Deep Dive with Shawn

Did Bill Clinton’s Presidency Create Trump? The Progressive Betrayal (Featuring Dr. Nelson Lichtenstein)

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Is Bill Clinton responsible for this Trump Era? In this episode, Dr. Nelson Lichtenstein, professor of History at UC Santa Barbara, and co-author of the book A Fabulous Failure: The Clinton Presidency and the Transformation of American Capitalism joins the pod to examine the complexities of Bill Clinton's presidency and its enduring effects on American democracy today. We discuss how Clinton’s embrace of neoliberalism, exemplified through policies like welfare reform and NAFTA, caused rifts within the Democratic Party and set the stage for right-wing populism. As we dig into the consequences of prioritizing political pragmatism and bipartisanship over progressive ideals, we ask: did Clinton's era create an environment ripe for the rise of figures like Donald Trump?

Dr. Lichtenstein highlights political dynamics during the 1990s, the importance of maintaining a strong, progressive base, and lessons that contemporary Democrats can apply as they navigate today's political landscape, while encouraging reflection on labor's role, coalition-building among progressives, and strategies for re-engaging disillusioned voters. 

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Dr. Lichtenstein:

Bill Clinton. And here's a mistake, a tragedy. Bill Clinton could have captured that constituency had he chosen, you know, just a few things certainly not NAFTA and a few other trade issues. But he didn't. He didn't and that Perot constituency, which had a kind of rough character to it, by the way, as strong in the north as it was in the south, clinton failed to capture that, which meant that by the time he got to the year 2000, the country was divided, you know. Equally, I think you see, in places like northern Maine and certain areas of the rural, industrial, rural Midwest, where Trump Trump, where Perot was very strong, and those areas have gone over to the Republicans.

Shawn:

Welcome to Deep Dive with me, s C Fettig. The presidency of Bill Clinton is often remembered for economic prosperity, political centrism and an ability to bridge the gap between left and right and well, the whole cigar thing. But as time passes, I think it's fair to say that the maybe devastating ramifications of the Clinton presidency are becoming clearer Beneath the surface. Clinton's embrace of neoliberalism, corporate-friendly policies and a calculated retreat from progressive ideals may have had far-reaching consequences, ones that we're reckoning with today, maybe even explain today this Trump era. By sidelining labor, gutting social safety nets and championing policies like welfare reform and financial deregulation, clinton reshaped the Democratic Party into a technocratic, market-driven institution, one that abandoned its New Deal roots in favor of triangulation and political survival. As we are experiencing an era of democratic backsliding in the United States, it's crucial to ask did Clinton's failures in progressive governance create the conditions that led to the rise of Donald Trump? Did the disillusionment of working class voters, the erosion of economic security and the retreat from bold leftist policies opened the door for right-wing populism? In this episode, I'm joined by Dr Nelson Lichtenstein, professor of history at University of California, santa Barbara, and co-author of the book A Fabulous Failure the Clinton Presidency and the Transformation of American Capitalism. We discuss how the Clinton presidency weakened progressive governance, the long-term damage it inflicted on the Democratic Party, maybe American democracy itself, and how it helped lay the foundation for the political crisis, this grievance-driven, score-settling Trump era, we're living through today. Alright, if you liked this episode, or any episode, please give it a like, share and follow on your favorite podcast platform and or subscribe to the podcast on YouTube. And, as always, if you have any thoughts, questions or comments, please feel free to email me at deepdivewithshawn at gmailcom. Let's do a deep dive. Dr Lichtenstein, thanks for being here. How are you Delighted to be here? I'm fine, I'm fine. Okay, I'm glad to hear it.

Shawn:

So, over the past few years, I've been thinking about how we got to the present moment we're in in our politics, which to me seems like it's short circuited somewhere between Bill Clinton and Donald Trump. It really seemed like we were on some type of a trajectory that wasn't overwhelmingly progressive, but it did seem like that was the general direction we were kind of stumbling into. It didn't feel well directed, but it felt like it was happening. So you know where we are now. 10 years ago would have seemed I don't think it's unreasonable to say utterly impossible. Know where we are now 10 years ago would have seemed. I don't think it's unreasonable to say utterly impossible. Yet here we are, and I think a knee-jerk reaction would be to blame figures like George W Bush or Mitch McConnell or Donald Trump, etc. And I think that's probably fair. But I've also been thinking more and more about the failures if that's the right word of quote-unquote liberal figures like Barack Obama and Bill Clinton and you've written extensively about this especially Clinton. So I'm excited to get your take on this.

Dr. Lichtenstein:

Yes, well, yeah, I mean, there's the immediate events involving the return of Trump and Trumpism in general. I think we'll be labeling this these last 12 years assuming he completes his presidency is the age of Trump, although Biden, you know, is there, but anyway, I think. So there's the immediate aspects of that. You know, and you can look at, you know, as you mentioned, various politicians and decisions that have been made, but, in general, I think pundits and historians and just everyone in general thinks, yeah, there's something, something went wrong, something definitely went wrong within the world of, well, within America and within the body of liberalism, and that's stretching back. Actually, you can go back to Carter, but Clinton, you're right, bill Clinton and Obama, despite what I do think were some genuinely liberal, progressive, actually not anti-capitalist, but efforts to manage capitalism which both of those individuals and some people around them had. Nevertheless, we do label them, and I think probably correctly, as you know, a part of a, what we'd call a, a neoliberal, um, uh, sort of statecraft from the 90s and including, uh, barack obama's response to the big economic crisis of the 19 of 2008. Now, I mean this word neoliberal, by the way, of course, is such a has become a kind of cliche and it kind of encompasses too much, but nevertheless, when we think about it, let's crudely just say a kind of belief in international trade, the market, above that of managing capitalism domestically and a kind of somewhat austere social programs.

Dr. Lichtenstein:

Now, the main point I would make, and I've tried to make in this book that I wrote on the presidency of Bill Clinton, is that it would be a mistake to think of this strand of statecraft, of neoliberal statecraft, as a kind of pure ideology that individuals like Bill Clinton, you know, walk into the White House with, or Barack Obama, for that matter, or any other politician. That was not the case at all and in fact I think what's the creative tension and what we can learn from the experience of, say, a Clinton or an Obama, is that their commitment during the campaign and their whole life really to a sort of more progressive, liberal, pro-working class kind of democratic politics that they had. That's one reason they were elected. Certainly, clinton, his campaign in 1992 was one which was the economy stupid. What that meant was let's get back to fundamentals, let's end the stagnation of living standards.

Dr. Lichtenstein:

But the tension there is that, despite all of these intentions and people he brought in who agreed with him. Nevertheless, social forces, ideological forces, political upheavals, a whole variety of circumstances, some self-inflicted, some from without, pushed Clinton to where he ended up in the end of his presidency as what we think of today, as kind of this neoliberal presidency which, in effect, as Bernie Sanders put it in a very recent post, you know, the Democrats abandoned the working class. So. But the point of it is that I think we have to look at why it is that sort of good intentions, progressive intentions, were thwarted and sort of turned inside out. I think that's the point that we can learn from these presidencies. Ok.

Shawn:

I don't want to put too fine a point on it because I think you touched on this, but I think it's worth digging a little bit into.

Shawn:

If we're looking at where Clinton and Obama specifically landed as it relates to kind of their approach to globalization and free trade and, you know, maybe we encapsulate that in some type of neoliberal ideology I think you know it's worth maybe, I guess, putting a finer point on this idea that I think we look back and think that presidents come into office and have a very specific ideology, that then they layer over global events and they layer over domestic events and they layer over, you know, the politics of the day.

Shawn:

But in reading some of your work and just kind of reflecting on both Clinton and Obama, it feels more to me that's giving them maybe a little bit too much credit and that instead these might just have been two figures that obviously had influential figures behind them but that they were kind of iterating in the moment, you know, the end of the Cold War, the end of history, the rise of globalization, the internal politics at home were very conflictual and that they were maybe in the moment evolving and adjusting to that and that ended up creating an ideology in retrospect.

Dr. Lichtenstein:

Well, right, I mean, I think, yeah, there's a level of opportunism or just a kind of a political happenstance that takes place Obviously. I think they made, I think there were some elements that were wrong. And while they thought, I believe and I emphasize in my to the Clinton's health care reform, which he saw not just as a good thing for expanding the welfare state but also as industrial policy, because one of the reasons that American industry having difficulty competing in those days with Germany and Japan was because of the burden of health care costs. It costs more money for health care than steel, said the president of the Ford Motor Company. This is something that comes out of the economics. It was essentially benign and that it could not have the kind of devastating impact it had on specific communities, particularly in the Rust Belt, and I think they underplayed that.

Dr. Lichtenstein:

And then, of course, trade was not just about trade. It was also about immigration, and this was clearly the case with NAFTA. I mean, clinton himself didn't walk into the White House as a NAFTA warrior. We have to pass that. That was not an important part of his campaign or of his outlook. It was actually NAFTA the trade agreement with Mexico was pushed forward both by the Mexican government and by the HW Bush administration. But Clinton, I think I call it a blunder in pushing that forward and it had very, very deleterious consequences in terms of his electoral base and what we think of as his trade regime. Of course, the opening to China was actually far more devastating, when it came to the industrial base of the country, than Mexico.

Dr. Lichtenstein:

But your point is right that there's always a mixture of kind of preexisting ideas which are there, and then the events and rapid Japan as both different models of capitalism, more successful models of capitalism, and then of course also trading threats to the United States.

Dr. Lichtenstein:

The end of the Cold War, you know, took all of that sort of foreign policy-oriented you know, conversation, discourse which had dominated American politics for decades, was sort of over and you know we moved on to a new set of problems.

Dr. Lichtenstein:

As Senator Tsongas, who was a rival of Kennedy, of Obama for the presidential nomination in 1992, put it, he said the Cold War is over, germany and Japan have won, and that was something, a sentiment, that Clinton was also concerned with, and so that's why, both in terms of his domestic policies initially, and even, to some degree, trade policies, everyone's forgotten the very determined effort that the Clinton people made to manage trade with Japan, to force the Japanese to buy American products and restrict the kind of dumping of goods in the United States.

Dr. Lichtenstein:

This was a big effort and it failed, but it but it indicates that Clinton again didn't walk into the White House as a neoliberal. He ended up that way, I think, and is probably criticized, but that was not where he came from. Again, I repeat, it's important for liberals, progressives, to understand that it's not just a question of sheer ideology, that it's not just a question of sheer ideology. It's a question of what your policies are, what coalitions you create, you know, and how you conduct your statecraft, to understand whether you're going to succeed or fail and move in a liberal or conservative direction.

Shawn:

You make this point and I think we're thinking more about this just generally in at least the political arena the evolution of, or the impact of, policies under Clinton and, I suppose, obama and how they have contributed to what some might consider to be the morass we're in right now and I think we tend to look at if we can just look at the moment we're in now, there's a narrative around Trump and his policies that it's chaos and that it's unintelligent or unintelligible and that it's potentially dangerous.

Shawn:

But if we take a longer view and I'm not trying to justify this, but I think if we take the longer view and maybe you would disagree but a lot of the grievance that Trump tapped into comes directly out of some of the policies under Clinton and I suppose under Obama as well, and you know Trump's policies as it relates to globalization and then free trade and trade deals in a way would almost seem like very strategically targeted and outside of the politics of it. I do wonder if there is a certain amount of intelligence to it that I don't want to ascribe to Trump. Maybe it's a knee jerk, just instinctual in him, but I wonder if you think this is Trump tapping into something a bit more political, a grievance that came out of you know these policies, or if he's actually tapping into something that is a necessity as it relates to American policy in these areas.

Dr. Lichtenstein:

You know I don't disagree at all. I mean, clearly that's the case Trump's tariff sort of fixation. He does it very crudely and probably, you know, have a kind of certain kinds of backlash, but nevertheless it does reflect the opposition to certain of these free trade ideals. Let me just make a point about free trade for a second. Then I want to say something else about Trump as well.

Dr. Lichtenstein:

The reason that all economists, actually even today almost, are in favor of free trade and this extends over to the left as well is that it is true that a free trade regime does have the effect of kind of in a utilitarian way, lowering the price of goods that you know that millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions of consumers purchase in various ways, from cars to what you buy at Walmart. It does lower it. They're more efficient producing it in China or Mexico. However, to the degree that hundreds of millions of people may save a dollar here or a dollar there on their t-shirt or even their imported car, more than a few dollars, trade has. A trade has a very, very pointed and devastating impact on particular industries, particular communities, and those have a very large political resonance, and that's something that that the left has to deal with and liberals have to deal with, and something that Trump, of course, has pointed out.

Dr. Lichtenstein:

Now I want to make one thing that we do have to, just with Trump, say this yes, he's picked up on these economic grievances, and they are not just again with the white working class, but with black and brown and others as well. But clearly with Trump there's also this sort of white, christian nationalist strand. It's related, of course, to the economic difficulties, but it's not sort of a one-to-one relationship. It can't be quite, you know, mechanically connected, but he clearly has picked up on that and I think that really is the core of his appeal, and I don't think we need to, we should just to be a sort of economic fundamentalist on this question. That's there, you know.

Shawn:

Well and I'm glad you bring this up, because I think we always look for easy answers or easy explanations for things that have happened or where we are, what's happening and I think an easy answer would be to look at Clinton and say there was some sharp, sharp pivot under Clinton and a failure on Clinton's part that contributed to the moment that we're in today, which may be true, but I think the the mistake made in that is to assume that all of the voters that made up the Democratic coalition in the 80s and 90s then somehow have pivoted to become the you know hard right, far right conservative Trump voters now.

Dr. Lichtenstein:

Yeah, of course, yeah, of course not Right, obviously. And and by the way, you know the, the, the Democratic coalition you know, kind of held together to a degree all through the through the Obama years, and you know you can, you can trace that out in polling. I would say this the one thing that a very good economic historian, gavin Wright, made, the point that NAFTA was this very. We remember it now Again. It's not as important as China, but we remember it very well because of its politically toxic character. And what would happen with NAFTA was that its impact actually, politically was greater in the South than in the industrial North. It was in the South that there were lots and lots of sort of rural apparel factories and parts factories, things that could be easily moved to Mexico, and they were. And so the Democrats who had been winning, still winning congressional elections in the South up through the early 90s, it was in the 1994 election that they're wiped out in the South and that's when the Republican Party really comes to dominate the South in a definitive way, and all those who are called blue dog Democrats, you know, moderate Democrats, they're wiped out by, and NAFTA is one of the major, major reasons that that happens in 1994. And from from that point on we we have a somewhat at least the conservative coalition gets a major bulwark.

Dr. Lichtenstein:

I would make one other point, by the way, a figure. Another figure that we have not mentioned today is Ross Perot figure. Another figure that we have not mentioned today is Ross Perot, and Perot won 19% of the presidential vote in 1992. And I think about 9% in 1996. And Perot was not a right wing culture warrior. I mean, he had some right wing background, you know, when it came to Vietnam and things of that sort. But he was also emphasizing a kind of a hostility to trade, to NAFTA in particular, and also a kind of industrial policy, a kind of here's a mistake, a tragedy.

Dr. Lichtenstein:

Bill Clinton could have captured that constituency had he chosen just a few things, certainly not NAFTA and a few other trade issues. But he didn't, he didn't, he didn't, and that Perot constituency, which had a kind of rough character to it, by the way, as strong in the north as it was in the south, clinton failed to capture that, which meant that by the time he got to the year 2000, the country was divided, you know. Equally, I think, you see, in places like northern Maine and certain areas of the rural, industrial, rural Midwest, where Trump was, where Perot was very strong, and those areas have gone over to the Republicans. So that was a kind of I would just make this point about Clinton.

Dr. Lichtenstein:

Clinton was a terrible leader of the Democratic Party. He was not. He was terrible leader of the Democratic Party. He was not. He was terrible. He and Obama was in his own way, but, but, but certainly on trade, on many trade deals, and on welfare issues. He was winning those issues with Republican votes, not Democratic votes, in the Congress. And so he, he really he got himself reelected, true, but the Democrats, but the Democrats were harmed by Clinton's presidency.

Shawn:

I want to swing back and talk about this last point in a few minutes the coalitions that Clinton built and how that potentially undermined progressive causes. But before we get there, I'm glad you bring up Ross Perot because I think history is looking at him a little bit differently, or the impact that he has. And I actually think if we cast a wider net and look even further back, I think we do ourselves a disservice, as at least in the political and governing realms, to dismiss third party candidates and the support or the type of support that they're tapping into. And I think Perot was a character and a figure that captured such a significant slice of the electorate and, as you mentioned, Clinton did a terrible job of reaching out to that electorate and, by extension, I suppose the Democrats did. But I wonder if, within their own house, the Democrats then made the same mistake in 2016 with Bernie Sanders dismissing whatever it is that he was tapping into.

Dr. Lichtenstein:

That kind of played out there were different factors that played into the 2020 election but might have the impact of that ignorance on the part of Democrats in 2016 may have played out in this last election uh, yeah, right, yes, I mean yeah, the, the clearly, if you get down to the sort of inside, uh, the you know the whole way politics, I mean uh, uh, hillary clinton, and you know it was very hostile to, to bernie. There was no effort to create a kind of coalition, that kind of you know she, just he dismissed him and that was clearly a mistake, a mistake and and and and there were, you know, we've political scientists have shown lots of Sanders supporters ended up voting for Trump. There was a kind of that. There was that kind of oh, I don't know, pitchfork hostility to the, to the reigning establishment and Hillary Clinton, who, who'd been in politics for about 30 years, you know, represented that Biden, of course, was was smart in the spring of the year 2020. He reached out to Bernie and his supporters and there was a kind of, you know, a coalition that ran and won in 2020.

Dr. Lichtenstein:

I also think, by the way, just that the Black Lives Matter phenomena was very helpful to Biden, even though he didn't identify with it, but it energized millions of people who got them interested in politics and I think that had a big impact later on. And then, of course, we could look at 2024, and I think you can see that again, sanders doesn't run, his base, is not energized and and for whatever her clearly Harris was, was, was, I mean she wasn't overtly hostile to it, but that wasn't something she emphasized. And and it's kind of interesting that that that the, the Sanders people and AOC et cetera, they were the last ones to abandon Biden. They were, they were for Biden because there was this sort of coalition that Biden had built with them and they were reluctant to abandon it.

Dr. Lichtenstein:

But yeah, I mean Hillary was identified with the sins of her, of her husband, and especially that there were, there were two other events, two other policy things in the Clinton period that made poor middle class, upper middle class liberals particularly hostile or pissed off Clinton, and that was the crime bill of 1994 and the welfare reform of 1996. And I mean those two. They have a it's interesting history of them and what's happened subsequently. But they were issues that were particularly seemed to indicate Clinton's betrayal of post-civil rights, progressive values, and he was, you know, too clever by half in seeking to, you know, win reelection and really he made tremendous enemies among a certain strata of, I would say, middle class kind of talking class kind of people and they'd never forgiven Clinton for that, bill Clinton for that, and Hillary was tarred with it.

Shawn:

I want to actually talk a bit more about this. You mentioned this in your last response and one prior about this coalition of the coalitions that Clinton built to. At the time when he left office, he was considered to have been a very successful president, or it was a very successful presidency, at least economically, I suppose. But really what was happening underneath and you've touched on this is that Clinton was building coalitions primarily across the aisle, so he was working primarily with conservatives because he just couldn't get the ball across the line with just the Democratic coalition.

Dr. Lichtenstein:

And.

Shawn:

I think what happened there is that he actually ended up in retrospect cracking the coalition. So you end up with and this is just a broad brush, but you end up with true progressives that are pissed off, as you said right, and then they're kind of cleaved away from what might be considered blue dogs and more moderate Democrats. That I think what. This is how I see it, and you can tell me if this is a bad characterization. He made those both parties in that coalition essentially politically homeless and weakened. So the blue dogs or the moderates then became, I think, to some degree over time, easy pickings for the Republican Party and it's difficult, it was difficult, to cobble together that coalition in 2016 in the same way, especially with Hillary Clinton and the baggage that she was bringing from the Bill Clinton presidency.

Dr. Lichtenstein:

Yeah, yes, I mean, you know one thing, actually, one thing that maybe we learned from Trump is it's really important to cultivate your base, that's. That is that's more important than even reaching out. And Clinton did not cultivate his base, even reaching out, and Clinton did not cultivate his base. You know, I mean, I guess a conventional view of colleagues, oh, you know, let's reach out, you know, fight for the middle ground, et cetera, but I'm not sure that's entirely true and the mobilization of your base is more important and Clinton does not do that. I mean, the 1996 election, for example, the turnout was one of the worst in American history. 1992 was much better, I would say. Let me say about his, yes, there's the coalition building that would support his economic policies, especially his initially stimulus policies and healthcare policies, and policies that would again make the American version economic conference in Little Rock, and it was full of CEOs, and they were there not because Clinton was promising to cut taxes or deregulate, quite the opposite, it was because Clinton was promising to policies that would, that would sustain and revive American industry. Sustain and revive American industry.

Dr. Lichtenstein:

The other wing of capital that Clinton is linked to is symbolized by Robert Rubin, who is, you know from Goldman Sachs and Rubin. And there was an element of this true of Wall Street, it's still true. Actually, he was a welfare state liberal. That is Rubin was you know. He came out of a family that had been democratic, left democratic, for generations. His mother was a civil rights activist and voted for Henry Wallace in 1948. And Rubin was, you know, had supported McGovern and raised money for him. But Rubin, and so Rubin was in favor of, you know, various kinds of moderate welfare state policies and made him sort of popular in that period.

Dr. Lichtenstein:

But what Rubin was also in favor absolutely of was the absolute mobility of capital. That means free trade, but it also means mergers and acquisitions and the capacity of Wall Street to roam the world and invest and disinvest where it chose to do. So that, he thought, was the essence of kind of a liberal world. And he thought I think ideologically, I think that here the Wall Streeters were mistaken and the liberals who went along with them that this would ultimately produce a kind of worldwide civil society. If you're going to have a stock market in China or Russia, well then you're going to have a financial press that has to be free to report on what's going on, and from there you just move step by step into kind of at least, if not liberal democracy, at least a kind of civil society. Well, they were wrong about that, but that was something that Rubin thought you know very strongly. And he also thought that you know that low interest rates, and you know, were a key to revival.

Dr. Lichtenstein:

He was not enamored of the industrial policy ideas which mean sort of targeted investments that Clinton liked initially. And so a big fight in the early Clinton moment, the first year really is. You know, are we going to move toward a balanced budget, the point of which was not balancing the budget per se, but it was getting interest rates down among the bond traders of Frankfurt and London and New York and Tokyo. And Rubin was determined to do that. He thought that was the key to economic revival. And I mean, I think that was mistaken, but that was. But he was a very I always I say in the book that Rubin is unquestionably the second most important figure in the Clinton administration and in someably the second most important figure in the Clinton administration and in some cases the most important.

Shawn:

So if we talk about Rubin and then I suppose if we bundle him with Summers and Reich and their approach to global economy as well as, I suppose, domestic economy and the I hate to use this phrase but the trickle-down impacts that that's supposed to have on kind of working-class voters, which made up at the time a significant chunk of the Democratic Party's base, but we've seen that they have that part of the base has shifted and you know this is not withstanding the, as you mentioned, the Christian nationalism that is also making up part of that base. But how much do you ascribe to Rubin and Summers and Reich their approach to that shift of those voters away from the Democratic Party and the situation that we're in today?

Dr. Lichtenstein:

Well, of course, insofar as they were quite willing to allow the hollowing out of American industry and the communities dependent upon it, I mean that creates a sort of social dynamite or tinder that can be taken advantage of by the right, and that is the usual today liberal view of this, and I think it's true. I mean, I think that's why Biden was so determined to, with his infrastructure plans and chips plans, to reindustrialize the Midwest and the Middle South. I think that's absolutely the case, and they I mean Summers is even more of a kind of cheerleader for international capital than even Rubin was. Reich is a little bit different. International capital than even Rubin was. Reich is a little bit different. While Reich was a free trader and he had fights with others on the liberal side of the administration on that question, Reich is a free trader. He was also very much in favor of domestic stimulus plans, about regulating industry, and he clashed with Robert Rubin and Summers on this question. So did Joseph Stiglitz, who's also a figure in the Clinton administration, head of the Council of Economic Advisers, who also clashes repeatedly with Rubin and Summers. I mean they become absolutely enemies of the most intense sort.

Dr. Lichtenstein:

Reich, of course, has moved to the left considerably since then. But but at the, at that moment in the early 1990s, he's, he's a kind of. He he has this series of essays you know well, sort of if you build it, they will come. If you educate the American worker, make them more skilled, provide some infrastructure and sort of, you know kind of some, you know R&D et cetera, Well then you know, it doesn't matter whether the company is owned by the Japanese or the Germans or whoever it is, They'll build factories in America anyway. And we get sort of if you build it, they will come. I mean, I think that's fundamentally wrong in terms of of industrial economics. But that was, that was the view that that Reich had, which which led him to support NAFTA, while at the same time being very much in favor of all sorts of domestic initiatives, the more progressive that Clinton had.

Shawn:

This is a bit of an aside, but as long as we're talking about Reich, he's kind of all over the place right now and, like you said, he's writing a series of essays and you know people have the ability to reinvent themselves. But I have to tell you with this lens that we see the Clinton presidency, clinton policies and how they've played out over the past handful of decades and the potential contribution that that has been to our current politics. It's really hard to look at Reich now and take anything that he says seriously or at least without a caveat of. Well, dude, you might be part of the reason.

Dr. Lichtenstein:

Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, no, I, although I do think. I mean I think he's, he's proven his bona fides over the last 20 years. He has been for 20 years he, he's been more than that Actually. Actually he has been on the left, at least, you know, in his public presentation. I mean he actually wrote this book, locked in the Cabinet, which he published in 1997 or 8. That is a pretty bitter book actually, critical of Clinton, I think.

Dr. Lichtenstein:

To make this point, which I think does reflect the progressive politics in this era, the period from the 70s and 80s and early 90s was the worst period for the American labor movement in the 20th century. It's certainly in terms of its appeal to other sectors of society. It was losing. Of course it was losing members and losing clout. But even more it was the worst period Ideologically and in terms of its sort of general sort of social outlook and its attractiveness. You know, in the 20th century it was, you know it was, you know, had been a staunt, the last support of the Cold War. It really ignored the new social formations arising in the working class and people like Reich and Bill Clinton were, you know, reciprocated with kind of disdain. And you know this is not a player. So I think that's, as I said, that's sort of a hand that didn't clap a dog, that didn't bark, an absence from the body politic which I mean. Today the labor movement is actually still very weak in terms of numbers but ideologically, you know, culturally it has. It has more more kind of salience.

Dr. Lichtenstein:

I have to say I was part of a movement in the mid-'90s when Sweeney came in and took over the, to sort of link up sort of left-wing academics and radical activists with the labor movement.

Dr. Lichtenstein:

Again, I think that has happened to some degree. Reich's and people like Reich who were sort of they really were trying to construct a liberalism without, you know, a full hand. You know you can't construct a liberalism without the labor movement, or at least the idea of a labor movement, and they were trying to do that. And that was something that that was beyond Bill Clinton's can. He couldn't snap his fingers and create a labor movement, but it wasn't there. It was in numbers stronger than it is today, but ideologically and culturally it was at its most retrobate and unattractive to liberals anyway, during the whole 20th century, the whole 20th century. And I think that's something that it wasn't Clinton's fault, but it was one reason that he could drift to the right so easily and a labor movement that exists and that is vocal and has the potential for growing. I think that helps discipline the Democratic Party, at least to a degree, and we may be seeing that a little bit today.

Shawn:

So I want to talk a little bit about 1994 election, because it was kind of a seismic shock to the system that we had come to know, right, that it really broke to some degree the Democrats' dominance in DC. And so not only that, you know, did the House go Republican, but the leadership was under Gingrich, who was a whole new style of politics. Right, he was a real bomb thrower. Politics is warfare, really. And I wonder if I don't know that we can really do this, but in retrospect, if Clinton was really boxed in in such a way that he probably could we make an argument that he could not have advanced progressive causes after 1994 and that what he was doing instead was just trying to find a way to be somewhat successful.

Dr. Lichtenstein:

Oh, yes, well, unquestionably, after the election of 94, I mean, clinton famously triangulates and tries to reach various kinds of accommodations with the Gingrich Republicans. I mean, he's actually as a kind of clever politician, he actually does that in some clever ways. He does do that, he does cut his losses, as it were, but unquestionably he's on the defensive, his ambitions are curbed dramatically and of course he does move to the, to the right. He, he pushes the welfare reform bill which which was adamantly opposed by many, many in his cabinet and in the Democratic Party I mean really his closest people, some of them were opposed to it. He pushes that in the most cynical way, thinking that this is the only way he can get reelected in 1996. That probably wasn't true, but he does that. In any event. I want to just say one thing about Newt Gingrich. Yes, he's called a bomb thrower and he's rhetorically a kind of ultra kind of figure. But one thing he does, and Bill Kristol again. Bill Kristol today is a bit of a whatever Trumper and and it's sort of, I guess, rifted a bit to the left. But in those days there's a big fight inside the Republican Party.

Dr. Lichtenstein:

The Dole wing, the Robert Dole wing, dole will run for president as Republican in 1996. Dole thinks we can make some compromises with Clinton, especially on health care. We can, you know, and we'll come up with some system, some program which is, you know, amenable to the insurance companies, and you know, but it'll be better. Gingrich and Bill Kristol say absolutely not. And you have this remarkable situation in 1993 and 4 in which the right wing of the Republican Party is lobbying business, not the other way around. The Republicans are lobbying business and business associations to not cooperate with Clinton and Ira Magaziner, who is the head of the health care task force, not to cooperate with them in constructing some sort of a health care plan, and they just say no, nothing, we don't want anything. No, compromise nothing. And they actually win on that. The health care which was the major initiative, domestic initiative of the Clinton people. It goes down to defeat and along with NAFTA that I think sets the stage for the 1994 Republican victories in Congress. That point on.

Shawn:

You know, again Clinton is dickering around with Gingrich on various questions that you know move him to the right in general, in general, this also is an aside, but as long as you bring him up, this might be more of an observation than a question, but I think it's fascinating that figures like Bill Kristol and maybe Charlie Sykes as well they were not just conservative figures. They were really in the Republican trenches in the 90s and early 2000s up until they became Never Trumpers, and what I find fascinating about that is that when they became Never Trumpers both of them along with a handful of other pretty right-wing figures they also became a bit leftist in their policies, and I'm not sure what happened there.

Dr. Lichtenstein:

No, that's an observation I made too, and I'm not entirely understanding what that represents. Clearly, one thing it represents is that I think that they were neoconservatives in general and foreign policy questions. They've been big champions of the Iraq war and Trump clearly is not part of that. But you're right, and we don't entirely understand it. The other thing I would say it indicates that they were chiefs without Indians.

Dr. Lichtenstein:

I thought, well, if all these sort of famous Republicans are against Trump, surely they represent one or two or five percent of the Republican base, but apparently not at all at. You know, one or two or five percent of the Republican base, but apparently not at all. So so they, they seem, seemingly had no influence either in 19, in 2016 or 2024. But you're right, they have. They have moved a bit to the left, and that's.

Dr. Lichtenstein:

That's a phenomenon I don't think we entirely understand, because you know, I guess Liz Cheney, if you actually would probe her, she would say, yeah, I'm still a right wing Republican on all sorts of questions, but I mean, that seems to be a much less importance than her, than her opposition to to to Trump on constitutional grounds. Yeah, so, adam Kinzinger too. Yeah, yeah, all of them, I mean all of them. I mean I mean actually Liz Cheney. I think she made a point when she was fighting the Republicans. She was so in Congress of voting down the line for the most conservative position. She wanted to make it clear that I'm still a conservative Republican, even though I think Trump is illegitimate. But that didn't. That had no impact.

Shawn:

That had no one cared cared your most recent book A Fabulous Failure about the Clinton presidency. We could chalk it up to you know a title right, but clearly you do see the Clinton presidency through this lens. And so I guess I wonder, in retrospect and knowing what we know now and if we take the title at face value, how should we be evaluating the Clinton presidency overall?

Dr. Lichtenstein:

Yeah, well, I mean, I say fabulous is sort of it. Well, the reason the word fabulous is there is because Janet Yellen and another prominent economist, alan Blinder, wrote a book, a small book, in the year 2000, in which they said they said it was a fabulous decade, and you know, and there are lots of indexes of economic performance say that's right, low unemployment, a booming stock market, a rising GNP, a balanced budget, a balanced budget. So, yes, there was the OK, but, but all of this was kind of built on sand. I mean, all of this didn't have really firm grounding and it would be either, you know, evaporate or be destroyed, you know, in subsequent years. And the fact that Al Gore, he wins the popular vote but loses in the year 2000,. He should have, look, peace and prosperity. He should have won in a, you know, in a landslide. And I mean there are reasons for that.

Dr. Lichtenstein:

I think that Clinton set the stage for that. It wasn't just Monica Lewinsky, by the way. It was that Al Gore could not put forward a bold program because the balanced budget that Clinton did create at the end of his administration was a kind of albatross. He was so afraid that the Republicans would just create a series of tax breaks, which George W Bush would do when he gets in. But Clinton was so afraid of that George W Bush would do when he gets in, but Clinton was so afraid of that.

Dr. Lichtenstein:

They said, well, we're going to put this balanced budget, we're going to devote it entirely to sustaining Social Security, and Al Gore would say we're putting the budget surplus in a lockbox. Well, what the hell is that? Who cares about that? I mean, gore could not make any bold plans, any attractive plans in running for president in the year 2000. And so you know, it was much closer than it should have been and he lost. So I mean Clinton kind of creates a prison of his own design by the end of the 1990s, which kind of stymies him in any effort to use that remarkable balanced budget for any, to help his constituents, to help his base, to help his. You know the people who voted for him.

Shawn:

One of the narratives about this past election is that Democrats are lost in the wilderness and have completely lost touch with their base, and there's probably a nugget of truth to that, but that's notwithstanding the fact that the popular vote was very close. The Democrats lost or gained a seat in the House and, you know, the Senate was really probably because of malapportionment.

Shawn:

You know it wasn't like a wipeout right, but it is true that the labor vote and the working class vote has definitely shifted towards the Republican Party and away from the Democratic Party and in that sense the Democratic Party does have some soul searching to do Right. And they do have to reconstitute themselves and try to put together some type of a coalition and if they want to be, want that coalition to be progressive. I guess my question for you is if they were to just examine the trajectory of the vote away from them since the Clinton era, what could they learn from Clinton's presidency in reconstituting themselves now?

Dr. Lichtenstein:

Well, as I said, yeah, one has to provide benefits and ideological and material for one's base, for the base. I think Biden tried to do that, but imperfectly. By the way, I would just make this point that the yes, the working class vote in general, the 90 percent of the working class who are not in unions, and this includes brown and black people as well did well, it did more. Mainly it stayed home. Mainly it voted for the couch more than for Trump, and that's the demobilization of the base. The actual number in unions, the people, the 10% of the electorate in unions, actually maintain their support for the Democrats pretty much, and partly that was just the get out the vote efforts of the unions. But that that was, of course. That wasn't enough to to, to, to be decisive. But I think, I think the lesson we learned from Clinton for contemporary Democrats is that you that the key to winning elections is the mobilization of one's base. That is the key. Don't try to reach out to some mythical or a center, because actually, in fact, most people are polarized.

Dr. Lichtenstein:

Harris made a big mistake in butting around with Cheney, not because Cheney was a bad person, but because she didn't represent anybody. Liz Cheney didn't really represent. There was no substance to her constituency, but anyway. But to mobilize the base. I think Bernie Sanders understood that, I think Biden understood it but was unable to do it, and I think that's the lesson we should learn. And Clinton didn't do that. That's why he was a terrible party manager, and I think that's the lesson we should learn. And Clinton didn't do that. That's why he was a terrible party manager and he demobilized, you know, people who should have been in favor of him. So that would be the lesson I would learn.

Shawn:

Do you see in the Democratic Party right now any potential leaders that could, I suppose, move the Democratic Party out of the wilderness and back into some fighting position that is specific to a progressive movement, not just winning?

Dr. Lichtenstein:

Yeah, that's a very good question. I mean, you know who's to say. Who will, you know, emerge? I don't want to play this personality game. I mean there's a whole bunch of people.

Dr. Lichtenstein:

I do think that a, a, a. I think that the basis of a progressive movement would be opposition to, to Trump, to Trumpism. I mean, just don't make these accommodations. And you can sort of see this happening, don't this. We're an opposition party and here's what we think. Make that clear continuously. The Republicans certainly do that, democrats do that as well. And secondly, I do think that the alliance with the labor movement, the one thing that what the labor movement can do, whether it wins higher wages or not, it creates a kind of world, cultural and organizational and political, in which ordinary people feel that they have a certain agency, a certain power, a certain collective strength. And I think that's a prophylactic against the. Sean Fain has emerged as kind of a national figure. I mean the you know and you know and because he sort of he represents that.

Dr. Lichtenstein:

It's not to say that all UAW members are are voting for Democrats or anti-Trump. They aren't actually in the Deep South. I did some reportage and they're split half and half, but nevertheless there's a kind of the origins of a dynamic movement there and I think that the, I think the Democrats have and will align themselves with that. That's, that's one, one part of the ingredient, but it's but it's a big fight because the whole sort of American political terrain, cultural terrain, has been tilted to the right and Trump is trying to consolidate that right now. And well, you know, and that's a that's a big fight, during the Monica Lewinsky, well, just before the Monica Lewinsky scandal, which really took Clinton sort of out of operation during the year 1998, clinton was dickering around with Gingrich about privatizing Social Security. Now, he wasn't going to do the whole thing, but they were beginning to, you know, nibble around doing that, and you know this was again part of this movement to the right. Well, the Lewinsky scandal erupts.

Dr. Lichtenstein:

And so who are the staunch supporters of Bill Clinton in the midst of this scandal? Well, it's not the moderate Democrats, you know, and of course not the Republicans. It's the left wing of the Democratic Party, it's Barney Frank, you know, who knew something about sex and knew something about finance, you know. And people like that. And so Clinton, right in the middle of the scandal, says, well, I guess I better stop dickering around with with Newt Gingrich on privatizing Social Security, because my staunch if I want to stay president and avoid impeachment, I have to sustain Social Security along with these left-wingers. So the meme that came out is that Monica Lewinsky saved Social Security. I mean, I think there's an element of truth to that. So that indicates the importance of cultivating one's base. I think that is something that the Democrats have to do.

Shawn:

All right, final question you ready for it? Yeah, what's something interesting you've been reading, watching, listening to or doing lately? And it doesn't have to be related to this topic, but it can be.

Dr. Lichtenstein:

Yeah, I've been reading this wonderful book by Zachary Carter. It came out four years ago, three or four years ago, on John Maynard Keynes, and it's a very, very good book. And what's interesting about it, he shows the radicalism of Keynesianism. See, Keynes, when, by the time Clinton comes along, Keynesians in America were sort of tepid. You know, oh, let's give a tiny little. You know, we'll give a tax reduction for business. Well, you know, we'll do it. They were very tepid.

Dr. Lichtenstein:

But this book by Zachary Carter shows that Keynes was a real radical who really, both culturally and and economically, and you know, he wanted, you know he, both in Britain and America, he wanted to, you know to, you know, to basically manage capitalism in the most vigorous way possible, so as to he talked about the euthanasia of the rentiers, you know, which meant, the euthanasia of the Robert Rubens, really of this world. He didn't mean that statistically, he meant that, you know, economically, and I think that I think that kind of a left Keynesianism and I think Biden began to approach that Keynesianism and I think Biden began to approach that A link to a kind of industrial policy is the economic program that any new liberal formation should advance.

Shawn:

Hey, what are you working on right now?

Dr. Lichtenstein:

Ah, I'm writing a book entitled why Unions Matter, a short book designed for the under 35 age group, in which I look at both actually interesting I look at, like the world of academia and why that has, why you've had this tremendous surge in a pro union direction among the grad students, and not just in the humanities but also the sciences. I look at some kind of odd little union places and try to see what's significant about why they exist, from baristas to taxi drivers in New York to all sorts of people. And I'm trying to show why unions are essential and should be central to the revival of any liberal movement. And the last chapter is going to be looking throughout the entire 20th century at when trade unions have saved democracy, whether it's in efforts to do so, whether it's Spain or Spain, but actually before Franco, and then after Franco, or South Africa, or various parts of Latin America, et cetera.

Shawn:

So I'm going to that's what I'm writing right now- Dr Lichtenstein, thanks for taking the time and for the conversation. You're welcome, thank you. Bill Clinton's presidency reshaped the Democratic Party, but at what cost? By prioritizing political pragmatism over progressive ideals, his administration weakened the social contract, disillusioned working-class voters and helped pave the way for right-wing populism. The failures of that era still haunt us today as we grapple with democratic backsliding and the resurgence of authoritarian politics. But understanding and accepting these failures can maybe also help us chart a path forward. Progressives can and should reclaim the fight for economic justice, push for bold policies that restore faith in government and mobilize at the grassroots level to rebuild a democracy that truly serves the people. Organizing voting, reform and holding leaders accountable are key steps, critical steps in this moment, toward reversing the damage and creating a change that works for everybody, while also embracing progressive values. All right, check back next week for another episode of Deep Dive Chat. Soon, folks, thank you, thank you.

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Shawn C. Fettig

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