The Nation: Sherrod Brown Is the Real Deal—Could He Win It All in 2020?

• Let’s hope Senator Brown decides to join the White House contest, if only to show other Democrats what they need to know about government and society and how to deliver. He and I go back a long way—to the early 1990s, when Brown was first elected to the House and I was writing for Rolling Stone. He showed up one day at my office, promoting revival of the activist party. We didn’t exactly become buddies, but I found a high-road tutor in real-life politics. The subject: how a politician hangs on to principles in a system that rewards people for selling them out.
• President Trump is directly implicated in the new threats to middle-class stability, because he personally promoted huge corporate tax reductions. As Brown argues, Congress should now repeal this stinker to rescue the economy from another crisis.
• “The big banks have not turned into angels over the past ten years,” Brown observed. In fact, Trump’s tax cuts were designed so they could become a special kind of Ponzi scheme for bank executives. Brown explained how the game is played. “Take a look at what has happened since the Republican tax overhaul,” the senator said. “Since last year, corporations have announced more than $1 trillion in stock buybacks…. buying back shares can boost a company’s stock price, which can mean even bigger bonuses for corporate executives.”
• I asked an old insider to assess Brown’s appeal among grassroots Democrats. He gave me a one-word answer: authenticity. The senator is the real deal, with reforms in mind for Wall Street and the tax-dodging corporate balance sheets and the restoration of fair treatment for working people. And much more.

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