Latest news with #economicpopulism
New York Times
6 days ago
- Politics
- New York Times
Robert Reich Thinks the Baby Boomers Blew It
For more than four decades, Robert Reich has been ringing the alarm bell about rising inequality in America. He did it as a member of three presidential administrations, including a stint as labor secretary under President Clinton. He did it as a revered professor at U.C. Berkeley, Brandeis and Harvard. He's currently doing it online, where, somewhat improbably, the 79-year-old has become a new-media star, having built a devoted audience of millions across Substack, TikTok and Instagram. Through it all, his message has remained consistent: Inequality — be it economic, racial or political — erodes social trust, diminishes belief in democracy and can create openings for demagogues. Which is why I wanted to talk to Reich about this political moment, one defined in so many ways by a widening gap between the haves and have-nots, and also by growing resistance to that trend. Think here of the economic populist messaging coming from some Republicans, like Josh Hawley, or the rise of young and charismatic politicians who focus on income inequality, people like the democratic socialists Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Zohran Mamdani, who won New York City's Democratic mayoral primary just a few days after Reich and I first spoke. But I also wanted to talk to Reich about the personal moment in which he finds himself. He recently retired from teaching after more than 40 years. Indeed, the run-up to his final lecture is the subject of a documentary, 'The Last Class,' which is currently in theaters. Reich also has a memoir on the way, 'Coming Up Short,' which will be published on Aug. 5. In the book, and in our conversation, he reckons with the political failures of his fellow baby boomers, the rise of what he sees as a culture of brutality and bullying and why Democrats have failed to connect with struggling Americans. Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Amazon | iHeart | NYT Audio App The title of your memoir is a pun on the fact that you're short, but it also refers to your argument that your generation failed to strengthen democracy, failed to reduce economic inequality and, generally, failed to contain 'the bullies.' What went wrong? We took for granted what our parents and their parents bequeathed to us. I was born in 1946, as were George W. Bush and Bill Clinton and Donald Trump. The so-called greatest generation gave us not only peace and prosperity but the largest middle class the world had ever seen. What I try to understand is how we ended up with Donald Trump. Trump is the consequence, not the cause, of what we are now experiencing. He is the culmination of at least 50 years of a certain kind of neglect. And I say this very personally, because I was part of this failure. It is a reckoning that is deeply personal. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Washington Post
01-07-2025
- Business
- Washington Post
JD Vance's prior vision for populism is largely absent from GOP tax bill
When JD Vance arrived in the Senate in 2023, he backed a raft of proposals that were characterized as reflecting a new brand of economic populism for the Republican Party. He championed higher taxes on some businesses, increased support for families and a willingness to interfere in free markets that bordered on the heretical in the modern GOP.
Daily Mail
24-06-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
The 'dangerous' radical on the cusp of seizing the financial capital of the world... and the people he wants to plunge into oblivion
New York City is on the brink of a political shake-up as left-wing mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani surges in the polls — leaving Wall Street rattled and landlords on edge as economic populism takes hold. The 33-year-old democratic socialist and Queens Assemblyman has stunned the political establishment by overtaking former governor Andrew Cuomo in a tight race, despite policies that critics say will upend the economy.
The Guardian
05-06-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Democrats need to embrace economic populism to win back young voters, says advocacy group leader
Young people in the US are looking for Democrats to embrace economic populism and authentic candidates willing to fight for them, says the new leader of a group dedicated to youth voter mobilisation. Victoria Yang is the interim president and executive director of NextGen America, an organisation that engages young people through voter education and registration. She succeeds Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, who held the post for four years. In an interview with the Guardian, Yang criticised Democrats for failing to grapple with daily cost-of-living concerns and urged the party to learn from Senator Bernie Sanders and congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's (AOC) focus on pocketbook issues. NextGen recently commissioned Tulchin Research to conduct six online focus groups with swing voters aged 18 to 26 in battleground states. The focus groups found the young voters were anxious about their financial future and the rising cost of housing, food and education. Many felt the system was rigged, with billionaires riding high and working people short of opportunities. These concerns ranked far higher than the war in Gaza or so-called 'woke' topics such as gender pronouns. Speaking by phone from Boston, Yang said: 'Right now what they're feeling is the everyday things that are affecting them: the cost of groceries, gas prices, paying for rent. That is the number one issue; we need to be focused on that. 'There's so many other issues as well but that's what our priority is: connecting with them on these issues and how, if they get involved and make their voices heard by voting, by volunteering, by signing petitions and fighting back, they're going to make the change that they want to see.' The focus groups praised progressives Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez for their willingness to fight and directly address economic concerns. But last year's Democratic presidential nominee, Kamala Harris, who moderated some of her policy positions during the campaign, was seen by many as inauthentic. 'What our focus group showed was that economic populism is still resonating with young people and their messaging was not. If you go to the grocery store and you're now paying $6 or $7 for a gallon of milk and you were paying $4, you're now having to stretch your dollars further, and those little incremental increases all add up. The house that you're trying to save for, or trying to pay for college, has a domino effect. 'The Democrats were not leaning into that. We need to be leaning into making sure that young people understand: we hear you, we see you, this is what we're trying to do and then laying out a plan for that.' Yang knows what she is fighting for. She was a small child when her family fled political persecution in Laos, spent time in a refugee camp in Thailand, then, 45 years ago, settled in southern California. 'I am living proof of the American dream and all the things that it holds. My mom, a single parent, put us through college and worked hard. I remember the struggles of having to figure out how to put food on the table. She did it as a waitress in a small Chinese restaurant.' She also knows her way around the Democratic party, having worked with the Obama Foundation's Girls Opportunity Alliance, Democratic National Committee and former senators John Kerry and Barbara Boxer. She takes over at NextGen at a moment when the party is embroiled in an identity crisis amid fears that young voters have veered to the right. Yang says NextGen's work shows the value of consistent engagement. In eight key states last year, 67% of the young voters that NextGen registered and communicated with regularly went on to cast a ballot, compared with 54% youth turnout nationally. The lesson for Democrats is that it is not enough to show up late and take young voters for granted. Yang continued: 'You can't expect that you're going to knock on young people's doors the last two or three months of the election and then say, you should vote for candidate A and B, when the whole time you've never spoken to them or engaged them. 'The message that we want to make sure people understand and the party understands is that you have to invest in young people. They're at the very beginning of their voting journey and they haven't developed the voting muscle yet. They have to be educated.' The focus groups found that TikTok was the dominant platform for this generation, and Instagram and YouTube are also very popular. Most participants do not seek out news but look to creators who are funny, authentic and able to make complicated subjects easier to understand. Yang commented: 'We have to make sure that we can help them understand what is at stake and talk to them authentically through the platforms and the way they want to be engaged. That's what this is all about.' Democrats failed in this objective, Yang argues, by arriving late and over-relying on traditional media. NextGen is exploring new methods, such as an artificial intelligence chatbot on community platforms such as Discord, and an explicitly non-partisan approach to encouraging voter registration. Much has been written about how Donald Trump outplayed Democrats by exploiting the 'manosphere', appealing to young men through rightwing influencers and podcasters. But Yang believes that economic imperatives eclipse gender, race or other variables. 'Inflation, tariffs, the cost of living – that resonates whether you're a man or woman, Black, brown, yellow or red. That's what will connect with young people. They might not identify with the Democratic party but the issues that are important to them resonate across all genders and all sectors.' Young voters favored Harris over Trump in the 2024 election by four percentage points, a much smaller margin than the 25-point advantage young voters gave Joe Biden over Trump in 2020, according to AP VoteCast data. Opinion polls suggest that the shift was especially pronounced among young men. Participants in NextGen's focus groups felt that Democratic party has lost touch with people it claims to represent. They described Democrats as weak, too willing to roll over and disconnected from everyday concerns. Some described Democrats as a 'mom', caring but overprotective, while Republicans were seen as a 'dad', assertive and focused on discipline and control. Only 36% of Americans view Democrats favourably, according to a new Economist/ YouGov poll, but Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez's Fighting Oligarchy Tour has been rallying big and enthusiastic crowds. Yang remains optimistic and hopeful for the future. 'Senator Sanders and AOC are talking on the issues. It's less about the party. It's less about even candidates or anything like that. It's an economic populist message and that is what they're leading with. The party is probably seeing that and getting the message but we still have to continue to engage and work on it.' Young people are persuadable, she added. 'Just because they voted maybe for Trump in this election doesn't mean that we don't have an opportunity to get them in the midterm, in the next presidential, if we meet them where they are, if we engage them all year round now until then. That's the key message.' Yang's commitment to economic justice, a social safety net and giving young people a fair shot was shaped by her own experience. As an immigrant, she benefited from government programmes such as welfare assistance, free school lunches and a Pell Grant, which provides federal aid for college students with exceptional financial needs. 'That helped to define me and brought me to this work. The country as a democracy has provided all these opportunities. I want to make sure that these policies continue so when folks need it they have a safety net but also be able to create a life. It was transformative in so many ways and now I get to sit here and have a conversation with you.'
