Part One:
Our first guest is Philip Moss, professor emeritus in the Department of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. We discuss his article entitled: “There Can Be No Equality Without a Dramatic Renewal of Employment Opportunity for All American Workers.” Over time, structural change in the economy and within firms have had a dramatic impact on the distribution of economic opportunity. Moss explains how such opportunities have been restricted for people of different races and genders, as well as low wage workers in general.
He traces the history of the wages and benefits experienced by US workers since the 1950s. For some of this time, ordinary workers earned decent wages and enjoyed relative stability. Their unions were a big factor in keeping workers solvent. African-Americans started to make inroads into joining their white counterparts through the long struggles of the civil rights movement and, eventually, legislation. But by the 1970s and 80s, with the backlash, union-busting and Pres. Reagan’s regressive economic policies, American workers’ wages stagnated and they never recovered.
Now the disparity in incomes between the rich and the working class has skyrocketed. African-Americans are doing even worse. And disparities in accumulated wealth are even more stark than the income gap.
Is there any way we can return American workers to a place of even modest (much less an appropriate) level of economic security? Structural change is necessary throughout the economy but especially in the financial sector. Corporations should have to reinvest large portions of their profits in their businesses and their workers, and not be able instead to buy back their stock shares and pad the compensation of their executives. If Joe Biden implements a number of Elizabeth Warren’s financial policies, it may be possible for American working people to improve the quality of their lives.
Part Two:
We speak with author Larry Tye about his new book, “Demagogue: The Life and Long Shadow of Senator Joe McCarthy.” Tye’s extraordinary biography benefits from his access to 9,000 pages of previously secret materials covering McCarthy’s interrogation of witnesses outside of the presence of the press and the public. Sometimes alone, sometimes replaced by one of his eager staff members such as the infamous Roy Cohn, McCarthy badgered and bullied and demeaned people because of their beliefs – or what he surmised their beliefs to be.
Suspecting everyone of being a communist, McCarthy recklessly charged treason against everyone from George Marshall to much of the State Department. In so doing, he became the most influential, controversial – and most feared – man in America
The word “McCarthyism” became “a synonym for reckless accusation, guilt by association, fear-mongering and political double-dealing.” The Senator and his Committee on Unamerican Activities whipped the nation into a frenzy of paranoia, accusation, loyalty oaths, and terror. Along the way, they destroyed many careers and even lives: public servants, Hollywood screenwriters and stars, academic writers, and ordinary citizens. Only a few brave souls were able to overcome the (justified) fear of retaliation which prevented almost everyone from standing up to McCarthy.
This type of demagogy has long been part of American history, including Huey Long and George Wallace during the last century. And now we have seen the “astonishing ascension of President Donald J. Trump.” Tye explains the direct line of political strategy that was handed down from Sen. McCarthy to Pres. Trump. McCarthy taught his tactics to his right-hand man, Roy Cohn. A couple of decades later, Cohn mentored the young Donald Trump when he took over his father’s real estate business, teaching Trump how to handle himself in the public forum. Tye sees the McCarthyite playbook in virtually every Trump campaign ad, tweet, and policy.
Perhaps, in a few years, we will look back and say the same thing about Trump that Larry Tye said of McCarthy:
“His chaotic, meteoric rise is a gripping and terrifying object lesson for us all. Yet his equally sudden fall from fame offers reason for hope that, given the rope, most American demagogues eventually hang themselves.”
