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economy
Nostalgia Reigns at the Trump-Harris Presidential Debate
What's notably missing from both candidates' messages is a truly progressive vision that acknowledges the failures of past policies and proposes fundamental changes to address systemic issues.
Sep 11, 2024
The stage was set for a clash of titans at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia on Tuesday night. In what could be the only face-off of the 2024 U.S. presidential race, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump squared off in a debate that was as much about America's future as it was about its past. For nearly two hours, the candidates traded barbs, outlined policies, and made their case to the American people in a high-stakes political showdown.
On the surface, Harris and Trump presented dramatically different visions for the country's path forward. Yet, as the dust settled and analysts began to parse through the debate's key moments, a surprising commonality emerged. Both candidates, despite their contrasting styles and policy positions, revealed a shared reliance on nostalgia and a yearning for idealized versions of the past. This backward-looking approach, masked by rhetoric of change and progress, could have profound implications for the upcoming election and the future trajectory of American politics.
Trump's Explicit Nostalgia: Make America Great Again, Again
Donald Trump's appeal to voters was, characteristically, rooted in an explicit call to return to what he portrayed as the golden era of his first term. Throughout the debate, Trump painted a picture of pre-Covid-19 America under his leadership as a time of unparalleled economic strength, global peace, and national greatness.
"We had no problems when Trump was president," he declared, attributing the quote to the autocratic leader of Hungary Viktor Orbán. This statement epitomizes Trump's campaign strategy: presenting his potential second term as a restoration of a supposedly idyllic recent past.
His promise to return to the recent past offers no solutions for issues like climate change, healthcare access, or racial injustice that have only become more pressing.
Trump's vision, however, is largely disconnected from the realities of his presidency. His claims of economic prosperity ignore the growing income inequality and the impact of his trade wars on American farmers and manufacturers. His assertion of global peace overlooks escalating tensions with Iran, North Korea, and China during his tenure.
The former president's rhetoric doesn't promise a better future so much as it pledges a triumphant return to a mythologized past. This approach resonates with a segment of the electorate that is fueled by fear, offering them a comforting, if illusory, promise of turning back the clock.
Trump's nostalgia is more overt, promising a return to a time just before the Covid-19 pandemic upended American life. It's a powerful message for those who feel that recent years have brought unwelcome changes to their communities and way of life. However, this vision ignores the ways in which long-standing economic and social policies have contributed to current inequalities and challenges. His promise to return to the recent past offers no solutions for issues like climate change, healthcare access, or racial injustice that have only become more pressing.
Harris' Implicit Nostalgia: A Return to 'Normal' Politics
Vice President Kamala Harris, in contrast, explicitly framed her candidacy as forward-looking. She repeatedly emphasized the need to "turn the page" and "move forward," positioning herself as a representative of a "new generation of leadership."
Harris' debate performance was widely regarded as stronger than Trump's. She appeared more composed, better prepared, and more focused on substantive policy discussions. Her rhetoric emphasized unity, hope, and the possibility of progress, echoing themes that have been successful for Democratic candidates in recent elections.
While acknowledging pressing issues like climate change and social inequality, Harris stops short of proposing the kind of structural changes that many progressives argue are necessary.
However, a closer examination of Harris' policy proposals and overall message reveals a vision that is less about charting a new course than it is about returning to a centrist, pre-Trump status quo. Her economic policies, for instance, rely heavily on market-based solutions and tax incentives reminiscent of the Clinton era. Her emphasis on "unity" and bipartisanship harks back to the Obama administration's early optimism about bridging partisan divides.
In essence, Harris is offering a return to a romanticized version of recent Democratic governance—a time before the disruptions of the Trump era, when political norms were more stable and progress seemed more achievable through incremental change within existing systems.
Harris' nostalgia is subtler but no less present. Her rhetoric evokes the perceived stability and respectability of pre-Trump politics, appealing to voters who are exhausted by the former president's confrontational style and norm-breaking behavior. While acknowledging pressing issues like climate change and social inequality, Harris stops short of proposing the kind of structural changes that many progressives argue are necessary. Her vision, anchored in centrist Democratic policies reminiscent of earlier administrations, may not be sufficient to address the scale of challenges facing the nation, from wealth inequality to the climate crisis.
Rear-View Mirror Politics: Charting a Course to the Past
The reliance on nostalgia by both candidates reflects a broader trend in American politics. It speaks to a widespread sense of dissatisfaction with the present and anxiety about the future. Both Trump and Harris are tapping into a collective yearning for a time when things seemed simpler, more stable, or more aligned with voters' values and expectations.
However, this reliance on nostalgic visions reveals a significant limitation in both candidates' approaches. By looking backward for solutions, they fail to fully address the root causes of current problems or offer truly innovative visions for the future.
The 2024 election thus presents a critical juncture for American democracy. Will voters embrace the comfort of familiar, backward-looking visions, or will they demand a more innovative, forward-thinking approach to governance?
The debate highlighted a paradox in American politics: While there's a broad consensus that significant change is needed, both major party candidates are essentially offering variations on past approaches. This reflects the inherent conservatism of established political parties and the challenges of proposing radical change within existing power structures. It also speaks to the difficulty of articulating a truly new vision that can appeal to a broad electoral coalition.
What's notably missing from both candidates' messages is a truly progressive vision that acknowledges the failures of past policies and proposes fundamental changes to address systemic issues. As climate change accelerates, technological disruption reshapes the economy, and social tensions persist, the limitations of backward-looking solutions become increasingly apparent.
The debate between Harris and Trump revealed not just the differences between the candidates, but also the shared constraints of American political discourse. It highlighted the need for a more forward-looking, innovative approach to governance—one that learns from the past without being bound by it, and that isn't afraid to reimagine systems and institutions to meet the demands of the future.
The 2024 election thus presents a critical juncture for American democracy. Will voters embrace the comfort of familiar, backward-looking visions, or will they demand a more innovative, forward-thinking approach to governance? It is precisely this question that progressives must begin organising around to challenge the threat of rearview politics from both parties. Only in doing so can we truly begin charting a genuinely hopeful course to the future.
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Everyone Talks About the Economy, But No One Does Anything About It!
Buried in the 2020 Democratic Party platform is a little discussed line that could hold the key to reducing wanton job destruction. Will Kamala Harris seize this opportunity?
Sep 09, 2024
The number one issue in the election this year, polls tell us, is “the economy.” But what does that mean?
That depends on who you are and where you sit in the vast structure of inequality that engulfs us. If you’re sitting pretty, “the economy” means an expanding gross national product, the growth of your investments, higher stock prices, and lower personal and corporate income taxes. “The economy” for the well-to-do is all about increasing income and wealth with no interference from government meddlers.
For the rest of us, those sitting lower down, “the economy” is deeply connected to finding and holding onto a job that provides a decent income and benefits. Without a stable job it doesn’t much matter if housing or food is expensive, because if you don’t have work you can’t afford much of anything. You’re in trouble, big trouble. Proposals for systemic economic growth seem far removed from your day-to-day struggles.
A low unemployment rate, to be sure, is critically important to working people. Tight labor markets help drive up wages and create job more openings, but that’s not the same as having a stable job. Unemployment can be low and you still can be bounced from job to job, continually undermining your standard of living.
How do these corporations get the money for nearly three-quarters of a trillion dollars in stock buybacks each year? They lay off workers, freeing up cash by reducing payroll expenses. The more the better.
The research from my book, Wall Street’s War on Workers, shows that more than 30 million workers have lost their jobs due to mass layoffs since 1996. The usual explanation for these layoffs puts the blame on new technologies and the inevitable decline of manufacturing jobs because of stiff global competition from workers in other countries who earn much less.
But that’s not the whole story. If it was, then why are high-tech workers also seeing their jobs disappear? (Spoiler alert, it’s not AI.) In 2023, approximately 264,220 jobs were lost in tech companies, the crown jewels of our post-industrial economy. So far this year, another 135,811 have evaporated.
The Challenger Report, which tracks overall corporate layoffs, finds that 75,891 jobs were cut in August 2024. It also shows that on average this year, 891 jobs per month were cut due to AI. (For a fuller description on why new technologies like AI are not the primary job killers, please see Chapter 11 in Wall Street’s War on Workers.)
Why is there so much job instability? For the most prosperous corporations, it’s not due to a lack of profits, technology, or foreign competition. Meta, Alphabet, and Microsoft laid off more than 40,000 workers in 2022-23 despite booking hundreds of billions of dollars in profits.
These high-tech behemoths kill jobs because of what “the economy” means to their CEOs and to their major Wall Street investors. Their economy values higher stock prices, which translates into enormous incomes for investors and the company executives who are mostly paid through stock incentives.
How do they raise the stock price? Better products? Sure, that works but it takes too much time. The best and surest way to quickly raise the stock price is through a stock buyback, which before SEC deregulation in 1982 was an illegal form of financial manipulation. In a stock buyback, a company uses its own cash or borrowed money to repurchase its own shares in the stock market. These stocks are retired, reducing the number available and increasing the company’s earnings per share. The buyback doesn’t improve the company’s performance, it simply raises the price of the shares and shovels money to the wealthiest investors and company officials. This is plain and simple stock manipulation, something that Econ 101 tells us is a no-no in free-market capitalism where prices are supposed to be set by market supply and demand, not by one company’s self-dealing.
How do these corporations get the money for nearly three-quarters of a trillion dollars in stock buybacks each year? They lay off workers, freeing up cash by reducing payroll expenses. The more the better. Which is how the very same economy can look so very different to those siphoning off corporate wealth and those losing their jobs.
How are the two presidential candidates addressing this problem?
Trump wants to make it worse. He’s in love with Elon Musk, who he called in a recent interview “the greatest cutter.” He praises the way Musk laid off half of the workers at Twitter to help cover the costs of his purchase of the company. Trump now says he wants Musk to head a government efficiency commission, so he can cut, cut, cut government employees. And, if you think Trump will halt or even limit stock buybacks, please share your meds!
What about Harris? The Democratic Party platform in 2024 calls for an increase in the stock buyback excise tax from 1 to 4 percent. That’s better than nothing, but that’s nowhere near high enough to discourage stock buybacks and the job slashing that goes with them.
Voluntary buyouts are common for higher-level white-collar employees, why not make them the rule of the land for companies doing business with the government?
But buried in the 2020 Democratic Party platform is a little discussed line that could hold the key to reducing wanton job destruction. It reads, “Taxpayer money should not be used to pay out dividends, fund stock buybacks, or give raises to executives.” Unfortunately, this refers only to pandemic assistance funds to corporations, but it offers a way forward.
Harris could expand on that line to say,
“In my administration, no taxpayer money will go to corporations who lay off taxpayers and conduct stock buybacks. That means the $700 billion of taxpayer money per year in federal grants and contracts will not go to any corporation that lays off taxpayers or conducts stock buybacks.”
Corporations receiving tax-payer money would be free to restructure if they needed to, but would only be permitted to conduct voluntary layoffs, which means they would have to dip into their massive stock buyback funds to create wage and benefit severance packages sufficient to encourage workers to move on. Voluntary buyouts are common for higher-level white-collar employees, why not make them the rule of the land for companies doing business with the government?
In 1992, during Bill Clinton’s first campaign for president, James Carville famously said of the race’s most important issue, “it’s the economy, stupid.” Today, “the economy” means different things for the wealthy than it does for the rest of us. Maybe Carville’s mantra needs revision: “It’s job loss, stupid!”
Losing your job is one of the most stressful life events, but the troubles of those laid off are often papered over with promises of bright new jobs in the future that go to someone else. The candidate who turns this stress into action and calls for an end to the needless slaughter of jobs via stock buybacks could, in my humble opinion, run away with this election.Keep ReadingShow Less
US Workers Are So Much Better Off Today Than 4 Years Ago—It's Not Even Close
Here are some of the economic facts.
Sep 06, 2024
This is not a tough one. First and foremost, workers are better off today because they overwhelmingly have jobs if they want them. They also are getting higher pay, even after adjusting for inflation. And they tell us they are much more satisfied at their jobs.
When President Biden took office, the unemployment rate was 6.4 percent. It is currently 4.3 percent. For most of his presidency the unemployment rate has been below 4.0 percent, a stretch of low unemployment not seen in more than half a century.
The story looks even better if we look at the percentage of people who have jobs, since many people are not counted as being unemployed if they don’t even look for work because of a weak labor market.
In January of 2021, the share of people in their prime working years (ages 25 to 54) who had jobs was 76.4 percent. In the most recent data, it stood at 80.9 percent, 4.6 percentage points higher.
This is not just an issue of millions more people being able to get jobs. When the labor market is as strong as it has been, workers can have their choice of jobs. They can leave jobs where the pay is low, the workplace is unsafe, or the boss is a jerk.
The United States is the only wealthy country where workers have seen substantial wage growth since the pandemic. In most countries wages have fallen behind inflation.
Workers switched jobs in record numbers in the years 2021-2023. Tens of millions of people quit their jobs and moved on to better ones. One result was that workers reported the highest rate of job satisfaction on record. This is a big deal, since most workers spend a large share of their waking hours on the job.
The tight labor market also gave workers the power to resist employers’ demands that they return to the office when the worst of the pandemic was over. As a result, the number of people who report being able to work from home has increased by 19 million from the pre-pandemic level.
This shift has been largely ignored by the media, but these workers are saving hundreds of hours a year in commuting time and saving thousands on transportation and other commuting-related expenses. It’s true that the option to work from home is mostly available to higher paid workers, but 19 million people is nearly one-eighth of the workforce, not some tiny elite.
If working from home was a benefit that mostly went to higher paid workers, the pay increases disproportionately went to those at the bottom, reversing the pattern that had been in place for more than four decades. An analysis from the Economic Policy Institute found that wages for workers in the bottom ten percent of the wage distribution increased by 13.4 percent from before the pandemic, after adjusting for inflation.
Wages for workers in the middle increased by 3.0 percent over this period, also after adjusting for inflation. This is not great, but it is better than what we saw over most of the prior four decades, when wages were often stagnant or falling.
And this wage growth occurred in spite of a worldwide pandemic that whacked growth and caused inflation everywhere. The United States is the only wealthy country where workers have seen substantial wage growth since the pandemic. In most countries wages have fallen behind inflation.
It is also important to realize the world-leading recovery was not something that just happened. It was not inevitable that the economy would bounce back quickly from the pandemic shutdowns. There was very rapid job growth in the summer of 2020, as most of the shutdowns ended. But job growth slowed considerably in the fall. In the last three months of the Trump administration, we were creating jobs at the rate of just 140,000 a month. At that pace it would have taken us more than five and a half years to get back the jobs lost in the recession.
The Biden administration’s recovery package got back these jobs in less than a year and a half. The rapid job growth has continued so that we now have 6.4 million more jobs than we did before the pandemic. With the economy still growing at a good clip and inflation back to its pre-pandemic pace, for workers the future is bright.
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