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The Huckster Populist

The Huckster Populist

The tectonic plates of American politics are no longer moving along the old fault lines of “left vs. right” or even Democrat versus Republican.

As we’ve seen this bizarre political year, the biggest force welling up is rage against insider elites in both parties and against the American establishment as a whole — including the denizens of Wall Street, large corporations and the mainstream media.

Now, with Bernie Sanders essentially out of the race, Donald Trump wants Americans to believe he’s the remaining anti-establishment candidate.

It’s smart politics, but it’s a hoax.

Trump is even more of an establishment figure than Hillary Clinton — inheriting a fortune from his father, spending years bribing politicians to subsidize his hotels and casinos, and repeatedly using bankruptcy to shield his money while leaving creditors and workers holding the bag.

But Trump is also a brilliant huckster who knows his mark.

“There is one thing that Bernie Sanders and I are in complete accord with and that’s trade,” Trump said last week. “[Sanders] said we’re being ripped off, and I say with being ripped off. I’ve been saying it for years, he’s been saying it for years. I think I am saying it even louder. … Globalization has made the financial elite who donate to politicians very wealthy. But it has left millions of our workers with nothing but poverty and heartache.”

By putting opposition to trade at the center of his economic agenda, Trump gets a twofer — landing blows against big American corporations and Wall Street, and also against the Clintons. (He traces America’s economic problems to the North American Free Trade Agreement that Bill Clinton signed in 1993 and to the entry of China into the World Trade Organization, which Bill Clinton supported, and says Hillary Clinton “voted for virtually every trade agreement.”)

It’s pure demagoguery. Trade isn’t to blame for the declining wages and job security of most Americans.

The real problem has been the unwillingness of the biggest beneficiaries of trade (and also of job-displacing technologies) to share the gains with the rest of America through larger wage subsidies, stronger safety nets, better schools and easier access to higher education. Trump’s Republican Party has been the main culprit.

Trump has vowed to withdraw from the pending Trans-Pacific Partnership — “another disaster done and pushed by special interests who want to rape our country,” he said recently — which Hillary Clinton praised in 2012 as “set[ting] the gold standard in trade agreements” before later reversing herself after Sanders came out strongly against it.

Too bad Clinton delegates on the Democratic Party’s platform committee muddied the waters last week by voting down a proposal by Sanders delegates to put the party on record as opposing the TPP, noting instead that “there are a diversity of views in the party” on this matter.

The central problem with the TPP is it would penalize member nations for raising health, safety, environmental and labor standards. But this aspect of the TPP doesn’t trouble Trump, who calls America “overregulated.”

Trump’s faux populism extends to “powerful corporations, media elites and powerful dynasties,” who, he said last week in Pennsylvania, again echoing Sanders, have “rigged the system for their benefit [and] will do anything and say anything to keep things exactly as they are.”

Unwittingly, the GOP establishment seems intent on proving Trump’s point. Mitt Romney condemns him, conservative media pundit George Will is deserting the Republican Party because of him, big business groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers blast him, Republican mega-donors like Paul Singer rebuke him, and Wall Street Republicans such as former Goldman Sachs CEO and George W. Bush Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson (who initiated the Wall Street bailout) announce they’re voting for Hillary Clinton.

“It’s almost, in some ways, like I’m running against two parties,” Trump crowed recently. He has also said, “The people who rigged the system are supporting Hillary Clinton.”

It’s all an act. The real Donald Trump thinks U.S. wages are too high and has fought against the unionization of his hotel employees.

His businesses outsource abroad like mad. Most of the suits, ties and cufflinks he peddles are made in China. His luxury line of furniture comes from Turkey. The crystal for his Trump Home line is produced in Slovenia.

And the real Trump is on the side of the super-wealthy. He proposes to cut taxes on the rich from 39.6 percent to 25 percent, and to reduce taxes on all business income to 15 percent (thereby slashing the top tax rate of hedge fund and private-equity managers from the current 23.8 percent).

The real Trump isn’t a populist. He’s a plutocrat. Above all, he’s a con man. And the people being conned are average working Americans who are buying Trump’s ruse of being a man of the people.

Former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich is Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley and Senior Fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies. His new book, “Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few,” is now in bookstores. His film “Inequality for All” is now available on iTunes and Amazon streaming.

(c) 2016 By Robert Reich; Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC

Photo: U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at the Western Conservative Summit in Denver, Colorado, U.S., July 1, 2016. REUTERS/Rick Wilking

Robert Reich: Dear Bernie, A Note Of Thanks

Robert Reich: Dear Bernie, A Note Of Thanks

Published with permission from Alternet.

Dear Bernie,

I don’t know what you’re going to do from here on, and I’m not going to advise you. You’ve earned the right to figure out the next steps for your campaign and the movement you have launched.

But let me tell you this: You’ve already succeeded.

At the start they labeled you a “fringe” candidate—a 74-year-old, political Independent, Jewish, self-described democratic socialist, who stood zero chance against the Democratic political establishment, the mainstream media, and the moneyed interests.

Then you won 22 states.

And in almost every state—even in those you lost—you won vast majorities of voters under 30, including a majority of young women and Latinos. And most voters under 45.

You have helped shape the next generation.

You’ve done it without super PACs or big money from corporations, Wall Street, and billionaires. You did it with small contributions from millions of us. You’ve shown it can be done without selling your soul or compromising your conviction.

You’ve also inspired millions of us to get involved in politics—and to fight the most important and basic of all fights on which all else depends: to reclaim our economy and democracy from the moneyed interests.

Your message—about the necessity of single-payer health care, free tuition at public universities, a $15 minimum wage, busting up the biggest Wall Street banks, taxing the financial speculation, expanding Social Security, imposing a tax on carbon, and getting big money out of politics—will shape the progressive agenda from here on.

Your courage in taking on the political establishment has emboldened millions of us to stand up and demand our voices be heard.

Regardless of what you decide to do now, you have ignited a movement that will fight onward. We will fight to put more progressives into the House and Senate. We will fight at the state level. We will organize for the 2020 presidential election.

We will not succumb to cynicism. We are in it for the long haul. We will never give up.

Thank you, Bernie.

Bob

 

Photo: Bernie Sanders artwork by Amanda Burkman is displayed during the candidate’s campaign rally at Colton Hall in Monterey, California, May 31, 2016. REUTERS/Michael Fiala

Bernie Sanders Legitimizes Those Damned Superdelegates

Bernie Sanders Legitimizes Those Damned Superdelegates

Considering how loudly the Sanders campaign has complained about the nominating role of superdelegates – a group of 712 Democratic party and elected officials appointed rather than elected to the convention — Bernie’s current plea for them to deliver victory to him instead of Hillary Clinton carries a strong whiff of…expediency.

Over the past few months, Sanders supporters have inundated print and airwaves with angry denunciations of the superdelegate system as elitist, unfair, undemocratic, biased against their candidate, and fundamentally illegitimate. Many observers agreed that they had a point (although to me the caucus system seems worse). The most fanatical Berners in the press even openly accused party officials of plotting to “steal” the nomination. Most Sanders voters seemed to view superdelegates just as dimly as big corporations and billionaire donors, elements of a discredited system ripe for “revolution.”

And since last winter, major progressive organizations that support the Vermont senator, such as MoveOn.org and Democracy for America, have circulated petitions demanding that all of the superdelegates cast their convention votes for the candidate that won a primary or caucus in their respective states. Sponsoring the DFA petition was none other than Robert Reich, the economic commentator and former Clinton labor secretary Robert Reich.

Having gathered more than 400,000 signatures total, the petition sponsors now find themselves awkwardly in conflict with their own candidate, who said on May 1 that the superdelegates supporting Clinton should switch to him – regardless of who won their home states.

But that was then and this is now, as a cynic would observe. Beyond his disorderly abandonment of what was previously advertised as democratic principle, Sanders has now validated the role of the superdelegates, no matter whom they ultimately choose. By urging them to deliver the nomination to him, he is agreeing that their votes alone can determine the validity of a presidential nomination, even if that means overturning the popular vote (where Clinton leads him by around three million ballots or so).

Coming from a candidate whose campaign and supporters righteously criticize Clinton for insincerity and flip-flopping, this latest strategy is refreshingly pragmatic (to put it politely). Yet more than a few #FeelTheBern activists can still be heard complaining about those dastardly establishment superdelegates. Evidently they haven’t gotten the memo yet, explaining that the supers are now supposed to anoint Sanders.

Carbon Tax, ExIm Bank, Glass Steagall: Hard Questions For Democratic Debaters, Please

Carbon Tax, ExIm Bank, Glass Steagall: Hard Questions For Democratic Debaters, Please

Imagine for a moment that the purpose of a presidential debate is to elucidate policy differences on matters of concern to American voters – instead of engaging the leading Democrats in still more boring babble about Hillary Clinton’s email habits or Bernie Sanders’ socialist sympathies.

What might a diligent debate moderator ask, if she is seeking substance and happens to have done her homework?

One urgent issue that has received too little attention – and sharply divides the Democratic candidates — is the fate of the Export-Import Bank, an independent federal agency that provides financing for the export of goods and services produced by American companies. Thanks to hard-right Republicans in Congress, who have denounced the bank as a sinkhole of “crony capitalism,” its financial authority lapsed last July, endangering thousands of American jobs that are being transferred to countries where such government financing is available.

Sanders has repeatedly denounced the bank as an example of “corporate welfare” and says killing it will “protect American taxpayers and workers.”

It is true that ExIm Bank financing is made available to companies like General Electric, which shouldn’t require federal largesse, but it is also true that the great majority of its loans are made to small business exporters. The Bank costs taxpayers nothing because it runs at a profit, returning more than $7 billion to the Treasury since 1995. Its default rate is far below one percent and its backers point out that more than 50 other countries use similar agencies to bolster job creation here.

ExIm Bank supporters include most industrial unions and the AFL-CIO, whose president Richard Trumka demanded last month that the Senate act to save the bank immediately. “Any [further] delay,” said Trumka, “would jeopardize the economic future of thousands of American families.”

So why would labor ally Sanders – unlike every progressive Congressional Democrat — join with reactionary Republicans to oppose reauthorization, which Clinton supports?

Yet another macro-economic matter that deserves deeper discussion is Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren’s proposal to reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act, a Depression-era statute that prohibited banks with federally insured deposits from engaging in stock trading.

Its repeal was signed in 1999 by President Clinton as part of a broader financial deregulation — which some economists, such as former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich, have blamed for the high-risk and sometimes crooked speculation that led to the crash in 2008. Other economists, including former Clinton Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, have insisted that Glass-Steagall repeal didn’t cause the crash.

This is a dispute worth exploring, especially because Clinton is so often accused of excessive affection toward Wall Street. Sanders has announced his support for Warren’s bill, which has no chance of Congressional approval in the near future, while Clinton has said she would not support reinstating Glass-Steagall. Someone should ask her to explain clearly: Why not? Both she and Sanders should be asked to explain whether they believe that financial deregulation caused the Great Recession – and what steps should be taken to prevent another speculative disaster.

The Democratic candidates ought to be asked about their differences in dealing with the most challenging issue of our time: global climate change. It is easy enough to denounce the denialists on the Republican side, whose abject obedience to the Koch brothers and the dirty-energy industry is perfectly obvious. Both Sanders and Clinton have suggested ambitious clean energy objectives. Clinton and her husband have long advocated the expansion of solar, wind, conservation, and other alternative sources of power. 

But so far the former secretary of state has failed to endorse a tax on carbon emissions, which the senator from Vermont supports and many experts believe is essential if the world is to avoid a climate calamity. She should explain her objections. It is literally the burning issue of our time.

Photo: Democratic presidential candidate and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton shakes hands with rival candidate and U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (L) and thanks him for saying that he and the American people are sick of hearing about her State Department email controversy and want to hear about issues that effect their lives as they participate in the first official Democratic candidates debate of the 2016 presidential campaign in Las Vegas, Nevada October 13, 2015. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson