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Speaker 1: Hi, everyone, I'm Kitty Kuric, And this is next question.

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Speaker 1: What pops into your head when I say the American dream?

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Speaker 1: Have you achieved it? Did your parents? How would you

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Speaker 1: know if you did? Perhaps no other concept is more

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Speaker 1: iconically American than this idea that if you work hard,

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Speaker 1: you can make it, whatever that means to you. But

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Speaker 1: in recent years, it seems like the one thing most

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Speaker 1: people can agree on is that the American dream is

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Speaker 1: getting harder and harder to achieve. But what we can

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Speaker 1: agree on is why so thank goodness for David Leonhardt.

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Speaker 1: You may know him from his column at the New

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Speaker 1: York Times, where he also runs the morning newsletter, which

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Speaker 1: I read every day. His new book, ours was The

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Speaker 1: Shining Future, aims to identify what's gone wrong to make

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Speaker 1: the American dreams slip out of reach for so many.

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Speaker 1: David has really done his research. His analysis of how

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Speaker 1: our modern economy came to be as fascinating and illuminating,

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Speaker 1: and it's so accessible because he lays all this out

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Speaker 1: using the personal stories of the politicians, activists, and regular

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Speaker 1: old people who shape the last one hundred years or

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Speaker 1: so of America's sense of itself as a place where

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Speaker 1: anyone can make it. As you'll hear in our interview,

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Speaker 1: David is an optimist. He has a couple of diagnoses

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Speaker 1: for both the political right, perhaps even more so for

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Speaker 1: his fellow progressives on the left. But what pulses through

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Speaker 1: David's book is the hope that comes from understanding how

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Speaker 1: we got here so we can actually chart our path forward. Hi,

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Speaker 1: David Leonhard, how are you.

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Speaker 2: I've good, Katie. Thanks so much for having me.

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Speaker 1: I'm really excited to talk to you about your book.

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Speaker 1: I'm a big fan of your work, and like everyone else,

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Speaker 1: i read your morning newsletter right after I read my own,

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Speaker 1: so I feel like I'm in touch with you on

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Speaker 1: a daily basis. But I'm fascinated by your latest book

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Speaker 1: called ours was the Shining Future, And gosh, where do

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Speaker 1: I start? I think I'm always interested in the germ

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Speaker 1: of the idea, the why of this book. I'm sure

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Speaker 1: you're reporting through the years. You've been at the New

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Speaker 1: York Times for what twenty four years? Yeah, covering big issues,

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Speaker 1: primarily domestic ones. So where did the germ for this

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Speaker 1: book come from? David?

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Speaker 2: The main thing that I've written about Katie in my

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Speaker 2: time at the Times has been the economy. And I've

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Speaker 2: written a lot about people's frustrations with the American economy,

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Speaker 2: the idea that it isn't delivering what they wanted to deliver.

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Speaker 2: There's this amazing thing now in which even when the

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Speaker 2: economy is growing and the unemployment rate is relatively low,

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Speaker 2: Americans say that they're not that happy with the economy.

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Speaker 2: Now's a good example of exactly that phenomenon. And what

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Speaker 2: I decided I really wanted to unpack was how did

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Speaker 2: we get here? And I wanted to tell a story

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Speaker 2: about how we ended up with an economy that feels

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Speaker 2: disappointing to so many people. And so that's what I've

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Speaker 2: set out to do. It's really a book written for

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Speaker 2: people who who want to understand the economy and are

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Speaker 2: really smart, and who also feel like, hey, you know what,

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Speaker 2: the way it's talked about a lot in the media, frankly,

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Speaker 2: is just too technical and it's hard to follow. And

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Speaker 2: that's what I want to do. And I wanted to

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Speaker 2: explain both how we've ended up here and frankly, as

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Speaker 2: you know this, I'm an optimist by nature, and so

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Speaker 2: even with all these problems, I also wanted to explain

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Speaker 2: how is it we could end up in a better

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Speaker 2: place than we're in today.

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Speaker 1: I love someone who breaks it down. I am your

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Speaker 1: target market to a t I hope I'm smart. I'm

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Speaker 1: certainly curious, but sometimes economic reporting does feel too abstract

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Speaker 1: to me. So I really appreciate someone who can connect

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Speaker 1: the dots and identify macro trends because I'm fascinated too,

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Speaker 1: like you are, David, Like how did we get here?

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Speaker 1: What were the forces socioeconomic forces in particular, that led

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Speaker 1: us to this moment? And I have to say, as

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Speaker 1: I looked at your book, I really looked at it

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Speaker 1: in terms of my own life, because not that it's

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Speaker 1: all about me, but I was born in nineteen fifty seven.

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Speaker 1: I am certainly the beneficiary of what is traditionally known

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Speaker 1: as the American dream. Born to parents who my mom

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Speaker 1: didn't work. My dad made a modest salary, although he

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Speaker 1: was highly intelligent and focused on education for his kids.

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Speaker 1: His priority was to send us to good schools so

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Speaker 1: we could advance our status in life. I think for

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Speaker 1: my sisters, maybe to marry somebody who was very successful,

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Speaker 1: but actually my dad really wanted my older sisters to

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Speaker 1: have a job and to contribute to society. And my

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Speaker 1: sister Emily was ten years older than I and my

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Speaker 1: sister Kiki seven years older, so he was really a

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Speaker 1: man ahead of his time in some ways. But I

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Speaker 1: mentioned that because I feel like I really benefited from

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Speaker 1: the notion of upward mobility, and I think I got in.

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Speaker 1: I think I was born in the nick of time,

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Speaker 1: honestly from what you describe in your book, which is

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Speaker 1: from World War Two to the seventies and eighties, kind

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Speaker 1: of what was the economic environment and then how things

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Speaker 1: started to change in the seventies and eighties, But they

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Speaker 1: didn't change in a way that it impacted me, because

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Speaker 1: I graduated from college in nineteen seventy nine and I

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Speaker 1: was and I think all the kids in our family

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Speaker 1: were able to make a better living than my dad did.

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Speaker 1: And that's not just say we had a wonderful childhood

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Speaker 1: and I wouldn't trade it for anything, but we were

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Speaker 1: the typical examples of doing better than your parents, right, Yes,

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Speaker 1: So I'd love you to kind of break down and

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Speaker 1: kind of give us the cliff notes of what happened

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Speaker 1: not only over the last forty years, but what happened

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Speaker 1: before that, and how things seemed to change.

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Speaker 2: One of the really nice things for me in going

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Speaker 2: around and starting to talk about my book is hearing

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Speaker 2: people's own stories of the American dream, their personal stories.

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Speaker 2: I tell my own personal story, my family's at the

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Speaker 2: start of the book, and so I love hearing other people's. So, yes, look,

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Speaker 2: you captured it in your personal story. And I'll put

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Speaker 2: some numbers around that. So, an American child born in

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Speaker 2: nineteen forty had a ninety two percent chance of growing

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Speaker 2: up to have a higher household income as an adult

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Speaker 2: than their parents did. And that is the entire society, right,

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Speaker 2: every racial group, ninety two percent. That's a virtual guarantee. Right.

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Speaker 2: That means even people who got quite ill or who

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Speaker 2: were laid off at some point in their life still

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Speaker 2: grew up to make more money than their parents did

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Speaker 2: ninety two percent. And so how did we get there?

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Speaker 2: And I think it is very important to say that

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Speaker 2: we're talking about the forties, the fifties, and the sixties.

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Speaker 2: These are decades with horrible racism, horrible sexism, really bad

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Speaker 2: religious bigotry as well. And so it's not that we

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Speaker 2: want to go back to the society that we had then,

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Speaker 2: But even for groups that were experiencing really vicious discrimination.

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Speaker 2: This progress applied so in the forties and fifties, even

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Speaker 2: before the great victories of the civil rights movement, the

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Speaker 2: white black pay gap shrunk and the white black life

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Speaker 2: expectancy gap shrunk. And the reason is because we were

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Speaker 2: building the society that was basically bottom up or middle

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Speaker 2: out prosperity, in which we were build holding a society

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Speaker 2: in which people were able to get jobs even if

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Speaker 2: they didn't have a college degree, that allowed them to

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Speaker 2: enjoy really good standard of living. And the word I

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Speaker 2: use to describe what we had is democratic capitalism, small

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Speaker 2: d democratic capitalism. Look, I really believe the evidence shows

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Speaker 2: that capitalism is the best system for organizing a society.

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Speaker 2: The Soviet Union didn't work, Cuba doesn't work right, South

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Speaker 2: Korea Lorks much better than North Korea. China got prosperous

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Speaker 2: after it moved toward capitalism and away from communism. But

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Speaker 2: not every form of capitalism works equally well. And a

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Speaker 2: kind of rough and tumble form of capitalism where we

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Speaker 2: have taxes really low and we don't have regulations and

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Speaker 2: workers can't join unions, just works much less well than

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Speaker 2: democratic capitalism, where we're investing in the future, and ordinary

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Speaker 2: people are able to form grassroots organizations and advocate for themselves.

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Speaker 2: And that's really what we had in the forties and

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Speaker 2: the fifties and the sixties.

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Speaker 1: Can you describe a little bit more, kind of unraveled

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Speaker 1: the term democratic capitalism, a little bit more for us

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Speaker 1: versus sort of unfettered capitalism.

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Speaker 2: Yes. So I think one of the things to know

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Speaker 2: about capitalism is both that it's superior to the alternatives,

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Speaker 2: but it also has a predictable set of excesses and problems. Right,

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Speaker 2: Capitalism on its own doesn't solve climate change. Capitalism on

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Speaker 2: its own doesn't tend to build schools where kids can go,

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Speaker 2: or roads for us to travel on. And capitalism on

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Speaker 2: its own tends to lead to rising inequality. And so

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Speaker 2: what you really need is a government to intervene and

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Speaker 2: do things like invest in the future, building big roads

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Speaker 2: and building airports, building schools for people. If you don't

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Speaker 2: have the government involved and workers can't join labor unions,

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Speaker 2: I think we've sort of lost sight of just how

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Speaker 2: important labor unions are.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to get into that.

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Speaker 2: And so that's a great example. If the government isn't

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Speaker 2: involved to make sure that blue collar workers can join

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Speaker 2: labor unions. Businesses can pretty easily get rid of labor

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Speaker 2: unions and labor unions for all their flaws, and they

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Speaker 2: are flawed. I've been in a labor union. I've been

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Speaker 2: a manager at The New York Times who's managed unionized employees.

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Speaker 2: I'm well aware of their flaws. But corporations have their

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Speaker 2: flaws too, And if we have corporations with our unions,

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Speaker 2: we end up with this really unbalanced society. And so,

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Speaker 2: to me, democratic capitalism is a system in which we

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Speaker 2: acknowledge both the phenomenal strengths of capitalism and also the

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Speaker 2: ways in which, left to its own devices, it doesn't

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Speaker 2: tend to produce living standards that rise rapidly for most people.

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Speaker 2: And just the simplest way to think about this is

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Speaker 2: for the bottom ninety nine percent of the income distribution,

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Speaker 2: wage growth was faster in the forties, fifties, and sixties

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Speaker 2: than it's been since the nineteen eighties. So really, for

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Speaker 2: most people, since we've moved to this more bare knuckle

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Speaker 2: form of capitalism in the eighties, income growth has just

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Speaker 2: been much more disappointing.

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Speaker 1: You describe what was happening in the forties, fifties, and sixties.

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Speaker 1: But let's talk about when it all started to go bad,

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Speaker 1: and that was in the seventies and eighties, and you

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Speaker 1: trace a number of societal forces that came together to

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Speaker 1: create a lot of inequality and to really result in

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Speaker 1: a realignment of what had been traditional political parties. Can

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Speaker 1: you talk about that?

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Speaker 2: Yes, I mean the sixties and seventies was a time

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Speaker 2: of really just phenomenal chaos, as people who lived through

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Speaker 2: it can remember. I mean, we had the crime rate

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Speaker 2: really start to rise in the early sixties. And I

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Speaker 2: want to say something important here, which is the mainstream media,

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Speaker 2: which you and I are both part of of the time,

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Speaker 2: and the left half of the political spectrum, basically denied

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Speaker 2: that rising crime was a problem. And they were wrong

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Speaker 2: about that rise in crime really was a problem in

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Speaker 2: the sixties and seventies.

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Speaker 1: Why do you think they denied it? Why do you

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Speaker 1: think they underplayed it?

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Speaker 2: I think there is an instinct among liberals to say

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Speaker 2: that poverty is that economics are the root cause of everything.

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Speaker 2: And I understand that instinct. I've just written a book

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Speaker 2: about economic history, and so the idea that crime was

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Speaker 2: rising in the nineteen sixties, when the economy was still

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Speaker 2: very good, and thus it couldn't be just because of economics.

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Speaker 2: Meete people uncomfortable. So LBJ said, Hey, the way to

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Speaker 2: deal with rising crime is let's pass my war on

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Speaker 2: poverty and that I'll deal with it, Whereas in fact

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Speaker 2: it was a much more complex set of reasons why

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Speaker 2: crime was rising. It was basically people were coming to

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Speaker 2: question the society in all kinds of ways. Think about

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Speaker 2: the early sixties. It's SDS, it's in the Republican Party,

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Speaker 2: it's Barry Goldwater. People were saying, wait a second, something

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Speaker 2: about this post war situation feels a little off to us,

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Speaker 2: And it wasn't really about the economy, which was still

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Speaker 2: doing quite well. So crime starts to rise. In the sixties,

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Speaker 2: we have the Vietnam War, we have the assassination of

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Speaker 2: multiple prominent political figures, we have Watergate, and then in

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Speaker 2: the mid seventies we have this really terrible economic crisis,

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Speaker 2: mostly because of foreign reasons, the oil embargo. But Americans

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Speaker 2: looked around and they said, wow, society just is kind

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Speaker 2: of breaking down. And I completely understand why. People looked

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Speaker 2: at the government and they basically said, maybe that's the problem.

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Speaker 2: Maybe we just need a lot less government. And I

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Speaker 2: actually in the book, I try to describe sympathetically the

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Speaker 2: conservative movement that said, hey, if we have a lot

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Speaker 2: less government, all our problems will be solved. One of

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Speaker 2: the characters in my book is Robert Bork, who's famous

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Speaker 2: as a Supreme Court nominee, but is an incredibly important

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Speaker 2: economic thinker in the Reagan movement, more important than many

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Speaker 2: people realize. And I try to tell his story in

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Speaker 2: a way that let's readers understand why he came to

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Speaker 2: those views. But let's also be honest that that Robert

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Speaker 2: Bork revolution in economic policy made a lot of promises

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Speaker 2: about how great things would be if we only got

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Speaker 2: government out of the way. They said, living standards would

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Speaker 2: rise for everyone, we would all become more prosperous. And

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Speaker 2: the United States did move more toward a form of

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Speaker 2: rough and tumble capitalism than a lot of other countries,

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Speaker 2: and yet our results have been so disappointing. I mean, Katie,

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Speaker 2: the first chart in my book shows life expectancy in

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Speaker 2: every rich country. In nineteen eighty the United States had

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Speaker 2: a normal life expectancy for a rich country. For the

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Speaker 2: last fifteen years or so, We've had the single worst

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Speaker 2: life expectancy of any rich country in the world. We've

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Speaker 2: got to try something else.

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Speaker 1: After this break, David breaks down how trickle down economics

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Speaker 1: worked and didn't work the way Republicans hoped, and the

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Speaker 1: surprising ways it's affected how long we live here in

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Speaker 1: the US. If you want to get smarter every morning

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Speaker 1: with a breakdown of the news and fascinating takes on

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Speaker 1: health and wellness and pop culture, sign up for our

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Speaker 1: daily newsletter, Wake Up Call by going to Katiecuric dot com.

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Speaker 1: Now back to my conversation with David Leonhardt. Well, connect

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Speaker 1: those dots. I mean, Reagan was trickled down economics, less regulation,

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Speaker 1: All kinds of things were happening right in the eighties,

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Speaker 1: and this sort of individualism almost iron ran kind of

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Speaker 1: attitude about wealth, right, So what were the ramifications of that?

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Speaker 2: So there were certainly things that the Reagan administration didn't change,

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Speaker 2: and I know conservatives sometimes look back and say, well,

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Speaker 2: wait a second, he didn't get rid of Medicare and

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Speaker 2: Social Security. That's true, but he changed so much. I mean,

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Speaker 2: tax rates when he came into office were up, with

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Speaker 2: the top tax rate up around seventy percent, it's never

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Speaker 2: again been so high. It's sort of fluctuated in the thirties,

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Speaker 2: depending on whether we have a Republican or Democratic president.

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Speaker 2: He really unwound regulation in a lot of ways. He

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Speaker 2: allowed companies. This was Bork's biggest involvement. He allowed companies

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Speaker 2: to become so so much larger. The government stopped doing

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Speaker 2: so much antitrust. And the theory was, if only we

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Speaker 2: just let the market work, everyone will benefit.

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Speaker 1: Well, that's trickle down economics, right, which David Stockman ended

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Speaker 1: up disavowing.

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Speaker 2: That is trickle down economics. And look, it was a

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Speaker 2: theory and it had a argument behind it. And now

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Speaker 2: more than forty years later, we can look at the results.

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Speaker 2: And I know that true believers of the Reagan Revolution

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Speaker 2: will say, well, that's because we never fully tried it.

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Speaker 2: But that, to me is a little bit like Marxists

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Speaker 2: who say communism work if only we actually tried it. Like,

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Speaker 2: we moved a long way towards the vision Reagan wanted,

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Speaker 2: and the results we've gotten since nineteen eighty for very

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Speaker 2: affluent people have been great. They've been great for stock

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Speaker 2: prices and top incomes, and for the vast majority of Americans,

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Speaker 2: they've been less good than they used to be, and

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Speaker 2: I think it's important to reflect on that.

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Speaker 1: How does that directly impact life expectancy? Connect those dots

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Speaker 1: for me, David, Yes.

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Speaker 2: Thank you for that question. So what we know is

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Speaker 2: that life expectancy has really diverged by class. So it's

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Speaker 2: really diverged by whether you have a four year degree

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Speaker 2: or whether you don't. For people with a four year

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Speaker 2: college degree, the life expectancy trends are actually still pretty good.

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Speaker 2: I mean, COVID was variable for everyone, but that's true

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Speaker 2: around the world. The life expectancy trends for Americans with

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Speaker 2: a college degree have still been pretty good. The damning

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Speaker 2: statistic I told you about how the US now has

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Speaker 2: the lowest life expectancy of a high income country is

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Speaker 2: overwhelmingly driven by people without a four year college degree.

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Speaker 2: The causal mechanisms are really complex, but I also think

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Speaker 2: it's not that hard to understand the big picture. We

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Speaker 2: also know that the income gap between people with a

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Speaker 2: college degree and people without one has grown enormously. We

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Speaker 2: know people without a college degree are much less likely

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Speaker 2: to be in households where children are growing up with

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Speaker 2: two parents. We know they're much less likely to be

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Speaker 2: able to go to college and to finish college their children,

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Speaker 2: not just them. And so I think what we've ended

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Speaker 2: up with is we've ended up with this that we

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Speaker 2: have ended up with this kind of laissez faari society

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Speaker 2: in which not only has income inequality increased, but we've

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Speaker 2: lost a lot of the institutions churches, labor unions, community institutions,

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Speaker 2: employers that came to a town and would be there

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Speaker 2: for decades, that helped people build good and improving lives,

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Speaker 2: and that has had a whole set of both economic

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Speaker 2: and social causes that have been very damaging.

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Speaker 1: All these things resulted in a political realignment with many

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Speaker 1: Democrats becoming Republicans, and there were a lot of reasons

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Speaker 1: for that as well, But can you explain some of

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Speaker 1: the factors.

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Speaker 2: If I could ask conservatives and Republicans to be self reflective,

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Speaker 2: I would say, please look at these results since nineteen

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Speaker 2: eighty with an open mind and ask what's worked and

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Speaker 2: what happened. And I want to say there are a

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Speaker 2: whole bunch of conservatives who are actually doing that. Even

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Speaker 2: some members of Congress and a bunch of conservative intellectuals

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Speaker 2: were saying we need to go in a different direction.

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Speaker 2: I talk about them in the book. If I could

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Speaker 2: ask Democrats to be a little bit self reflective, I

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Speaker 2: would say, ask yourself, why is it that the Democratic

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Speaker 2: Party has increasingly become the party of relatively well off professionals,

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Speaker 2: And ask yourself, why is it that so many working

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Speaker 2: class people look at the Democratic Party and say that

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Speaker 2: party isn't my party. I feel like they talk down

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Speaker 2: to me. Historically, Democrats have reacted to this by saying, well,

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Speaker 2: it's mostly about racism, and look, it is partly about racism, right.

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Speaker 2: Donald Trump has said a lot of racist things. The

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Speaker 2: Republican Party at times has really used race baiting stereotypes.

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Speaker 2: I want to be very clear about that. But I

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Speaker 2: think progressives make a big mistake when they say the

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Speaker 2: only reason anyone could ever not vote for US is

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Speaker 2: because they're ignorant or because they're bigoted. I think that's

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Speaker 2: both really bad political strategy to tell people that you

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Speaker 2: need to vote for US or where you're ignorant. I also

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Speaker 2: think it's empirically wrong when you look at a whole

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Speaker 2: set of issues. College graduates and working class people have

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Speaker 2: different views on a whole bunch of things. It's not

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Speaker 2: just about race, And I think the clearest evidence of

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Speaker 2: this has probably come in the last five years when

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Speaker 2: we have seen Latinos, Asian Americans, and although the numbers

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Speaker 2: are small, they're noticeable in the data, Black Americans, particularly

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Speaker 2: working class people of all these groups shift away from

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Speaker 2: the Democratic Party. And I would really encourage Liberals and

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Speaker 2: Democrats to ask themselves, why is it that we're struggling

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Speaker 2: so much to get working class votes, Why is it

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Speaker 2: that increasingly true among Latinos and Asian Americans? And why

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Speaker 2: is it that there are you know, twenty states in

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Speaker 2: this country North Carolina, Florida, Texas where we basically can

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Speaker 2: ever win an election. I don't think it's just that

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Speaker 2: Republicans are cheating or they're doing these things. I think

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Speaker 2: that the Democratic Party has sent a message that it's

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Speaker 2: the party of educated people in a way that is

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Speaker 2: off putting to many other people.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. A perfect example, I think is probably one of

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Speaker 1: the biggest mistakes of the Hillary Clinton campaign, and that

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Speaker 1: was when she said this.

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Speaker 3: You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you can put

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Speaker 3: half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket

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Speaker 3: of deplorables. Right, the races, sex is homophobic, xenophobic, islamophobic,

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Speaker 3: you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that

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Speaker 3: and he has lifted them up.

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Speaker 1: I can't blame people for being insulted, and you can't

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Speaker 1: tar any huge group of Americans with such a big brush.

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Speaker 1: And I think it completely ignored the economic circumstances that

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Speaker 1: they were in for reasons it had nothing to do

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Speaker 1: with race. That was because we shifted from an industrial

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Speaker 1: to a technological society. The fact that manufacturing had dried up,

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Speaker 1: these cities had become, you know, just shadows of their

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Speaker 1: former selves. So I don't blame people well for being

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Speaker 1: highly offended by that comment.

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Speaker 2: No, I agree, And it's just part of a much

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Speaker 2: larger pattern. Right, that's maybe the clearest expression of it.

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Speaker 2: But you know, there was a study of Texas after

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Speaker 2: the twenty twenty election to try to determine why Latino

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Speaker 2: voters moved toward the Republican Party, who was done by

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Speaker 2: a progressive group, and one of the things that they

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Speaker 2: pointed out was a lot of Latinos in Texas were

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Speaker 2: uncomfortable with the immigration system right now. They were worried

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Speaker 2: about border security. That doesn't fit the democratic narrative, right

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Speaker 2: of how we're supposed to think of immigration. Another thing

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Speaker 2: that people were concerned about is they really wanted the

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Speaker 2: economy to reopen once vaccines were available, and they were

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Speaker 2: unhappy with the idea that we were going to have

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Speaker 2: these extended shutdowns. That's another thing where I think sort

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Speaker 2: of a lot of Democrats and a lot of college

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Speaker 2: graduates said, the only way you can be in favor

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Speaker 2: of reopening is if you don't understand science. And I

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Speaker 2: think it's more complicated than that.

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Speaker 1: Do you think some of this is because of the

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Speaker 1: evaporation of the sensible middle and the inability to compromise

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Speaker 1: between these two very polarized parties.

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Speaker 2: I do, and I've spent a lot of time looking

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Speaker 2: at polling data, and I talk about it in the book.

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Speaker 2: I think there is a middle in this country, the

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Speaker 2: political middle. And it's what it's interesting is it's not

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Speaker 2: on the middle of every issue. It's actually left of

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Speaker 2: center on economics. So the middle of this country is

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Speaker 2: in favor of a higher minimum wage, and they're in

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Speaker 2: favor of expanding medicaid, and they like labor unions, not

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Speaker 2: every union, but they believe that people should be able.

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Speaker 2: But they're well to the right of where the Democratic

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Speaker 2: Party is on a lot of social issues. We can

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Speaker 2: say they're in the middle, or they're a little right

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Speaker 2: of center. I don't know what it is, but put

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Speaker 2: it this way, they're not as far left as where

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Speaker 2: the Democratic Party is. And so a lot of those

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Speaker 2: voters look at the two parties and they kind of

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Speaker 2: struggle to see themselves in either one.

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Speaker 1: Especially when they say sort of young liberals. I think

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Speaker 1: that have really pulled the party further to the left

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Speaker 1: and at a pace that I think may feel too

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Speaker 1: fast for older Americans, even liberal one.

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Speaker 2: Yes, and look, part of the reason Joe Biden got

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Speaker 2: the nomination and became the president is because one of

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Speaker 2: the more moderate sections of the Democratic Party are black voters.

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Speaker 2: And the way the calendar worked the South Carolina primary,

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Speaker 2: which is overwhelmingly black voters, came in this moment where

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Speaker 2: it wasn't clear what's going to happen, and black voters

435
00:24:18,200 --> 00:24:21,359
Speaker 2: flocked to Joe Biden right. Which is a reminder that

436
00:24:21,440 --> 00:24:24,439
Speaker 2: a lot of what we hear on social media, on

437
00:24:24,600 --> 00:24:29,520
Speaker 2: university campuses, again sometimes in the media is a version

438
00:24:29,720 --> 00:24:34,160
Speaker 2: of liberalism that is more upscale than actually the way

439
00:24:34,240 --> 00:24:36,399
Speaker 2: many people are. To put a fine point on it.

440
00:24:36,640 --> 00:24:39,399
Speaker 2: I think the Democratic Party would probably solve some of

441
00:24:39,400 --> 00:24:43,520
Speaker 2: its problems if it spent more time listening to voters

442
00:24:43,560 --> 00:24:47,520
Speaker 2: of color who have community college degrees or who don't

443
00:24:47,520 --> 00:24:51,760
Speaker 2: have a college degree, and less time listening to white

444
00:24:51,840 --> 00:24:55,040
Speaker 2: voters who have graduate degrees. And white voters with graduate

445
00:24:55,040 --> 00:24:58,280
Speaker 2: degrees really drive not only white voters, but white voters

446
00:24:58,280 --> 00:25:02,679
Speaker 2: with graduate degrees holing shit are disproportionately in sort of

447
00:25:02,920 --> 00:25:06,000
Speaker 2: influential jobs in the progressive atmosphere.

448
00:25:06,680 --> 00:25:10,240
Speaker 1: I've always wondered why Democrats don't talk more directly to

449
00:25:10,320 --> 00:25:15,160
Speaker 1: working class voters that their outreach seems to be. I mean,

450
00:25:15,200 --> 00:25:19,120
Speaker 1: maybe I'm wrong. I don't obviously know every strategy that's

451
00:25:19,200 --> 00:25:22,080
Speaker 1: being employed, but I do feel, and maybe it's not

452
00:25:22,119 --> 00:25:25,520
Speaker 1: covered enough, that there does seem to be a disconnect

453
00:25:25,560 --> 00:25:31,800
Speaker 1: between blue collar voters and Democrats that is really surprising.

454
00:25:32,280 --> 00:25:35,240
Speaker 2: So one of the things that I enjoyed doing this book.

455
00:25:35,280 --> 00:25:38,000
Speaker 2: In this book was taking people whose names are well known,

456
00:25:38,080 --> 00:25:40,000
Speaker 2: but telling you parts of their stories that are not

457
00:25:40,040 --> 00:25:42,679
Speaker 2: well known. And I mentioned Robert Bork about that, But

458
00:25:42,760 --> 00:25:44,840
Speaker 2: another person who I talk about who I think his

459
00:25:44,920 --> 00:25:48,119
Speaker 2: legacy is aged better than Robert Bork's is Robert F. Kennedy,

460
00:25:48,160 --> 00:25:51,400
Speaker 2: the original one, not the junior. And when he ran

461
00:25:51,440 --> 00:25:55,000
Speaker 2: for president in nineteen sixty eight, there were a lot

462
00:25:55,040 --> 00:25:57,760
Speaker 2: of people who the Democratic Party was starting to have

463
00:25:57,880 --> 00:26:01,159
Speaker 2: this development of the kind of more elite, very socially liberal,

464
00:26:01,280 --> 00:26:05,080
Speaker 2: and people told RFK, don't talk about crime, and he said, no,

465
00:26:05,119 --> 00:26:07,879
Speaker 2: I'm going to talk about crime. I know that Richard

466
00:26:07,960 --> 00:26:11,280
Speaker 2: Nixon and George Wallace are demograguing crime and they're talking

467
00:26:11,320 --> 00:26:14,320
Speaker 2: about it in ways that are meant to spark racism.

468
00:26:14,560 --> 00:26:18,120
Speaker 2: But people's concerns about crime are legitimate, and Kennedy ran

469
00:26:18,160 --> 00:26:21,120
Speaker 2: this campaign in which he made law and order central

470
00:26:21,200 --> 00:26:24,879
Speaker 2: to his campaign. Journalists said, where is the great liberal

471
00:26:24,960 --> 00:26:27,520
Speaker 2: Robert Kennedy because of the way he was talking about crime.

472
00:26:27,760 --> 00:26:31,200
Speaker 2: He talked about Vietnam and actually very nuanced ways, because

473
00:26:31,200 --> 00:26:33,720
Speaker 2: he understood that many Americans were unhappy with Vietnam, but

474
00:26:33,760 --> 00:26:36,160
Speaker 2: also many working class people were frustrated that their kids

475
00:26:36,200 --> 00:26:38,360
Speaker 2: had gone to fight. And the reason why I think

476
00:26:38,400 --> 00:26:42,520
Speaker 2: he's important is Robert Kennedy didn't try to win working

477
00:26:42,520 --> 00:26:46,760
Speaker 2: class votes by telling people, hey, just vote on economic policy,

478
00:26:47,080 --> 00:26:50,560
Speaker 2: ignore my social policy. He treated working class voters with

479
00:26:50,640 --> 00:26:55,639
Speaker 2: respect on both social policy and economic policy, and I

480
00:26:55,680 --> 00:26:59,199
Speaker 2: think part of what modern Democrats should be reflective on

481
00:26:59,520 --> 00:27:02,159
Speaker 2: is you can't just tell people don't vote against your

482
00:27:02,200 --> 00:27:05,639
Speaker 2: economic interests. I mean, Katie, you and I know that

483
00:27:05,680 --> 00:27:08,320
Speaker 2: the fanciest parts of New York City and all these

484
00:27:08,320 --> 00:27:12,520
Speaker 2: resort towns, they vote Democratic. They're voting against their economic interests, right,

485
00:27:12,520 --> 00:27:15,639
Speaker 2: They're voting to raise their own taxes. So lots of

486
00:27:15,680 --> 00:27:18,720
Speaker 2: people vote against their economic interests. And I think Democrats

487
00:27:18,920 --> 00:27:22,840
Speaker 2: lose working class voters when they say, hey, let's just

488
00:27:22,920 --> 00:27:26,600
Speaker 2: ignore social policy and just talk about taxes. And RFK

489
00:27:26,800 --> 00:27:27,440
Speaker 2: didn't do that.

490
00:27:28,040 --> 00:27:31,480
Speaker 1: Let's go back to unions real quick, David, because they

491
00:27:31,520 --> 00:27:36,399
Speaker 1: were thriving. What happened to unions? It was it deregulation.

492
00:27:36,800 --> 00:27:41,520
Speaker 1: Was this these new attitudes about capitalism? How did unions

493
00:27:41,640 --> 00:27:44,359
Speaker 1: kind of fall apart? Did they overreach?

494
00:27:44,960 --> 00:27:47,760
Speaker 2: Yes? They did. They did overreach, and they and a

495
00:27:47,800 --> 00:27:51,280
Speaker 2: lot of union leaders actually cared less about continuing to

496
00:27:51,320 --> 00:27:53,680
Speaker 2: build a movement and cared more just about their own

497
00:27:53,680 --> 00:27:57,280
Speaker 2: immediate members and didn't understand that if they cared only

498
00:27:57,320 --> 00:28:00,439
Speaker 2: about their immediate members rather than attracting new union members,

499
00:28:00,440 --> 00:28:04,040
Speaker 2: eventually the labor movement would shrivel, which is exactly what happened.

500
00:28:04,119 --> 00:28:07,679
Speaker 2: So absolutely, union leaders overreached. I tell some of that

501
00:28:07,760 --> 00:28:10,960
Speaker 2: story in the book. They deserve significantly. It's also the

502
00:28:11,040 --> 00:28:14,479
Speaker 2: case that the government became quite hostile to labor unions.

503
00:28:14,560 --> 00:28:18,960
Speaker 2: And if you don't have the government playing referee, if

504
00:28:19,000 --> 00:28:22,600
Speaker 2: you just have kind of corporations and workers out there,

505
00:28:22,960 --> 00:28:26,119
Speaker 2: If it's a question between can a single corporation prevent

506
00:28:26,320 --> 00:28:29,000
Speaker 2: a bunch of individual workers from joining a union, the

507
00:28:29,040 --> 00:28:31,520
Speaker 2: answer is almost always yes. I mean, look what Starbucks

508
00:28:31,560 --> 00:28:34,480
Speaker 2: has done recently. When people organize at a shop, Starbucks

509
00:28:34,480 --> 00:28:37,920
Speaker 2: somehow finds lots of little violations among the people who

510
00:28:37,960 --> 00:28:40,880
Speaker 2: decided to join a union and schedules them with really

511
00:28:40,920 --> 00:28:43,360
Speaker 2: bad shifts or you know, says we need to let

512
00:28:43,400 --> 00:28:46,680
Speaker 2: you go. And so there are lots of ways for companies,

513
00:28:46,720 --> 00:28:51,320
Speaker 2: sometimes within the rules, to make sure that unions don't form.

514
00:28:51,400 --> 00:28:54,520
Speaker 2: And the government basically stopped playing a version of an

515
00:28:54,520 --> 00:28:59,400
Speaker 2: impartial referee or judge and really let corporations shrink unions.

516
00:28:59,440 --> 00:29:00,479
Speaker 2: And that's what happened.

517
00:29:01,120 --> 00:29:04,440
Speaker 1: Well, union's overreached, But I think it's important to point

518
00:29:04,440 --> 00:29:08,080
Speaker 1: out that corporations got greedy, yes, right, I mean that

519
00:29:08,240 --> 00:29:11,680
Speaker 1: was a big factor too. They didn't want to pay

520
00:29:11,760 --> 00:29:15,480
Speaker 1: people necessarily fair wages. They wanted to make sure their

521
00:29:15,560 --> 00:29:19,400
Speaker 1: quarterly profits were good for their shareholders. I mean, the

522
00:29:19,480 --> 00:29:21,960
Speaker 1: whole balance of power really shifted.

523
00:29:22,320 --> 00:29:24,680
Speaker 2: It did. And you know, when you talk about greed,

524
00:29:25,040 --> 00:29:28,040
Speaker 2: that's really a form of culture. And culture is hard

525
00:29:28,040 --> 00:29:32,200
Speaker 2: to talk about because it's imorphous, right, It's people's attitudes,

526
00:29:32,280 --> 00:29:36,200
Speaker 2: and you can't necessarily pass a bill that changes the culture.

527
00:29:36,680 --> 00:29:39,680
Speaker 2: But I really emphasized the importance of culture in the

528
00:29:39,680 --> 00:29:42,760
Speaker 2: book because I don't think the corporate executives of the

529
00:29:42,800 --> 00:29:46,000
Speaker 2: past were any morally superior to the corporate executives today,

530
00:29:46,360 --> 00:29:49,760
Speaker 2: but they did behave differently because the culture was different.

531
00:29:49,880 --> 00:29:53,760
Speaker 2: I mean, Mitt Romney's dad, George Romney, was the CEO

532
00:29:53,840 --> 00:29:56,440
Speaker 2: of a car company in Detroit, and it hit so

533
00:29:56,560 --> 00:29:59,800
Speaker 2: many of its benchmarks that he was due a huge bonus.

534
00:30:00,120 --> 00:30:02,080
Speaker 2: And he went to the board and he said, I

535
00:30:02,120 --> 00:30:05,680
Speaker 2: think this is unseemly. I don't think it's healthy for

536
00:30:05,800 --> 00:30:08,760
Speaker 2: our country or our company to have me making so

537
00:30:08,920 --> 00:30:12,680
Speaker 2: much more than any workers. Will you please take back

538
00:30:12,760 --> 00:30:15,240
Speaker 2: this bonus? I mean, my goodness, can.

539
00:30:15,120 --> 00:30:19,120
Speaker 1: You imagine any of the corporate CEOs who are making

540
00:30:19,440 --> 00:30:26,280
Speaker 1: hundreds of millions of dollars today? Saying their salaries were unseemly.

541
00:30:26,920 --> 00:30:29,000
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, it's just and again, it's not that

542
00:30:29,040 --> 00:30:31,440
Speaker 2: he was. It's not that he's inherently a better person.

543
00:30:31,520 --> 00:30:34,440
Speaker 2: It's that he lived in a different culture, a less selfish.

544
00:30:34,440 --> 00:30:35,920
Speaker 1: He sounds like a better person to me.

545
00:30:36,360 --> 00:30:38,360
Speaker 2: That's fair. But so I would say it is at

546
00:30:38,440 --> 00:30:40,960
Speaker 2: least in part that he lived in a less selfish,

547
00:30:41,160 --> 00:30:45,920
Speaker 2: and let's be honest here, more patriotic and communitarian culture,

548
00:30:46,240 --> 00:30:48,960
Speaker 2: and he reflected those values in his behavior.

549
00:30:52,680 --> 00:30:54,560
Speaker 1: We'll be right back with David Leonhardt.

550
00:31:00,120 --> 00:31:00,200
Speaker 3: One.

551
00:31:00,400 --> 00:31:03,040
Speaker 1: If you'd loved listening to Kelly Corrigan in my recent

552
00:31:03,080 --> 00:31:07,720
Speaker 1: conversation with David Brooks, you'll definitely love her podcast, Kelly

553
00:31:07,840 --> 00:31:11,960
Speaker 1: Corrigan wonders. Kelly has this every woman wisdom that people

554
00:31:12,120 --> 00:31:15,640
Speaker 1: just gravitate to. Oprah Magazine calls her the voice of

555
00:31:15,680 --> 00:31:20,000
Speaker 1: a generation. Huffington Post calls her the poet laureate of

556
00:31:20,040 --> 00:31:23,640
Speaker 1: the ordinary. You might know her books about family life.

557
00:31:23,720 --> 00:31:26,560
Speaker 1: All four were New York Times bestsellers. I met her

558
00:31:26,600 --> 00:31:29,040
Speaker 1: when she was a guest on The Today Show almost

559
00:31:29,080 --> 00:31:32,320
Speaker 1: twenty years ago, and we've stayed in touch ever since.

560
00:31:32,960 --> 00:31:36,800
Speaker 1: On her show, Kelly wonders about family ties, our deepest

561
00:31:36,880 --> 00:31:41,160
Speaker 1: ambitions and how to be useful with people like Brian Stevenson,

562
00:31:41,240 --> 00:31:46,600
Speaker 1: Anna Quinlan, Jenny Wallace, Neil Katilla, Claire Danes, and Kate Bohler.

563
00:31:47,160 --> 00:31:49,760
Speaker 1: I saw somewhere that someone said she's like a cross

564
00:31:49,840 --> 00:31:54,080
Speaker 1: between Tina Fey and Krista Tippett. So jump on board,

565
00:31:54,360 --> 00:31:57,400
Speaker 1: tune into Kelly Corrigan Wonders. I'd say you might as

566
00:31:57,440 --> 00:32:09,280
Speaker 1: well subscribe. Actually, wherever you're listening to this podcast, we're

567
00:32:09,320 --> 00:32:13,320
Speaker 1: back with David Leonhart. I want to talk about that

568
00:32:13,440 --> 00:32:16,680
Speaker 1: communitarian culture, because I know that's something you address in

569
00:32:16,680 --> 00:32:18,680
Speaker 1: the book as well. But I want to finish the

570
00:32:18,800 --> 00:32:23,800
Speaker 1: union conversation so they start to weaken. I think is

571
00:32:23,880 --> 00:32:26,640
Speaker 1: PAPCO one of the big turning points during the I

572
00:32:26,680 --> 00:32:29,320
Speaker 1: hate to keep pointing a finger at the late Ronald Reagan,

573
00:32:29,640 --> 00:32:33,360
Speaker 1: but the air traffic controllers that was a huge inflection point,

574
00:32:33,760 --> 00:32:36,520
Speaker 1: wasn't it in terms of union power and muscle?

575
00:32:36,920 --> 00:32:40,040
Speaker 2: Yes, And it's actually I think it's an important example.

576
00:32:40,080 --> 00:32:43,280
Speaker 2: So Ronald Reagan comes to office. The air traffic controllers

577
00:32:43,360 --> 00:32:48,680
Speaker 2: who indorsed Ronald Reagan, which is fascinating, perhaps feeling empowered

578
00:32:48,720 --> 00:32:51,400
Speaker 2: because they had endorsed this new president and most unions

579
00:32:51,400 --> 00:32:55,800
Speaker 2: obviously had not made just unbelievable demands really in terms

580
00:32:55,840 --> 00:32:58,800
Speaker 2: of wage increases and in terms of being able to

581
00:32:58,840 --> 00:33:01,800
Speaker 2: take time off. I walk through some of them in

582
00:33:01,840 --> 00:33:03,640
Speaker 2: the book. It just in terms of you look at

583
00:33:03,680 --> 00:33:06,200
Speaker 2: them and you're like, WHOA, that's too much. And Ronald

584
00:33:06,240 --> 00:33:08,520
Speaker 2: Reagan said, if you go on strike, I'll fire you.

585
00:33:08,840 --> 00:33:11,240
Speaker 2: And the air traffic controllers didn't believe it, and they

586
00:33:11,280 --> 00:33:14,760
Speaker 2: went on strike and he fired them, And so they

587
00:33:14,800 --> 00:33:17,840
Speaker 2: do deserve some blame in that story. But the message

588
00:33:17,840 --> 00:33:21,080
Speaker 2: that it sent, which was before a lot of companies

589
00:33:21,160 --> 00:33:25,440
Speaker 2: pushed back against unions, often very hard, but once unions formed,

590
00:33:25,640 --> 00:33:28,440
Speaker 2: they didn't try to destroy them, typically at their own

591
00:33:28,480 --> 00:33:33,080
Speaker 2: company or through government policy. And Reagan's policy was basically

592
00:33:33,120 --> 00:33:35,320
Speaker 2: a version of hey, the gloves are off in a

593
00:33:35,360 --> 00:33:38,240
Speaker 2: way that they weren't under Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon

594
00:33:38,240 --> 00:33:42,120
Speaker 2: and previous Republicans. And it's not simply trying to restrain

595
00:33:42,320 --> 00:33:45,640
Speaker 2: unions from expanding into new regions or it restrained their

596
00:33:45,680 --> 00:33:48,479
Speaker 2: wage increases. It's fine to go after them and really

597
00:33:48,520 --> 00:33:51,720
Speaker 2: try to eliminate them. And that's what happened in a

598
00:33:51,720 --> 00:33:54,160
Speaker 2: lot of industries is as well as globalization, but the

599
00:33:54,160 --> 00:33:55,400
Speaker 2: cultural change was vital.

600
00:33:55,960 --> 00:33:59,560
Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about globalization and how that impacted unions

601
00:33:59,600 --> 00:34:02,479
Speaker 1: as well. Well, they just lost some of their power

602
00:34:02,560 --> 00:34:06,160
Speaker 1: because the world became flatter, as Tom Friedman would say, right.

603
00:34:06,120 --> 00:34:09,520
Speaker 2: Yes, they did. So that's interesting. That's definitely the case

604
00:34:09,560 --> 00:34:12,640
Speaker 2: from the past. Weirdly, I think though, that might be

605
00:34:12,680 --> 00:34:15,000
Speaker 2: reason to believe that unions can play a bigger role

606
00:34:15,120 --> 00:34:17,719
Speaker 2: going forward than they have over the last fifty years.

607
00:34:18,400 --> 00:34:21,319
Speaker 2: It's certainly the case that if a factory wants to

608
00:34:21,360 --> 00:34:23,960
Speaker 2: avoid being unionized, it can move to another state or

609
00:34:24,000 --> 00:34:27,800
Speaker 2: another country. But let's think about how our economy has changed.

610
00:34:28,080 --> 00:34:31,040
Speaker 2: So much more of it is now service businesses. A

611
00:34:31,160 --> 00:34:35,160
Speaker 2: hospital can't move in the same way that a factory can.

612
00:34:35,560 --> 00:34:39,440
Speaker 2: A warehouse that is serving a particular region for online

613
00:34:39,560 --> 00:34:42,759
Speaker 2: orders can't move in the same way that a factory can.

614
00:34:42,960 --> 00:34:46,640
Speaker 2: A restaurant can't, and so unions have a lot of

615
00:34:46,800 --> 00:34:49,680
Speaker 2: challenges today. The law is still really stacked against them,

616
00:34:49,680 --> 00:34:52,480
Speaker 2: and I don't think we'll see a resurgence in unions

617
00:34:52,840 --> 00:34:55,560
Speaker 2: until we see some legal changes the same way we've

618
00:34:55,600 --> 00:34:58,719
Speaker 2: recently seen legal changes in healthcare and legal changes in

619
00:34:58,760 --> 00:35:01,280
Speaker 2: other ways climate policy. I think it will take changes

620
00:35:01,280 --> 00:35:03,920
Speaker 2: in the law. But if you got those changes in

621
00:35:03,960 --> 00:35:06,960
Speaker 2: the law, I do really think you could imagine more

622
00:35:07,000 --> 00:35:10,680
Speaker 2: of the workforce being unionized because we're now moving away

623
00:35:10,719 --> 00:35:14,160
Speaker 2: from manufacturing and we're moving toward businesses that are inherently

624
00:35:14,280 --> 00:35:17,279
Speaker 2: local and thus the business camp so easily simply pick

625
00:35:17,360 --> 00:35:17,839
Speaker 2: up and move.

626
00:35:18,560 --> 00:35:22,880
Speaker 1: But aren't we seeing the pendulum swing slightly already, David?

627
00:35:23,080 --> 00:35:26,640
Speaker 1: In terms of some of the activities we've seen at Amazon,

628
00:35:26,760 --> 00:35:33,720
Speaker 1: for example, Hollywood ongoing you aw strike and fast food

629
00:35:33,760 --> 00:35:37,200
Speaker 1: workers and the minimum wage, it does seem like there's

630
00:35:37,360 --> 00:35:40,120
Speaker 1: something in the atmosphere.

631
00:35:40,480 --> 00:35:42,839
Speaker 2: I think there absolutely is. I think everything you said

632
00:35:42,920 --> 00:35:45,799
Speaker 2: is right, and the only thing I would tack on

633
00:35:46,719 --> 00:35:49,239
Speaker 2: with apologies for being repetitive, is I don't think it

634
00:35:49,280 --> 00:35:52,200
Speaker 2: will last without some changes in the law because at

635
00:35:52,200 --> 00:35:55,120
Speaker 2: a lot of these companies where the workers are expressing interest,

636
00:35:55,320 --> 00:35:58,520
Speaker 2: they ultimately fail before unions because it's still too easy

637
00:35:58,520 --> 00:36:01,520
Speaker 2: for companies to vent them from doing so.

638
00:36:01,520 --> 00:36:03,600
Speaker 1: So where do we go from here? I guess the

639
00:36:03,719 --> 00:36:06,680
Speaker 1: question is, David, you know you use the past tense

640
00:36:07,080 --> 00:36:11,279
Speaker 1: in your title. I think intentionally it's ours was the

641
00:36:11,320 --> 00:36:15,080
Speaker 1: Shining Future. Now it's based on something Mary Anton and

642
00:36:15,200 --> 00:36:18,880
Speaker 1: immigration rights advocate wrote at the turn of the century,

643
00:36:19,000 --> 00:36:23,000
Speaker 1: mine is the Shining Future. So you know, you started

644
00:36:23,000 --> 00:36:26,879
Speaker 1: this conversation by saying you were an optimist. So how

645
00:36:26,880 --> 00:36:28,799
Speaker 1: do we get out of this mess? How do we

646
00:36:28,880 --> 00:36:34,400
Speaker 1: restore some equilibrium and honestly some equality to people because

647
00:36:34,600 --> 00:36:38,800
Speaker 1: income inequality is just so outrageous in this country.

648
00:36:39,080 --> 00:36:41,520
Speaker 2: It is, and you know, the white black wage gap

649
00:36:41,600 --> 00:36:43,640
Speaker 2: is is almost as large as it was when Harry

650
00:36:43,640 --> 00:36:46,359
Speaker 2: Truman was president, and so all forms of inequality are

651
00:36:46,480 --> 00:36:49,640
Speaker 2: just really, really quite outrageous. Yeah, you're right. The title

652
00:36:49,719 --> 00:36:51,719
Speaker 2: is ours was the Shining Future. If I had a

653
00:36:51,760 --> 00:36:54,000
Speaker 2: longer title, maybe it would be ours was the Shining Future,

654
00:36:54,000 --> 00:36:55,120
Speaker 2: and it could be again.

655
00:36:55,040 --> 00:36:56,880
Speaker 1: But that's not colin.

656
00:36:57,560 --> 00:37:01,759
Speaker 2: Yeah, but so I love that question. Here to me

657
00:37:01,920 --> 00:37:05,040
Speaker 2: is the reason to have optimism, not that we will

658
00:37:05,719 --> 00:37:08,960
Speaker 2: get over our problems, but that we can get over

659
00:37:09,000 --> 00:37:12,799
Speaker 2: our problems. I know that many people think that our

660
00:37:12,840 --> 00:37:15,719
Speaker 2: system is rigged, that our democracy doesn't work, and I

661
00:37:15,760 --> 00:37:19,000
Speaker 2: actually agree in certain ways it's rigged and our democracy don't.

662
00:37:19,000 --> 00:37:21,760
Speaker 1: Well, I've heard you talk about upward mobility and how

663
00:37:22,120 --> 00:37:25,960
Speaker 1: it's really declined, and you know, I think their statistics

664
00:37:26,000 --> 00:37:31,840
Speaker 1: about forty plus percent of people never leave their socioeconomic

665
00:37:31,920 --> 00:37:35,560
Speaker 1: group they were born in. So you know, they're not

666
00:37:35,719 --> 00:37:40,000
Speaker 1: like the current kids. They're not climbing up, they're staying down.

667
00:37:40,440 --> 00:37:45,160
Speaker 2: Yes, and so inequality, it's just it's really really high.

668
00:37:45,880 --> 00:37:48,319
Speaker 2: What I would ask people to reflect on is how

669
00:37:48,360 --> 00:37:51,600
Speaker 2: has this country changed before, not just in the long

670
00:37:51,640 --> 00:37:54,800
Speaker 2: ago past, but I'll get to this, but also fairly recently.

671
00:37:54,960 --> 00:37:59,680
Speaker 2: And I think it's almost always changed through grassroots political movements.

672
00:38:00,400 --> 00:38:04,440
Speaker 2: Usually grassroots political movements that seemed like the odds were

673
00:38:04,440 --> 00:38:07,040
Speaker 2: too long when they began. So how did the union

674
00:38:07,040 --> 00:38:09,719
Speaker 2: movement in this country begin? It began, the modern one

675
00:38:09,760 --> 00:38:12,839
Speaker 2: began in the nineteen thirties when unions lost every fight

676
00:38:12,880 --> 00:38:15,040
Speaker 2: that they had fought for years and years and years,

677
00:38:15,440 --> 00:38:18,000
Speaker 2: and then we were in the depression, and it won

678
00:38:18,080 --> 00:38:21,880
Speaker 2: because people like a. Philip Randolph and others kept fighting

679
00:38:22,200 --> 00:38:25,600
Speaker 2: and not only persuaded workers to join unions, but persuaded

680
00:38:25,600 --> 00:38:28,480
Speaker 2: the federal government to change the law. That's the lesson

681
00:38:28,560 --> 00:38:32,000
Speaker 2: of the labor movement that shortened hours and helped build

682
00:38:32,000 --> 00:38:34,000
Speaker 2: the middle class. It's also the lesson of the civil

683
00:38:34,080 --> 00:38:36,359
Speaker 2: rights movement. We look back on the civil rights movement

684
00:38:36,400 --> 00:38:39,080
Speaker 2: as a glorious victory, as we should, but it didn't

685
00:38:39,120 --> 00:38:42,040
Speaker 2: feel that way in the moment to a lot of organizers.

686
00:38:42,040 --> 00:38:44,719
Speaker 2: It felt like defeat after defeat after defeat, and then

687
00:38:44,719 --> 00:38:47,160
Speaker 2: a little bit of progress. But they kept at it.

688
00:38:47,360 --> 00:38:49,800
Speaker 2: And what they did was they tried to shape public opinion,

689
00:38:50,040 --> 00:38:53,000
Speaker 2: and they built these grassroots movements and they changed the law.

690
00:38:53,360 --> 00:38:56,840
Speaker 2: And I think that's the lesson of the labor movement,

691
00:38:56,920 --> 00:39:00,480
Speaker 2: the civil rights movement, the women's movement, the disability rights movement.

692
00:39:00,960 --> 00:39:02,799
Speaker 2: If someone saying wait a second, or all of his

693
00:39:02,960 --> 00:39:05,799
Speaker 2: examples coming from the political left, I actually think it's

694
00:39:05,840 --> 00:39:08,520
Speaker 2: the lesson of the anti abortion movement fifty years ago.

695
00:39:08,560 --> 00:39:10,880
Speaker 2: They were furious about Roe v. Wade, and so what

696
00:39:10,920 --> 00:39:14,600
Speaker 2: did they do. They organized, and they won local elections,

697
00:39:14,600 --> 00:39:17,160
Speaker 2: and they basically took over the Republican Party and they

698
00:39:17,160 --> 00:39:19,359
Speaker 2: were able to appoint judges who are friendly to them.

699
00:39:19,840 --> 00:39:23,480
Speaker 2: Whether you celebrate these changes or abhor them, this is

700
00:39:23,520 --> 00:39:26,880
Speaker 2: how our country changes. And I think we've gotten a

701
00:39:26,880 --> 00:39:30,520
Speaker 2: little distracted from the material living standards of most people.

702
00:39:30,800 --> 00:39:34,960
Speaker 2: We don't really have large grassroots movements that are focused

703
00:39:35,000 --> 00:39:38,840
Speaker 2: on improving their lives. And I still really believe that

704
00:39:38,960 --> 00:39:42,360
Speaker 2: if those movements come together, the biggest lesson of history

705
00:39:42,719 --> 00:39:45,960
Speaker 2: is not that our society is irrevocably broken, but that

706
00:39:46,000 --> 00:39:47,759
Speaker 2: we haven't done the things that we need to do

707
00:39:47,840 --> 00:39:51,000
Speaker 2: to fix it. And American democracy, for all the challenges

708
00:39:51,040 --> 00:39:53,200
Speaker 2: to it, and I do not want to minimize the

709
00:39:53,680 --> 00:39:57,200
Speaker 2: authoritarian challenges to American democracy right now, for all of

710
00:39:57,239 --> 00:40:01,200
Speaker 2: the challenges to American democracy, it's still has the tools

711
00:40:01,520 --> 00:40:04,960
Speaker 2: to build a much better society. And indeed, the only

712
00:40:05,040 --> 00:40:08,319
Speaker 2: way we've built a better society in the past is

713
00:40:08,480 --> 00:40:10,320
Speaker 2: through those democratic tools.

714
00:40:10,880 --> 00:40:16,319
Speaker 1: But you talk about establishing a communitarian sensibility, what is

715
00:40:16,360 --> 00:40:19,760
Speaker 1: that and does that have to be hand in hand

716
00:40:20,320 --> 00:40:23,040
Speaker 1: with some of these grassroots movements?

717
00:40:23,400 --> 00:40:27,200
Speaker 2: Yes, I think the good news is that it probably

718
00:40:27,200 --> 00:40:28,360
Speaker 2: would go hand in hand.

719
00:40:28,560 --> 00:40:29,640
Speaker 1: What is it exactly?

720
00:40:29,960 --> 00:40:34,560
Speaker 2: It's the idea that I care deeply about the people

721
00:40:34,600 --> 00:40:37,680
Speaker 2: in my community, and not just in a sort of

722
00:40:38,040 --> 00:40:42,560
Speaker 2: ephemeral way. I care about them. They are a priority

723
00:40:42,600 --> 00:40:45,400
Speaker 2: to me, even maybe before other parts of the world.

724
00:40:45,560 --> 00:40:48,080
Speaker 2: And I know that's a kind of controversial thing to say,

725
00:40:48,200 --> 00:40:51,200
Speaker 2: particularly maybe on the left. But if you had corporate

726
00:40:51,239 --> 00:40:54,720
Speaker 2: executives who said, you know what, I'm not neutral about

727
00:40:54,760 --> 00:40:56,919
Speaker 2: whether I'm going to save jobs in my own town

728
00:40:57,160 --> 00:41:01,239
Speaker 2: or move jobs to another town or another country. That

729
00:41:01,400 --> 00:41:03,480
Speaker 2: is the kind of thing that the corporate executives in

730
00:41:03,520 --> 00:41:05,719
Speaker 2: the past felt. They said, you know what, I'm not

731
00:41:05,760 --> 00:41:07,800
Speaker 2: going to leave Milwaukee. I'm going to build a beautiful

732
00:41:07,840 --> 00:41:10,880
Speaker 2: theater in Milwaukee because I care about Milwaukee. I'm not

733
00:41:11,160 --> 00:41:14,759
Speaker 2: neutral about my own community. And I really do think

734
00:41:15,080 --> 00:41:17,040
Speaker 2: I don't know the exact way we get back to that,

735
00:41:17,560 --> 00:41:21,319
Speaker 2: but I really do think a certain amount of communitarianism

736
00:41:21,520 --> 00:41:24,440
Speaker 2: and patriotism, the idea that hey, we're all in this together.

737
00:41:24,520 --> 00:41:26,520
Speaker 2: We care about other parts of the world, but we're

738
00:41:26,520 --> 00:41:28,560
Speaker 2: Americans and we care about this and we're going to

739
00:41:28,560 --> 00:41:31,680
Speaker 2: fix our country, Americans of all races and all religions

740
00:41:31,719 --> 00:41:33,840
Speaker 2: and all different parts of the world. That kind of

741
00:41:33,840 --> 00:41:39,640
Speaker 2: communitarianism is different from oh, we're agnostic about whether this

742
00:41:39,800 --> 00:41:41,640
Speaker 2: job is in the United States or not in the

743
00:41:41,760 --> 00:41:43,240
Speaker 2: United States. It's a different culture.

744
00:41:43,480 --> 00:41:47,160
Speaker 1: But given the polarization, and I'm so tired of that word, David,

745
00:41:47,239 --> 00:41:53,439
Speaker 1: but given how vitriolic our civil discourse has become, how

746
00:41:53,480 --> 00:41:58,200
Speaker 1: we've been our social fabric has been shredded. As David

747
00:41:58,200 --> 00:42:01,400
Speaker 1: Brooks often talks about, I mean, how do you even

748
00:42:01,960 --> 00:42:03,040
Speaker 1: start doing that?

749
00:42:04,000 --> 00:42:07,120
Speaker 2: It's incredibly difficult. Surely I won't be the one who's

750
00:42:07,160 --> 00:42:10,520
Speaker 2: able to solve it. I would just remind people that

751
00:42:10,880 --> 00:42:13,680
Speaker 2: there are people in our past who've looked at even

752
00:42:13,800 --> 00:42:17,080
Speaker 2: steeper odds and didn't give up, but said, all we

753
00:42:17,160 --> 00:42:19,200
Speaker 2: can do is try to make this a better country.

754
00:42:19,280 --> 00:42:21,799
Speaker 2: I mean, I mentioned a Philip Randolph before he built

755
00:42:21,840 --> 00:42:24,359
Speaker 2: the first meaningful union of black employees in the United

756
00:42:24,400 --> 00:42:28,480
Speaker 2: States in the nineteen thirties, right, and then he faced

757
00:42:28,520 --> 00:42:31,280
Speaker 2: down FDR when FDR told him to cancel a march

758
00:42:31,400 --> 00:42:35,040
Speaker 2: meant to integrate wartime factories. And so our country has

759
00:42:35,080 --> 00:42:40,040
Speaker 2: faced these incredibly long odds for certain groups before, and

760
00:42:40,120 --> 00:42:42,840
Speaker 2: what they've done is they've found ways to organize, and

761
00:42:42,880 --> 00:42:46,960
Speaker 2: they've found ways to be incredibly strategic, sometimes ruthlessly strategic.

762
00:42:47,200 --> 00:42:49,400
Speaker 2: Here's what we're going to do to make this a

763
00:42:49,440 --> 00:42:53,080
Speaker 2: better country. It's not guaranteed to succeed, but I don't

764
00:42:53,120 --> 00:42:55,920
Speaker 2: really know what the alternative is for us to get

765
00:42:55,960 --> 00:42:57,720
Speaker 2: out of these problems that we have today.

766
00:42:58,239 --> 00:43:01,480
Speaker 1: And I think really strong leaders that can help inspire

767
00:43:01,600 --> 00:43:05,200
Speaker 1: people to do all the things you're talking about, strong

768
00:43:05,320 --> 00:43:08,400
Speaker 1: leadership at the national, state, and local level.

769
00:43:08,800 --> 00:43:12,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, and look, many people lament just how old our

770
00:43:12,280 --> 00:43:16,120
Speaker 2: political leaders are not just the president, not just the

771
00:43:16,239 --> 00:43:20,320
Speaker 2: likely nominee from the other party, but the leaders in Congress.

772
00:43:20,800 --> 00:43:24,840
Speaker 2: And that's true. It's somewhat bizarre how old our political

773
00:43:24,920 --> 00:43:26,960
Speaker 2: leaders are. You can look at that, though, and say

774
00:43:27,000 --> 00:43:29,200
Speaker 2: there is an opportunity They're not going to be around

775
00:43:29,200 --> 00:43:31,879
Speaker 2: that much longer in the grand sweep of things, and

776
00:43:31,920 --> 00:43:35,000
Speaker 2: we really do need new leaders, right We need people

777
00:43:35,040 --> 00:43:39,000
Speaker 2: who can come forward and express fresh visions of what

778
00:43:39,239 --> 00:43:40,480
Speaker 2: inspires America.

779
00:43:40,719 --> 00:43:43,719
Speaker 1: Well, hopefully people will read this book and can have

780
00:43:43,760 --> 00:43:48,480
Speaker 1: a blueprint of how to, I think repair some of

781
00:43:48,520 --> 00:43:54,239
Speaker 1: the deep wounds and the setbacks that need resetting in

782
00:43:54,320 --> 00:43:56,759
Speaker 1: our society and in our culture. I think if I

783
00:43:56,840 --> 00:44:00,960
Speaker 1: reviewed this book, I would say imminently readable, highly accessible,

784
00:44:01,520 --> 00:44:03,120
Speaker 1: and ultimately inspiring.

785
00:44:03,600 --> 00:44:06,759
Speaker 2: Thank you, Katie, I really appreciate. I hope people read

786
00:44:06,760 --> 00:44:07,279
Speaker 2: the book too.

787
00:44:07,480 --> 00:44:10,080
Speaker 1: I think they will, and don't be afraid of it, everybody.

788
00:44:10,200 --> 00:44:14,800
Speaker 1: It's very easy to digest and understand, even for someone

789
00:44:14,920 --> 00:44:18,480
Speaker 1: like me whose eyes glaze over when I read a

790
00:44:18,520 --> 00:44:22,840
Speaker 1: lot of economic stories, because I think telling the stories

791
00:44:22,840 --> 00:44:27,520
Speaker 1: of people behind the trends and really understanding their role

792
00:44:27,719 --> 00:44:30,360
Speaker 1: makes it a lot more fun. And plus it just

793
00:44:30,480 --> 00:44:34,480
Speaker 1: explains so much, and so if anyone wants to understand

794
00:44:34,520 --> 00:44:37,600
Speaker 1: where we are today, you really do need to understand

795
00:44:37,600 --> 00:44:40,880
Speaker 1: our past, and David does an excellent job of explaining it.

796
00:44:41,040 --> 00:44:42,520
Speaker 1: So thank you, David.

797
00:44:42,920 --> 00:44:45,319
Speaker 2: Thank you. You are as I've told you before, you

798
00:44:45,360 --> 00:44:47,560
Speaker 2: are my favorite interviewer in the whole country. So to

799
00:44:47,600 --> 00:44:50,560
Speaker 2: come on and be interviewed by you is a tremendous thrill.

800
00:44:50,880 --> 00:44:53,160
Speaker 1: That's such a nice thing to say, because you talk

801
00:44:53,239 --> 00:44:55,080
Speaker 1: to a lot of smart people, So thank you very

802
00:44:55,160 --> 00:44:56,160
Speaker 1: much for that compliment.

803
00:44:56,280 --> 00:44:57,680
Speaker 2: Absolutely, thanks for having me on.

804
00:45:07,640 --> 00:45:10,880
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening everyone. If you have a question for me,

805
00:45:11,280 --> 00:45:13,759
Speaker 1: a subject you want us to cover, or you want

806
00:45:13,760 --> 00:45:17,160
Speaker 1: to share your thoughts about how you navigate this crazy world,

807
00:45:17,520 --> 00:45:20,440
Speaker 1: reach out. You can leave a short message at six

808
00:45:20,600 --> 00:45:24,239
Speaker 1: h nine five point two five five five, or you

809
00:45:24,280 --> 00:45:27,000
Speaker 1: can send me a DM on Instagram. I would love

810
00:45:27,040 --> 00:45:30,040
Speaker 1: to hear from you. Next Question is a production of

811
00:45:30,080 --> 00:45:34,440
Speaker 1: iHeartMedia and Katie Kuric Media. The executive producers are Me,

812
00:45:34,760 --> 00:45:39,520
Speaker 1: Katie Kuric, and Courtney Ltz. Our supervising producer is Ryan Martz,

813
00:45:40,040 --> 00:45:44,920
Speaker 1: and our producers are Adriana Fazzio and Meredith Barnes. Julian

814
00:45:45,000 --> 00:45:50,040
Speaker 1: Weller composed our theme music. For more information about today's episode,

815
00:45:50,280 --> 00:45:52,640
Speaker 1: or to sign up for my newsletter wake Up Call,

816
00:45:53,120 --> 00:45:56,040
Speaker 1: go to the description in the podcast app, or visit

817
00:45:56,120 --> 00:45:59,319
Speaker 1: us at Katiecuric dot com. You can also find me

818
00:45:59,360 --> 00:46:03,080
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819
00:46:03,160 --> 00:46:08,480
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820
00:46:08,520 --> 00:46:10,600
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