Robert Reich on how the Democrats lost the working class

Late Night Live - Separate stories podcast · Apr 2, 2026 · 31m

In October 1994 then US Labor Secretary Robert Reich wrote his old friend and now boss, Bill Clinton, a letter with an urgent warning. “We’re in danger of losing Congress” he said. “Polls show that the voters who are most alienated from the administration are adults without college degrees, whose incomes have dropped the most. Many are (so-called) “Reagan Democrats,” who were slowest to rally to you in 1992, are still distrustful of government, and are most likely to desert the Democrats this November.” His warning fell on deaf ears and thirty years later those disaffected American voters…