Robert Reich Thinks the Baby Boomers Blew It
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.
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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.
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