rebuilding the middle class uh there's really kind of two pieces to it like I said there's this 51 trillion dollar transfer of wealth Trill with a t which is a mindboggling amount of money from the middle class to the top 1% we've got to get some of that back down into the middle class why are why are today's liberals so bad at making the case for the r transfer of wealth back to the middle class [Music] hey everybody Welcome to the Michael steel podcast we have a great conversation lined up for you today and certainly I just say up front if you love the podcast please tell your friends about it share the love for this brother I I appreciate it when you do give us a review on Apple podcast do the download thing uh it all works it all works it makes me feel all yummy inside you can find me on Twitter at Michael steel and the podcast on Twitter at steelcore podcast uh this podcast is part of the bullwark network I'm so happy this is now a weekend to uh being a part of the bullwark family and I'm so glad to be uh to be a part of the work here at the bullwark you can find them on social media at Bull workk online so today I wanted to wanted to have a conversation with uh someone who has been a liberal knows liberalism um the Progressive Movement um from a more more traditional perspective if you will um he is an author a businessman radio personality and Progressive political commentator none other than Tom Hartman uh he has been the nation's number one Progressive talk show host for over a decade a decade and His Radio Show the Tom Hartman program reaches over 7 million listeners per week it is it is a real treat for me to to have have Tom on the show to not just talk about oh what's happening with Biden but to really kind of put into some context um traditional liberalism and its view on the economy the working class uh and why that's translating or not translating as well today so stay tuned for I think what will be an enjoyable conversation I'm so glad you're with us right here on the Michael steel podcast we're going to come back with Tom right after this hey folks welcome to the Michael steel podcast as we are in the beginning of our uh actually maybe in the middle of our summer I mean I just feel like you know we just started it but it's already July here we are and uh a lot of crazy stuff is happening right now in our politics and we'll get into all of that I'm excited to to Welcome to the conversation someone that many of you are familiar with as he hosts a program that reaches well over 7 million listeners every week none other than Tom Hartman um from the Tom Hartman program Tom it's so great to have you man well thank you Michael it's a pleasure and an honor to be here with you I appreciate youc yeah yeah we have a lot of fun in that space and you you probably have a lot of fun uh in what you're doing right now in terms of reaching so many Americans um day-to-day folks out there I just Topline before we get into to uh some of the meat of it what is your sense of the American psyche related to this this political environment we're in uh the economy things that are going on in their lives what are they telling you what are you hearing yeah you know I think the the the problem or the situation or whatever the crisis actually that that America is facing right now um in some way dates back to to Reagan you know kind of reorganizing America I mean just saying okay we're going to go with neoliberalism as opposed to Classical liberalism we're going to abandon FDR and we're going to you know we're going to go to free trade and austerity and lower taxes for rich people and and uh anti-union and all those kind of things and um what that did was it created over the 40 years following it a a a a steady disconnect um where the middle class of America went from being over 60% of us to now it's between 43 and 47% of us depending on whose numbers you're using and um you know average rent in the United States is $2,000 a month and so you really have to earn about $75,000 a year to be able to comfortably have that the be the appropriate part of your after tax income but you know the the top average income is around 50 so that's that's very different from the world that I grew up in you know in the 1950s and 60s um and that my father who worked in a tool and die shop his whole life was able to raise four boys and you know put kids through college and have buy a home and everything I mean it just so that world has changed and and and what that did is it created a space for a lot of demagoguery and Donald Trump stepped into that space in a big way I I think starting really with uh the election of President OB Obama um and you know a good chunk of it of course was Trump's just naked racism but beyond that he was also uh smart enough as reluctant as I am to use that phrase um to know that the American middle class um was was taking it you know was being hurt by by this neoliberalism which by the way was happening with both parties you know Bill Clinton signed on for this too and yeah exactly Obama um you know in fact Joe Biden is the first president in my lifetime since really the first two years of Jimmy Carter I mean Jimmy Carter signed on for neoliberalism he you know he deregulated the Airlines and the railroads in the last two years of his presidency really since Lyon Johnson you know I mean so so I think that that that uh the damage that neoliberalism has done to the American middle class uh everybody's looking to for ways to point fingers and you know like Trump you know the other day saying oh those immigrants want to take black jobs or they want to take you know white we're still trying to figure out exactly what a black job is I I suspect I suspect what I'm doing right now may qualify I'm not sure well you I think you qualify you know dude we're working on that but this is the thing I mean this is this is this is a game that they've been playing in you know for two centuries in this country which you know is playing groups off each other and and you know using the the cheap easy stuff race religion Regional regionality uh gender um age I mean it has I think to your point Tom it has become much more specific in that regard and and I definitely accept your your point that Joe Biden is probably the the the next in the link direct link to uh you know Roosevelt Johnson and Biden if you want to just sort of look at that that line of classical traditional liberalism Kenyan economics really keny exactly well put well put and and so you do have that and it really kind of goes to the heart of what Joe Biden has been arguing from the very beginning of his presidency around policies like infrastructure for example and re in reduction uh inflation the inflation reduction Act um the chips act what he's doing what he has done with student loan debt for example so why aren't Americans and and you know probably many of your listeners sitting there going you know what this economy sucks you know I had a friend of mine said that to me recently and I was like dude you're about to take a $10,000 vacation how bad is your economy right well and that's the thing I mean when you ask people how are you doing most people say fine I think the number is over 70% when you ask them how they think the economy is doing they say it's terrible and and you know I think that that's just kind of the propaganda Wars you've got you know the the the GOP is um you know trash talking Biden because you know for for political gain which you expect um and uh and Trump bragged an awful lot when he was president about you know things that weren't actually true I mean you know his he didn't create more jobs than Obama did um he you know certainly the economy was not the best that ever you know I mean he was just so good at exaggerating that stuff and and and and people bought it um but but I don't know how to punch through that you know I mean I I I think the people who listen to my program on you know serious X am and radio stations around the country and on Free Speech TV and whatnot I think you know they get it that that the economy is doing pretty good but but we're still we're still digging out of this hole that that that 40-year austerity policy or NE liberalism policy or whatever you want to call it you know I unfort reaganism uh but but like I said it was both parties bought into it for so long we're still digging out of that hole and and it's and and we've got a long way to go but you know the interesting thing but here's the irony about you know I think kind of putting the the reaganism cap um or you know bottle cap on the bottle on the economic bottle is that you did you did have an unprecedented amount of spending that sort of drove a lot of those underlying uh narratives now admittedly and I raised my hand the first one to say having been in many of these rooms um at the time um you know Republicans who rail against you know big government spending as they did under the bush years um and you know wanted to turn their backs on him in 2006 because of it um have been the largest perpetrators of government expanse and government spending when you look at it um between Democrat and and uh Democratic and Republican administrations but certainly since Obama you have seen more of a of a leveling between the two parties in that space what does that tell you are we are we sort of stuck in this in this sort of uh you know chasing our Tales kind of environment with respect to the economy and spending for both sides there's always some reason whether it's co whether it's you know a housing crisis uh whether it's pick your poison which we've both we've had both of those since 2008 what what do you account for as not being able to break that cycle and why do Democrats seemingly fall into perpetuating it I think it's it's a question of power and and you know of who's being served by the economy there's been a $ 51 trillion transfer of wealth yep from the American middle class starting in 1981 into the pockets of the top 1% um the last time we saw that in the United States or something close to that it was you know proportionate maybe a third of that proportionately was in the era from 192 20 to 1933 yeah I was going to say right before the crash right exactly and and you know was called The Roaring 20s because the rich bar mindboggling Rich exactly but average working people were actually hurting throughout the 20s and you know the particularly the coolage and and and uh and ultimately the Hoover administration but I mean Hardin started that he he dropped the top income tax rate from 91% down to 25% yeah that was his that was his big campaign thing his his uh campaign slogan was horses and Sparrow economics you know uh if you feed the horses extra oats the the the horse poop that ends up on the roads all which back in 1920 made a lot of sense to people have a lot of extra oats and The Sparrows will eat them and and know now we call it trickle down economics you know pour a little extra wine on the top and it'll but but the bottom line is that because of that massive transfer of wealth we have this struggling middle class and and and a and a poor class below the middle class economically as well and um the main and so it's really about power it's it's it's about the power of Labor and and and what happened in the period from 1933 until until 1985 really when reaganism really started to bite you know when the unions really started to go down in flames I mean when Reagan came into office about a third of America was unionized which meant two-thirds of America had a good the equivalent of a good union job because the union jobs set the local wage floor sure um you know by the end of the of the George Herbert Walker Bush Administration your unionization density had gone from about a third of America down to what around 13 or 14% I think it's around 11% now right and and it's not just about unions or not unions it's about who has the power to determine where the money goes but is it but on that point but on that point Tom what didn't you also have because I agree with you from a public policy standpoint there was a a clear shift um and those of us in the early uh days of Reagan conservatism particular economic conservatism made that case for trickle down right in in the belief and understanding that wealth created here only can only go down it can't go up right it won't go side it'll only go down and and we now know that that's not necessarily how it works um and appreciate that but with respect to unions I remember as a Young Man becoming more and more anti-union as a CI I mean before I really got into the throws of politics and and taking a hardened political position based off of the behavior of unions and and so as much as the public policy changed in One Direction you also had the public perception of unions changed based off of their own behavior in how they treated their own what their expectations were and I do remember a number of big arguments around the idea of dues right all of a sudden now you had union members who are like well what are you doing with my money number one and I don't want my money necessarily to go to that candidate or to that cause so you have this you have this sort of creation within this the this ecosystem of various other uh ideas and approaches emerging in a way that disrupted that in addition to what was happening from a public policy standpoint which just really kind of furthered that I mean do how did you see how did you see that part of it not look I'm not putting the blame on unions because I know that's that's silly argument absolutely to make that case but I'm just saying that there were a lot of things that were kind of happening culturally politically socially and certainly economically that were kind of moving and reshaping during the 80s what would be the setup pitch in the 90s and 2000s that culminated in what we see playing out today yeah yeah and you make a really good point and um you know people like Rush limbo and the 80s really uh Amplified that exactly exactly I mean in fact just as a quick point out I mean that was one how I first got a you know conservatives had this thing Little Thing Called talk radio that that nobody really paid attention to and that's where a lot of that kind of got spoonfed to a lot of folks at that time to your point right but the and this this goes to the to the idea of you know how power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely as the unions uh as the union movement created the American middle class and and you could you can argue that there was a certain amount of government spending um you know Eisenhower in particular building schools and building hospitals highways and stuff like that high system right you know you build out the infrastructure and then business fills it in so you know that certainly grew the economy but but the the thing that really built the American middle class was the unions and the union and and so what happened was you started seeing unions getting very very corrupt you know Frank fin Simmons and Jimmy hofa and these guys and and you know I I grew up in Michigan I mean my like I said my dad worked in tul and die shop in Lancy Michigan and um and and I and I I know James Hoffa you know Jimmy's son I I never knew Jimmy um and and you know there was just an enormous amount of corruption I mean Jimmy Hoff gave Richard Nixon a half million dollars in cash to to drop the the prosecution of the Sun Valley land deal in 1960 when he was running when Nixon was running yeah Nixon was running against Kennedy in for President right yeah and and so there was and the and the mob you know the the interaction of the mob with the unions was starting to become public in the 60s as well you know with the with with that kind of stuff so in I lived in Germany for a year in the 80s and and what I thought was fascinating about that which is heavily unionized and they have a law that every company that has more than 2,000 employees 50% % of their board of directors has to be made up of union members the the unions are um well integrated into government and into society in ways that that that essentially have checks and balances um it's real difficult for ger German Union or a German Union Leader to be corrupt um in the 60s it was very easy for in 70s and 80s it was very easy for American union leaders to be corrupt and and that was you know that was something that the the Reagan's movement used to beat up the unions with right and and it and it was a hard AR well the airline the the the air traffic controller strike was really kind of the the the tip tip off yeah uh play where that was the declaration of war well exactly exactly and and which is ironic coming from a union man because Reagan was a union guy you know he was part of uh you know the Hollywood Union Community and although he was also you know Jade G's informant there was that there was that just a little bit of spycraft going on as well look it's F go ahead but I think that if we could if we could get back to a reasonable Union density you know something approaching 30 40% I mean most of Europe you know you see Union densities of 70 80% you know really substantially High Union density but like I said you don't see corruption in the unions because they're do you see that happening they're by law not in the United States as long as the the GOP fights it so vigorously and the Democratic party is only now just starting I mean Joe Biden is literally the first president to walk up yeah that was a big deal it's kind of shocking when you think about it I mean that Kennedy didn't do that or Johnson didn't do that or whatever um but you know but our union movement has always been this kind this libertarian streak in America and the union movement has never been other you know it's always been kind of its own independent Little Empire and and and I I think we need to kind of not kind of I think we need to be rethinking the structure of unions and and I think there's some really good examples that you find in in particularly in the northern European countries of how to do that and and I think that to a large extent that's going to be a key and that's why one of the reasons I think one of the reasons that we're starting to see the economy do so well on under Biden uh in particular but really over the last 8 10 years um let's say since the crash since 2005 2006 um or 2008 um because people are a generation has grown up that doesn't think of unions as Jimmy Hoff and corrupt um that so you have a chance to remake that landscape a little bit and to redefine what a union is versus what up to that up to this point has been defined and you look at today's union leaders and they're they're really good people I mean you know they're they're not connected to the Mob anymore and they're not you know and I mean even some of the really old unions that were terribly corrupt long time ago you like the long shoremen have cleaned up their act I mean they they've really got their act together in many regards and um the extent to which we can build that I think you know that building that rebuilding the middle class uh there's really kind of two pieces to it like I said there's this $ 51 trillion transfer of wealth Trill with a t which is a mindboggling amount of money from the middle class to the top 1% we've got to get some of that back down into the middle class um you know I mean we've got we've got three men in the United States who own as much wealth as half of America um like I said the last time we saw that was 19 1931 and and it wasn't even that bad in in 31 but you know it was pretty so what what answer answer this for me in the face of everything we know and and certainly what you've been saying in the last few minutes why are why are today's liberals so bad at making the case for that for that for the very thing you just said for you know the transfer the retransfer of wealth back to the middle class as the as the foundational underpinning of our economy which it has been from its founding it's something the founders were very much keyed in on in fact one of the things that drove them out of England was not just the oppressive nature of the government itself but though wealth but then of course A lot of them were wealthy men too so they wanted to confine and constrict that a little bit sort of even I mean you know the the richest of the guys who signed the Declaration of Independence was John Hancock and his his net wealth at that time in in $2000 uh I got this out of Kevin Phillips book so have to recalibrate a he had a net worth of $700,000 I mean that was that's upper middle class yeah um you know that's not the kind of Rich that we have now we have today there were how do they make the case what for who make what case for what how do liberals make the case and and when you're looking at I mean because right now and we haven't gotten into it we will in a moment this you know the the whole thing with Biden stepping off the ticket after everything he's done to position the party to actually kickass this November right now everybody's fixated on the man's age like an 81y old guy like the 77 year old guy they nominated wouldn't be 81 four years later and and and and then they renominate him again so you have all this ignoring the the nature of the success since arguably uh uh Johnson president Lyndon Johnson and certainly hearkening back to again is that as I mentioned before part of that lineage of Franklin Roosevelt and yet and still today's liberals aren't ready to Rally around that case to be made because everyone's not only focus on his age Tom but they're all saying well tell us what you're going to do for the future and will you live long enough to do it yeah he such a I'm like guys come on but anyway I'm with you yeah I think we need to disle there I mean you know there's there's the policy stuff and Biden is talking about unions and talking about the middle class and talking about you know bringing back relatively High tax rates on uh you know that I mean CEOs used to make on average in fact in 1980 in 1980 when Reagan came into office the average CEO made 30 times what the average worker did you know now it's 500 times or thereabouts I mean it depends on the industry you look at in some Industries it's thousands of times um so we need to rebalance taxes but part of that has to do with the this power equation which brings us back to things like unions and and and the Democratic party and the movement I think that the Democratic party in general and liberals in general have been making a pretty good case at least for unions and at least for you know raising taxes back to the point where um you know just massive theft of wealth by a very small number of people is just no longer possible or or and and you've got a pretty high level of public outrage going on right now right a lot of but is misdirected uh or is being manipulated shall we say but um uh but that's a whole completely different thing about than you know is to Joe Biden too old to run for president um you know I I I personally think that he's he's doing a great job as president and I don't think he's too old to be president right he is however I do and This concerns me I'm not specifically although I did write an opet a couple weeks ago about this but uh I'm I'm I'm being I'm becoming a little more sanguin um I I you know people want a leader is that after drinking some sangria or is that I don't how do you get people want people want a leader who is going to protect them they they they want somebody who is going to fight for them they want they want somebody and and and that requires a certain projection of strength and you know up until recently Biden has been able to do that but but lately he his ability to project um leadership and strength he's saying the right words I mean when you read his speeches they're incredible uh even his offthe cuff remarks are in in some cases extraordinary right um but his presentation is getting is is getting uh enfeebled is a probably too strong a word but um but you understand what I'm saying I do yeah and that and that's his principle of vulnerability to Trump is that Trump comes across as confident and cocky and and people are like oh well you know if we have to go into a war if or if we're in an economic war with China or if we're you know or if just you know those people want to hurt me um this guy's gonna fight for me this guy you know he's got whereas this other guy he's having a hard time getting the words out you know is he gonna fight for me and that's what concerns me and there's not much talk about that frankly because that's really kind of in the field of psychology political psychology um as opposed to uh policy because I think you know policy-wise Biden has been brilliant I one of the best presidents of my lifetime and I've been around a long time you've been around a long time yeah well and part of that uh I want to I want to delve into um we're going to take a quick break uh when we come back uh I want to get into because you you didn't grow up in this like you know left-wing Progressive household you you've got some conservative the roots that are kind of rumaging there and we want to explore how that shaped uh your view today and and how you see things moving uh forward we are having I'm really enjoying this conversation with Tom because it's important uh Tom Hartman to to have this uh this view from from other seats in the in the arena um and you know a lot of times people have preconceived ideas about someone like you coming you know coming from a progressive point of view certainly someone like me coming from a more conservative point of view um and what they you know what they don't know or maybe fully appreciate in our personal development is that's not necessarily where we started I grew up in a a moderately liberal household in Washington DC you grew up uh in a I would argue a more traditional staun Republican uh household your your daddy was uh you know you know out there for Barry Goldwater in 64 talk talk to talk about that as sort of a foundational underpinning that helps you appreciate moments like we're in right now and the value of making the case uh you know in 1964 I was 13 years old and I went doorto door with my dad for Barry Goldwater um the year before he had given me a copy of John starmer's book n called n dear call it treason and I was convinced that you know the Communists were in the the state department that they had that they were preparing to take over America and you know my dad wasn't I mean he took me to a John bur society meeting once and he said I'm just taking you to this uh meeting because I want you to meet the crazies you need to know because they were crazy they they really were and and you know I mean that was back when Fred kooch was funding it and they were putting up these Billboards all over Michigan this you know and pacher all Warren and that was because of Brown versus Bor M so um so anyhow my dad wasn't you know like a fire breathing conservative he was an Eisenhower conservative he was an Eisenhower Republican yeah and um in fact when he was when he was dying um uh in our living room he and um I was sitting with him and I had his my hand on his shoulder and I looked across uh the room and there were his two favorite pictures on the wall me shaking hands with Pope John Paul II and George W bush on the deck of the aircraft carrier with the mission accomplished sign above it I mean that he died a republican right I mean that was just you know in 2006 so um you know I I'm real familiar with that world and and the people in it and I've and and for a while I shared that worldview I mean the thing that changed me um was coming of age during the Vietnam era and and coming to the conclusion as I you know 16 17 years old that my government was a lying to me and B wanted to kill me um and had killed several of my friends yeah you know who got drafted sent off to Vietnam and came back in boxes yeah and and um that's a real Revelation for a young person and then you start really questioning everything and and that's when I really that was kind of the beginning of my political my genuine political education do you see that today with this generation uh with with the Gen xers questioning the established norms and pushing up against them and not necessarily buying uh the lines that prior Generations uh have bought since the days of the early days of the Baby Boomers yeah you know I I had thought that the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars might accomplish something very similar to what Vietnam did but because there's no draft uh and it was an all theame yeah exactly exactly and I think probably the the Israel Gaza situation is radicalizing young people more than anything else um you know there there was also of course that moment you know the George Floyd moment and the and the and the black lives matter movement um but it it hasn't generalized and and the and and the blowback I mean now we've got Republicans running around going we got to get rid of Dei you know and and stuff like this which you know it's just really just uh you know really you want to stop teaching the racial history of this country you want to stop teaching the gender history of this country right it it's frankly pathetic but but I think that you know William Buckley William I used to sit and watch you know my dad and I used to watch Firing Line together um back in the early late 50s early 60s and and and Buckley famously said that a conservative is a man who stands a thwart or stands as stride The Arc of history with his hand out shouting stop and in other words you know yes we want to move forward um but we want to do it carefully thoughtfully step by step that was Eisenhower's conservatism right that was not Reagan's conservatism Reagan was a reactionary Reagan was actually trying to reverse things that had happened let's roll back the union movement let's roll back this High tax rate that is that is keeping the wealth in the middle class and preventing the emergence of a of a super wealthy class um and and so I think that we're seeing a lot of push back like I said earlier to that to that Reagan movement to that reaganism to the neoliberalism um and and the big terrible mistake that the Democratic party made um really the the the Clinton Administration made all you know like I said the last year at Carter's Administration he kind of bought into it too it was a very seductive you know uh Milton Friedman did a good job I I wrote a book about this in history of neoliberalism um you know the idea that somehow the free market is going to magically you know help everybody and it turns out that there's literally no such thing as a free market markets are created by government you know it's a you it's like saying let's have a free football game oh what does that mean well there's no rules because it just magically always works out and if one team wants to pay an extra 50 bucks to the ref so that he always throws things their way and have an extra four guys on the field you know that's that that's the free market you know hey they got the extra money they can do you know so to say that you know you you can say we well in business we're just going to do away with the rules and we're just going to you know let the people with the most power make which is the case that that Trump is making now that's why he wants to R back a lot of the regulations yeah yeah yeah exactly and it doesn't work it makes things worse it it it destroys middle classes it it it it destroys economies for everybody except the top 1% over time and and um and I think it's unfortunate that you asked before you know why are liberals or why are Democrats so bad at messaging on this stuff and and I and I think that there's almost a kind of a personality characteristic here that that conservatives uh tend to and George Lov talks about this you know the strict father model versus the nurturing family model but but I I think it's more like you know with within the GOP in particular and the conservative movement that that that emerged in more in the 80s because I don't think this was the case during the Eisenhower era um that um there's discipline there's leadership and and and messaging flows from the top down and the Democratic Party by and large um particularly because of all the chaos that was created by the adoption of neoliberalism by the Democrats in the 90s um has just been uh atomized it's been fractionalized it's been faction right so you've got let's have our food fights first and then and you know this group is worried about you know a you know I mean you've got you've got gender issues you've got racial issues you've got religious issues you've got you know economic issues you've got Union issues you've got international issues and you know the GOP would look at all those things and they'd say okay let's pick the top three that we can use to beat the crap out of the Democrats and that's all we're going to talk about and once we get enough power we'll do all that other stuff hello the Democrats on the other hand say oh let's talk about all this stuff and and as a result the message just you know it's it's you're pissing into the wind I mean the message just gets spattered all over the place you you just nailed it Tommy it's it's so expertly because that's exactly what it is I mean I've been saying it for the last month or so in in a number of the conversations I've had with Democrats it's like guys you're making this way more complicated you want to know why the Supreme Court is where the Supreme Court is is because we focused on it for 25 years and while you guys were focusing on the policy of abortion who just talking about getting the court we just wanted to animate the base to get the court because once you got the court all these other pieces then fall in place Chevron Falls in place campaign Finance Falls in place all the other pieces fall in place so voting rights vote voting rights and and for some of some of us inside the the tent if you will who have tried to resist that it became a losing battle after a while and thus you see the Liz chenies and others just being jettison out of the party um set aside um in big ways that you know sort of cements this idea to your point what you see happening right now under Jo under Joe Biden not not a consolidation of the left around the idea of here's a bigger threat than this guy or our policy disputes so let's let's focus on that it is still trying to hammer out a solution or an answer to a policy or other issue that right now the country is like you know dude I this guy just sounds stronger than your guy and if that's where you're GNA leave this you're going to get clobbered in November and it's it's interesting that you know you had the Heritage president uh whom we had on our on our show the weekend on MSNBC a couple of weeks ago uh Kevin uh Roberts who made who made just this week on a followup to that somewhat controversial interview uh noted that right now the country is in has he put it the midst of a second American Revolution that will be bloodless and here's the here's the tagline if the left allows it to be how did the left how should the left respond to that well it's it's it's it's a it's a statement that implies violence and and and I think that there's a a lot of recoiling a lot of horror in response to that and I and even Republicans I think are starting to back away from it I think the one of the reasons why Trump just came out and repudiated project 2025 is is because you know people are starting to realize how extraordinarily reactionary this is I mean Draconian and unamerican it is oh yeah I mean you know to the extent that I I could characterize Reagan as a reactionary he was he had nothing going compared guys you know these guys want to turn America into Hungary basically you know into something like well Victor or Orban is the model he is well he is yeah and and and I you know I've written and talked about that at length and and uh this this illiberal democracy idea is uh I mean it's you could argue it's the log iCal outcome of neoliberalism of reaganism um but it it it will destroy this country it will it just absolutely will destroy this country and if our democracy goes down I mean we've already seen about what a 15% decrease in the number of human beings on Earth who live in Democratic countries just over the last two decades um you know that that uh Francis fukiyama back in what was it 97 you know wrote the end of history and the last man uh you know everybody's going to become Democratic now and no it's so much the rich people stepped in there and said no we're going to take it oh no this there's no money in that there's no money in that exactly exactly so you know I I see a reaction I I would like to see the Democratic Party get more organized and get their act together I it's very frustrating I conservative I I I agree with you I mean look there you know we we could we could probably do a whole podcast just on the Reagan Era alone and and its impact we could we could do a podcast on the Johnson era and the impact it had and and the same is true with Eisenhower and I and I think that what the country I think misses and sorely needs are the conversations around those types of ideas and issues that flowed out of those periods whether you agree or disagree with Reaganomics or trickle down or whatever there were significant policy uh prescriptions discussions ideas that were were pushed back and forth and it is the introduction of the politics exclusively as a matter of solution to those big questions where this thing started to go sideways very quickly and that for me was the late 80s it was really what we saw emerge in the house under new Grid's leadership which it in which it became much more terraforma we are going to transort there you go make it a blood sport in order to change the landscape uh and what would you say as as I as we kind of wind down our conversation here um to this generation of young liberals young progressives young conservatives um about the state of our politics and the role that they can play beginning this November um in in setting resetting the course resetting the table resetting the outlook for this country so that a progressive and a conservative in the future can have that have that debate uh as opposed to one of them maybe perhaps both of them which how I think it plays out being locked up because of what they believe yeah yeah I think it's it's a really important point and and there there was that era that you know that I lived through as a as a young P person by and large where where you could have policy discussions and still be friends you could um you could even understand the other person's point of view and not view it as evil um uh what I would say to young people actually I just I've got a book coming out in September the the hidden history of the American middle class and and it's about how the middle class was created middle classes are not normal you know what what is normal is the world that Charles economically if you have L Fair economics what what you normally have is the world that Charles Dickens wrote about you know Scrooge was not the top one% he was the middle class he was the the middle class was the doctors the lawyers and the merchants um and they were two or three% of the British population and then you had the top 1% you know the royal family and their friends and then you had this 95% poor working people that's what a normal econ that's what if you have if you have an unregulated economy that's what is always going to be produced you can see that in any country around the world through 500 years of History middle classes have to be created by government policy and the main part of that is government policy giving power to working people which is by you know legalizing unions and things as we talked about earlier so what I would say to young people right now is um it's all about the power it's really you know you you're not going to you know if you want to have the the things that countries like you know northern European countries you don't have to go into debt to go to college they pay you to go to college you get a $300 a month stipended in Denmark to go to college or in Germany and it's completely you know I was just talking in in Regal laia a couple of days ago to a woman who was telling me how she had broke her ankle uh on an icy Street and uh spent uh you know a month in the hospital uh because she had four bones that were shattered and they had to put all this metal in and do all this stuff and then six months of freak I was like wow what did that cost you and she says oh it was terrible it's 103 Euros for the whole thing and it's like I mean this is a country two million people and and and you know l and and you know and we can't do that in America so if you want to have a country where things work if you want to have a country where you actually have a functioning middle class where where where people can become socially mobile through education where where families where you don't have I mean there last year there were 580,000 I think it was the number Medical bankruptcies in the Western World among all the democracies of the Western World the O the 34 oecd countries right all of them occurred in the United States we're the only country that does this to people right holy crap and and you know why right why becau because we've been having it's it's kind of that n gangri Blood Sport politics because and and and it's a lot of it has been driven by frankly I think people who are you know born into wealth or have acquired wealth and also have the a mental illness called obsessive compulsive disorder SL hoarding disorder order that if they hadn't been Rich they would have an apartment full of tin cans and newspapers up to the ceiling they're just but instead of collecting newspapers and tin cans they're collecting money because they have the ability to do that and there's just never enough they've got you know oh I've got hundred billion dollars and now I have to have2 200 billion dollars it's like how much money do you fraking need to live right so um and I don't mean to sound like a Marxist because I'm absolutely not I'm you know I'm a fan of capitalism I've made a lot of money in my life and i' I've started and run five different businesses and and built them up and sold them off and and done very well for myself thank you very much but but all that said you can't just you know we can't just like be so atomized and so fractured and so at war with ourselves and I'm by ourselves I'm talking about the left here you know the progressive left um it we have to figure out how to acquire power and that's through the the political process I mean and and that means taking taking control of government taking control of government and and it has to start at the local level and there's been just a lot of really smart decisions made on the right um in the 1980s I mean you got, 1500 right-wing radio stations right now and you know fewer than a 100 leftwing ones I mean there's the you know at least commercial ones I'm on a couple hundred non-commercial ones as well but um and and of course serious xam and other things but but the point is that the the the right built out messaging infrastructure and then use that messaging infrastructure to basically take over and uh you know back in 2006 I think it was when I was on air America radio um a group of us I I vaguely remember air America well you know and it was going well I mean we had problem was we were we leased 57 St or 54 stations from Clear Channel and we were in all the major markets in America I was beating Rush limbo regularly on air America and and uh but then you know Mitt Romney wanted to become president and so he had his company byy Clear Channel and they just took us off the air and so a bunch of us went to Washington DC and and Bernie Sanders in fact helped organize this meeting um with a bunch of members of the House and Senate you know who were concerned about these issues and we made this pitch you know you guys know a bunch of billionaires who you know we spend a billion dollars every four years on an election why don't you buy some of these radio stations so that we don't we're not at the mercy of Mitt Romney any longer and um and build out a messaging infrastructure and and one of the Senators who later ran for president um got up and said this is really you know what you're talking about is a bad idea this should be the free market you know you're you're interfering in the free market here and I'm like oh my God you know um it's about the power and if you're going to you know you've got to have a messaging machine you've got to have an organized message um and and it's got to be one that you can back up with history that you can say you know how it worked before we can get back to it you know it's part of the Brilliance of Reagan with this make America great again slogan which you know which Trump stole so you know I think that there's a there's a lot of work to do on the left um I don't know I'm I'm I'm starting to ramble here now my Sor no no I think no I think it's no it's not it's not a ramble at all and I think for a lot of I mean even for a lot of conservatives we look across cross the aisle and go what the hell are they doing I are they seeing the same thing we're seeing how are you talking about this issue that way or why aren't you talking about this issue at all and it really does go to the heart of what you said Tom is creating that messaging machine and just just as a point of because we I think we're both students of here history here just as a historical footnote to the point you made about you know the emergence of that sort of uh conservative uh communication a lot of that was borne out of the fact that for a long time a lot of conservatives didn't hear their points of view reflected by Uncle Walter you know Walter kronite at 6:30 every evening so they turn on the national news and our views on the Vietnam War our views on the economy our views on the social construct construct particularly given you know the sexual Revolution that was going on and the up you know women burning their bras and and you know Dad sitting there watching their daughters come in and taking taking their bras off and burning them like what the hell is going on there was no place to talk about that and so this this this other show yeah they right right if you remember yeah exactly they created that space yeah and so you know yes liberals tried to do that with America but then the when they ran against you know the least little bit of turbulence they're like oh my God and it the whole thing kind of falls apart and so I think you make some very important points and it's really not it's not rambling as as much as it is pointing to looking at various things that when you connect those dots you begin to see the pattern of behavior which is not necessarily led to um the point you're ultimately making is in order to have power you have to take power in order to take power you have to win elections in order to win elections you got to have a message that gives voters the reason to give you the power and and so there that's how we've looked at it um since my early days in in in Republican politics that's how we that's how I cut my teeth and and here's the irony you'll love this you know who I learned a lot of that from Democrats like Maran Barry oh yeah yeah like Marian Barry the former mayor of Washington Joe lell the former first one of the first black city councilman appointed by Lyndon Johnson so they understood the StreetWise aspect of what we're talking about and trans LBJ himself too LBJ there was a man who took names and kicked ass yeah exactly and Democrats today are not only afraid to kick ass they won't even take the name down so I I think and yet and still they'll turn on Joe Biden just so anyway so you make you make some excellent points man I could talk to you and I know you're you're in the middle of some travel but I appreciate your taking time and I could I can spend a lot more time with you definitely here is a standing invitation to come back when the book is out this fall talking about the middle class because I really think that is the heartbeat and here's a little tip here's a little tip to what we're talking about Republicans have figured that out and have already started messaging to the middle class because they know yeah they actually know what's on the back end this and if we can lock in the middle class around these culture War issues that we're talking about certainly uh the political issues the economic piece becomes a little bit easier to tick Taco into it so you you're you've got your finger on an important pulse the question is how do liberals SL Progressive Democrats begin to translate that into Political success and that's what I'm I'm interested to reading how you articulate they do that that's a big challenge that's the big yeah you're right you're right uh so he Tom Hartman he is the the host of the live daily program the Tom Hartman program uh you hear it from what noon to 3 pm daily on commercial radio stations all across the United States more than 7 million listeners a week uh tuning in um and and listening to a very smart guy Tom I really appreciate you taking time for what I know is a busy schedule for you uh to have a little bit of conversation and phone with me here at the Michael still podcast Michael it's been an honor like I said and and and a privilege a real pleasure talking to you and getting to know you and thank you so much for inviting me on absolutely so I look forward to having you back when your book on the middle class comes out we can talk about that break it down between now and then folks I need y'all to do a few things to get ready for the selection I need you to get registered I need you to uh get activated and I need you to to wear the Big D on your chest you figure out which D I'm talking about democracy Or democrats I don't know which one am I talking about anyway until next time guys be safe be well take care of yourselves out there have a great summer see y'all in about a week n [Music]