WEBVTT - David Leonhardt’s Surprisingly Optimistic Analysis of Our Political Moment 0:00:04.800 --> 0:00:07.960 Hi, everyone, I'm Kitty Kuric, And this is next question. 0:00:12.160 --> 0:00:15.440 What pops into your head when I say the American dream? 0:00:15.800 --> 0:00:19.079 Have you achieved it? Did your parents? How would you 0:00:19.160 --> 0:00:23.200 know if you did? Perhaps no other concept is more 0:00:23.520 --> 0:00:27.120 iconically American than this idea that if you work hard, 0:00:27.240 --> 0:00:30.040 you can make it, whatever that means to you. But 0:00:30.080 --> 0:00:32.240 in recent years, it seems like the one thing most 0:00:32.240 --> 0:00:35.199 people can agree on is that the American dream is 0:00:35.240 --> 0:00:39.000 getting harder and harder to achieve. But what we can 0:00:39.159 --> 0:00:43.440 agree on is why so thank goodness for David Leonhardt. 0:00:43.600 --> 0:00:45.279 You may know him from his column at the New 0:00:45.360 --> 0:00:48.680 York Times, where he also runs the morning newsletter, which 0:00:48.680 --> 0:00:51.879 I read every day. His new book, ours was The 0:00:51.920 --> 0:00:55.760 Shining Future, aims to identify what's gone wrong to make 0:00:55.760 --> 0:00:58.680 the American dreams slip out of reach for so many. 0:00:59.280 --> 0:01:02.560 David has really done his research. His analysis of how 0:01:02.600 --> 0:01:06.480 our modern economy came to be as fascinating and illuminating, 0:01:06.680 --> 0:01:10.000 and it's so accessible because he lays all this out 0:01:10.080 --> 0:01:14.360 using the personal stories of the politicians, activists, and regular 0:01:14.400 --> 0:01:17.480 old people who shape the last one hundred years or 0:01:17.560 --> 0:01:21.440 so of America's sense of itself as a place where 0:01:21.560 --> 0:01:24.800 anyone can make it. As you'll hear in our interview, 0:01:25.160 --> 0:01:28.840 David is an optimist. He has a couple of diagnoses 0:01:28.959 --> 0:01:32.360 for both the political right, perhaps even more so for 0:01:32.440 --> 0:01:36.240 his fellow progressives on the left. But what pulses through 0:01:36.360 --> 0:01:40.080 David's book is the hope that comes from understanding how 0:01:40.120 --> 0:01:51.520 we got here so we can actually chart our path forward. Hi, 0:01:51.600 --> 0:01:52.960 David Leonhard, how are you. 0:01:53.680 --> 0:01:55.640 I've good, Katie. Thanks so much for having me. 0:01:55.880 --> 0:01:58.280 I'm really excited to talk to you about your book. 0:01:58.360 --> 0:02:02.960 I'm a big fan of your work, and like everyone else, 0:02:03.000 --> 0:02:05.880 i read your morning newsletter right after I read my own, 0:02:06.120 --> 0:02:08.560 so I feel like I'm in touch with you on 0:02:08.600 --> 0:02:12.519 a daily basis. But I'm fascinated by your latest book 0:02:12.600 --> 0:02:16.920 called ours was the Shining Future, And gosh, where do 0:02:17.000 --> 0:02:20.320 I start? I think I'm always interested in the germ 0:02:20.360 --> 0:02:24.200 of the idea, the why of this book. I'm sure 0:02:24.520 --> 0:02:26.720 you're reporting through the years. You've been at the New 0:02:26.800 --> 0:02:30.480 York Times for what twenty four years? Yeah, covering big issues, 0:02:30.520 --> 0:02:34.840 primarily domestic ones. So where did the germ for this 0:02:35.000 --> 0:02:36.120 book come from? David? 0:02:36.680 --> 0:02:39.040 The main thing that I've written about Katie in my 0:02:39.160 --> 0:02:43.000 time at the Times has been the economy. And I've 0:02:43.040 --> 0:02:46.560 written a lot about people's frustrations with the American economy, 0:02:46.639 --> 0:02:49.320 the idea that it isn't delivering what they wanted to deliver. 0:02:50.000 --> 0:02:51.880 There's this amazing thing now in which even when the 0:02:51.919 --> 0:02:54.960 economy is growing and the unemployment rate is relatively low, 0:02:55.240 --> 0:02:57.960 Americans say that they're not that happy with the economy. 0:02:58.200 --> 0:03:02.080 Now's a good example of exactly that phenomenon. And what 0:03:02.240 --> 0:03:05.679 I decided I really wanted to unpack was how did 0:03:05.680 --> 0:03:08.280 we get here? And I wanted to tell a story 0:03:08.720 --> 0:03:11.079 about how we ended up with an economy that feels 0:03:11.080 --> 0:03:13.960 disappointing to so many people. And so that's what I've 0:03:13.960 --> 0:03:15.760 set out to do. It's really a book written for 0:03:15.840 --> 0:03:18.760 people who who want to understand the economy and are 0:03:18.760 --> 0:03:21.840 really smart, and who also feel like, hey, you know what, 0:03:21.919 --> 0:03:24.280 the way it's talked about a lot in the media, frankly, 0:03:24.360 --> 0:03:27.480 is just too technical and it's hard to follow. And 0:03:28.000 --> 0:03:29.680 that's what I want to do. And I wanted to 0:03:29.720 --> 0:03:33.399 explain both how we've ended up here and frankly, as 0:03:33.440 --> 0:03:35.920 you know this, I'm an optimist by nature, and so 0:03:36.160 --> 0:03:38.920 even with all these problems, I also wanted to explain 0:03:39.320 --> 0:03:41.200 how is it we could end up in a better 0:03:41.240 --> 0:03:42.560 place than we're in today. 0:03:43.280 --> 0:03:47.480 I love someone who breaks it down. I am your 0:03:47.760 --> 0:03:51.440 target market to a t I hope I'm smart. I'm 0:03:51.480 --> 0:03:57.240 certainly curious, but sometimes economic reporting does feel too abstract 0:03:57.240 --> 0:04:01.000 to me. So I really appreciate someone who can connect 0:04:01.000 --> 0:04:06.800 the dots and identify macro trends because I'm fascinated too, 0:04:07.000 --> 0:04:09.160 like you are, David, Like how did we get here? 0:04:09.320 --> 0:04:14.600 What were the forces socioeconomic forces in particular, that led 0:04:14.680 --> 0:04:17.080 us to this moment? And I have to say, as 0:04:17.120 --> 0:04:21.120 I looked at your book, I really looked at it 0:04:21.160 --> 0:04:24.920 in terms of my own life, because not that it's 0:04:24.960 --> 0:04:28.559 all about me, but I was born in nineteen fifty seven. 0:04:29.480 --> 0:04:33.680 I am certainly the beneficiary of what is traditionally known 0:04:33.720 --> 0:04:38.159 as the American dream. Born to parents who my mom 0:04:38.200 --> 0:04:41.359 didn't work. My dad made a modest salary, although he 0:04:41.480 --> 0:04:45.640 was highly intelligent and focused on education for his kids. 0:04:46.279 --> 0:04:49.880 His priority was to send us to good schools so 0:04:50.040 --> 0:04:55.000 we could advance our status in life. I think for 0:04:55.120 --> 0:04:58.400 my sisters, maybe to marry somebody who was very successful, 0:04:58.440 --> 0:05:02.320 but actually my dad really wanted my older sisters to 0:05:02.400 --> 0:05:05.919 have a job and to contribute to society. And my 0:05:06.000 --> 0:05:08.839 sister Emily was ten years older than I and my 0:05:08.920 --> 0:05:12.320 sister Kiki seven years older, so he was really a 0:05:12.320 --> 0:05:15.000 man ahead of his time in some ways. But I 0:05:15.200 --> 0:05:20.560 mentioned that because I feel like I really benefited from 0:05:20.640 --> 0:05:24.239 the notion of upward mobility, and I think I got in. 0:05:24.600 --> 0:05:26.719 I think I was born in the nick of time, 0:05:26.920 --> 0:05:31.200 honestly from what you describe in your book, which is 0:05:31.760 --> 0:05:34.840 from World War Two to the seventies and eighties, kind 0:05:34.880 --> 0:05:39.520 of what was the economic environment and then how things 0:05:39.560 --> 0:05:43.640 started to change in the seventies and eighties, But they 0:05:43.680 --> 0:05:47.719 didn't change in a way that it impacted me, because 0:05:47.760 --> 0:05:51.800 I graduated from college in nineteen seventy nine and I 0:05:51.880 --> 0:05:54.560 was and I think all the kids in our family 0:05:54.640 --> 0:05:58.920 were able to make a better living than my dad did. 0:05:59.279 --> 0:06:01.880 And that's not just say we had a wonderful childhood 0:06:01.920 --> 0:06:05.320 and I wouldn't trade it for anything, but we were 0:06:05.320 --> 0:06:10.320 the typical examples of doing better than your parents, right, Yes, 0:06:10.680 --> 0:06:14.760 So I'd love you to kind of break down and 0:06:14.880 --> 0:06:18.680 kind of give us the cliff notes of what happened 0:06:19.480 --> 0:06:22.400 not only over the last forty years, but what happened 0:06:22.440 --> 0:06:25.440 before that, and how things seemed to change. 0:06:25.960 --> 0:06:28.160 One of the really nice things for me in going 0:06:28.160 --> 0:06:30.159 around and starting to talk about my book is hearing 0:06:30.200 --> 0:06:33.120 people's own stories of the American dream, their personal stories. 0:06:33.839 --> 0:06:35.760 I tell my own personal story, my family's at the 0:06:35.800 --> 0:06:40.560 start of the book, and so I love hearing other people's. So, yes, look, 0:06:40.800 --> 0:06:43.520 you captured it in your personal story. And I'll put 0:06:43.560 --> 0:06:47.600 some numbers around that. So, an American child born in 0:06:47.720 --> 0:06:52.760 nineteen forty had a ninety two percent chance of growing 0:06:52.839 --> 0:06:56.200 up to have a higher household income as an adult 0:06:56.640 --> 0:07:00.240 than their parents did. And that is the entire society, right, 0:07:00.320 --> 0:07:05.080 every racial group, ninety two percent. That's a virtual guarantee. Right. 0:07:05.160 --> 0:07:08.760 That means even people who got quite ill or who 0:07:08.800 --> 0:07:11.360 were laid off at some point in their life still 0:07:11.440 --> 0:07:14.280 grew up to make more money than their parents did 0:07:14.720 --> 0:07:18.240 ninety two percent. And so how did we get there? 0:07:18.280 --> 0:07:20.640 And I think it is very important to say that 0:07:20.680 --> 0:07:22.800 we're talking about the forties, the fifties, and the sixties. 0:07:22.840 --> 0:07:26.920 These are decades with horrible racism, horrible sexism, really bad 0:07:26.960 --> 0:07:29.600 religious bigotry as well. And so it's not that we 0:07:29.600 --> 0:07:31.440 want to go back to the society that we had then, 0:07:31.720 --> 0:07:36.920 But even for groups that were experiencing really vicious discrimination. 0:07:37.760 --> 0:07:42.040 This progress applied so in the forties and fifties, even 0:07:42.120 --> 0:07:44.640 before the great victories of the civil rights movement, the 0:07:44.680 --> 0:07:48.680 white black pay gap shrunk and the white black life 0:07:48.760 --> 0:07:53.240 expectancy gap shrunk. And the reason is because we were 0:07:53.280 --> 0:07:57.360 building the society that was basically bottom up or middle 0:07:57.400 --> 0:08:00.920 out prosperity, in which we were build holding a society 0:08:00.960 --> 0:08:03.880 in which people were able to get jobs even if 0:08:03.880 --> 0:08:06.480 they didn't have a college degree, that allowed them to 0:08:06.720 --> 0:08:09.920 enjoy really good standard of living. And the word I 0:08:10.080 --> 0:08:14.080 use to describe what we had is democratic capitalism, small 0:08:14.160 --> 0:08:18.200 d democratic capitalism. Look, I really believe the evidence shows 0:08:18.200 --> 0:08:21.800 that capitalism is the best system for organizing a society. 0:08:21.800 --> 0:08:25.320 The Soviet Union didn't work, Cuba doesn't work right, South 0:08:25.400 --> 0:08:29.000 Korea Lorks much better than North Korea. China got prosperous 0:08:29.040 --> 0:08:32.440 after it moved toward capitalism and away from communism. But 0:08:32.600 --> 0:08:35.640 not every form of capitalism works equally well. And a 0:08:35.720 --> 0:08:38.480 kind of rough and tumble form of capitalism where we 0:08:38.520 --> 0:08:41.560 have taxes really low and we don't have regulations and 0:08:41.679 --> 0:08:45.080 workers can't join unions, just works much less well than 0:08:45.120 --> 0:08:49.320 democratic capitalism, where we're investing in the future, and ordinary 0:08:49.360 --> 0:08:53.080 people are able to form grassroots organizations and advocate for themselves. 0:08:53.280 --> 0:08:55.840 And that's really what we had in the forties and 0:08:55.840 --> 0:08:57.040 the fifties and the sixties. 0:08:57.520 --> 0:09:01.599 Can you describe a little bit more, kind of unraveled 0:09:01.640 --> 0:09:05.360 the term democratic capitalism, a little bit more for us 0:09:05.520 --> 0:09:07.800 versus sort of unfettered capitalism. 0:09:08.280 --> 0:09:10.840 Yes. So I think one of the things to know 0:09:10.880 --> 0:09:13.920 about capitalism is both that it's superior to the alternatives, 0:09:14.160 --> 0:09:18.280 but it also has a predictable set of excesses and problems. Right, 0:09:18.520 --> 0:09:21.840 Capitalism on its own doesn't solve climate change. Capitalism on 0:09:21.880 --> 0:09:24.640 its own doesn't tend to build schools where kids can go, 0:09:24.840 --> 0:09:27.720 or roads for us to travel on. And capitalism on 0:09:27.760 --> 0:09:30.840 its own tends to lead to rising inequality. And so 0:09:30.960 --> 0:09:34.440 what you really need is a government to intervene and 0:09:34.520 --> 0:09:38.600 do things like invest in the future, building big roads 0:09:38.640 --> 0:09:42.600 and building airports, building schools for people. If you don't 0:09:42.600 --> 0:09:45.360 have the government involved and workers can't join labor unions, 0:09:45.360 --> 0:09:47.040 I think we've sort of lost sight of just how 0:09:47.040 --> 0:09:48.240 important labor unions are. 0:09:48.320 --> 0:09:49.559 Yeah, I want to get into that. 0:09:49.880 --> 0:09:52.120 And so that's a great example. If the government isn't 0:09:52.120 --> 0:09:54.800 involved to make sure that blue collar workers can join 0:09:54.880 --> 0:09:57.760 labor unions. Businesses can pretty easily get rid of labor 0:09:57.800 --> 0:10:00.400 unions and labor unions for all their flaws, and they 0:10:00.400 --> 0:10:02.080 are flawed. I've been in a labor union. I've been 0:10:02.120 --> 0:10:04.560 a manager at The New York Times who's managed unionized employees. 0:10:04.600 --> 0:10:06.920 I'm well aware of their flaws. But corporations have their 0:10:06.920 --> 0:10:09.560 flaws too, And if we have corporations with our unions, 0:10:09.600 --> 0:10:12.319 we end up with this really unbalanced society. And so, 0:10:12.360 --> 0:10:14.960 to me, democratic capitalism is a system in which we 0:10:15.000 --> 0:10:19.560 acknowledge both the phenomenal strengths of capitalism and also the 0:10:19.600 --> 0:10:23.160 ways in which, left to its own devices, it doesn't 0:10:23.200 --> 0:10:26.640 tend to produce living standards that rise rapidly for most people. 0:10:26.679 --> 0:10:28.600 And just the simplest way to think about this is 0:10:29.280 --> 0:10:32.439 for the bottom ninety nine percent of the income distribution, 0:10:33.160 --> 0:10:36.080 wage growth was faster in the forties, fifties, and sixties 0:10:36.160 --> 0:10:38.960 than it's been since the nineteen eighties. So really, for 0:10:39.080 --> 0:10:42.080 most people, since we've moved to this more bare knuckle 0:10:42.120 --> 0:10:45.280 form of capitalism in the eighties, income growth has just 0:10:45.320 --> 0:10:46.719 been much more disappointing. 0:10:47.120 --> 0:10:50.439 You describe what was happening in the forties, fifties, and sixties. 0:10:50.480 --> 0:10:54.880 But let's talk about when it all started to go bad, 0:10:55.520 --> 0:10:58.160 and that was in the seventies and eighties, and you 0:10:58.400 --> 0:11:04.440 trace a number of societal forces that came together to 0:11:04.640 --> 0:11:08.560 create a lot of inequality and to really result in 0:11:08.600 --> 0:11:14.560 a realignment of what had been traditional political parties. Can 0:11:14.600 --> 0:11:15.640 you talk about that? 0:11:16.200 --> 0:11:18.560 Yes, I mean the sixties and seventies was a time 0:11:18.600 --> 0:11:23.120 of really just phenomenal chaos, as people who lived through 0:11:23.160 --> 0:11:26.320 it can remember. I mean, we had the crime rate 0:11:26.480 --> 0:11:29.079 really start to rise in the early sixties. And I 0:11:29.160 --> 0:11:32.240 want to say something important here, which is the mainstream media, 0:11:32.280 --> 0:11:34.200 which you and I are both part of of the time, 0:11:34.640 --> 0:11:37.640 and the left half of the political spectrum, basically denied 0:11:37.640 --> 0:11:40.360 that rising crime was a problem. And they were wrong 0:11:40.480 --> 0:11:43.120 about that rise in crime really was a problem in 0:11:43.160 --> 0:11:44.520 the sixties and seventies. 0:11:44.600 --> 0:11:46.440 Why do you think they denied it? Why do you 0:11:46.480 --> 0:11:47.880 think they underplayed it? 0:11:48.320 --> 0:11:53.120 I think there is an instinct among liberals to say 0:11:53.160 --> 0:11:56.199 that poverty is that economics are the root cause of everything. 0:11:56.280 --> 0:11:58.440 And I understand that instinct. I've just written a book 0:11:58.480 --> 0:12:02.440 about economic history, and so the idea that crime was 0:12:02.520 --> 0:12:04.960 rising in the nineteen sixties, when the economy was still 0:12:05.040 --> 0:12:09.280 very good, and thus it couldn't be just because of economics. 0:12:09.760 --> 0:12:13.240 Meete people uncomfortable. So LBJ said, Hey, the way to 0:12:13.240 --> 0:12:15.000 deal with rising crime is let's pass my war on 0:12:15.040 --> 0:12:17.280 poverty and that I'll deal with it, Whereas in fact 0:12:17.320 --> 0:12:19.640 it was a much more complex set of reasons why 0:12:19.760 --> 0:12:23.240 crime was rising. It was basically people were coming to 0:12:23.320 --> 0:12:25.720 question the society in all kinds of ways. Think about 0:12:25.720 --> 0:12:29.280 the early sixties. It's SDS, it's in the Republican Party, 0:12:29.320 --> 0:12:32.560 it's Barry Goldwater. People were saying, wait a second, something 0:12:32.559 --> 0:12:35.959 about this post war situation feels a little off to us, 0:12:35.960 --> 0:12:37.880 And it wasn't really about the economy, which was still 0:12:37.880 --> 0:12:40.920 doing quite well. So crime starts to rise. In the sixties, 0:12:40.960 --> 0:12:43.920 we have the Vietnam War, we have the assassination of 0:12:44.040 --> 0:12:48.240 multiple prominent political figures, we have Watergate, and then in 0:12:48.280 --> 0:12:51.439 the mid seventies we have this really terrible economic crisis, 0:12:51.559 --> 0:12:55.320 mostly because of foreign reasons, the oil embargo. But Americans 0:12:55.320 --> 0:12:58.000 looked around and they said, wow, society just is kind 0:12:58.040 --> 0:13:02.040 of breaking down. And I completely understand why. People looked 0:13:02.040 --> 0:13:05.240 at the government and they basically said, maybe that's the problem. 0:13:05.440 --> 0:13:07.800 Maybe we just need a lot less government. And I 0:13:07.920 --> 0:13:10.520 actually in the book, I try to describe sympathetically the 0:13:10.600 --> 0:13:13.400 conservative movement that said, hey, if we have a lot 0:13:13.480 --> 0:13:15.640 less government, all our problems will be solved. One of 0:13:15.640 --> 0:13:17.720 the characters in my book is Robert Bork, who's famous 0:13:17.720 --> 0:13:20.360 as a Supreme Court nominee, but is an incredibly important 0:13:20.360 --> 0:13:23.480 economic thinker in the Reagan movement, more important than many 0:13:23.480 --> 0:13:25.600 people realize. And I try to tell his story in 0:13:25.600 --> 0:13:29.160 a way that let's readers understand why he came to 0:13:29.200 --> 0:13:34.040 those views. But let's also be honest that that Robert 0:13:34.080 --> 0:13:38.400 Bork revolution in economic policy made a lot of promises 0:13:38.440 --> 0:13:40.719 about how great things would be if we only got 0:13:40.720 --> 0:13:43.040 government out of the way. They said, living standards would 0:13:43.080 --> 0:13:46.280 rise for everyone, we would all become more prosperous. And 0:13:46.320 --> 0:13:49.120 the United States did move more toward a form of 0:13:49.200 --> 0:13:51.840 rough and tumble capitalism than a lot of other countries, 0:13:52.280 --> 0:13:55.760 and yet our results have been so disappointing. I mean, Katie, 0:13:55.840 --> 0:13:58.880 the first chart in my book shows life expectancy in 0:13:58.920 --> 0:14:02.280 every rich country. In nineteen eighty the United States had 0:14:02.280 --> 0:14:05.040 a normal life expectancy for a rich country. For the 0:14:05.080 --> 0:14:07.200 last fifteen years or so, We've had the single worst 0:14:07.200 --> 0:14:10.840 life expectancy of any rich country in the world. We've 0:14:10.880 --> 0:14:11.960 got to try something else. 0:14:15.320 --> 0:14:18.920 After this break, David breaks down how trickle down economics 0:14:19.000 --> 0:14:22.560 worked and didn't work the way Republicans hoped, and the 0:14:22.640 --> 0:14:25.760 surprising ways it's affected how long we live here in 0:14:25.800 --> 0:14:31.520 the US. If you want to get smarter every morning 0:14:31.560 --> 0:14:34.440 with a breakdown of the news and fascinating takes on 0:14:34.720 --> 0:14:37.560 health and wellness and pop culture, sign up for our 0:14:37.640 --> 0:14:47.400 daily newsletter, Wake Up Call by going to Katiecuric dot com. 0:14:47.520 --> 0:14:52.360 Now back to my conversation with David Leonhardt. Well, connect 0:14:52.360 --> 0:14:57.440 those dots. I mean, Reagan was trickled down economics, less regulation, 0:14:58.200 --> 0:15:01.280 All kinds of things were happening right in the eighties, 0:15:02.000 --> 0:15:07.120 and this sort of individualism almost iron ran kind of 0:15:07.240 --> 0:15:11.680 attitude about wealth, right, So what were the ramifications of that? 0:15:12.160 --> 0:15:16.120 So there were certainly things that the Reagan administration didn't change, 0:15:16.200 --> 0:15:18.400 and I know conservatives sometimes look back and say, well, 0:15:18.440 --> 0:15:19.840 wait a second, he didn't get rid of Medicare and 0:15:19.920 --> 0:15:23.280 Social Security. That's true, but he changed so much. I mean, 0:15:23.360 --> 0:15:25.440 tax rates when he came into office were up, with 0:15:25.560 --> 0:15:28.040 the top tax rate up around seventy percent, it's never 0:15:28.120 --> 0:15:31.600 again been so high. It's sort of fluctuated in the thirties, 0:15:31.640 --> 0:15:34.680 depending on whether we have a Republican or Democratic president. 0:15:35.000 --> 0:15:37.680 He really unwound regulation in a lot of ways. He 0:15:37.720 --> 0:15:41.120 allowed companies. This was Bork's biggest involvement. He allowed companies 0:15:41.120 --> 0:15:44.320 to become so so much larger. The government stopped doing 0:15:44.360 --> 0:15:47.680 so much antitrust. And the theory was, if only we 0:15:47.800 --> 0:15:50.720 just let the market work, everyone will benefit. 0:15:50.880 --> 0:15:54.640 Well, that's trickle down economics, right, which David Stockman ended 0:15:54.720 --> 0:15:55.600 up disavowing. 0:15:55.920 --> 0:15:58.920 That is trickle down economics. And look, it was a 0:15:59.000 --> 0:16:01.840 theory and it had a argument behind it. And now 0:16:02.080 --> 0:16:05.120 more than forty years later, we can look at the results. 0:16:05.320 --> 0:16:08.880 And I know that true believers of the Reagan Revolution 0:16:09.000 --> 0:16:11.640 will say, well, that's because we never fully tried it. 0:16:12.000 --> 0:16:14.400 But that, to me is a little bit like Marxists 0:16:14.440 --> 0:16:17.360 who say communism work if only we actually tried it. Like, 0:16:17.440 --> 0:16:20.320 we moved a long way towards the vision Reagan wanted, 0:16:20.680 --> 0:16:23.240 and the results we've gotten since nineteen eighty for very 0:16:23.280 --> 0:16:26.320 affluent people have been great. They've been great for stock 0:16:26.360 --> 0:16:30.160 prices and top incomes, and for the vast majority of Americans, 0:16:30.240 --> 0:16:32.440 they've been less good than they used to be, and 0:16:32.520 --> 0:16:34.360 I think it's important to reflect on that. 0:16:34.720 --> 0:16:39.720 How does that directly impact life expectancy? Connect those dots 0:16:39.760 --> 0:16:41.440 for me, David, Yes. 0:16:41.400 --> 0:16:44.880 Thank you for that question. So what we know is 0:16:45.080 --> 0:16:49.680 that life expectancy has really diverged by class. So it's 0:16:49.760 --> 0:16:52.240 really diverged by whether you have a four year degree 0:16:52.400 --> 0:16:54.600 or whether you don't. For people with a four year 0:16:54.640 --> 0:16:59.040 college degree, the life expectancy trends are actually still pretty good. 0:16:59.120 --> 0:17:01.680 I mean, COVID was variable for everyone, but that's true 0:17:01.720 --> 0:17:04.240 around the world. The life expectancy trends for Americans with 0:17:04.280 --> 0:17:07.360 a college degree have still been pretty good. The damning 0:17:07.440 --> 0:17:09.760 statistic I told you about how the US now has 0:17:09.800 --> 0:17:12.639 the lowest life expectancy of a high income country is 0:17:12.800 --> 0:17:16.600 overwhelmingly driven by people without a four year college degree. 0:17:16.760 --> 0:17:19.680 The causal mechanisms are really complex, but I also think 0:17:19.840 --> 0:17:22.040 it's not that hard to understand the big picture. We 0:17:22.160 --> 0:17:25.639 also know that the income gap between people with a 0:17:25.640 --> 0:17:29.399 college degree and people without one has grown enormously. We 0:17:29.480 --> 0:17:32.359 know people without a college degree are much less likely 0:17:32.440 --> 0:17:35.040 to be in households where children are growing up with 0:17:35.119 --> 0:17:37.600 two parents. We know they're much less likely to be 0:17:37.640 --> 0:17:40.000 able to go to college and to finish college their children, 0:17:40.080 --> 0:17:42.400 not just them. And so I think what we've ended 0:17:42.480 --> 0:17:44.520 up with is we've ended up with this that we 0:17:44.600 --> 0:17:46.960 have ended up with this kind of laissez faari society 0:17:47.280 --> 0:17:50.880 in which not only has income inequality increased, but we've 0:17:50.920 --> 0:17:56.960 lost a lot of the institutions churches, labor unions, community institutions, 0:17:57.240 --> 0:17:59.760 employers that came to a town and would be there 0:17:59.800 --> 0:18:05.520 for decades, that helped people build good and improving lives, 0:18:05.800 --> 0:18:08.720 and that has had a whole set of both economic 0:18:08.800 --> 0:18:11.680 and social causes that have been very damaging. 0:18:12.200 --> 0:18:16.200 All these things resulted in a political realignment with many 0:18:16.320 --> 0:18:21.440 Democrats becoming Republicans, and there were a lot of reasons 0:18:21.480 --> 0:18:25.480 for that as well, But can you explain some of 0:18:25.480 --> 0:18:26.159 the factors. 0:18:26.680 --> 0:18:30.639 If I could ask conservatives and Republicans to be self reflective, 0:18:30.680 --> 0:18:33.600 I would say, please look at these results since nineteen 0:18:33.640 --> 0:18:36.399 eighty with an open mind and ask what's worked and 0:18:36.440 --> 0:18:38.359 what happened. And I want to say there are a 0:18:38.359 --> 0:18:41.240 whole bunch of conservatives who are actually doing that. Even 0:18:41.240 --> 0:18:43.600 some members of Congress and a bunch of conservative intellectuals 0:18:43.680 --> 0:18:45.320 were saying we need to go in a different direction. 0:18:45.440 --> 0:18:47.280 I talk about them in the book. If I could 0:18:47.280 --> 0:18:50.240 ask Democrats to be a little bit self reflective, I 0:18:50.280 --> 0:18:53.800 would say, ask yourself, why is it that the Democratic 0:18:53.840 --> 0:18:58.320 Party has increasingly become the party of relatively well off professionals, 0:18:59.000 --> 0:19:01.560 And ask yourself, why is it that so many working 0:19:01.560 --> 0:19:04.560 class people look at the Democratic Party and say that 0:19:04.680 --> 0:19:07.320 party isn't my party. I feel like they talk down 0:19:07.359 --> 0:19:12.800 to me. Historically, Democrats have reacted to this by saying, well, 0:19:12.840 --> 0:19:17.440 it's mostly about racism, and look, it is partly about racism, right. 0:19:17.520 --> 0:19:19.919 Donald Trump has said a lot of racist things. The 0:19:20.000 --> 0:19:24.160 Republican Party at times has really used race baiting stereotypes. 0:19:24.480 --> 0:19:27.000 I want to be very clear about that. But I 0:19:27.000 --> 0:19:30.280 think progressives make a big mistake when they say the 0:19:30.320 --> 0:19:33.159 only reason anyone could ever not vote for US is 0:19:33.200 --> 0:19:36.040 because they're ignorant or because they're bigoted. I think that's 0:19:36.080 --> 0:19:39.679 both really bad political strategy to tell people that you 0:19:39.720 --> 0:19:41.800 need to vote for US or where you're ignorant. I also 0:19:41.800 --> 0:19:45.040 think it's empirically wrong when you look at a whole 0:19:45.080 --> 0:19:48.879 set of issues. College graduates and working class people have 0:19:48.960 --> 0:19:51.359 different views on a whole bunch of things. It's not 0:19:51.760 --> 0:19:55.000 just about race, And I think the clearest evidence of 0:19:55.040 --> 0:19:58.080 this has probably come in the last five years when 0:19:58.119 --> 0:20:01.800 we have seen Latinos, Asian Americans, and although the numbers 0:20:01.800 --> 0:20:05.520 are small, they're noticeable in the data, Black Americans, particularly 0:20:05.560 --> 0:20:08.600 working class people of all these groups shift away from 0:20:08.640 --> 0:20:12.760 the Democratic Party. And I would really encourage Liberals and 0:20:12.800 --> 0:20:16.080 Democrats to ask themselves, why is it that we're struggling 0:20:16.119 --> 0:20:18.560 so much to get working class votes, Why is it 0:20:18.640 --> 0:20:22.720 that increasingly true among Latinos and Asian Americans? And why 0:20:22.800 --> 0:20:24.720 is it that there are you know, twenty states in 0:20:24.760 --> 0:20:29.639 this country North Carolina, Florida, Texas where we basically can 0:20:29.760 --> 0:20:32.320 ever win an election. I don't think it's just that 0:20:32.359 --> 0:20:35.440 Republicans are cheating or they're doing these things. I think 0:20:35.560 --> 0:20:38.520 that the Democratic Party has sent a message that it's 0:20:38.560 --> 0:20:41.000 the party of educated people in a way that is 0:20:41.040 --> 0:20:42.600 off putting to many other people. 0:20:42.680 --> 0:20:46.199 Yeah. A perfect example, I think is probably one of 0:20:46.200 --> 0:20:49.720 the biggest mistakes of the Hillary Clinton campaign, and that 0:20:49.920 --> 0:20:51.400 was when she said this. 0:20:52.200 --> 0:20:57.679 You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you can put 0:20:58.400 --> 0:21:00.960 half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket 0:21:00.960 --> 0:21:15.320 of deplorables. Right, the races, sex is homophobic, xenophobic, islamophobic, 0:21:15.480 --> 0:21:21.240 you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that 0:21:22.680 --> 0:21:24.000 and he has lifted them up. 0:21:24.960 --> 0:21:28.240 I can't blame people for being insulted, and you can't 0:21:28.640 --> 0:21:33.080 tar any huge group of Americans with such a big brush. 0:21:33.359 --> 0:21:39.720 And I think it completely ignored the economic circumstances that 0:21:39.760 --> 0:21:43.239 they were in for reasons it had nothing to do 0:21:43.359 --> 0:21:47.200 with race. That was because we shifted from an industrial 0:21:47.480 --> 0:21:52.840 to a technological society. The fact that manufacturing had dried up, 0:21:52.880 --> 0:21:56.920 these cities had become, you know, just shadows of their 0:21:56.960 --> 0:22:00.560 former selves. So I don't blame people well for being 0:22:00.640 --> 0:22:02.280 highly offended by that comment. 0:22:02.920 --> 0:22:05.000 No, I agree, And it's just part of a much 0:22:05.080 --> 0:22:08.359 larger pattern. Right, that's maybe the clearest expression of it. 0:22:08.440 --> 0:22:11.520 But you know, there was a study of Texas after 0:22:11.560 --> 0:22:14.560 the twenty twenty election to try to determine why Latino 0:22:14.640 --> 0:22:16.879 voters moved toward the Republican Party, who was done by 0:22:16.880 --> 0:22:20.440 a progressive group, and one of the things that they 0:22:20.480 --> 0:22:22.960 pointed out was a lot of Latinos in Texas were 0:22:23.080 --> 0:22:26.000 uncomfortable with the immigration system right now. They were worried 0:22:26.000 --> 0:22:29.160 about border security. That doesn't fit the democratic narrative, right 0:22:29.240 --> 0:22:31.680 of how we're supposed to think of immigration. Another thing 0:22:31.760 --> 0:22:34.119 that people were concerned about is they really wanted the 0:22:34.160 --> 0:22:38.240 economy to reopen once vaccines were available, and they were 0:22:38.480 --> 0:22:40.119 unhappy with the idea that we were going to have 0:22:40.160 --> 0:22:43.200 these extended shutdowns. That's another thing where I think sort 0:22:43.200 --> 0:22:45.800