The Coffee Klatch with Robert Reich

If you want to know what’s really going on, don’t pay attention to political speeches or news headlines. Look instead at any underlying reallocation of power — who’s gaining power and who’s losing it — and ponder what these changes mean for the future. Consider, for example, three big upcoming stories this week: The Glasgow climate summit will generate lots of verbiage. But the real question is whether Biden can convince other nations’ political leaders they can trust the United States to do its part. This will be a huge task given Trump’s abandonment of the Paris climate accord, Joe Manchin’s (and oil and coal companies’) recent influence whittling back Biden’s climate agenda, and Friday’s decision by the Supreme Court to hear a case brought by coal companies and 18 Republican-led states to rein in the power of the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate carbon emissions. As to this last point, foreign leaders will note that although the Biden administration had asked the court to delay hearing the case until the EPA finished crafting new carbon emission guidelines, the court rejected the request and decided to hear it anyway. So what does this tell us about the real allocation of power in America as it affects climate change? That power still lies with coal (and oil). Hopefully, this will change, but only if we keep pressure on lawmakers and corporations to move toward a green economy. (Maybe we should also threaten to increase the number of seats on the current retrograde Supreme Court, but that’s a discussion for another day.)Tuesday’s Virginia gubernatorial election is being called a “bellwether” for the midterms. That’s simplistic. Almost no one outside Virginia and Washington, D.C. cares whether Democrat Terry McAuliffe or Republican Glenn Youngkin prevails. Its real significance lies in its effects on two groups of people who will have disproportionate power over the midterm elections: (1) campaign advisors for midterm candidates, especially in “purple” states, who are watching to see whether McAuliffe’s attempts to tie Youngkin to Trump are more effective than Youngkin’s attempts to tie McAuliffe to Biden, and will tailor their messages accordingly; and (2) corporate political operatives, who will channel somewhat more money to Republican candidates in the midterms if Youngkin wins and vice versa if McAuliffe is victorious. (Note that they channeled record amounts of money to Biden and Democrats in the 2020 general election relative to Trump and the GOP, so they’re almost inevitably recalibrating anyway.) A power shift? Too early to tell, but keep your eyes fixed on the message machines in both parties. And keep following the big money. Biden’s social-climate package is the third issue I’m watching this week. The media has fashioned this as a showdown between progressive Democrats and moderates. Rubbish. It’s Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema versus every other Democratic senator and most House Democrats. What’s the endgame? Democrats will come to some agreement — if not this week then soon — because the political costs of failing to do so are just too high given next year’s the midterm elections. But the final result will almost certainly disappoint the progressive wing of the party, which will have to accept far less than it wanted. What does this mean for power in the Democratic Party? The danger is that progressives — who have emerged as the most activist part of party — could feel discouraged from making as strong a grass-roots effort in 2022 as they did in 2020, weakening the Party’s prospects while strengthening the hand of the establishment wing (CEOs, big-money operatives, and the wealthy). What will Biden do to avoid this? He could try making it up to progressives by pushing mightily for voting rights. But to do this, he’ll need to get all Democratic senators to agree to carve out voting rights from the filibuster. Once again, Manchin and Sinema will be critical. Hope you find this helpful. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robertreich.substack.com/subscribe

I often tell my students that if they strive to achieve full and meaningful lives they should expect failures and disappointments. We learn to walk by falling down again and again. We learn to ride a bicycle by crashing into things. We learn to make good friends by being disappointed in friendship. Failure and disappointment are necessary prerequisites to growth. The real test of character comes after failures and disappointments. It is resilience — how easily you take failures, what you learn from them, how you bounce back. This is a hard lesson to learn for high-achievers who are used to jumping over every hoop put in front of them. It’s also a hard lesson for people who haven’t had all the support and love they might have needed when growing up. In fact, it’s a hard lesson for almost everyone in a culture such as ours that worships success and is embarrassed by failure, and is inherently impatient.Why am I telling you this now? Because we have gone through a few very difficult years — Donald Trump’s racist nationalism and his attacks on our democracy, a painful reckoning with systemic racism, angry political divisions, a deadly pandemic accompanied by a recession, and climate hazards such as floods and wildfires. We assumed everything would be fine again once these were behind us. But we now find ourselves in a disorienting limbo. There is no clearly-demarcated “behind us.” The pandemic still lurks. The economy is still worrisome. Americans continue to be deeply angry with each other. Trump and other insurrectionists have not yet been brought to justice. Democracy is still threatened. And Biden and the Democrats have been unable to achieve the scale of changes many of us wanted and expected. If you’re not at least a bit disappointed, you’re not human. To some of you, it feels like America is failing. But bear with me. I’ve learned a few things in my half-century in and around politics, and my many years teaching young people. One is that things often look worse than they really are. The media (including social media) sells subscriptions and advertising with stories that generate anger and disappointment. The same goes for the views of pundits and commentators: Pessimists always appear wiser than optimists. Another thing I’ve learned is that expectations for a new president and administration are always much higher than they can possibly deliver. Our political system was designed to make it difficult to get much done, at least in the short run. So the elation that comes with the election of someone we admire almost inevitably gives way to disappointment. A third thing: In addition to normal political constraints, positive social change comes painfully slowly. It can take years, decades, sometimes a century or longer for a society to become more inclusive, more just, more democratic, more aware of its shortcomings and more determined to remedy them. And such positive changes are often punctuated by lurches backward. I believe in progress because I’ve seen so much of it in my lifetime, but I’m also aware of the regressive forces that constantly threaten it. The lesson here is tenacity — playing the long game.Which brings me back to resilience. We have been through a difficult time. We wanted and expected it to be over — challenges overcome, perpetrators brought to justice, pandemic ended, nation healed, politics transformed. But none of it is over. The larger goals we are fighting for continue to elude us. Yet we must continue the fight. If we allow ourselves to fall into fatalism, or wallow in disappointment, or become resigned to what is rather than what should be, we will lose the long game. The greatest enemy of positive social change is cynicism about what can be changed. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robertreich.substack.com/subscribe

Friends,At a time when the six Republican appointees on the Supreme Court — prodded by Texas, Mississippi, and several other red states — seem ready to reverse Roe v. Wade, it’s important to see the even larger context of what’s at stake. For years, rightwing Republicans have focused their ire on private morality – on the most intimate aspects of peoples’ lives — including abortion, contraception, gay marriage, and which bathrooms and sports teams trans young people choose.But the real moral crisis in America today has nothing to do with private morality. The real crisis involves public morality. Consider, for example:— Several Republican members of the House of Representatives appear to have helped plan the January 6 insurrection. — Top executives of Facebook have knowingly fomented divisiveness and hate in order to sell more ads.— Top executives of Big Pharma are buying off lawmakers to prevent Medicare from using its bargaining leverage to get lower drug prices for all Americans. — Most Republican lawmakers continue to put their party and their careers ahead of American democracy by accepting Donald Trump’s baseless claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him.— A handful of extraordinarily wealthy people are spending unprecedented sums bribing legislators to stop their taxes from increasing and preserve their tax loopholes. They’re also parking their money in secret tax havens.— State lawmakers are passing laws to suppress the votes of likely Democratic voters, and forbidding teachers to tell their students about America’s history of racism.— CEOs of large corporations who now earn 300 times the wages of average workers (up from 60 times forty years ago) are refusing to raise the wages or benefits of hourly workers (whose pay has barely increased in four decades, adjusted for inflation). Meanwhile, they’re off-loading jobs onto so-called “independent contractors” who are cheaper because they get no labor protections. They’re also bribing legislators to give them and their corporations special favors and tax breaks.If these don’t spell a moral crisis, I don’t know what does.I understand why some of you may be reluctant to talk about morality. The right has hijacked the term. And the subject seems uncomfortably close to matters of personal faith and religion. Private moral choices are matters of personal faith and religion — and should stay that way. But public morality is entirely different. I urge you to speak out about it, make a ruckus about it, and loudly condemn corporate executives, Wall Street bankers, and lawmakers who are defying the common good. Take morality back from the radical right — in a way that’s profoundly relevant to the challenges we face today. America’s real moral crisis has nothing to do with people deciding to end their pregnancies, or consenting adults choosing to use contraceptives, or trans young people choosing one bathroom or sports team over another. It has to do with the actions of people in boardrooms and legislative cloakrooms, and the failures of so many who occupy positions of power and public trust to honor the public good. What do you think? This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robertreich.substack.com/subscribe

Friends, This week, Democrats either reach agreement on Biden’s social and climate agenda or the agenda may shrink into meaninglessness. The climate measures in particular need to be settled before Biden heads to Scotland for the U.N. climate summit this weekend, so other nations will see our commitment to reduce carbon emissions. Yesterday, Biden met with key Democrats to work out spending and tax provisions. Yet as far as I know, every senate Republican and at least two senate Democrats continue to assert that Biden’s agenda is too costly. This is insane. Compare its current compromise tab of $2 trillion (spread out over the next 10 years) with:--- The $1.9 trillion Trump Republican tax cut that went mostly to the wealthy and large corporations. Americans were promised that its benefits would “trickle down” to average workers. They didn’t. Corporations used them to finance more stock buybacks. The wealthy used them to buy more shares of stock (and shares of private-equity and hedge funds). Clearly, the Trump Republican tax cut should be repealed to pay for Biden’s social and climate package. But no senate Republican will vote for its repeal, nor will Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema (not coincidentally, recipient of huge amounts of corporate campaign cash).--- The $2.1 trillion that America’s 775 billionaires have raked in just since the start of the pandemic. You’d think that at least a portion of this gigantic sum should help pay for Biden’s agenda since much of it has been the result of monopoly power (eg, Amazon). Kudos to Oregon Senator Ron Wyden, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, for proposing a “billionaires’ tax” (to be paid by people with $1 billion in assets or $100 million in income for three consecutive years). If Sinema has any principles, she’ll support it. --- The nearly $8 trillion we’ll be spending on the military over the next 10 years. The United States already spends more on our military than the next ten biggest military spenders in the world combined. Talk about bloat and waste: That military budget includes eighty-five F-35 fighters costing a total of $1.5 trillion. The F-35 is so plagued with problems that the current chairman of House Armed Service Committee calls it a “rathole,” and the Pentagon’s own official who’s responsible for the acquisition of weapons systems says spending more on it is “acquisition malpractice.” But you don’t hear about this in the media because Democrats routinely join Republicans to vote for bloated military budgets (181 House Dems approved this year’s authorization just last month) — and the media only reports controversy.Yet senate Republicans, along with Sinema and West Virginia’s Joe Manchin, say we can’t afford to spend what’s needed for childcare, education, or paid leave, and we can’t afford to reduce climate change? My friends, this is truly nuts. Please let me have your views: What do you think will happen to Biden’s social and climate agenda? And what do you think the consequences will be? This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robertreich.substack.com/subscribe

What’s the single most important thing that keeps me optimistic about the future? To put it simply: my students. I’ve been teaching on and off for the last forty years. Teaching is one of the most gratifying and joyful professions I can imagine. And in all my years of teaching I’ve never taught a generation of students more diverse, more intelligent, and more committed to the public good than the generation I’m now teaching. This isn’t just at Berkeley. In the years leading up to the pandemic I often guest lectured around the country, typically at colleges known as “conservative” (in fact, I’ve made it a practice of accepting invitations from universities in red states). And you know what? I’ve found the same qualities in those students I’ve found in my students at Berkeley. Not only are there more students of color. Also more women (today, 60 percent of undergraduates are women!). More who are the first in their families to attend college. And a profound sense that they want to improve the nation and the world. I consider myself privileged because I find it impossible to be downbeat or pessimistic about what’s to come because of these young people. They know they’ll be inheriting huge problems – structural racism, widening inequality, threats to democracy, public health crises, deep distrust toward all institutions. But they are determined to remedy them. Not all, mind you. But even if a small percentage dedicate their lives to improving our society and healing the world, they will make a stunning difference.May I ask: What makes you optimistic about the future? This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robertreich.substack.com/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robertreich.substack.com/subscribe

Let me share with you in this short podcast some of the things I’ve heard from people in the last few months, which may suggest the first stirrings of fundamental social change. Very interested in your reactions. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robertreich.substack.com/subscribe

This morning I phoned my old friend Alan Simpson, the former Wyoming senator.Alan and I see eye-to-eye on nothing. He’s a conservative Republican, I’m a progressive Democrat. He’s a fiscal hawk, I don’t worry about the national debt. He thinks Biden has gone too far, I don’t think he’s gone far enough.We don’t see eye-to-eye literally, either. He’s 6 foot 7 and I’m 4 feet 11.But here’s the thing: I love the guy.We struck up a friendship during my years as Secretary of Labor. It began at one of those interminable Washington receptions. He introduced himself and began to talk, but the crowd was so noisy -- and he’s so tall -- I couldn’t hear a word. So I stood on a chair, where our heads were about level.We soon discovered we had one big thing in common: our senses of humor. I found him hilarious. Apparently the feeling was mutual.We planned to get together for lunch, but my staff at the Labor Department was against it. “You haven’t had lunch with most Democratic senators. If you have lunch with Simpson they’ll be insulted,” they warned.His staff was against our lunch, too (he later told me). They said it was inappropriate for a senior Republican senator from one of the most conservative states in America to have lunch with the most liberal member of Clinton’s cabinet. “Your constituents in Wyoming will have a fit,” they warned.So we snuck out for lunch. Neither of our staffs knew where we’d gone. It was the start of a beautiful relationship.This morning we talked about our families and traded a few amusing anecdotes, as we usually do. We also talked about what’s happened to American politics. “They hate each other,” he said, of the current crop of Democrats and Republicans in Washington. Simpson is 90 years old now, but his mind is as sharp as ever. He reminded me that we briefly did a television show together on WGBH in Boston, where we discussed the issues of the week — mixing humor and politics. The show never got much of a following but we had a wonderful time. We called it “The Long and the Short of It.” This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robertreich.substack.com/subscribe

This week, we’re going to witness two high-stakes games of chicken. 1. The first game will be between Senate Democrats and Senate Republicans over raising the debt ceiling and extending funding the government beyond Thursday. These two issues are really quite different: Funding is the more immediate need because if no agreement is reached by Thursday night, the government will shut down. The debt ceiling doesn’t have to be raised until the Treasury runs out of money to pay the government’s bills, which won’t happen until mid or late October. As I said last week, raising the debt ceiling is about paying for spending that’s already occurred. A higher debt ceiling doesn’t authorize new federal spending; it’s about past spending. Raising it simply allows the government to pay its bills. Failure to raise it by the time the Treasury runs out of money would mean a cataclysmic default by the United States, which has never happened before. On the other hand, funding the government is about future spending, starting Friday. Without new funding authority, the government can’t spend a dime. This will result in a shutdown. We have been through several in recent memory (I was in two of them when I ran a cabinet department, and I can tell you they aren’t pretty). Some Americans don’t get the services they depend on. Government workers don’t get the paychecks they depend on. Oh, and there’s a political cost. Generally speaking, the party that voters blame for causing a shutdown is penalized in the next election. (Remember Newt Gingrich?)So what’s behind this first game of chicken? Republicans don’t want to be seen raising the debt ceiling because they want to run in next year’s midterm elections on “fiscal prudence.” (Ironic note: most of the debt piled up since the debt ceiling was last raised came from Trump and Republican lawmakers). And 99 percent of the public mistakenly believes the debt ceiling is about future spending.Which is exactly why Democrats would rather collapse the two issues together, thereby forcing Republicans into the awkward position of either voting to raise the debt ceiling or causing the government to shut down. The House has already bound the two issues together by passing a bill to fund the government through early December that includes an increase in the debt ceiling (as well as disaster relief).In this game, Senate Democrats are daring Republicans to publicly vote against the combined bill – and thereby cause a shutdown. (If Republicans refuse, the only way to avoid a shutdown is for Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats to quickly pass a new resolution without the debt-ceiling provision -- which Senate Republicans have said they’ll sign.)In the meantime – to increase the pressure -- the Office of Management and Budget has given federal agencies instructions for what to do in case of a shutdown.2. The second high-stakes game of chicken this week is between Democrats in the House: between progressives and so-called “moderates.”House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, you may recall, promised that the two giant bills now moving through Congress would be voted on together in the House – the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill that’s already passed the Senate, and the $3.5 trillion “Build Back Better” plan containing the rest of Biden’s agenda (which can only get through the Senate as a “reconciliation” bill requiring a bare majority). She promised this because House progressives refused to vote for the infrastructure bill without a simultaneous vote on the larger bill, out of fear that moderates would approve infrastructure but then balk at the rest. Yet to be responsive to House moderates, she promised a vote on infrastructure by September 27. (She has now scheduled the vote for Thursday.)The problem, of course, is she can’t deliver on both promises because the $3.5 trillion Build Back Better plan isn’t ready. Yet if Pelosi follows through and schedules a vote on infrastructure without Build Back Better, progressives are threatening to vote against the infrastructure bill — which could kill the infrastructure bill because Democrats have a small 3-vote lead over Republicans in the House, and it’s unlikely Republicans will vote for the bill.But unless Pelosi schedules a vote on infrastructure today (or very soon), roughly a dozen House moderates are threatening to vote against the bigger Build Back Better bill when it comes up.Oy. Here’s the bottom line: Neither of these games of chicken would be as fraught if Democrats were united. But even though they hold narrow majorities in both the House and Senate, they aren’t united. They’re less unified than Republicans. Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy (Senate and House Republican leaders, respectively) simply snap their fingers, and Republicans get in line. But Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi (the Democratic leaders) snap their fingers and Democrats go their separate ways. Biden snaps his fingers and congressional Democrats politely yawn.Why this asymmetry? I suspect it’s

My first week of writing (and drawing) this letter has been everything I hoped it would be, largely because of you. Thank you for joining me in this experiment (and it is an experiment because I’ve never tried anything like it before). I hope you will find it useful — as well as interesting and occasionally even amusing. It’s no secret the past year has been long and grueling. Although I’ve been luckier than most, I’ve felt the same stresses many of you have felt (including some sleepless nights and moments of acute fear). The former guy is no longer in the Oval Office and the worst of the pandemic seems behind us (hopefully), yet the dark forces of authoritarianism and white supremacy are still very much with us, as are growing inequality and corruption. Obviously, there’s no simple remedy. But surely part of the answer is to grow a community of people committed to spreading the truth and contributing to a better world. Which is why I’m here and presumably why you are.But rather than make assumptions, please tell me about yourself. What brings you here? This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robertreich.substack.com/subscribe