What to expect from the second Bush administration, and why

Professor Robert Reich:
What to expect from the second Bush administration, and why

LSE Miliband Public Lecture, 22nd March 2005

Such is the depth of hostility harboured towards George Bush in Britain that any lecture by a prominent Democrat about the failings of his administration was bound to be popular. And so it proved. A packed audience at the London School of Economics’ Old Theatre enjoyed an absorbing and entertaining lecture by the Clinton administration’s former Labour Secretary, Professor Robert Reich, on what he sees as the challenges of President Bush’s second term. Short in stature yet charming and witty in his manner, Professor Reich dispensed with cue cards and strode confidently about the stage, keeping his audience rapt for an hour of American political intrigue.

As a policy advisor on the ill-fated John Kerry campaign, Reich clearly has no small amount of disdain for the current state of American political discourse. However, the tone of his speech remained hopeful: he believes that the Democrats, if they apply themselves correctly, could seize the initiative and re-draw the political boundaries over the next four years.

Reich began by examining the minutiae of the White House’s attempted reform of Social Security, America’s long-standing welfare payment scheme for the elderly. He explained this in fairly simple terms: the administration claims that due to the demographic bubble of the baby-boomer generation, the current system will be ‘flat broke’ by the mid- 21st century. The Republican’s solution is to replace the scheme with privately owned accounts, subjected to the vagaries of the financial markets. However, Reich argued, the simplest approach to fixing the system would be to make one or two minor tweaks if and when problems occurred, rather than to scrap the system entirely. Reich apologised several times, perhaps mindful of numbing his audience with the nuances of US domestic policy, yet he needn’t have done so: he delivered a lucid and concise explanation of the American welfare system, and had John Kerry been so eloquent last year we could have seen a very different election result. Reich summarised by stating that he didn’t believe Social Security would change one bit, due largely to the system’s overwhelming popularity in its present incarnation.

Moving on to the federal budget deficit, Reich attacked what he termed ‘corporate welfare’, highlighting the fact that government revenues are the lowest they have been for fifty years due to the income and corporate tax cuts of 2001 and 2003. This shortfall is to be rectified by spending cuts which will target the poor – for example in public housing, Medicaid and job retraining. Reich made a well-received wisecrack at the expense of Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, and warned of the potential for a global financial crisis if the US were to go into a severe recession. Professor Reich did, however, offer a silver lining to this darkening cloud: a conviction that the current economic predicament virtually guaranteed that further military engagements are unlikely – Damascus and Tehran are safe for now.

Reich then moved on to his main topic: that the central dilemma facing America is the attempted erosion of the boundary between church and state. He highlighted the case of brain-damaged woman Terri Schiavo, saying that what had hitherto been a state issue had effectively been hijacked by the federal government. He described it as the “usurpation of judicial rule by the legislature”, and made clear that the ‘special law’ that Congress approved in this case was a very dangerous precedent. Furthermore, the fact that the President is likely to appoint right-wing, pro-life judges to the Supreme Court over the next few years means that America is set on an irreversible course towards becoming a politically religious state. The dominance of religion in American political and cultural life is immense. To illustrate, Reich invoked a chilling statistic: while only 17% of Americans would describe themselves as ‘liberal’, 18% of the population firmly believe that they will see the end of the world within their lifetime.

Given this warning, however, Reich ended the lecture on an optimistic note, with his prescription for what he believes the Democrats need to do to in order to break down this hegemony. He identified the importance of ‘narrative’ in American politics, and described four: the ‘rags to riches’ story, the idea of the ‘benevolent community’, and, on the negative side, the idea of the ‘mob at the gates’ and the ‘rot at the top’. The reason that the Republicans have been so successful, Reich believes, is that they have firmly entrenched the latter two narratives in the public consciousness. The ‘mob at the gates’ is embodied by fears of terrorism, and the ‘rot at the top’ is embodied by the liberal elites and Hollywood, and their surrogates in the Democratic Party who advocate such ungodly things as gay marriage and abortion. For the Democrats to win, they need to find their own narratives, reflecting their own values. John Kerry’s mistake, argued Reich, was to run a political campaign based on policy rather than conviction.

This was all very interesting, yet I felt that Reich didn’t really address exactly what ‘narratives’ the Democrats could use. Furthermore, the suggestion that narrative takes precedence over political nuance may be a truism, yet if so it is a deeply depressing one. I wasn’t the only one in the audience somewhat unconvinced by our speaker’s optimism.

Reich ended by making a bold prediction for the two presidential nominees in 2008: Jeb Bush for the Republicans, and Hilary Rodham Clinton for the Democrats. There was a ripple through the audience at the mention of Clinton’s name, although I couldn’t tell whether this was from those in support of her or those, like me, who fear the idea of another northeastern ‘liberal’ Senator being destroyed by attack dogs such as Bill O’Reilly on Fox News.

In the session that followed, Professor Reich confidently answered questions from the audience, demonstrating his warmth and humour by engaging in banter with audience members before responding. One particular criticism from a woman from Florida, who compared the fight to keep Terri Schiavo alive to the civil rights movement of the 1950s, brought a sharp rebuke and an eloquently argued response.

One curious omission from the evening was the name of Howard Dean, the recently elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee and the man who galvanised his party with an abortive presidential campaign in 2003. I was interested to know Reich’s opinion of the man who is likely to shape Democratic policy guidelines running up to the election of 2008, yet the subject was never brought up and unfortunately there was insufficient time in the Q & A session. My suspicion is that Reich and Dean would not necessarily agree on certain issues: notably, Reich favours the pro-Iraq war Hilary Clinton as a potential candidate, while Dean’s campaign was based squarely on an anti-war platform.

Overall the lecture was an entertaining one, and despite the focus on American domestic policy, the audience was engaged throughout by an excellent public speaker. However, I for one do not share the optimism that Professor Reich evidently feels for the immediate future of American politics, and I believe that if his backing for Hilary Clinton as the challenger in 2008 bears out, the Democrats are likely to face another four years in the political wilderness.