We just got off a live show with Robert Reich — the professor, writer, lawyer, former Secretary of Labor, and intellectual hero of the pro-democracy cause — and almost 7,000 of you. Wow. We talked about the challenges of our time. Donald Trump, Reich argued, isn’t the cause of our national woes, but the culmination of an age of greed and bullying. And Bob also gave a very clear prescription for how we fight back.
The way out is fighting the denial of those who refuse to see what’s going on, and inspiring courage among those who could step up but have been too afraid.
Reich, as always, remains hopeful (and he pointed to the huge turnouts for the Fighting Oligarchy rallies led by Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as reason for hope). And the conversation was as inspiring as it was sobering.
Among the many things we talked about:
People are in denial, too many of them still believe that we are comfortably in a democracy, that we still have the rule of law.
The impact of the Wall Street crisis of 2008 and the willingness of Bush and Obama to bail out banks, but not workers or homeowners, destroyed faith in the system — and led directly to the Occupy movement on the left and the Tea Party on the right, and from there to Bernie Sanders but also, alas, to Donald Trump.
If there is a silver lining, it’s that we may emerge from this age of bullies with a stronger consensus on democracy and justice than we’ve had in many years.
The days of protest need to become more regular, expected, and national (maybe weekly?) — on up to a general strike, and the press must be made to notice.
We don’t yet have the leaders we need in this moment, but they are emerging.
To keep hope alive, you have to be able to look at the comedy around you.
We also talked about the new book Reich has on the way, titled (with his characteristic humor) Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America, which looks at the country through the lens of his own experience of bullying. Get it on your summer reading list now!
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A programming note: More Live conversation this week!
We’re back tomorrow, Thursday, April 24, at 12:30 p.m. Eastern, with labor leader Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL–CIO. You won’t want to miss it!
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