To give him a piece of your mind about what the d.n.c. Has done and what you want them to do in the future so looking forward to that right now I am joined by d.d. Gotten plan got in fine joined us here in Berkeley 2 months ago at an event that I hosted along with Michael Lerner he has just written a new book The next Republic the rise of the new radical majority and he is correspondent extraordinary for The Nation magazine based in London Good afternoon or good evening Don welcome back to k.p. F.a.a. Good to talk to you again Philip and good morning Cisco well. Maybe before we talk about your book we should get this BRICs that thing out of the way. Areas if it's going to get out of the way out of the. Well. Theresa May does appear to have been some kind of sacrificial lamb that's been put on the altar out there for the purpose of appeasing the gods but it the gods don't seem appeased at all she's she's getting rejected by the e.u. Ministers when she went there to try to get a better deal her her party itself actually did give her a very limp vote of confidence in a vote of 200 to 117 and. But in the meantime she doesn't have the votes to pass her bricks at planned and. Everybody everybody hates it it it's a see it appears what do you think well I think everybody hated for a good reason because it's terrible but but but that doesn't mean they're not going to path I mean you have to realize that in politics there's always a choice and so what that conservatives face last week was the choice of deciding to carry on with Theresa May or get rid of her and elect a new leader and although she's come up with this plan that pretty much every Tory except her members of her own cabinet hate 2 thirds still the fatted they'd rather stick with her than take a chance on somebody else and there has to be a reason for that and one reason for that is because there's nobody else in the Tory party that has even her ability to hold the party together from fracturing and if they fracture that would lead in Jeremy Corbett on the Labor Party which is anathema to the Tory so. You know some people think that part parliament will vote this down and then she will resign and the Tories will or they'll be a general election which is what Jeremy Corbyn says he would like to happen he says this should Parma should vote this down and once it's voted down since Theresa May the only real purpose in being prime minister is to get this deal through if she can't. It's true she should resign and let somebody take her place who can negotiate a better deal with Europe the problem with that is that the idea of a better deal with Europe is pretty much a fantasy it's a labor fantasy as opposed to the right wing Tory fantasy that we're going to be able to have a as Boris Johnson used to say he was in favor of cake and he was in favor of eating it. And that's not really on offer as the Tory party is finding out and I suspect that Labor will soon find out that a better break to deal with sort of. Left Braxton which we've got to move into the sunny uplands of autarky socialism where the state can fund economy in ways that Bracks it wouldn't allow and and workers can have all these wonderful rights isn't going to happen either because that's not the Europe that we have it's the Europe that might be imagined and that might have to someday but isn't to Europe that we actually have so I would say that the short version is that anybody who tells you he knows what's going to happen in British politics in the next 2 weeks is lying Well Chel mean what the position of the Labor Party is Bracks. Well the interesting thing is that the Labor Party is just a divided on Brecht as the Tory party they hatreds don't go as deep and people don't tend to care about this much but one thing that's worth noting is that although most Labor M.P.'s campaigned against practices they campaigned for remaining in Europe when that was voted on in 2017. It's also true that most Labor M.P.'s come from parts of the country that where the people voters voted in favor of leaving so for the Labor party to to suddenly come out in favor of remaining would be to put in jeopardy a majority of its own seats so part of what core business strategy of constructive ambiguity which is one way to describe it is about is the very same electoral calculation that coming out on one side or another this is only going to cost them votes and if they can just keep quiet until the Tories self-destruct and they can figure out what to do and actually that hasn't been a bad strategy in terms of the the Tory self-destruction but it the problem with that it doesn't really create a mandate for labor to do anything I mean the current Labor position is that if this deal is turned down by parliament then there should be a vote of no confidence which is when or parties have to vote on whether the government still retains the mage the government of the day still retains the confidence of Parliament and that at the present moment Labor would lose that vote in other words the Tories would decide to stay in power because you know Turkey's tend not to vote for Christmas. It's true that because one of the one of the Turkish tend not to vote for Christmas. What about Thanksgiving but I suppose I've been over here long enough to tell you the British version of they have turkey for Christmas he hardly have things here are there anything rethink before because they're not American. Protester have they have turkey for Christmas anyway one of the hinges of Brecht's it one of the points of contention is what will happen to the Republic of Ireland which is currently a state in good standing of the European Union has every desire to remain that way and Northern Ireland which is also currently part of the European Union and. In the old days of European utopianism we used to think that Europe was the answer to sectarian border problems like in Ireland or in Cyprus where you know in the end it wouldn't matter whether you were from Northern Ireland or the Republicans wouldn't matter whether you were Northern Cyprus or Republican surface because you were all part of the growing European superstate were people were going to be able to cross borders without passports and work in any country you wanted to and live wherever you wanted in and borders and nationalism was all going to I think the Marxian phrases wither away like the state but it seems not to work out that way we seem to be in an age of resurgent nationalism and you know one of the problems that the Tories have faced in BRICs it is that. They are kept in power by the 10 votes of the the do you plead to Democratic Unionist Party which is a. Protestant based nationalist Northern Irish party. Which has no desire to dissolve the border between. Northern Ireland and the rest of Ireland and even less of a desire to have Northern Ireland have a different regime than the rest of of Great Britain the United Kingdom and so any any agreement that Theresa May reaches with Europe that keeps the current status of not having a border between northern and southern Ireland which would mean submitting to European trade regimes and regulations won't fly with a d u p but without the votes of the d.p. She can't remain in power well hard border between northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland would be no end of craziness for the people that live there I don't think the general he actually represents a border post kept on getting blown up shot at and you know they were a daily reminder but to do you Piers not representing the people of Northern Ireland who I don't think was hard fast border. Where the people have lived in Ireland don't want a hard border but the problem is that they also that the Democrat in fact most people in Northern Ireland voted remain but the p.c. As a party supports backs it and it's their 10 votes that are the margin between the Keeps the Tory party in power in Westminster That's why I said it wasn't clear we could get through this in a now you know Ok and the Scottish National Party in Scotland is very in favor of remaining very anti Breck's it but Scotland is not even being considered in any of this ground of an interest to it because Scotland is not at the moment a separate member of the European Union where the Republic of Ireland is a separate member of the European Union and because the European Union has. Unanimously agree to any treaty allowing any other member to leave affectively the Republic of Ireland has a veto on what conditions the rest of Europe will agree to and the Republic of Ireland realizes that its trade its economy would be strangled if you suddenly had to have customs posts and border inspections between you know between allstar and the rest of Ireland so they really don't want that but without those you then turn the Northern Ireland into a kind of smuggling entry into the rest of into the rest of Europe through Britain so it's. It's a tricky problem it's a mess yes we have none of those kinds of problems here of course. In the States and. Yes Ok So again your book I'm speaking with Dee Dee gotten plan who is with The Nation magazine and his book is the next Republic the rise of the new radical majority and though the Dems did quite well in the u.s. House of Representatives gaining 40 seats they lost 2 seats in the Senate and the Dems are. As your book reflects are still. In what can I say in the process of sorting out the Bernie Kratz versus the Hillary Kratz and the party does seem to have a bit of a death wish here there are something like over 20 pounds a bull Candidates throwing their hat in the ring to be the Democratic candidate for president in 2020. If anybody can name all 20 of those people I would give you a little prize but maybe you could decode whether the Bernie craps in the Hillary Kratz are have some kind of suicide pact you know I don't think back I think there is a genuine battle going on and I think in some ways not unrelated to what's happening in Europe because. What happened in 2008 is was that the sort of post-war the Washington Consensus the series that that politics was over and it was all about managing capitalism and the capitalism was going to once we had growth true globalization was going to deliver prosperity to everybody turned out to be not true you know it turned out that yes some people got richer but a lot of other people became a misery and and there was no relief in sight and there was still no relief in sight by 2016. And people felt I think with justification that they were being ignored and that politics wasn't responding to them and those are the conditions under which populism flourishes when there's a kind of radical break between most ordinary people and the governing elites and the governing elite are come to be seen as illegitimate and what we had in the us was you had. You had during the primary season you had a challenge to talk about 20 or 16 now yes 2016 from Bernie Sanders but that was foreclosed by the victory of Hillary Clinton in the crowd in the primaries and then you had a challenge to the consensus by Donald Trump which as we know was not foreclosed Now I'm no fan of Donald Trump I think you could argue and fact I would argue and do argue in my book that people were desperate for a change and that the door to the left was blocked so that people people desperate for a change took the only door that was open to them which in this case was the door to the right and that in a sense is also what you see happening. Where you see a neck the next iteration of that happening in France now with these you know where you have you know people were promised that macron was going to bring competence and it was going to be a kind of managerial with state in which you know equity would rain but in fact it just turned out to be another state run by and for the wealthy and people are disgusted with it now the interesting thing in France is that you have at the moment you have what looks like left and right populism joining hands and deciding that they whatever else they disagree on they can't stand McCrone who's even less popular in his country than Donald Trump is in America but. I think it's it would be a mistake to to say that what's going on in the Democratic Party is a crisis in the Burnie Kratz I think except for a few die hards on both sides that's over and everybody understands that the old you know America is already great the sort of Bill Clinton view of the economy and how the world works has been completely discredited so you have a bunch of people who are trying to either articulate a new view or anoint themselves as the avatars of a new view and I don't actually think that's a bad thing at this point I think we you know we should have choice we should have debate I think debate is good I think contest is good I think you know Bernie has his vision which he's been setting out pretty consistently for I don't know 2030 years but you know he's been sitting out for a long time and he's not getting any younger Elizabeth Warren has been saying similar things for quite a long time she's a bit younger than Bernie she calls herself a capitalist he calls himself a socialist so you know that may affect how some people view them. You know Sherrod Brown has been coming at it from the other direction you've got people in California who are quite talented who are saying some of the same things and I think at this stage it's really it would be a terrible thing I mean that's what we did remember 262015 when everybody said everybody except the Bernie people decided that Hillary was going to be the nominee didn't work out great so I She was the nominee they were right and she just didn't realize how many but but anointed her as a nominee did her no favors and did the country no favor Well let's define the word populism for a 2nd to explain what it means Ok well I mean it's the great thing about populism to an American audience is it's the american think it began the 19th century there was an agrarian revolt I am holding in my hands as the former senator from Wisconsin used to say the populist moment by Lawrence good one which is the end the essential. Book on populism that all of your listeners should run right out right after your program and read if they haven't already read and if you're really you're in that in the 870 s. And 880 s. There was a revolt against what was called the p.s. T. And enjoy the crop leaving system where farmers essentially had to take out loans in order to get the money to plant their next year's crops to buy the seed in the fertilizer and the supplies they needed and these loans would be held by banks who would then take a portion of the crops when it came in to pay off their loans when nothing is changed they still do the same thing well that system is changed a bit partly because the system became illegal but also because the populace had a whole series of demands about changing the money changing the currency changing the way the economy worked but also they had demands about things like the 8 hour day and and. Universal suffrage and letting women vote and in the 18 days they joined hands with the Knights of Labor which was the 1st sort of organized labor union labor unions in the us. And they also had a movement in the south where they were the only interracial movement in the south since since the abolitionists they succeeded in some states in uniting white and black tenant farmers in their demands for agrarian reform but unfortunately the populists essentially were both taken over and sold out by the Democratic Party who nominated William Jennings Bryan in $896.00 who ran on a platform that was populist sounding but was really only about the currency and didn't really reflect the more radical social demands of the populace and in any case failed. He was not victorious and after that the popular with some of them turned pretty rancid Tom Watson who was a populist newspaper editor in Georgia who had been one of the architects of. Oh no . Call ended we're going to have to call him back. This will give me a chance to say something else again our guest is Judy Guten plan we're a gotten plan excuse me cutting plan we're going to call him back and get him back on the line the name of his book is the next Republic the rise of the new radical majority it's out in paperback and it's put out by 7 stories press It's 20 minutes after 9 and assuming we get our phones working again we'll be opening the phones to your called and questions and comments in 20 minutes here at k p f a at 1895890081809589008 and want to give you a report on our fundraising drive which ended Friday evening the total for the what was it 11 days of fundraising was $325000.00 by the end of the year by December 31st we're hoping to increase that up to $450000.00. And of the year fund raising is something that is a staple here at k p f a and we've been doing it for years if you are like me oh I got a direct mail piece from Kay p.f.a. This past week it is now in the pile of the other direct mail pieces that I've gotten from other charities that I've given to in the past and I'm going to go through that pile and make decisions about how much to give to each of those charities so I do hope you put the k. P.f.a. At the top of the list at the top of the pile for your contributions I might also mention that if you would rather go to k p f 8 out o. r G go to k p f o r g right now and you can subscribe and pick out from all the different premiums that we asked during the drive so you can get any of those premiums they were. Still on the website at k. P.f.a. Dot org She and contribute to k. P.f.a. I want to also on a very sad note let you know that the Saturday morning program or the Gospel experience Emmett Powell died 2 days ago in his eighty's a staple just a valiant. Part of k p f a the Gospel experience being one of our most important programs every Saturday morning here at k. P.f.a. Emmet Powell. Really just a generous and warm person passed away 2 days ago so we do have gotten planned on the line the mystery is of the phone company have not have been defeated the phone company is not going to keep us from doing our tasks down let's we've sort of defined pop a little popular. Where I got sort of lost. Where it went sour are you still there you know I'm still here yeah good good well anyway populism I mean it's a it's a political movement it's also a cultural movement I think the best way to put it is that it's a kind of it's a revolt of the masses against the elite. And it's itself consciously that in other words it's it's people who recognise that they're being excluded from the system and they decide to reject the legitimacy of the system and as you can see by the way I describe it it doesn't necessarily have a specific political content although in the United States where it originated the history of it was as a progressive movement indeed if you look at the populist the Omaha platform of 1892 which was the populists. Kind of charter and you compare it to the Socialist Party platform of the 1912 they're pretty similar they're sort of 3 quarters of the demands of the same demands and a lot of those demands were later passed into law by the progressives during the teens and twenty's so. I'm probably taking so long to explain this because one of the things that happens if you live in Europe as I do is pop Islam gets used as a sort of shorthand Dorsch or a code for right wing authoritarianism and that isn't what it that is what it comes from and isn't what it is in most cases it although it is it was a legitimate way to describe somebody like or ban and hungry or or the liaison in France or Mussolini aspect or well Mussolini called himself a socialist so I don't know whether you could call him a populist Ok well but let me ask you you you seem to imply that the 8 years of Obama were of by and for the rich in this country is that what you're saying Well I think that I think if you look at the income distribution and who benefited and whether wages for me. Stagnant Yeah I think you could argue that Obama presided very well as a sort of c.e.o. Of America Inc that things got better at the margins for people but they didn't get a lot better for people who needed it the most and they did get a lot better for people who needed it the least Yeah I would I would say that but isn't it far worse under Trump when he's destroying the environment she's got a tax cut for the rich she's essential e stiffed working people at every possible turn all his promises about opening coal mines and putting people back to work and high paying jobs all that was b.s. And if you're if you're asking me if Trump is of worse President than Obama of course I voted for Obama twice I'm never going to vote for Trump but I think that setting the bar pretty raw Don't you I mean I would argue that one place I would differ with you though is I would say that actually to trump supporters and I think I guess I think it's important to try to understand where from support comes from apart from diehard racist diehard massaging ists who obviously form part of his base but I don't think there are enough of them in the United States to elect a president so I think you know unlike the Hillary people who want to write them off as a basket of deplorable I think it's important to understand where some of his support comes from and I think some of his support comes from people who live in places like western Pennsylvania Eastern Ohio West Virginia that in Michigan who have seen the industrial economy of America hollowed out and have seen their prospects and the prospects of their children for good jobs and decent lives just evaporate in the face of globalization well and I think if you try to give me a ground with Asian then you have to think that Trump has kept some promise you know he has challenged he has challenge Chinese manufacturing he has he has put a price. Aready on buying American for the federal government and way that haven't been seen before and I don't think that makes him a good president but I think for his base It means that he kept some of the promises they care about as far as globalization goes. It's yours it's your essential a putting a finger in the dike trying to hold it back I don't think the day in which those jobs are coming back that North Korea line is going to produce furniture again and and the paper mills are going to be humming in in Wisconsin or what you know it's interesting you say that because as you pointed out I'm talking you from Europe where you know the French and the Germans have been very successful in protecting their manufacturing jobs and keeping keeping people employed in manufacturing and creating a path to high wage employment for people who don't go to college so you know the Europeans have clearly found a way to do this well the French are resulting right now so it didn't it obviously didn't work well enough. Pardon me the French are revolting right now so. Why did I leave only about that they were voting that I think they're voting about taxes they're voting about the fact that people who live in the country are being asked to pay for Micron's promises on carbon while the rich don't pay I mean it's you know it's in some way to analogous to people in America who complain about the cost of Obamacare. But they don't consider that but but they didn't they complain about the cost of Obamacare instead of considering that it was the decision to to continue using a private insurance based system rather than a tax based health insurance system their results and in high medical costs for people who don't have very much money I mean wouldn't you wouldn't say that the problem there is that it didn't work you'd say that they decided to get the money from the wrong set of people and that's what that's what the French are saying to macron they're saying you know if you want to if you want to have a cleaner environment fine but don't make poor people in the country pay for it well I would quibble about Obamacare actually costing the poor people money at the expansion of Medicaid is clearly not helping the insurance companies and it's clearly a benefit for the poor and marginal to expire expand Medicaid I realize that in the middle to Medicaid is a great thing but I think that you can find plenty of people working people who are struggling and who are struggling to pay their Obamacare premium and that you know it would have political decision to do it by private insurance rather than having a national single payer health insurance system like they have in Canada or in Great Britain and nothing would have happened if you had tried that you would have gotten a true either house and we would have nothing I sense the argument is the Obamacare is better than than what we had before it's not as good as what it could be or should be with single payer but it's like the enemy of the. Good is the perfect. Well you sound like Theresa May trying to sell her brick deal but she's not convincing people and I'm not sure you are either well quite frankly isn't it obvious that if Obama tried to go for single payer nothing would have happened no it's not obvious he had majorities in both houses he was newly elected he had an enormous amount of political capital No I think he could have I could have he could could go on for clinical for single payer or he could have at least kept the public option on the table which was originally part of the bill I mean again due to political decisions you know he made a political calculation to take the public option off the table the public option to buy into Medicare or you know very. Public option paths wall possible and they were taken off the table and I think he has to carry the can for that yes well let's sensually look at the reality of what Trump is doing now which is trying to kill what's left of Obamacare and leave poor people with not you know they're not really I mean to this I think assumption that this is sort of you're not going to turn me into a trump defender but I think you know I think. I think health care is going to be a huge issue in the coming election but I also think and you know this is something that I write about in my book but it's one of the one of the things that people are organizing around it's one of the ways that the political system hasn't delivered it's one of the things that's been kept off the agenda I mean what what what what I learned from from history and from my reporting is that part of what happens in American politics it quickly that there are big issues that are kept off the agenda for example the way the issue of slavery was kept off the agenda politically both parties agreed to exclude slavery from debate for the 1st you know 90 years of our country's history for 80 years. Of our country's history and in the end it was it was thanks to the actions of African-Americans who and their allies in the abolitionist movement that it was put on the agenda so I think you know what we're seeing now is we're seeing a whole bunch of things that were kept off the agenda by for example Democrats centrist Democrats like Bill Clinton for example to the fact that you know the oil companies don't pay the true cost the social cost of their operations they they get to make money and then pollute and they don't have to pay for the cleanup that you know we were ruining the planet and we're not actually making countries companies that are doing that pay the cost of cleaning it up that we're the most advanced capitalist economy in on the planet yet we have a poor health care system then you know sort of a lot of pretty average European countries and why is that so there are a lot of things that our politics have kept off the agenda or you know as you put it a few minutes ago they just wouldn't even possible they're not possible well you know part of what's happening part of what part of what's contributing to the rise of a new radical majority is people are deciding that these things need to be considered possible they need they need to be on the agenda you know the climate change is too urgent to be left to politicians to solve with the lack of affordable health care is too urgent to be left to the to the politicians in Washington to solve that the fact that you can no longer. Have a decent job and then send your kids to college because they're going to come out of college in the same kind of debt peonage that you know a Georgia sharecropper would have been in in the 1890s is too important to be left to the politicians to solve that these are these things that demand radical action and radical solutions and that there are constituencies that are forming around them and I think those constituencies are going to reshape our politics 34 minutes after 9 and we are going to a phone short but you're called in questions and comments 18095890081809589008 . I must say that the Dems Absolutely. Focused on health care as their primary issue in this last campaign and it seemed to have worked for them of course every dam has a different view of what reform of health care would look like but that that was a winning winning tactic for them and it was all it was a winning tactic but it's risky and I'll tell you why it's risky and this is this again goes to the rise of a certain kind of authoritarian populism populism in Europe which is if you campaign on offering people solutions to real problems and then when you come to power you don't do it then what you do is you discredit politics you discredit the democratic process and you give rise to the view or you contribute to people cynicism and a kind of cynicism that says Democratic politics can't solve these problems only in a forest area and can deliver what we need so I think yes I think it's great that the Democrats have made health care an issue and I think it's it's important that it is an issue but I also think that it's important that they be held to account and made to deliver when they are in a position to do something about it so back to delivering on it which would require a Democratic president coming up in 2 years do you want to give us your insights on that topic. I don't have a prediction but I have been to delivering on it going to require Democratic president I think you know you said something earlier and maybe you want to talk about this with your next guest. Because one of the things Franklin Roosevelt did when he was governor of New York was he turned New York into a laboratory for all of the programs a century that became the new deal where all piloted in New York state and you know more modern versions when he was governor So yes it would be great to have a Democratic president a Democratic Senate. And you know I look forward to helping to elect one in 2020 but in the mean time particularly in states like California and New York where you have Democratic majorities and Democratic governors you know some experimentation Let's see some leadership which is possible I think it's a mistake to expect change to happen only from the top down and only the national level. Once again nobody's calling Actually I'm not sure maybe nobody's listening or. If you are you intimidate them they don't want to talk to you or they don't want to talk to me that's also a possibility the phone number is 18095890081809589008 and maybe the phones aren't working I don't know I don't know what the problem maybe they were just all out late last night there's that possibility Well there are of course possibilities of that California can do a good many things oh there somebody calling that's a good sign the phones are working. For me of course is the largest state in population 40000000 people and it has in fact put in place a good many progressive What can you say programs etc But we've got Donald Trump breathing down our necks we've got there department of you know everything from Health and Human Services to immigration it goes on and on and on. Trying to I mean let me give you an example about medical care in Obamacare or food stamps for example the problem that is exists is if you are an immigrant to this country. Trump is threatening to deport you even if you're a totally legal immigrant with a green card if you use. If you are. A recipient of any government program for example food stamps or for example Obamacare so essentially totally legal immigrants to this country are now afraid of taking getting their rightful benefits. Of food stamps or Obamacare for fear that they will be deported the whole climate of this country seems to have been one in which. He is with his bully pulpit he is intimidating people quite successfully. Why he needs to be resisted absolutely absolutely needs to be reposed sound like they're illegal because the law has never restrained Trump as president. But you know needs to be resisted but I still think that there's a lot that states can do there's a lot that can be tried and also. If he hasn't shown that much interest in governing So you know I thought Chris he likes to intimidate people and if you can can intimidate people or he can shut something down by making a pronouncement who make a pronouncement in terms of follow through on programs and execution he hasn't really seemed to be able to execute anything with these wanted to do so I think it's important to challenge him it's important to expose what a paper tiger he is a lot of the time and what a blowhard in a bully. Well we'll see how it goes it is now 940 and time to open the phones to listener callers now all the lines are full say. They're not afraid of you they're not afraid of me maybe they're bored with both of us it's possible but we will go to our 1st caller id soon as we punch up one of the 1st callers. Mickey's on the phone talking to one of the current callers so when she manages to take care of the current caller she will punch up the next person to be on the air let's let's put somebody on the air Mickey. On the air 1st as Andy and Redwood City Good morning Andy. Good morning Philip and good morning you're wonderful great guest who is trying to straighten you out man. On Man you are the one that's out of touch I mean you were really out of touch when Obama ran in 2007 he gave a speech to the a.f.l.-cio that he was a big single payer guy that is all out for single payer man then he goes and gets elected all of a sudden the changes to the public option now he's all public option then they start negotiating the whole thing and a public option is out and that's because Rahm Emanuel well and the so-called quote unquote centrist Democrats who are really the most neo liberal pieces a garbage on the face of the earth and then we go to the health care system we have now and we've always had the for profit health care system doesn't work that totally reams working class people making life much much worse than it could possibly be I have voted for Obama the 1st time around because I wanted single payer I heard him give an a.f.l.-cio speech in 2007 and that was a major reason I voted for him I gave up on him his 2nd term he was a complete disaster and he was the the biggest disappointment of my life Ok and that's good Judy's response to you've got a friend. I hate to disagree with somebody so differently on my side but I think you're right about health care and I agree with you on that. I get that it's hard for me having I'm 60 years old so the 1st president I can remember is Lyndon Johnson really and it's hard for me to completely dismiss Obama I wish he'd done better I would have been a better president I think he did he does deserve the blame for that for the health care deserves the blame for not going after Wall Street money for not putting a few bankers in jail but I don't think when you compare Obama to Bill Clinton he was head and shoulders a better president when you compare him to I don't know you know who the Republican player president head and shoulders a better president I mean to me Obama. Presidency was a tragedy to me not not a sort of hostile regime Well I think that what both you and Andy are saying that I will differ with is this is not a left country this is a center right country and it's been a center right country going all the way back to Eisenhower and sure I have to differ with you because if you look at you know there was recently there's been a lot of stories written about these polls about what people want their politics are and if and if you look at it if you look at the polling data and us people do you want a universal health care system do you want to system of paid family leave for parents and caregivers do you want to particularly everything go right in one of Bernie Sanders platform people favorite by large majority that in fact in most cases the Republicans favor them favor these things by ridge or majority of people describe themselves as Republicans favor the thing so I don't know whether you can say we're left country I mean America it's been a capitalist country for too long as it's been a country but I think that in terms of wanting the kind of. Good life that people certainly here in Western Europe have had for decades yet most Americans once that most Americans think they think could have that and that they they should have that and you know what they're right let's go to Carla in Oakland Good morning Carla. Yes. Philip I appreciate your cast I'm not intimidated I don't know why but when I said there was nobody calling at the time so that's why I said that. Ok maybe you were intimidated and anyway. It seemed like you were arguing with him a lot so I. Anyway I like when he said and I agree about the single payer so if I don't care all the way. And. They don't know I don't I'm not intimidated so welcome. To the Bay Area Well Well Carla we just lost d.d. Again so we're going to have to call him back but by intimidated I didn't mean that . You were intimidate anybody was intimidated they just weren't calling and so that was my point but in any case I think we're on word now Ok Well Carla again. Thank you for your call did you have something more to add. No I just liked what he said what he's Ok so fucking good Ok Well thank you thank you so once again we have to call him back because Well Carla was talking of the line dropped I'm not sure why the line dropped but that is in fact the reality of the situation might mention that coming up in oh I know what I should mention I'm not going to be here next week on the radio instead we're going to be at the k p f a a craft fair the crane way crafts fair the crane way Crafts Fair is going to be up and running next Saturday and Sunday from 10 in the morning until 6 in the evening and this is the biggest off air fundraiser for k. P.f.a. Of the holes year and. You can check out the craft fair. And at the same time. Be supporting k p f a financially so the crafts fair is at the crane way in Richmond right on the water it's a fabulous building it's really quite beautiful and there's lots of parking including disability. Parking that's really close to the door it is. There's going to be fantastic food and it is one weekend only so we are talking about next Saturday and Sunday at the crane way in Richmond you can go to k. P.f.a. Dot org she to get the directions on how to get there it's real easy if you're driving off of Interstate $580.00. If you are taking Bart there's going to be a shuttle from the Richmond Bart Station so you can do that too and again it's next Saturday and Sunday I won't be here but I don't be live from the crafts fair sorrow d.d. The phone God as God is obviously I think it's a neo liberal phone says yeah I know I think so but in a case Carl is main point was that she was not the least bit in inhibited in that she liked what you had to say so what I heard then that was wonderful but I did she have a question that I could respond to know she just wanted to say that she's on your side and she thinks a lot she thinks that I was the one that was intimidated because I know you better than to think that but we were just having a vigorous airing of you. Well. My view is a half loaf is better than no loaf and and I'm not sure what your view is but let's go to our next caller Stan the span in San Francisco Good morning you're on the air . I wonder if your guest at any insights or opinions one of the most disappointing thing for the last 2030 years both Republican and Democratic administrations is nobody can seem to get it. If you're stuck you're in this country in Europe seems to do it so much better with transportation public housing that kind of stuff. Yeah you know it's a it's a really interesting point so I think couple things about that if I might and thank you for raising it one is that there's a whole chapter in my book that I call the Roosevelt Republic and it's it's about a kind of sensation I had when I was reporting particularly in Ohio because if you cover a presidential campaign you spend a lot of time in the state of Ohio which is lucky because I like Ohio but as you go as I went around the state I kept on seeing these things that were like like the Statue of Liberty at the end of Planet Of The Apes you know the ruins of some great alien civilization and what they wore were I realized at some point you know we see these federal buildings and post offices and bridges and sports stadiums and and and they would be these beautiful structures which were decaying for lack of maintenance or had been shut down in some cases or like the girls in this incident in the Cleveland Public Library which are still in terrific shape and available for viewing but what they were the ruins of the w.p.a. The Works Progress Administration which was the infrastructure program put in place by Franklin Roosevelt in order to both build America's infrastructure and give people jobs and you know one of the things that strikes anybody who spends time traveling in America and in Europe is that 1st of all we don't do that kind of thing anymore and secondly I just got back really yesterday from a train journey that started in London and ended in Sicily. So I had pretty good view of the European railing for structure and how incredibly well it works and how many choices people have and how reasonable it is and you know I spent a lot of time going up and down the the Boston Washington corridor or an Amtrak and it's just not the same so you have to wonder you know what is it. And part of it clearly is a reality I mean it's very interesting that in Britain when catcher started selling off the railways and privatizing them under the doctorate their religious mystical ideological view that the private sector does everything better than the government which is of course well Donald Reagan view and pretty much the American official view since Ronald Reagan. But what you have in Britain now but you have a series of railways their own by European by the German or the doctor or the French their way through them sort of British rail operators private operators or are owned by repeating other European state railway The same happened for energy come companies thought of when factor sold off the the generating the power Time country companies in Britain I brought in were picked up by European state energy can't company so you know they're just there we don't have state enterprises in the us we don't have an ideology that allows it and we don't have any faith that it will work and yet you know it kind of interesting because if you if you take a sort of right wing Republican like Trump and you say well what is the most important part of the federal government the Fabian armed forces the armed forces the most important part because that's the only part of the middle that's the only part of the budget the everything should be increased as military spending and it will never think well you know the military is so important we should we should privatized that we should turn it over to private companies know that they want to keep it part of the government so I think you know we we just don't we just don't have a kind of ideology that allows for state enterprise in the us in the way that we did in the 1930 s. And I think that's the tragedy of California is trying to develop a bullet train between here and between here in l.a. And it is what can I say it's on life support let's put it that women as my next guest about that. Up next is Janice in Vacaville Good morning tennis Good morning. I feel that Obama began in tried and struggled against the powers in Congress. And the other thing it I feel it and then it think he gave up and disk sort of quit trying because they weren't cooperating with him and and I feel that the position of president generally is a puppet position for the power elite. And Trump. It is pretty independent but he's also a power elite type and so he comes off a little more. Independent and get getting louder on you know I don't know how cooperative you know all of Congress is for him but I think you know it was wonderful to have the 1st black president but I don't I think he was hogtied and I think he was told what to do in the world forum in military endeavors and I don't think that was the man Ok let's get a response j.d. . Well I mean I'm not sure I would use same language but I would say and I don't think I think yes that he was told what to do in relation to the financial crash he was told he had to hire a bunch of Wall Street guys and he did and then he did what they said and you know on the one hand. It worked in terms of the banks not collapsing and the whole world financial system not coming down so there's your half a little fillip money had a hand he didn't keep people from losing their homes he didn't do anything to help the people who were thrown out of work by the financial crash really he didn't spend enough on the Top program to make a really significant infrastructure investment or to rebuild the country infrastructure and that was when he had Democratic majority so after that he had an excuse for not doing anything and he took it and he did the things that he cared about maybe or he did what he could do or he did what he thought he could get done and I suppose. You know it it's hard to to condemn him for that because you have to be a really. Superior politician in person not to do that but I guess I had hoped that he was that person and I'm part of my my bitterness with him is disappointed like a lot of other people on the left that we thought he was going to be better than he was while the stimulus program back in 2009 to get us out of the hole of the Great Recession he wanted more money and if you recall it was Republicans beating the drum about deficit spending and balancing the budget on the national debt and the national debt the Republicans just laid down and. Well Dover rolled over and. They rolled over and thought of England Well Ok trumpery there you have you don't they don't they only care about the deficit when it's a deficit to spend money on helping people not wanted to deficit to spend money on giving tax breaks to the rich obviously Ok we know that we're in particular Ok Judith's in Sebastopol Good morning Judith's. Good morning thank you for taking my call 1st of all I appreciate both of you tremendously and part of what I love about the f.a.a. Is that you're on a date that in a very. Respectful situation I think that country no matter what issue you look at. We. The rug pulled out from underneath that and whether it's a Republican or a Democrat I think we have now created crumbling and need help and Comic Relief. Comic relief and very comic that we have reported. Here making a huge distraction for America and I include watch way too much cable news outlets indicate a lot. And I think it true that you've been kind of touched on. And all of the color guard and thing each person and I've been there preceded it we've been in a period with the country from the very beginning and when you're talking about rated or basically didn't digit people are going to retreat helping transportation everything is from the top down and I'm sure that level the gunman killed him in a medic or a gun to Obamacare or anyone because the truth is that the ruling may become what we look to at our government let's look behind the curtain there is a corporatocracy I think they're calling it and the people with money are pushing that cart and they're willing over anybody to get one way so I feel bad and I'm going to have abided book if I have your guest because I really like what he's talking about and it will add to my understanding I think that any conversation about what's happening in this crumbling is really important probably happening at both that climate thank you do you smiling right now I know that she's going to buy your book do you do you show you should buy my book of course. The very best but I do want to say one thing that I think you raise some believe you're right it was implicit in a lot of what we were saying but you made explicit and I thank you for that which is and that's the reason that my book is called the next republic because there's always been an implicit tension sometimes in explicit tension in our history between being a Republican being an empire and you know that's what the anti imperialist League which was a sort of group of progressive in 1903 that opposed American involvement in the Philippines in the Spanish-American War They were they had leaders like Mark Twain . They they were talking about the fact that you can. Be an empire and have the kind of dominion over other peoples and have the kind of military spending that it takes to run an empire and be a Republican Republic that is actually of by and for the people that responds to the ordinary needs of ordinary citizens because you're you're busy paying for all this other stuff that you have to pay for in order that essential to keep the oligarchs who run things happy I mean corporatocracy is a fine word but I think the older word oligarchs he was just means ruled by a few and this case to talk or see rule by the wealthy that's what we are becoming We were we were like that in the 1890s in the 1880s that's what the original populace revolted against and eventually by the time of the. The theory Roosevelt Progressive's and then the New Deal Franklin Roosevelt New Deal. You know we had a level we had a level playing field again and in fact if you look there's a thing that economists call the great the great leveling of the great compression which was if you look at income distribution in the United States in the 20th century. It's kind of like a big fat diamond in the middle and the middle years from from 936 to 900 century 180 where there were a few people at the top of a whole lot of money and there were there were people at the bottom of who had no money and were very very poor but most people were in the middle and most money was going to the middle and and you had that was when you had the birth of the great American middle class that's when you had programs that let people like my father and my uncle who's who served in the Army go to college they would never been able to afford to go to college without the g.i. Bill and it sent a whole generation of young men to to to college and they didn't have to pay for it and it produced a whole generation of you know of middle class people so I think that that what what we need to see it again and when I went around the country trying to rip.