The Coffee Klatch with Robert Reich

My informal weekly coffee with Heather Lofthouse (Executive Director of Inequality Media Civic Action and my former student), discussing the past week. Today we talk about the rogue Supreme Court and what Democrats can — and must — do. In particular, Senate Dems still have the power to carve out filibuster exceptions for reproductive rights, voting rights, and the climate — and then enact national legislation protecting reproductive rights and voting rights, and authorizing the EPA to move forward with the Clean Power Plan rule. Why don’t they do so? We also discuss Cassidy Hutchinson’s powerful testimony before the House January 6 committee, and what it might mean for prosecuting Trump. 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,I recently gave a lecture to students who were considering careers in public service, either in the public sector or in nonprofits. My lecture was about why so many public problems have worsened over the last decades — climate change, economic inequality, gun violence, access to healthcare, public education, child poverty, homelessness, even democracy itself.When I finished, one of them asked, “given everything you’ve told us, why should any of us want to enter public service now?” The question elicited nervous laughter from the class. It had hit a nerve. I responded, “but this is the very best time to enter public service!” They looked puzzled. I continued: “You wouldn’t want to enter public service when there were no major public problems. You’re desperately needed now. Think of all the good you can do! You’re young and energetic and idealistic. You have most of your lives in front of you. The challenges are huge. It’s your time!”They laughed. Some applauded. But I wondered how many of them understood what I was trying to say.I’m getting to be an old man. I’ve spent most of my life working on public problems, much of the time in public service of one kind or another. Yet over my lifetime, so many public problems have worsened. Occasionally I’m haunted by an overwhelming sense of failure — not just my own failure but my entire generation’s failure. I’ll continue to do what I can, but it’s now up to the next generation. Yes, there’s still Biden and Pelosi and Bernie (and Trump), and a few other aging boomers. But we’re all in our last acts. The real fate of the world is in the hands of these young people. It’s their time. 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

Today the Supreme Court — again, with the 6 Republican appointees on one side and the 3 Democratic appointees on the other — limited the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate carbon emissions from power plants. This ruling deals a major blow to America’s (and the world’s) efforts to address climate change. Also — as with its decision reversing Roe v. Wade — today’s ruling has far larger implications than the EPA and the environment. West Virginia v. EPA is the latest battle pitting America’s big businesses (in this case Big Oil) against the needs of average Americans. In this Supreme Court — containing three Trump appointees, two George W. Bush appointees, and one George H.W. Bush appointee – big business is winning big time. The financial backers of the Republican Party are getting exactly what they paid for.Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts admitted that “capping carbon dioxide emissions at a level that will force a nationwide transition away from the use of coal to generate electricity may be a sensible ‘solution to the crisis of the day.’” But then came the kicker: “But it is not plausible,” he wrote, “that Congress gave EPA the authority to adopt on its own such a regulatory scheme.”Not plausible? Congress enacted the Clean Air Act in 1970. As with all laws, Congress left it to an administrative agency — in this case, the EPA — to decide how that Act was to be implemented and applied. That’s what regulations do: They implement laws.For the Supreme Court to give itself the authority to say whether Congress intended to delegate this much regulatory authority to the EPA is a truly radical act — more radical than any Supreme Court in modern history. If Congress has been unhappy with decades of EPA regulation, Congress surely has had the power to pull that authority back. But it has not.As Justice Elena Kagan, writing for the dissenters, countered: “The Court appoints itself — instead of Congress or the expert agency — the decision maker on climate policy. I cannot think of many things more frightening.”The implications of the ruling extend to all administrative agencies in the federal government – to the Securities and Exchange Commission implementing the Securities Acts of 1933 and 1934, to the Federal Trade Commission applying the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914, to the Department of Labor implementing the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, and so on, across the entire range of government – and the entire range of regulations designed to protect consumers, investors, workers, and the environment. (This same Supreme Court has ruled that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was not authorized to impose a moratorium on evictions and that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration was powerless to tell large employers to have their workers be vaccinated or undergo frequent testing.)In passing laws to protect the public, Congress cannot possibly foresee all ways in which those laws might be implemented and all circumstances in which the public might need the protections such laws accord. Starting today, though, all federal regulations will be under a cloud of uncertainty – and potential litigation.A final implication of today’s ruling is that the filibuster has to go. If the Supreme Court is going to require that Congress be more active and specific in protecting the environment or anything else, such a goal is implausible when 60 senators are necessary to enact it. Senate Democrats now have it in their power to abolish the filibuster. Today’s case should convince them they must.Thanks for subscribing. Please consider a paid or gift subscription to help sustain this effort. 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

After today’s explosive testimony by Cassidy Hutchinson — who served as chief assistant to Mark Meadows and was literally and figuratively in the middle of Trump’s White House — I don’t see how Attorney General Merrick Garland can avoid prosecuting Trump, as well as Mark Meadows and Rudy Giuliani.If you didn’t hear or see her testimony, Hutchinson portrayed a plot, in which Trump was directly involved, to stop the counting of electoral ballots on January 6. Meadows, Giuliani, Mike Flynn, and Roger Stone were also directly involved. Trump knew rioters were coming to Washington with weapons, and knew they had weapons on January 6. He knew they were threatening the life of Mike Pence. He knew they were dangerous. He wanted to be on Capitol Hill when they stormed the Capitol. He could have stopped them at any point, but he chose not to.It was the most chilling depiction yet of a president in charge of an attempted coup. Trump knew exactly what was happening and what he was doing. He knew he was acting in violation of his oath of office and inciting violence in order to stay in office. He repeatedly refused to listen to reason, or to change course.More than any other hearing to date, the audience for today’s hearing was not just the American public but also the Attorney General. Time and again, Hutchinson gave testimony about serious federal crimes. Hutchinson testified that (in rough chronological order):1.  As early as December, a plan was emerging that was considered “potentially dangerous for our democracy” and with “dangerous repercussions,” John Ratcliffe, Trump’s director of national intelligence, told Hutchinson at the time.2.  When Attorney General Barr said publicly that the Justice Department hadn’t found evidence of election fraud sufficient to change the outcome of the election, Trump exploded – throwing lunch against the wall of the dining room off the Oval Office, breaking plates. When she attempted to help the valet clean up, the valet warned Hutchinson to stay clear of him.3.  On the evening of January 2, Giuliani asked Hutchinson, “Cass, are you excited for the 6th? It’s going to be a great day. We’re going to the Capitol. Talk to the Chief about it.” When she spoke with Meadows, he said “there’s a lot going on Cass … things may get real, real bad on January 6.”4.  On January 4, Trump’s national security advisor Robert O’Brien asked if he could speak with Meadows about potential violence on January 6. Tony Ornato, Deputy Chief of Staff in charge of all security, also had reports of potential violence on January 6.5.  On January 5, Trump asked Meadows to speak with Roger Stone and Mike Flynn; Hutchinson believes they talked. Flynn had set up a “war room” at the Willard Hotel. Meadows wanted to join their meeting but Hutchinson advised against it. He dialed into the meeting instead.6.  On the morning of January 6, Pat Cipollone, the White House counsel, asked Hutchinson to “please make sure we don’t go up to the Capitol, we’re going to get charged with every crime imaginable.” He was “concerned we were obstructing justice or obstructing the electoral count” and “look like we were inciting a riot.”7.  Moments before his January 6 rally on the ellipse, Trump was angry because he wanted the area to be filled with his supporters and worried that camera shots would show it sparsely filled. When told that Secret Service wasn’t letting people with dangerous weapons through the metal detectors (magnetometers), Trump said: “I don’t f*****g care they have weapons. Let my people in. They aren’t here to hurt me. Take the magnetometers away” and “they can march to the Capitol after the rally is over.”8.  Later, when Trump was finishing his speech and rioters were on the way to the Capitol, Ornato asked Hutchinson to let Meadows know of the danger. But Meadows didn’t want to hear it. Sitting in a secure vehicle near the ellipse, Meadows repeatedly shut the door on her. Almost a half hour later, when she was finally able to tell him of the danger, he said “Alright, how much longer does the president have left in his speech?”9.  When Trump was back in his limousine (“the beast”) after the rally, he wanted to go to the Capitol but the Secret Service wouldn’t let him. When chief Secret Service agent Bobby Engle refused, Trump tried to grab the steering wheel and then lunged at Engle. 10.  When the riot began, and they were back in the White House. Hutchinson heard Meadows tell Cipillone, “The President doesn’t want to do anything about it.” Moments later, when Cipillone and Meadows met with Trump, Hutchinson heard them talking about the “hang Mike Pence chants.” A few minutes later, when Cipillone told Meadows, “Mark we need to do something more, they’re literally calling for VP to be hung,” Meadows said, “you heard him, he doesn’t think they’re doing anything wrong, and Mike deserves it.”11.  As rioters stormed the Capitol, many people phoned Meadows, urging that Trump tell rioters to stop. He could easily have walked down to briefing room just steps from the Oval Office. But Trump did nothing until 4:17 pm when he released a video, telling the rioters “go home, we love you, you’re very special … go home in peace.”12.  The next day, on January 7, many of his advisers wanted Trump to give remarks about national healing, but Trump resisted. Hutchinson said “he didn’t think he needed to do anything more” and “didn’t think the rioters had done anything wrong, that the person who did something wrong was Mike Pence.” Concerned that his cabinet might otherwise invoke the 25th amendment and relieve him of his duties, Trump ultimately delivered remarks, but still refused to use the words “this election is now over.”13.  Both Giuliani and Meadows wanted presidential pardons.***A final note: Liz Cheney, vice-chair of the committee, noted that several potential witnesses had been warned not to testify or to testify in ways that would not implicate Trump. She reminded the public (and any potential witnesses) that this attempted interference was itself a federal crime. 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

Donald Trump’s legacy — a proto-fascist movement we might call Trumpism — includes a Supreme Court rapidly taking America backwards, state legislatures suppressing votes and taking over election machinery, and an emboldened oligarchy taking over the economy. While the January 6 committee is doing a fine job exposing Trump’s attempted coup that culminated in the attack on the Capitol, it is not part of the committee’s charge to reveal why so many Americans were willing — and continue to be willing — to go along with Trump. Yet if America fails to address the causes of Trumpism, the attempted coup he began will continue, and at some point it will succeed. My purpose in today’s post (and others to come) is to begin to expose the roots of Trumpism , and suggest what must be done. Let me start with some personal history. In the fall of 2015, I visited Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Missouri, and North Carolina. I was doing research on the changing nature of work in America. During my visits I spoke with many of the same people I had met twenty years before when I was secretary of labor, as well as with some of their grown children. I asked them about their jobs, their views about America, and their thoughts on a variety of issues. What I was really seeking was their sense of the system as a whole and how they were faring in it.What I heard surprised me. Twenty years before, many had expressed frustration that they weren’t doing better. Now they were angry – at their employers, the government, and Wall Street; angry that they hadn’t been able to save for their retirement; angry that their children weren’t doing any better than they did at their children’s age. They were angry at those at the top who they felt had rigged the system against them, and for their own benefit. Several had lost jobs, savings, or homes in the Great Recession following the financial crisis. By the time I spoke with them, most were back in jobs, but the jobs paid no more than they had two decades before in terms of purchasing power.   I heard the term “rigged system” so often that I began asking people what they meant by it. They spoke about the bailout of Wall Street, political payoffs, insider deals, CEO pay, and “crony capitalism.” These complaints came from people who identified themselves as Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. A few had joined the Tea Party. Some others had briefly been involved in the Occupy movement. Yet most of them didn’t consider themselves political. They were white, Black, and Latino, from union households and non-union. The only characteristic they had in common apart from the states and regions where I found them was their positions on the income ladder. All were middle class and below. All were struggling. They no longer felt they had a fair chance to make it. With the 2016 political primaries looming, I asked them which candidates they found most attractive. At that time, the leaders of both parties favored Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush to be the Democratic and Republican candidates, respectively. Yet no one I spoke with mentioned either Clinton or Bush. They talked about Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. When I asked why, they said Sanders or Trump would “shake things up,” or “make the system work again,” or “stop the corruption,” or “end the rigging.”The following year, Sanders — a 74-year-old Jew from Vermont who described himself as a democratic socialist and who wasn’t even a Democrat until the 2016 presidential primary — came within a whisker of beating Hillary Clinton in the Iowa caucus, routed her in the New Hampshire primary, garnered over 47 percent of the caucus-goers in Nevada, and ended up with 46 percent of the pledged delegates from Democratic primaries and caucuses. Had the Democratic National Committee not tipped the scales against him, I’m convinced Sanders would have been the Democratic Party’s nominee. Trump — a sixty-nine-year-old egomaniacal billionaire reality TV star who had never held elective office or had anything to do with the Republican Party, and who lied compulsively about almost everything — won the Republican primaries and then went on to beat Clinton, one of the most experienced and well-connected politicians in modern America (granted, he didn’t win the popular vote, and had some help from the Kremlin).Something very big had happened, and it wasn’t due to Sanders’s magnetism or Trump’s likability. It was a rebellion against the establishment. That rebellion — or, if you will, revolution — continues to this day. Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush had all the advantages — deep bases of funders, well-established networks of political insiders, experienced political advisors, all the name recognition you could want — but neither of them could credibly convince voters they weren’t part of the system, and therefore part of the problem. When I interviewed these people, the overall economy was doing well in terms of the standard economic indicators of employment and growth. But the standard economic indicators don’t reflect the economic insecurity most Americans felt then — and continue to feel. Nor do they reflect the seeming arbitrariness and unfairness most people experience. The indicators don’t show the linkages many Americans still see — between wealth and power, crony capitalism, stagnant real wages, soaring CEO pay, their own loss of status, and a billionaire class that has turned our democracy into an oligarchy. The standard measures also don’t show that for four decades, Americans without a four-year college degree have worked harder than ever, but gone nowhere. If they’re white and non-college, they’ve been on a downward economic escalator. Finally, the standard measures don’t show what most Americans have caught on to — how wealth has translated into political power to rig the system with bank bailouts, corporate subsidies, special tax loopholes, shrunken unions, and increasing monopoly power, all of which have pushed down wages and pulled up profits.Much of the political establishment still denies what has occurred. They prefer to attribute Trump’s rise solely to racism. Racism did play a part. But to understand why racism (and its first cousin, xenophobia) had such a strong impact in 2016, especially on the voting of whites without college degrees, it’s important to see what drove the racism. After all, racism in America dates back long before the founding of the Republic, and even modern American politicians have had few compunctions about using racism to boost their standing. Richard Nixon’s “law and order” campaign on behalf of “the silent majority” was an appeal to racism, as was Ronald Reagan’s condemnation of “welfare queens,” and George H. W. Bush’s use of Willie Horton against Michael Dukakis. Racism was also behind Bill Clinton’s promises to “end welfare as we know it” and “crack down on crime.” What has given Trump’s racism — as well as his hateful xenophobia, misogyny, and jingoism — particular virulence has been his capacity to channel the intensifying anger of the white working class into it. It is hardly the first time in history that a demagogue has used scapegoats to deflect public attention from the real causes of their distress, and it won’t be the last. In 2016 Trump galvanized millions of blue-collar voters living in communities that never recovered from the tidal wave of factory closings. He understood what resonated with these voters: He promised to bring back jobs, revive manufacturing, and get tough on trade and immigration. “We can’t continue to allow China to rape our country, and that’s what they’re doing,” he said at one rally. “In five, ten years from now, you’re going to have a workers’ party. A party of people that haven’t had a real wage increase in eighteen years, that are angry.” Speaking at a factory in Pennsylvania in June 2016 he decried politicians and financiers who had betrayed Americans by “taking away from the people their means of making a living and supporting their families.”Worries about free trade used to be confined to the political left. But by 2016, according to the Pew Research Center, people who said free-trade deals were bad for America were more likely to be Republican. The problem wasn’t trade itself. It was a political-economic system that had failed to cushion working people against trade’s downsides or to share trade’s upsides – in other words, a system that was rigged against them. Big money was at the root of the rigging. This was the premise of Sanders’s 2016 campaign. It was also central to Trump’s appeal (“I’m so rich I can’t be bought off”) — although once elected he delivered everything big money wanted. It is well worth recalling that in the 2016 primaries, Bernie Sanders did far better than Clinton with blue-collar voters. He did this by attacking trade agreements, Wall Street greed, income inequality, and big money in politics.More to come on this, but it’s getting late and I’m dead tired. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber or giving a paid subscription as a gift 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

When I was in kindergarten in 1951, I was the shortest kid in all of Lewisboro Elementary School, Public School #1. Not surprisingly, perhaps, I was cast as Baby Jesus in the annual school Christmas pageant. My role didn’t require much preparation or talent. I just had to lie on some straw strewn on the stage and look at children playing Mary and Joseph, the three Wise Men, and assorted angels, and then sit up and join the rest of the school in prayer and carols. The problem for me was that even at the tender age of five, I felt that what I was doing was profoundly wrong. I knew Jesus was Jewish, but my family did not celebrate Christmas and did not believe Jesus was the Messiah. Yet here I was, playing Jesus on stage before the entire school, and praying and singing songs praising him. I felt vulnerable and guilty. What was I to do? I did the only thing my five-year-old brain could come up with: I apologized to God. I did it quietly as I lay on the straw on the stage, under my breath so no one else would hear, and then apologized again during the prayers and Christmas carols. I whispered, “God, I didn’t have a choice. I was cast as Baby Jesus. I don’t celebrate Christmas. It’s against my religion. Please forgive me. Thank you.”In the intervening years since that Christmas pageant, the Supreme Court fortified the wall separating church and state. For years, no public school would have had me play Baby Jesus or pray and sing carols — at least not until today. Today the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a former high school football coach who repeatedly led his players in postgame prayers at midfield. There were also prayers in the locker room. (At the homecoming game, the coach was joined in the postgame prayer by members of the public, a state legislator and the media.)Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, writing for his fellow Republican appointees in the 6-to-3 decision, ruled that the coach’s prayers were protected by the Constitution’s guarantees of free speech and free religious exercise.Writing for the dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said: “Official-led prayer strikes at the core of our constitutional protections for the religious liberty of students and their parents … The Court now charts a different path.”Today, I thought of myself at the age of five, and felt as vulnerable as I did then. 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,Like many of you, I found it a difficult weekend. As Friday’s decision by the six Republican nominees on the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade sank in — along with Clarence Thomas’s threat to use the same logic to put a whole range of other rights on the chopping block, including marriage equality and full access to contraception — I became aware once again just how fragile are the rights we assumed we had. In just two days last week, the court deferred to the states on reproductive rights but struck down reasonable efforts by states to prevent gun violence. There is no logic here — just ideology. This has been the pattern for a decade or more. Even before Trump’s nominees were confirmed, the court’s conservatives had expanded the rights of corporations to flood our democracy with money while gutting the Voting Rights Act. What to do? Like many of you, I vacillate from outrage to despair. We have lost control of the Supreme Court. Many believe we’re about to lose control of Congress. Children are being gunned down by assault weapons. States are banning books about racism. Having gutted the Voting Rights Act, conservatives are leveraging every form of voter suppression they can, while the Senate — nominally under Democratic control — cannot pass a bill to protect the vote. Climate disaster looms yet we are doing little to stop it. Meanwhile, the man who engineered an attempted coup is still free to run for reelection and the Republican Party is slouching toward fascism. We can protest all we want, but everything we believe in depends on politics and power. Which is why the most important thing we can do now is to mobilize like mad for the midterm elections. We need enough Democrats in the House and Senate to carve out exemptions from the filibuster and pass national laws that guard reproductive rights, sexual rights, marriage rights, voting rights, and the planet. I know, I know. Democrats already have majorities in the House and Senate, yet that hasn’t been enough. The only answer is larger majorities — with Democrats who are not afraid to be Democrats, who have spines and care about the country, protect the Constitution, and preserve the world. All of this is on the ballot in November. My small contribution is found on these pages and in the videos I make with my young colleagues at Inequality Media — such as the one we just did, below, on the Supreme Court’s decision to reverse Roe and the threat it poses to other rights. I keep telling the young people I work with and in the classes I teach that I grew up in an America that expanded constitutional rights, battled racism and protected voting rights, and enlarged the middle class. I tell them that if we did it then, we can do so again. They hear me but I’m not sure they believe me. Their young lives have been marked mostly by public failure. Many were motivated to vote for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2016, and against Trump in 2020, but their patience is wearing thin. My scribbles on this page along with the videos are means of fighting back — spreading the word, educating people about what’s at stake and why we must take action, and arming people with arguments they need to make the case to those not yet convinced. So when I ask you to please share, I ask in the spirit of a political act. Sharing as a means of edifying, organizing, and mobilizing. Sharing to make our voices heard. Sharing for ideals that still burn bright. 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

My informal weekly coffee with Heather Lofthouse (Executive Director of Inequality Media Civic Action, and my former student), discussing the past week. Today we talk about three things giving Heather a headache and making Bob’s blood boil — the Supreme Court become so radically rightwing that even John Roberts has lost control over it, a Republican Party become so nuts that it’s impervious to the January 6 committee hearings, and economists and policymakers at the Fed become such apologists for corporations that they’re blaming inflation on wage increases rather than on corporate profits. Heather also gives old Bob the nicest compliment he’s ever received. Please pull up a 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

If there’s any doubt about the extremism of the Supreme Court’s six Republican appointees, it was on full display today with their opinion in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overrules Roe v. Wade, establishing the right to an abortion. Roe had been the law of the land for almost fifty years.Even more ominous is Clarence Thomas’s concurring opinion, in which he argues that the same rationale the court used to overrule Roe should be used to overturn cases establishing rights to contraception, same-sex consensual relations and same-sex marriage. Thomas is pointing the way for the radicals on the court to take in the future.If the due process clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution doesn’t protect abortion, says Thomas, the court “should reconsider” other cases that rely on the same clause: Griswold v. Connecticut, a 1965 decision that declared married couples have a right to contraception; Lawrence v. Texas, a 2003 case invalidating sodomy laws and making same-sex sexual activity legal across the country; and Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 case establishing the right of gay couples to marry. Thomas says the court has a duty to “correct the error” established in those precedents. That’s not all. After “overruling these demonstrably erroneous decisions, the question would remain whether other constitutional provisions” protected the rights they established, says Thomas. I was in law school in 1973 when the Supreme Court decided Roe v Wade. Also in my class at the time was Clarence Thomas, along with Hillary Rodham (later Hillary Clinton) and Bill Clinton.As I’ve noted before, our law professors used the “Socratic method” – asking hard questions about the cases they were discussing and waiting for students to raise their hands in response, and then criticizing the responses. It was a hair-raising but effective way to learn the law.One of the principles guiding those discussions is called stare decisis — Latin for “to stand by things decided.” It’s the doctrine of judicial precedent. If a court has already ruled on an issue (say, on reproductive rights or gay marriage), future courts should decide similar cases the same way. The Supreme Court can change its mind and rule differently than before, but it needs good reasons to do so, and it helps if the justice’s opinion is unanimous or nearly so. Otherwise, the rulings appear (and are) arbitrary — even, shall we say? — political.In those classroom discussions almost fifty years ago, Hillary’s hand was always first in the air. When she was called upon, she gave perfect answers – whole paragraphs, precisely phrased. She distinguished one case from another, using precedents and stare decisis to guide her thinking. I was awed.My hand was in the air about half the time, and when called on, my answers were meh.Clarence’s hand was never in the air. I don’t recall him saying anything, ever.Bill was never in class.Only one of us now sits on the Supreme Court. He and five of his colleagues — all appointed by Republican presidents, five by presidents who lost the popular vote, three by a president who instigated a coup against the United States — are now violating stare decisis. They have not given a clear and convincing argument for why. Thomas wants the court to reverse more than a half century of rights.The Supreme Court is now firmly in the hands of radicals, eager to throw stare decisis out the window. They are part of the anti-democracy movement now threatening America. 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

Yesterday, Fed Chair Jerome Powell, testifying before the Senate Banking Committee, said outright that the Fed’s higher interest rates won’t lower the prices of gas or groceries. Hello? Gas and food prices are the two items hitting families the hardest, and the Fed is openly admitting that raising interest rates will do nothing to ease the burden? What rate hikes will do is force millions of Americans into joblessness and make families poorer. As Senator Elizabeth Warren said during her questioning of Powell, “You know what’s worse than high inflation and low unemployment? It’s high inflation with a recession and millions of people out of work.”Earlier this week, Larry Summers argued that containing inflation will require five years of 6 percent unemployment, or two years of unemployment at 7.5 percent or one year at 10 percent. If that’s the case, the cure is worse than the disease. Let’s be clear: Workers aren’t to blame for inflation. Wages aren’t pushing up prices. Real wages have dropped 3.5 percent over the last 12 months. Corporate profits are pushing up prices. The goal of policymakers should not be to restrain wages, but to restrain monopoly profits. Powell’s and Summers’s remarks remind me of a debate I had with Summers’s predecessor at the Treasury, Lloyd Bentsen, more than two decades ago. (From my memoir “Locked in the Cabinet”): May 11, 1994, Washington[Fed Chair Alan] Greenspan has been raising interest rates. He started three months ago and is about to do so again. My colleagues seem intent on egging him on. Lloyd Bentsen argues that the administration should publicly state that the economy is approaching its “natural” rate of unemployment—the lowest rate achievable without igniting inflation. This, he reasons, will reassure Wall Street that we won’t object if the Fed tightens the reins. And that reassurance should maintain Wall Street’s confidence that we’re committed to the inflation fight, which, in turn, will keep long-term rates well under control. I’m flabbergasted. “How can we be near the natural rate of unemployment when eight and a half million people can’t find jobs?” I ask. Bentsen stares at me like I’m a Texas toad. Others around the table explain to me that the last time unemployment was about to dip below six percent—at the end of the 1980s—wages started to rise, pushing up prices. “We can’t let Wall Street lose confidence.” The familiar chorus. But the economy is different than it was then. Workers aren’t about to demand wage increases this time around. The 1991–92 recession was a watershed. Most people who lost their jobs weren’t rehired by their former employers. In fact, job insecurity is now endemic. Big companies are downsizing. Medium-sized ones are outsourcing and subcontracting. Out of concern that Lloyd’s proposal will carry, I inject a political note. “Has anybody forgotten?” I ask, far too condescendingly. “We’re Democrats. Even if we are approaching the danger zone where low unemployment might trigger inflation, we should err on the side of more jobs, not higher bond prices. That’s why we’re sitting here, and not the economic advisers to a Republican president.” One or two heads nod in agreement, encouraging me on. “So here’s my proposal: The President should warn the Fed against any further increases in interest rates.” My idea is rejected out of hand. But, happily, so is Lloyd’s. A standoff is better than the likely alternative.Lloyd does have a point, and it’s a conversation I wish we had. There’s some level of unemployment that will trigger inflation, and whatever that magic level might be, it will still leave millions of people out of work. A seeming paradox: Millions of people unemployed or underemployed, and yet wages begin to creep upward because employers can’t fill jobs. Paradox explained: They can’t fill the jobs with these people. These people are walled off from the economy because they lack the education, or have the wrong skills, or don’t know what’s required, or are assumed to be too old to make the change. So whatever the “natural” rate of unemployment, we don’t have to assume it’s fixed there. It can be reduced by helping these people scale the wall. We keep having these goddamn arid debates about deficits and interest rates, as if they were the only variables, as if we were dealing with immutable laws of physics. But economics isn’t a physical science. Its “laws” are subject to change. And the softer variables—ignorance, isolation, prejudice—make all the difference. I wish I could show them Father Cunningham’s project in Detroit, or the East Los Angeles Skills Center, or the community colleges brimming with adults trying to make something more of themselves, or exceptional companies—like L-S Electro-Galvanizing in Cleveland—that are building loyalty and teamwork while they upgrade employee skills. We should be puzzling over how we can help more Americans become productive citizens rather than how we can help more bond traders stay confident. 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