Excerpt: "Reich sat down with Yahoo Finance Editor-in-Chief Andy Serwer for an interview before a live audience and laid out his argument for why so-called outsider candidates like Donald Trump on the Republican side and Bernie Sanders on the Democratic side are having a moment."
Robert Reich. (photo: Richard Morgenstein)
Robert Reich: Trump Is Not a Passing Fad
30 October 15
onald Trump is not going away, says noted political economist and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich.
Reich sat down with Yahoo Finance Editor-in-Chief Andy Serwer for an interview before a live audience at LiveTalksLA and laid out his argument for why so-called outsider candidates like Donald Trump on the Republican side and Bernie Sanders on the Democratic side are having a moment.
�Remember the context,� said Reich, who served in the cabinet of his former Yale Law School Classmate, Bill Clinton. �Today, we have wider inequality than we�ve had by some measures since the 1890s, by other measures since the 1920s. We have more of not only the income going to the top, but also the wealth at the top.�
That, according to Reich, is the context that some political analysts are missing when it comes to Trump and Sanders and their sudden, surging popularity among the American people.
�The thing that is always difficult for political analysts and others to gauge is � when I come back to this term, �populist upsurge� � the tipping point happens very quickly,� he said. �Most political analysts are always looking in the rear view mirror; they�re not actually looking at how the current political economy affects people�s opinions, their politics, their economic status and so forth.�
In his new book, �Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few,� Reich makes an impassioned argument that there has been a fundamental shift in American politics. In the book, he somewhat presciently predicted that the future of American politics will not be about Republican versus Democrat, but rather establishment versus anti-establishment.
Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump �are populist and they really do talk about overthrowing � not with these words � the establishment political order.�
Reich elicited laughter from the live audience when he wondered aloud about the possibility of the Presidential horse race coming down to Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, but he also pointed out that the deniers, so far, have been wrong about the staying power of these two candidates.
�Donald Trump � I think despite the fact the press keeps on saying he�s done, this is just a passing fad � he�s not a passing fad,� he said. �I�m beginning to hear columnists and pundits say maybe the Republicans need to accept the fact that he�s going to be their nominee.�
Trump still leads in national polls and trails only Ben Carson in Iowa. The New York real estate developer and reality TV star might have a better shot than Sanders, according to Reich, but even a Sanders candidacy is not out of the question.
Reich acknowledges that based on current polling, it�s unlikely that Bernie Sanders becomes the Democratic nominee. But he also points out that based on the measure of enthusiasm, which is what ultimately drives voters to the polls, Sanders could still have a chance.
�If you measure by enthusiasm - hard to measure - but 20,000; 30,000; 40,000 people showing up for Bernie Sanders rallies, it may be that Bernie Sanders becomes the Democratic nominee.�
Reich says that while Trump and Sanders are clearly very different, they bear one significant thing in common. Each one has unleashed a populist movement that could gain enough momentum to create what he calls a countervailing power forceful enough to overthrow the current political establishment.
�I can�t say that in 2016, either one of these individuals will become President,� said Reich. �But the forces that have been unleashed are unmistakable and bear a very strong resemblance to what we�ve seen in other periods historically before you had enough countervailing power to actually have political change.�
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Springtime may come to the US after all.
Obama or Nobama.
-- we've already got a pack of pet dogs, they're called the EU
V.M.Mohanraj
It's possible that the real value of Snowdens leaks are the revelations during the political aftermath- and isn't it possible that he knows this?
The US, Canada, NATO & Israel Finance-Media-M ilitary-Industr ial Complex are arming dissidents in over 80 countries worldwide for the purposes of war & resource acquisition. 40% of our export economies are tied to arms, munitions & security. We are making a killing worldwide through a generally held religious belief in confrontation & biblical armageddon.
Russia, China & the world's non-aligned nations are becoming increasingly concerned about our death-spiral economy bringing the whole world to economic & ecological collapse. Libya is a point of horror, with mainstream media never inquiring or reporting about Libya's role as Africa's #1 development aid investor & donor as well as instigator of irrigation, satellite, universal health-care, employment & education.
Libya's leadership in implementing the African gold-based Dinar as a challenger to US Dollar dominance caused the FMMIC to bomb 40 years of popular Libyan development. 3 Nobel Peace Prize laureates gave their support to Muammar Gaddafi & Libya's Green Party's national & international labours, yet our FMMIC media was completely one sided & the popular mind carries lies unquestioned. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/structure/1-converting-social-media-from-mono-to-dialogue
agree - look at Libya now and see how the scenarios of New World Order will play out - destruction and civil war - of course mass media are now quiet when the destruction of Libya is completed ...
All the world's warmongers are the sons of the profits.
The key indicators of vicious populations are how much per capita is dependent upon war & death. My own analysis when components (eg. electronics / digital etc) & raw materials are properly calculated is that seemingly innocent Canadian corporations are the biggest players (per capita) in the world. I don't say this with pride, but with alarm because they are making a killing silently & no press is reporting on them. This includes Canadian workers who are making their killing & feeding their families on death. When Whistleblowers such as Manning, Snowden & Assange are risking their lives to save the world, Canadian war, mining, logging, depleted uranium, engineering firms, electronics (eg CAE), aircraft, component manufacturing etc corporations are making a killing as well as destroying the biosphere. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/relational-economy/7-canada-1-war-mongeror
Thank you Mr Putin
luvdoc
"You are mean! I'm taking my balls, and going home!"
these AIPAC drones like Scumer are looking more and more pathetic
Clearly, what Snowden did was a whistleblower action. The information released was of little consequence other than to expose the extent to which NSA is abusing its surveillance powers. That NSA is abusing its authority to spy on American citizens is beyond doubt. The exposure of this abuse is nothing more than an embarrassment to the administration that has no impact on national security. By any other name, government abuse is abuse. It is surprising that on the one hand, the government promotes whistleblowing on waste, fraud and abuse, but on the other hand goes to extremes to prosecute anyone who blows the whistle. Who is rewarded and who is punished for whistleblowing is primarily determined not by merit but by politics.
There is no doubt that Snowden could not receive a fair trial in the U.S. and that he would become a political victim if returned to the U.S. Many of us don't want to see that happen.
If I were Russian I would give up on the US and turn my interests to the SCO and BRICS. The SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) and the BRICS nations are the future of the world. They not only include most of the world's people, but they are nations that have left the old concepts of colonialism behind. Europe and the US are still stuck in the colonialism/imp erialism phase of national development. both of these are grounded in ideas of racial or national supremacy.
Cole is much too skeptical of Putin. Putin is smart and honest. He knows the US intends no good for any nation on earth, particularly Russia. He knows the US is run by pyschopaths like Obama, Cheney, and Bush. No one can deal with psychopaths.
Snowden has a human right to asylum in a nation which will protect him from the illegal punishment by the government of his home state. There is no doubt in anyone's mind that if the US can get its hands on Snowden, he will be tortured and subject to a kangaroo trial just like Manning. Snowden will spend the rest of his life in prison and will be tortured there.
Russia is categorically right to protect Snowden. All of the pissing and moaning from people like McCain or Graham should be ignored. That is what they always do. They are irrelevant. The law is on Putin's side.
The U.S. corporate-fasci st, "Fourth Reich" national "security", totalitarian militarized police state die is cast; and, as far as the psychopaths who run the U.S. government are concerned, Snowden has to be taken down completely, like Manning was. It's all almost over but the next kangaroo "espionage" trial of Snowden, and who knows who else next. A great many of us, it very much looks like. Certainly all those who seek to save the U.S., that's likely. And, in addition to opening up the "new" concentration camps they've built all over the fifty states, they'll get rid of all the real criminal prisoners, and lock up the dissenters in the maximum security "SHU" prisons as well.