The Coffee Klatch with Robert Reich

Welcome back to another Saturday coffee klatch with Heather Lofthouse, where we examine the lows and lowers of the previous week. Today on our roster:— Jobs, the economy, and Bidenomics. With everything going well, why are Americans so unhappy?— The presidential sweepstakes. Should we worry that Trump is even more outrageous but seemingly physically strong, while Biden is competent but seemingly frail? — The Supreme Court’s continued rightward drift. If it continues to move in a direction counter to what most people want, how does it maintain public trust?— Twitter versus Threads. Zuckerberg and Meta are now taking on Musk and Twitter. What’s the likely outcome?— Weather weirdness, all over America. Will it end in fire or ice? 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

Welcome back to our coffee klatch, where Heather and I discuss the lows and lowers of the previous week. Today we examine:— Inequality on the high seas. Billionaires’ yachts, unsafe submersibles, and dangerous crossings for migrants. Where will this end?— Inequality on the high court. Billionaires and the justices. Where will this end?— Inequality in Big Tech. Google, Facebook, and Twitter open for demagogues again. Where will this end? — How Republicans are undermining public trust in the Justice Department. And why the department’s decision to accept Hunter Biden’s plea deal is nothing whatever like the special counsel’s decision to indict Trump. — And how Republicans are weaponizing Congress. Look at the bizarre censure of Adam Schiff. And more. 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,Welcome back to another Saturday coffee klatch, where Heather and I review the highs and lows (and even lowers) of the week. Today we focus on:— Trump’s arrest. Why was there no violence, as many had feared? Can we possibly elect a president who’s in prison? — Trump’s promise to appoint a special prosecutor to “go after Biden and the entire Biden crime family” if Trump is reelected president. Do we need to take Sam Ervin’s advice after Watergate? — The GOP House loonies. Is Kevin McCarthy regretting the Faustian bargain he made to become speaker?— Candidates running for president on the Republican side who no one has ever heard of. Why are they running? — This week’s upbeat news — including Democratic “trifecta” states and the best series on television.Thank you to Deirdre Broderick / Corey Kaup and Joseph Lawson for today’s theme songs, and to all of you for listening. And now our weekly poll:So glad you joined us for today’s coffee klatch. If you’re receiving this free of charge, please consider a paid subscription (or a paid gift subscription) so we can do even more. 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,Welcome back to my Saturday coffee klatch with Heather Lofthouse (executive director of Inequality Media Civic Action, and my former student) where we discuss the highs and lows (and often, these days, even lowers) of the week. On tap for today:— The Justice Department’s momentous decision to indict Trump. What’s the likely political and legal fallout? — The Supreme Court’s decision to save Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Why did the court suddenly change direction?— CNN’s decision to fire its CEO, Chris Licht. What should CNN have learned from this disaster?— Last word: Heather’s “litotes” obsession. What’s your favorite example of litotes? 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

Lots of news this week, but we thought it a good time to push the pause button for a moment. We get so much mail from so many of you who are curious about, well, us — especially how we got to political views and values we have, and how our stories compare to yours. So we thought we’d spend today’s klatch on the personal and political. Among the issues we talk about are: — Our political “awakenings.” What were the triggers and circumstances?— How our political views have evolved. — How and why we got into the work we’re now doing.— What we’d tell a young person today who wants to make a difference, and how it’s different from what we were told. 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,Welcome back to my Saturday coffee klatch with Heather Lofthouse (executive director of Inequality Media Civic Action, and my former student), when we review the highs and lows (and sometimes very lows) of the week.Today we focus on:— Ron DeSantis will be announcing his run for the Republican nomination next week. Does he have a prayer?— Trump’s Georgia indictment will likely be announced in August. Will it make any difference?— Joe Manchin is causing trouble again. Will he make a third-party run? — Kevin McCarthy’s showdown with Biden on the debt ceiling is imminent. Will the United States default and, if so, when?Grab a cup, pull up a chair, and (if you’re so inclined) take our poll. 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,While MAGA Republicans in the House attack and investigate what they dub Biden’s “weaponized” federal government and blast Democratic mayors for being “soft on crime,” they are blatantly ignoring the crimes of their allies in plain sight.After Rep. George Santos was arrested and charged with 13 federal crimes — seven counts of wire fraud, three counts of money laundering, one count of theft of public funds, and two counts of making false statements to Congress — what did Speaker Kevin McCarthy do?Nothing. In fact, he said he would not act to remove Santos.After ProPublica investigations revealed that Justice Clarence Thomas had failed to disclose, as required by law, luxury gifts from a Republican megadonor — including expensive vacations, a rent-free house for Thomas’s mother, and tuition payments for a child Thomas was “raising like a son” — what did McCarthy do?Nothing. He said he had no concerns, “not at all” about Thomas. House Republicans have made no move to push the Supreme Court toward a code of ethics.What of the former guy’s innumerable transgressions?After Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg brought charges against Trump, McCarthy attacked Bragg. Since Trump was found by a jury to have sexually harassed and defamed E. Jean Carroll, McCarthy has said nothing. Nor has Florida governor Ron DeSantis commented, nor former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley or Senator Tim Scott, both of whom have launched a 2024 exploratory committees. Meanwhile, most Republican lawmakers continue to deny that Trump sought to overturn the results of the 2020 election and instigate an insurrection.***An earlier generation of conservatives worried about what it saw as a breakdown in social norms in America. They feared the loss of “guardrails” that kept people in line. They fretted about “law and order.”In a famous essay, political scientist James Q. Wilson and criminologist George L. Kelling noted that a broken window in a poor community, left unattended, signals that no one cares if windows are broken there.Because nobody is concerned enough to enforce the norm against breaking windows, the broken window becomes an invitation to throw more stones and break more windows. As more windows shatter, other aspects of community life also start unraveling. The unspoken norm becomes: Do whatever you want here, because everyone else is doing it.This earlier generation of conservatives found the moral breakdown to be mainly in poor and predominantly Black and Latino communities.In 1969, Philip Zimbardo, a Stanford psychologist, arranged to have an automobile without license plates parked with its hood up on a street in the Bronx and a comparable automobile on a street in Palo Alto, California. The car in the Bronx was attacked by “vandals” within ten minutes of its “abandonment.”The car in Palo Alto sat untouched for more than a week. Then Zimbardo smashed part of it with a sledgehammer. Soon, passersby joined in. Within a few hours, the car had been destroyed.Wilson and Kelling concluded that because of the nature of community life in the Bronx — its anonymity, the frequency with which cars are abandoned and things are stolen or broken, the past experience of “no one caring”— vandalism began much more quickly than it did in rich Palo Alto, where people had come to believe that private possessions are cared for and mischievous behavior is costly.But once communal barriers — the sense of mutual regard and the obligations of civility — are lowered by actions that seem to signal that “no one cares,” lawbreaking can take root anywhere. Even at the highest reaches of America.What we are witnessing today is a breakdown of norms at the top. In a former president who still has not been held accountable for his attempted coup. In a Republican speaker of the House who refuses to hold his allies accountable for violations of law. In a recently elected member of the House who has been arrested and charged with numerous federal crimes. In a Supreme Court justice who has accepted jaw-dropping gifts without reporting them as required by law.They are breaking windows right and left. And in doing so, they are inviting more broken windows — implicitly telling America that it’s okay to do whatever you want to do, even if unethical, even if illegal — because people at the highest levels of responsibility in America are doing it.As McCarthy and House Republicans focus their ire on their putative political enemies — seeking examples of lawbreaking and ethical breaches where there are none, while turning a blind eye to lawbreaking by their allies — they are normalizing lawbreaking across the land. Unless this breakage is stopped and its perpetrators held accountable, every window in America — the rule of law itself — is vulnerable.  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,On Sunday I experienced the perfect antidote to the resurgent Trump and Trumpism. I met with Tennessee Representative Justin Jones right after he gave an inspiring talk to our graduating UC Berkeley public policy students. As you may recall, Jones and another young Black Tennessee legislator, Justin Pearson, were expelled last month from the state’s General Assembly for protesting Tennessee’s failure to enact stronger gun controls after a shooting at a Christian school in Nashville took the lives of three nine-year-olds and three adults. Now, he and Pearson are back. And their expulsion has caused a groundswell of support for them and the causes they’re fighting for, in Tennessee and elsewhere around America. A half century separates us. He’s 27, at the start of his career. I’m about to be 77, nearing the end of mine. He’s a young Black man. I’m an old white guy.He’s tall. I’m very short. We grew up in radically different times. But I came away from our discussion profoundly optimistic about the future of this country. In talking with him I felt as if I were passing a generational baton to someone who will be fighting the good fight for the next half century — a new generation that will be more successful than mine in achieving social and economic justice, that will lead the nation toward a strong multiracial, multiethnic democracy. He and Pearson, who took office in November and January, respectively, are community organizers and social justice advocates. Jones has described himself as an activist.“I think our presence as young Black voices for our constituencies, people who will not bow down, those who will not be conformed, that’s what put a target on us the day we walked in the Tennessee General Assembly. … I mean, this is the first time in Tennessee history we had a completely partisan expulsion by predominantly white caucus — all but one member of their caucus is white out of 75 members — and we are the two youngest Black lawmakers in Tennessee. … And so what we saw was a system of political hubris. This was not just an attack on us, it was an attempt to silence our districts.”He believes the biggest challenge his generation faces is the growing assault on democracy. “The Tennessee House Republicans’ attempt to crucify democracy has instead resurrected a movement led by young people to restore democracy, to build a multi-racial coalition … . The message is that we will continue to resist, that this is not the end. Their decision to expel us is not the ultimate authority, but the people will hold them accountable.”Jones is optimistic. “We have an old saying in Tennessee that a mule kicks hardest when it’s dying. They’re fighting us so hard because they realize their power and their systems are dying.”I was also impressed by his candor about the psychological toll the fight was taking on him and others. “Your generation went through the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement,” he told me backstage, “but you didn’t talk about what those fights demanded of you, how the hate they aroused hurt you. Some of you burned out. My generation is different. We recognize the pain, and we find solace in communities that are engaged with us. The opposite of oppression is community. We know the fight will be long. We can’t burn out.”Amen. [With thanks to Tom Lofthouse and Michael Lahanas-Calderón] 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,Welcome back to my Saturday coffee klatch with Heather Lofthouse (executive director of Inequality Media Civic Action, and my former student), when we review the highs and lows (and sometimes very lows) of the week. This week we focus on:— Donald Trump’s horrible lie-fest on CNN. Why did CNN give him a full hour in front of a fawning audience of Trump fans? — E. Jean Carroll’s courtroom victory over Trump, as a Manhattan jury awards her $5 million in damages and finds him liable for sexually abusing her in the mid-1990s. Will she sue Trump again for calling her claim “fake” and a “made-up story” on CNN?— The George Santos indictment. Will Republicans expel him from the House?— The negotiable non-negotiable debt ceiling. Why did Biden sit down with Kevin McCarthy this week? What should Biden do? Grab a cup, pull up a chair, and (if you’re so inclined) take our poll. 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, Retiring from the university means I have to vacate my office. The university has already scheduled a cleaning and new paint job (as if my years of habitation have somehow infested it). What to do with my books? I’ve accumulated several hundred over the years, now scrunched together on shelves running floor to ceiling. I’ve considered carting them to the student common room with a sign reading “free books” but can’t yet bring myself to part with them. Many are like old friends. They’re filled with my underlinings and marginal notes. A few have traveled with me for 50 years. How can I just put them out? The biggest immediate problem is my Cabinet chair — the chair I sat in at Cabinet meetings when I was secretary of labor. By tradition, Cabinet members purchase their Cabinet chairs when they leave the government. When I left the Labor Department 26 years ago, my staff bought the chair for me as a going-away gift. I was touched at the time. Now, I’m befuddled. It’s heavy and ugly — a clunky late 18th century design that’s been standard in the Cabinet room since William Howard Taft was president. It’s also huge. When I sit in it, my legs shoot straight out like Lily Tomlin playing Edith Ann. And it’s personalized. When you join the Cabinet, a small engraved brass plate is attached to the back of your Cabinet chair showing the date you started (in my case, January 21, 1993). Another is attached when you leave, with the date of your departure (January 12, 1997). Together, they feel like a tombstone.There’s no place for my Cabinet chair in my home. Even if there were, I wouldn't ever sit in it.What should I do with it? Craigslist? Too undignified. eBay? Inappropriate. Auction it off and give the proceeds to charity? Too complicated. It would be best, I think, if the White House would just take it back and reuse it for another Cabinet official (minus my tombstone). I called the White House switchboard yesterday, but the kindly person on the other end of the line didn’t know how to respond. “Hello, I’d like to return my Cabinet chair,” I said. “Which Cabinet office would you like to be connected with, sir?”“Sorry, you misunderstood me. I want to give back my Cabinet chair.” “We don’t dispose of chairs, sir.” “It’s a Cabinet chair.”“We don’t dispose of cabinets, either.”“No, I want to recycle the chair I sat in when I was in the Cabinet.” “You want the White House to recycle?”“Just my Cabinet chair.”“Sorry, sir, we cannot handle your request. Thank you for calling the White House.”***Anybody want a big, ugly, heavy, former Cabinet chair? 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