Part one of the story of Frederick Hoffman, the Prudential statistician nobody remembers, from The Hidden History of American Healthcare... When you ask most Americans why we’re the only developed nation on Earth without a national healthcare system that covers everybody at low cost, saves trillions, and saves hundreds of thousands of people from unnecessary death and disability every year, most will tell you about the AMA, the insurance lobby, or Reagan. And, indeed, they’re all part of the story. But the deeper answer, one I discovered — to my shock — when I was writing this book, is that it’s almost all because of a guy nobody in modern America has ever heard of.

From missing mail to armed federal agents and sweeping voter investigations, the warning signs suggest a democracy being squeezed before Americans even reach the ballot box… Something stinks.

Trump’s profiteering is only the latest chapter in a decades-long transfer of American wealth and political power into the hands of billionaires… In a nationwide poll conducted a few weeks ago and reported on by Axios, the majority of all registered voters surveyed said the number one word to describe Donald Trump is “corrupt.” This represents a massive opportunity for Democrats both now and for the next two years. And the experience of candidates in today’s Democrats’ position around the world validates the argument that this is the best way to both campaign and win elections and political power. Péter Magyar defeated Viktor Orbán in the Hungarian elections because he ran a Navalny-style playbook, calling Orbán’s and his billionaire buddies’ capture of the media and most other aspects of Hungarian life a “state capture system“ grounded in good old-fashioned “corruption.” From Orban’s son-in-law pulling a Jared and using his government position to become one of the richest men in the country, to his billionaire cronies buying up the media like the billionaire Ellisons are doing here now, corruption was Magyar’s singular through-line message. And it worked, producing an overwhelming turnout and undeniable victory. It will work here, too!

For ninety years Americans fought to keep the government from building one master file on each of us. This week Trump and Scott Bessent started one for every child in the country... Imagine this Brave New World that Donald Trump and Scott Bessent just laid the foundation for last week: The year is 2041 and your daughter is now in her twenties; she’s had a federal financial account — a “Trump Account“ — since she was a child that was created for her by a billionaire Treasury Secretary she’s never heard of, and it’s tied to her Social Security number. The account also has become a central clearing space for everything else she does, from student aid to healthcare to her tax refund, housing assistance, and the disaster relief she got after her home was hit by a flood. One morning in October she tries to book an airline flight home for Thanksgiving, and her purchase is declined on the orders of the federal government. Her internet has slowed to a crawl, the apartment she was trying to rent just “vanished,” and the job she was interviewing for just stopped returning her calls. What happened? Three weeks earlier, she’d gone to a protest and an undercover ICE operative snapped her picture. As a result, the “responsibility score” she didn’t even know she had that’s been made part of her Trump Account dropped by forty points, and when she calls to ask why, she’s told it’s “confidential government data” and there’s no appeal.