Why do so many Americans support a neofascist? | The Coffee Klatch with Robert Reich

it is the Saturday coffee clutch with Heather loft house and yours truly Robert R uh and uh we thought we would do something a little bit different today than we normally do and that is to take a deeper dive into why we are where we are as a nation today why do 40% of Americans or maybe more um find a dictator a a sort of Proto fascist uh somebody who they actually would consider voting for why are we so split as a nation where did this all come from uh and Heather um I thought that this would be something that would be interesting I know and I'm looking forward to it and the first thing that comes to mind is you me being psychic in 1994 I mean you predicted this you said things this is what is going to happen have you all seen it let's take a look my friends we are on the way to becoming a two teered Society composed of a few winners at a larger group of Americans Left Behind whose anger and whose disillusionment is easily manipulated once unbottled Mass resentment can poison the very fabric of society the moral Integrity of a society replacing ambition With Envy replacing tolerance with hate today the targets of that rage and we see it around us you can only read the daily paper you don't have far to look today the targets of those ra that rage are immigrants and Welfare mothers and government officials and gays and an IL defined counterculture but as the middle class continues to erode who will be the targets tomorrow well that is a little bit sobering oh it's so it's so so it's no it's sobering because I was looking so much younger oh that and I was pretty goodlook at that time I'm now Bob come on you are come on not not but I did no I did uh understand one thing and that was that widening inequality at the rate we were going then even then uh was dangerous for our society but you pictured it this level I mean it wasn't just inequality is a problem everybody we really need to fix it it was like look I am looking into the future I am seeing the trends and no one heeded what nobody heeded it but I think Heather was not that difficult because history is uh is full of instances I mean look at what happened in Germany in the 1930s and and in Italy and when people are uh feel like the game is rigged against them and they feel like they've nothing really to lose and they're angry and frustrated and anxious uh they will be fodder uh exploited by a demagogue I know eventually and this is exactly what's happened uh but the point that I was I think I was making there and certainly looking back uh would make uh is that Donald Trump is the is the consequence not the cause uh of many of these deep problems that America has yes and you've said that before and so but what so what give us specifics can you give us what exactly if you had to pick I don't know three things four things two things well the the the basic problem is that for 40 years right uh you have a large number of Americans the typical Americans wage adjusted for inflation uh has not gone anywhere uh in terms of real purchasing power uh and this is so violative of the American dream because uh you know in the 1930s we were in a depression and then we had a war but post-war America certainly between 1946 and 1978 79 was a land in which the middle class kept growing and everybody expected justifiably expected that they would do better in their own lifetimes and their children would do better than they and then starting in the late 0s really starting with Ronald Reagan's Administration everything reversed itself uh and instead of everybody doing better the middle class started shrinking and people found that they were doing worse but the narrative didn't change right pull yourself up by your bootstraps The Narrative didn't change that's right and that is that's interesting I mean the American dream was still something that people felt that they were uh they aspired to uh and they they they avoided facing the reality I mean uh large numbers of middle class women went into paid work uh in the late 70s now we say it's because all these wonderful opportunities opened for women uh but actually if you look at the data what you see is that women went into paid work because they had to to maintain the standard of living of their families because male wages were going down right uh why were male wages going down in part because uh the the country was losing uh good unionized manufacturing jobs why were we losing good unionized manufacturing jobs uh because the structure of the economy shifted when the people who are now called private equity and hedge fund managers but were then corporate Raiders they took over corporations or threatened to take over corporations that did not maximize share values so up until that time and that's roughly the late 70s you had corporations that believed in and their heads of the corporations believed in stakeholder capitalism you did a great article I'm plugging it for you on the New York time in the New York Times about Sears I remember that well Sears robok was a good example Sears robu uh for you know for all its years uh had an employee uh profit sharing plan and so if you were a Sears employee by the 1950s you had and you you had started at Sears even in the 20s uh you had accumulated a huge amount of money I mean you you could retire not only with a pension but you could retire with a a a a big chunk of Sears robu you were one of the owners um but all of that changed dramatically the only people who became owners were the private Equity people yep and the uh you know the vulture capitalists um so the the actual structure of the economy because of globalization because of the pressures on these companies to maximize shareholder returns uh because of the the the attempt to bust unions which really was successful Heather in the 1950s and 60s when I grew up 35% of all of the workers in the private sector were in unions I know uh by now it's 6% yeah 35% yeah down to 6% it's nothing well you have no bargaining leverage so there's a well we'll talk about that so counterveiling power gone but it's so I mean even last week or whenever it was a whole bunch of Republican Governors wrote a letter that said we really unions are really let's not as it related to um the VW plant um and who was it Mercedes in the south I mean they a lot of people have do not want unions gone but there we are seeing that there are some efforts that are peing right well the interesting thing about where we are right now is that unions have become more popular than they've been in 30 years uh and there are more employees who say we want to join a union that's it but we can't right so the numbers haven't caught up to the interest no because uh because the anti-un is still there I mean big companies uh are are are anti-union look at look at Tesla for example yes I mean the same week that Elon Musk has the Tesla shareholders vote on whether he's going to get a gigantic I mean $47 billion package pay package 47 billion billion billion I mean the same week uh he lays off 14,000 Tesla workers now these Mass layoffs uh were something that did not occur they occurred during the Depression because uh companies had no choice uh but for profitable companies to lay off workers in large numbers two Monon Severance and two month SE for the Tesla workers I mean workers would been laid off uh you know I know a lot of people who have been laid off for periods of time it is not pleasant it is of course it is a horrible experience to lay off 14,000 workers instead of treating workers as assets to be developed what you have modern CEOs are treating workers as costs to be cut and these are the same CEOs who are making 20 30 40 million a year yep and that's not even to mention Tesla and right the $47 billion pay package that's it okay so decline in unions you talked a little bit about globalization more on that well um I think that by the 1990s and I was part of an Administration that wanted NAFTA the North American free trade act and wanted China to join the World Trade Organization uh I think it was a it was conventional wisdom that trade was inevitable Bill Clinton used to give speeches about you know you can't stop trade it's you can't stop globalization uh and uh there was a memory of the Smoot Holly act during the 1930s uh isolationist uh act uh tried to preserve jobs which backfired yeah uh because less trade meant less Commerce uh and it meant fewer jobs yeah uh but uh it became uh a kind of a touchstone by the 90s without any thinking about it the trade was good yeah uh and the lack of thinking and I was say I was labor secretary the lack of thinking had to do with what happens to the people who lose jobs because of trade do we have a plan do we have a system in place for making them whole again for getting them good jobs for U Tiding their families over while they are looking for good jobs we didn't have anything no and then came the financial crisis of 2008 uh and Heather where were you during the financial crisis during that the the Great Recession so I was I had just I landed a job so I'm very fortunate I land I had very low rent and I had just gotten my master's degrees from UC Berkeley and I was working in global health so I basically avoided the recession in that I spent a lot of time on the ground in Africa and Asia and I had had this job and so many of my family and friends were affected by it far greater than I was I happened to be able to Band-Aid it in this way I think the Great Recession was a trauma oh for the country oh was yeah and for people like me so I was in how old was I 30ish is that right that's right no you were 15 no I'm serious I was 30 I was born in 77 um and there yeah no people it was devastating and it was in a way as a 30-year-old to process that it's different than you're when a kid and so for sure a lot of my cohort and my friends and my colleagues I mean it was like wow this was the first time they really felt it being on their own well see this is U this is a tripartite problem number one you have globalization without any effort to help people cope with loss of jobs from globalization number two you have the demise of unions because companies are trying to maximize shareholder returns and number three you have the financialization of the economy deregulation of Wall Street which led to the financial crisis many Americans before the financial crisis I talked about coping mechanisms as women went into the paid Workforce another coping mechanism was to use your homes as piggy banks uh basically get uh bank loans using the House's collateral line of credit or a second mortgage after the Great Recession after the explosion of the housing market in 2008 uh that was no longer possible yeah and so what we had in this country after the financial crisis of 2008 and the bank bailout y was the emergence of the Occupy Movement and also at the same time another movement on the right which was the Tea Party Movement yes I got it but can we just say we're using the past tense now and we are talking about the past but there are lingering effects from that the Great Recession that are still oh absolutely so I mean of course absolutely in fact if you are a young person today and I know this because even young college students they have student debt but they can't get into the housing market right uh they can't we didn't we stopped building housing uh they can't even expect to start their family because they don't have enough money but private Equity is doing just fine private Equity is doing got a lot of housing to choose from uh so the yes the structural problems that started in the late 70s early 80s are still with us and that's my point Heather because you've got a large number of people in this country who are anxious who are frustrated upset who who feel like the game is rigged against them and it is rigged against them uh and so they naturally U now I'm not justifying I'm explaining there a difference they are attracted to a demagogue who promises to make America great again you have told me a great story before about being on the ground you were doing one of your documentaries and they dragged you somewhere and you were interviewing workers on the ground basically about where they were tell this story for people who haven't heard it well it was 2 15 at a time when Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush remember Jeb Bush were both the assumed heads of their parties in terms of the nominations for uh president in 2016 uh and I was going around doing kind of a free floating focus group uh for research and also for a film I was doing uh and talking to many of the Union people that I knew from 20 years before and their children uh but it was all it was the Industrial Midwest uh the Rust Belt the South farmers in Missouri and I would ask them who they thought were the best prospects and the people that they were attracted to for president the next year uh was it Jeff Bush Hillary Clinton and they kept on saying to me and I couldn't believe it we were very interested in two people uh and the same PE person would say this uh either Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump and I'd say no that can't possibly be they're on opposite ends of continum but you no uh they they liked Bernice Sanders and Donald Trump because they weren't politicians they were not traditional establishment figures and they were talking authentically about real stuff and and they felt heard by them both and they felt that they were both of them reflecting the conversations that these people average Americans in the Rust Belt in the south in the in the midwest were having about over the kitchen table y uh now Heather it is very important to understand that American populism which is basically a rejection of Elites and the establishment American populism is the most important force in American politics today Joe Biden is the perfect president because he is so much of a populist himself uh if he let his populist side be shown I mean he's um he's a labor guy uh he's from Scranton Pennsylvania my hometown uh he's a u just an average good American uh and he gets it he gets it when he walks a picket line he understands what those workers are doing and why they're on a picket line but he feels like less of a messiah to these people right this 40% you keep talking about I mean what are they seeing in Donald Trump that they're not seeing in the guy that cares about Labor Messiah is the word you used and that's an important word because what a lot of people who have been just feel like they've been treated so badly by employers by the economy by the elites by The Establishment for so many years what they see in Donald Trump is almost a religious figure a messiah somebody who's going to deliver them from where they have been uh and he is obviously a complete fraud I know uh and a scumbag uh but he plays that role Bernie Sanders could have and did for a while of course now I think one so you as Secretary of Labor you really thought about workers how everything was changing how do we change things on the home front I think that the Biden Administration Biden and the inflation reduction Act is trying to do something similar as it creates these labor standards with all the stuff that comes out of the IRA and with these you know Green jobs and that kind of thing I think unions hopefully will be on an upswing as it relates to that and Tethered to those requirements what do you think about that is that I mean I think you're 100% correct this is the side of Joe Biden's Administration uh that is not being talked about it's very difficult for people to believe it there's such cynicism which is another Legacy of what we're talking about uh but Biden has done several things to reverse the currents the trends that got us into this predicament right uh strengthening unions I mean his National Labor Relations Board is one of the most pro-union and activist I remember uh going after corporate monopolies hello his antitrust division of the justice department and Federal Trade Commission are the most activist trustbusters big corporate big Tech and we're talking about grocery companies and this is this is very important and it's very interesting and important at the same time uh he's going after he he is the first Democratic Administration not to load his economic team with people from Wall Street yeah uh in fact he doesn't have Wall streeters uh this is below the radar but Heather it's important because it means that the economic advice he's getting uh is not infected by the financialization of the economy yeah I know okay so it's been what' you say 40 years you 50 you've been watching all this you've been watching all this happen yes so what else can we do I mean the Biden Administration is doing that so there's this and Trump has just ridden this wave I mean he is playing it beautifully well I think that if there is a second Biden Administration please God um I think he will move into the areas that need attention uh Child Care Elder Care housing availability uh and also getting big money out of politics this is the agenda y uh and the Democrats have got to become economic populists to the extent that this is an economic and they think they are don't they well they think they are but uh actually when it comes to standing up to Wall Street and big corporations Joe Biden is willing to do it yeah uh but many Democrats uh frankly that's where their money campaign money comes from so they're still reluctant and we've talked about this at nauseum but the messaging around it needs to improve right well it does need to improve but uh what does that mean what it means is that Democrats have been have to be willing uh to name names uh to blame certain corporations uh to not vilify but to explain to the public why we are at where we are which has a lot to do with power and the accumulation of wealth and power at the top uh not just in terms of individuals but also big corporations and that is a populist economic message which is true it has the virtue of being true uh and it is important that the public understand this one thing you said the other day to me I think it was even over coffee we just didn't wasn't this coffee you said um we talked about the labor beat so journalists used to follow labor and there were stories and that you don't see that anymore and that is also a problem or a symptom or both well it's it's a symptom and it's a problem both that is the labor reporters green Steve Greenhouse is a good example for the New York Times uh uh Steve used to put uh on the front page of the New York Times stories about what uh organized labor was doing what they were trying to do why it was important what their goals were and so people understood organized labor as a vital and important political force but as union busting took over in the really in the 90s and at the beginning part of the of this century uh these big media organizations got rid of their labor reporters they didn't need them anymore they felt well labor is an old story uh if you go from 35% of the private sector Workforce unionized down to what uh 6% uh then why even talk about it but you can see how that is a uh a a a self-fulfilling prophecy y so I don't want to keep you longer than you are able to stay no I'm loving this clut are you kidding me it's so great it's like it's a different level it's so well I don't also don't want to just be dactic and professorial we want that we want that don't we I do they do okay well um um but I I I there's a lot more to say about all of this uh but I think that if there is one lesson here it's that the inflation reduction act and Joe Biden and the direction he's going in uh are extremely important uh people don't know it it's very hard to get it across but the historic context that I've provided is something that may be helpful hope it is helpful to all of you and um thanks for being with us please join us again next Saturday 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Channel: Robert Reich

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Keywords: robertreich, robert reich, robert reich inequality for all, inequality media, secretary of labor, free trade, bill clinton, globalization, Donald trump, history of labor, labor unions, Ronald reagan, history explained, economics explained, the coffee klatch, Robert reich podcast, Robert reich explains economics, trump economic views, why is everything so bad

Id: UQp8Lj7jPvQ

Length: 24min 51sec (1491 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 27 2024