I just got back from a fantastic speech by former Clinton Labor Secretary
Robert Reich. It was held at the
London School of Economics this evening.
The event was about an hour speech by Mr. Reich on "What to Expect from the Second Bush Administration, and Why" and about a 30-minute question period.
I'm doing this a bit hastily (it's getting late in the UK and want to write this all while it's still fresh) so I apologize for any incoherance. But he had some interesting perspectives on the next few years and what Democrats can do to start taking back the government.
Notes start below....
(To explain just a bit, I'm an American military officer and part-time master's student at LSE. After reading Locked in the Cabinet I simply had to see him speak.)
First of all, Robert Reich is short! It doesn't matter, but it was my first impression. My next impression was that he is obviously a very accomplished and dynamic speaker. He clearly held the audience captive for the next hour, despite (probably) a lack of knowledge by a number of the non-Americans in the details of American domestic policy. The event was apparrently planned well before the election, and he mentioned it would either be titled "The great promise of the Kerry Administration" or "The Ongoing disaster of the Bush Administration". His less-partisan academic hat won out and a neutral title was chosen.
He quickly came out with two main assertions about the upcoming four years of Bush Administration that I think are quite wise. They are:
- Few (if any) of Bush's policy initiatives will bear fruit. They will cost more or require more political capital than his administration has to give away.
- The USA is headed for a MAJOR set of confrontations with respect to religion in Bush's second term.
He then transitioned to domestic policy...
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Social Security was his first topic. He mentioned the language of private/personal accounts and reviewed Bush's use of the language of "crisis". (Reich then constantly referred to privitization.) But he made one assertion that I hadn't heard much before, but that was even more telling as to why Republicans would love this whole scheme passed:
Creating private accounts as part of Social Security then becomes a way of turning ALL Americans into shareholders. Their financial health then becomes beholden to corporations and are far MORE likely to care greatly about the health of the corporations.
Just think of the consequences of that! Instead of people protesting against corporate polluters, the community is split depending on how much stock you have in the company! And this is a realistic concern if the plan is enacted.
He then discussed some of the financials of Social Security, but mentioned something that I hadn't heard before. (And as Labor Secretary was a Trustee of the Social Security Trust Fund so he certainly has some experience in the matter.) The current figures of the Trust Fund running out in 2040/2050's are based on an annual growth rate of the economy of ~1.2%. But if you take a look at US economic growth annualized since the Civil War, even counting the Depression and other downturns, the US economy averages growth of about 3%. If you use those numbers in the model, the problem vanishes!!! That is a MAJOR assumption that I haven't heard argued much over the issue.
Mr. Reich talked about how 2005 is the only opportunity for Bush to get his Social Security plan passed, and that the window of opportunity is closing. Then he transitioned to tax policy, the 2001/2003 tax cuts, sarcastically mentioning Alan Greenspan (who he also discussed with similar tone in "Locked in the Cabinet") and going over the estate tax cuts as well. Finally he mentioned the drop in the dollar (always important overseas!) and what that will mean to interest rates and the availablity for future government deficit spending.
He then transitioned to more partisan political issues...
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As discussed above, we are entering a time of conflict over religious values. Reich believes that this will eventually reach it's zenith over nominations to the Supreme Court. Religion will be the overriding political theme of the next two (and probably four) years.
He was a policy advisor to Kerry and had some comments on his campaign. Basically he had a series of policy prescriptions that were perfectly fine, but that they were never tied together in the context of a narrative. (Where Bush emphasized a narrative with few policy ideas.) When the public's cynicism over policies is accounted for, there wasn't a narrative with a core set of ideals behind Kerry that the public could believe in, and that was enough.
What came next was quite an interesting idea. Reich described four narratives that every successful campaign must have. They are:
HOPEFUL narratives
- Rags-to-riches
- People coming together (think Frank Capra)
FEARFUL narratives
- Mob at the gates
- Rot at the top
Essentially, Bush had narratives for each of these four boxes. From the top: the "ownership society", faith-based issues, terrorism, and liberal elites.
Reich discussed how the "Rot at the top" narrative has changed in the last 30-40 years. It used to be the rot at the top of businesses. Then it became the rot within government and Washington. But now that the Republicans have control over the entire government they have managed to shift this narrative to rot of elites, specifically the "godlessness" of the liberal elites.
So what the hell does Robert Reich think Democrats should do? DEMOCRATS MUST TELL THEIR OWN TRUE AND COMPELLING STORIES. True and compelling narratives CAN get through the filters, even right-wing media filters. And once a narrative is laid out for the American people, the policy ideas the candidate has can be truly understood.
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No truly enlightening questions from the crowd... I incorporated some of the extra things Mr. Reich said in the comments above. (There was one right-wing woman who went kinda nut-zo over the Terry Shiavo story which he had briefly touched on in his speech, but between his logical answers and the liberal crowd she shut up.)
I that if you've read this far that it was worth it! I think that his ideas about narratives is something powerful to remember. It's not just framing, but having a theme and story to tie everything together and show the principles that are the backbone of the policies. And finally I think I'm going to have to agree with him on the next four years... very little of the Bush agenda will be accomplished and we will see constant battles on religious freedoms.
Cheers and goodnight from London!
Jed
Update [2005-3-22 19:33:36 by jedc]: Thanks to the comment from daisycolorado below! She provided a link to this article by Robert Reich in the New Republic Online that lays out these ideas in far better granularity than my scribbled notes translated to screen.