseley-Braun, Barbara Boxer and Paul Wellstone. "
SHARE Friday, April 3, 2020 We're Going to Need a Bigger Bailout
Senate Democrats strengthened unemployment insurance for laid-off workers, covering more of them for longer and adding $600 a week to current state levels. They also targeted funds for hospitals and medical supplies -- bizarrely absent from the Republican draft -- and increased aid to schools, states, and localities.
SHARE Friday, February 14, 2020 What We Already Owe to Bernie Sanders
Whether Sanders gains the nomination or the presidency or not, the challenge will be whether the agenda that he has championed, the movement that he has helped to fuel, and the coalition that he has begun to forge can continue to build-and begin to force the fundamental reforms we so desperately need.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, November 7, 2018 The 2018 Election: A Blue Wave with a Harsh Red Undertow
Trump dubbed himself the "magic man" the day after the election. Con man would be more accurate -- and Americans are increasingly not falling for the sting. The 2018 election exposed once more how divided the country is -- but it also showed the tide is running against Trump's hateful brand of politics and the party that he continues to deform.
SHARE Saturday, August 11, 2018 Measures of Heat in Tuesday's Primaries
Voters turned out in primary elections across Ohio, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri and Washington on Tuesday. Any conclusions drawn from primaries three months out from a midterm vote are written in the wind. That does not stop the press from naming "winners and losers," who's up and who's down.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, July 29, 2018 Bad Policies Just to Resist Trump
Trump's Achilles heel is that, for all of his populist posturing, his actual agenda -- mostly drawn from the right-wing shibboleths of the Republican Congress -- offers no answers for working people. The answer to Trump's disruptions isn't an embrace of the failed policies and institutions of the past. It is to be clear about what progressives stand for, while relentlessly exposing Trump's false promises.
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, July 18, 2018 Will the Foreign-Policy Elite Learn From Trump?
Right-wing populism, as trumpeted by a poser like Trump, can evolve into a frightening threat to democracy. Left-wing populism may be democracy's salvation.
Trump's election was in many ways a warning to the establishment. The question is whether they heed that message. Thus far, the results are not encouraging.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, May 17, 2018 Why Primary Fights Are Good for the Democratic Party
Over the past decade, Democrats lost control of both houses of Congress, 1,000 seats in statehouses across the nation, and the presidency to the most reviled candidate in history. The party committees haven't cleaned house or changed strategy. The same consultants, the same pollsters, the same operatives still are at the wheel.
SHARE Friday, April 27, 2018 How to Build a Progressive Populist Movement From the Ground Up
Traditional candidates depend on corporate and deep pocket donors. That makes them reluctant to call out the entrenched interests and big money that have rigged the rules. People's Action movement candidates -- supported by local volunteers and small donations -- will be able to name names and say what is what. The difference will be telling.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, April 24, 2018 Tell Congress: Curb the President's War Powers
This president -- like his predecessors -- claims the right to make war unilaterally, unrestrained by international law or the Constitution. The recent U.S. missile attack on Syria to punish the Assad regime for an alleged use of chemical weapons on civilians reveals the scope of presidential contempt for the law.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, April 14, 2018 The Real Deal on Trump's Trade Tantrums
Best estimates suggest the "China shock" alone -- the result of running the largest deficits with one country in the history of the world -- caused the loss of 2.4 million U.S. jobs between 1999 and 2011. And the effect was much broader. Companies used the threat of moving abroad to bludgeon workers into accepting cuts in wages and benefits.
(7 comments) SHARE Saturday, March 17, 2018 Opening a New Way for Democrats to Run and Win
Midterm elections are about passion and energy. Democrats need a sea change, and the resistance to Trump is lifting the tide. Lamb's victory shows is that Democrats don't need purity to come out in large numbers to take back the Congress and confront Trump. It also shows that Democratic candidates who champion a bold kitchen table agenda can win even in the reddest of districts.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, March 9, 2018 The Progressive Challenge
Resistance to Trump is necessary, but not sufficient. Getting it right is reassuring but not enough. Progressives must organize not simply to fight but to win the battle over America's future. This won't be easy. The establishment in both parties resists change. Big money corrupts our politics. Partisan posturing too often distracts from the debate that we need.
(4 comments) SHARE Monday, March 5, 2018 Pushing for Real Change in the Democratic Party
Will the Democratic Party open itself up to the new grassroots energy and activism that is rising in American politics, or will its insiders assume they can continue business as usual yet still reap the benefits of the resistance to Donald Trump?
SHARE Wednesday, February 28, 2018 Janus: Billionaires Take on Public Employees and their Unions
The Janus case represents the culmination of a relentless, multi-year, multi-faceted campaign of right-wing billionaires to cripple unions, particularly those of public employees. If they prevail, they will succeed in weakening unions, lowering wages and benefits for public employees, while exacerbating the savage inequality that already subverts our democracy.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, February 12, 2018 The Real Reason Workers Can't Get A Raise
Despite Trump's boasts, the economy isn't taking off. The growth of real wages is near zero. The wage share of the economy is near record lows. Profit margins are near record highs. And as Paul Krugman notes, demand has been sustained not by rising business investment but by consumers drawing down their savings. Consumer debt reached record heights in 2017.
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, February 7, 2018 Can Democrats Catch a Wave in 2018?
All Democrats agree a clear statement of what the party stands for is vital for success. The question is whether their candidates will carry the populist agenda and message they need and the times demand, in spite of the same old big-money politics the party pros insist they cannot do without.
SHARE Friday, February 2, 2018 Menace and Mush: Trump's State of the Union
Donald Trump's State of the Union drenched his audience in insipid invocations of unity. Laboriously reading from a teleprompter, for 90 minutes he celebrated family, faith, law and order, the military, our veterans, the national anthem, "one team, one people, one American family." He then purposefully preyed on our fears, plying the race-bait politics that he and his party have perfected.
(12 comments) SHARE Wednesday, January 31, 2018 The Pentagon's Plan for Never-Ending War
The military will be tasked with missions it cannot fulfill. It will get more money, but not nearly enough. The nuclear arms race will be revived. American lives will be lost in wars that continue endlessly, with the United States unwilling to lose and unable to win. We desperately need a new real security strategy, and a revolt against endless war to give it traction.
SHARE Thursday, January 25, 2018 The Shutdown Debacle: Trump and the Politics of Hate
Trump wanted the shutdown so he could unleash his vile politics of hate. Republicans shamelessly joined in. This cannot be ignored or accepted. It is not politics as usual. It is an ugly and vicious posturing that will drive this country apart, and unleash furies that may benefit Trump and his Republican choir in the short term, but will subvert this country in the end.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, January 10, 2018 The Orange Menace and the Even More Dangerous Party That Stands With Him
As he marks the end of his first year in office, Donald Trump, the self-proclaimed "very stable genius," stands astride the political world like a cartoon dybbuk, an orange menace of terrifying impulsiveness. With his tweet-spasms spewing venom on adversaries, his reckless fomenting of racial division, his unending lies, and his predilection for vulgar schoolyard taunts, Trump fuels rage and resistance.