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The Rick Smith Show 10-9-2026 · The Rick Smith Show

0:00
[SPEAKER_06]: It's time for the Rick Smith show!
0:05
[SPEAKER_05]: Now, here is the voice of a working class, Rick Smith.
0:13
[SPEAKER_06]: And welcome, brothers, sisters working class heroes.
0:18
[SPEAKER_06]: This is the Rick Smith show.
0:19
[SPEAKER_06]: Thanks so much for being here.
0:21
[SPEAKER_06]: Today, on the big program, lots to go.
0:23
[SPEAKER_06]: Two lots to talk about.
0:24
[SPEAKER_06]: Main and a senatorial debate.
0:26
[SPEAKER_06]: There's been some fun back and forth.
0:29
[SPEAKER_06]: The one thing that stuck out to me, Troy Jackson, the Democratic candidate, said Susan Collins, has been a government employer entire life.
0:39
[SPEAKER_06]: She's always had health care.
0:43
[SPEAKER_06]: And it's not that way for the most of us he said health care is a real challenge she made it worse by advancing the big beautiful bill and her response her defense
0:58
[SPEAKER_04]: Uh, well, Pierce is in college.
0:59
[SPEAKER_04]: So, uh, I have not been insured.
1:02
[SPEAKER_04]: My health is high.
1:04
[SPEAKER_04]: I spent a year when I was running for governor in 1994, where I could not afford health insurance.
1:12
[SPEAKER_04]: So, Troy, you're just out now, with wrong on that.
1:16
[SPEAKER_06]: Oh, you're out now, wrong, Troy.
1:18
[SPEAKER_06]: I spent a whole year, a whole year.
1:19
[SPEAKER_06]: A whole year.
1:24
[SPEAKER_06]: I look, Susan now wants to, wants credit for spending a whole year without health insurance while running for governor in 94.
1:33
[SPEAKER_06]: Senator, I don't think this is the own that you think it is, it's not the defense you think it is.
1:38
[SPEAKER_06]: It's more of an indictment to be honest with you.
1:41
[SPEAKER_06]: Because if you knew what it felt like to be uninsured, truly uninsured, if you knew what being one accident, one diagnosis, one ambulance ride away from chaos, away from your life being turned upside down, and did nothing, you don't belong in political office and congratulations.
2:01
[SPEAKER_06]: You corrected Troy.
2:03
[SPEAKER_06]: Now, I got to be honest, I now need to know what lesson you learned from 1994 all these years that you've done nothing on, because look for working people going uninsured isn't a campaign anecdote.
2:17
[SPEAKER_06]: It's the factory worker who's ignoring the chess pains.
2:20
[SPEAKER_06]: It's the waitress stretching medications.
2:22
[SPEAKER_06]: It's the parent calculating whether the child's fever is high enough to justify the emergency room expense.
2:30
[SPEAKER_06]: They aren't auditioning for public office.
2:32
[SPEAKER_06]: They're trying to survive.
2:34
[SPEAKER_06]: And you aren't powerless.
2:36
[SPEAKER_06]: You're not a powerless bystandard.
2:38
[SPEAKER_06]: You're a freaking US senator.
2:41
[SPEAKER_06]: One of the 100 most powerful people in our government.
2:44
[SPEAKER_06]: You help write the laws.
2:46
[SPEAKER_06]: You have a vote.
2:47
[SPEAKER_06]: You have a microphone.
2:48
[SPEAKER_06]: You have the leverage that the vast majority the vast almost all of us will never possess.
2:55
[SPEAKER_06]: And yet, and yet, I prefer a year.
2:59
[SPEAKER_06]: And we're not even sure that she couldn't afford it.
3:02
[SPEAKER_06]: Reporting is, maybe she just chose not to.
3:06
[SPEAKER_06]: But here's the thing.
3:07
[SPEAKER_06]: She's opposed to Medicare for all.
3:10
[SPEAKER_06]: She voted against the patient protection in affordable care act.
3:13
[SPEAKER_06]: Yes, the dreaded Obamacare.
3:16
[SPEAKER_06]: Oh, no, I'll be honest.
3:17
[SPEAKER_06]: She did help stop the repeal in 2017.
3:22
[SPEAKER_06]: She did vote to extend the insurance subsidies in 2025.
3:30
[SPEAKER_06]: but also supported the 2017 tax law that eliminated the individual mandate.
3:39
[SPEAKER_06]: Look, the reality is you've been in the Senate a long time, record really sketchy.
3:50
[SPEAKER_06]: And the question you should answer is, why is affordable health care still something families have to gamble on?
3:58
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm not asking her, I don't think anybody's asking her to win the uninsured Olympics.
4:04
[SPEAKER_06]: We should be seriously, we should be asking whether her experienced that year, that hard year, taught her anything, produced any sort of urgency to change everyone else's.
4:18
[SPEAKER_06]: So they don't have that.
4:20
[SPEAKER_06]: One uninsured year should have made her a relentless champion of the uninsured.
4:27
[SPEAKER_06]: is we got a personal correction where people needed a public commitment.
4:33
[SPEAKER_06]: So here's the demand for me and I don't live in Maine and I hope the folks in Maine will ask, what are you doing to get affordable coverage to people?
4:40
[SPEAKER_06]: Not another sympathy audition, but what are you going to fight for?
4:44
[SPEAKER_06]: What are you going to work for?
4:45
[SPEAKER_06]: What are you going to do?
4:47
[SPEAKER_06]: What is the agenda to ensure that working families don't
4:52
[SPEAKER_06]: go on in short.
4:54
[SPEAKER_06]: And ultimately, don't go broke if they get sick and don't have to go, oh, well, I can't justify the co-insurance, the copay, the deductible, the everything to take the kid to the doctor, where one broken arm on a scooter is the end of the family's, the family's budget.
5:13
[SPEAKER_06]: I even tell us what you're going to do to fight the past something.
5:18
[SPEAKER_06]: Tell me what you're going to do to move something forward.
5:21
[SPEAKER_06]: Instead of just, well, I don't know where's the champion?
5:29
[SPEAKER_06]: Where's the fighter?
5:30
[SPEAKER_06]: Seriously, if you've ever spent time on in short, like I have, um, you know, you know how, how unsettling it is and for her to take that defense?
5:42
[SPEAKER_06]: I don't know.
5:42
[SPEAKER_06]: Not by it.
5:43
[SPEAKER_06]: Not by it.
5:44
[SPEAKER_06]: And I hope someone will dig into.
5:47
[SPEAKER_06]: Oh, whether she could have afforded it or just chose not to chose the role the dice and let us pick it up if she got sick back after this
6:00
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History Inter.
6:04
[SPEAKER_06]: On this day in Labor History, the year was 1871.
6:08
[SPEAKER_06]: That was the day that the Great Chicago Fire began.
6:12
[SPEAKER_06]: The fire started in a barn on the property of Patrick and Catherine O'Leard.
6:17
[SPEAKER_06]: Legend pins the blame for starting the fire on a cow.
6:20
[SPEAKER_06]: Whatever the cause, the fire spread quickly throughout the city's wooden houses.
6:25
[SPEAKER_06]: For two days, the uncontrollable fire raged, destroying everything in its path.
6:31
[SPEAKER_06]: In the wake of its devastation, nearly 300 people died, and 100,000 families had their homes destroyed.
6:38
[SPEAKER_06]: One person who lost her business in the fire was renowned labor leader Mother Jones.
6:43
[SPEAKER_06]: In her autobiography, she wrote about the fire destroying her dress shop saying, quote, The Great Chicago Fire burned up our establishment and everything that we have.
6:53
[SPEAKER_06]: The fire made thousands homeless.
6:55
[SPEAKER_06]: We stayed all night and the next day without food on the leg front, often going into the leg to keep cool.
7:02
[SPEAKER_06]: Millions of dollars were raised by the Chicago Relief and AIDS Society to help those who needed help to rebuild.
7:09
[SPEAKER_06]: While the society
7:12
[SPEAKER_06]: very the long class lines.
7:14
[SPEAKER_06]: To get assistance, the working class had to prove themselves worthy with personal references.
7:20
[SPEAKER_06]: Middle class applicants for aid were more likely to be quickly approved to get money to rebuild.
7:26
[SPEAKER_06]: Working class people had to wade through long approval processing.
7:30
[SPEAKER_06]: Some never received that approval.
7:32
[SPEAKER_06]: The experience galvanized some members of the working class to organize for change.
7:38
[SPEAKER_06]: One of them was Mother Jones.
7:40
[SPEAKER_06]: She wrote, from the time of the Chicago fire, I became more and more engrossed in the labor struggle.
7:46
[SPEAKER_06]: And I decided to take an active part in the efforts of working people to better the conditions under which they worked and lived.
7:54
[SPEAKER_06]: Labor history in too brought to you by the Illinois Labor History Society and the Rick Smith Show.
8:02
[SPEAKER_05]: Welcome back to the Rick Smith show.
8:04
[SPEAKER_05]: Now, here is Rick Smith.
8:09
[SPEAKER_06]: So one of my favorite Richard prior movies of all time is a movie called Brewster's Millions.
8:14
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm sure most people haven't seen it because it's not one of his more popular movies.
8:19
[SPEAKER_06]: Stir crazy, obviously, you know, right there at the top.
8:22
[SPEAKER_06]: But Brewster's Millions, the premise was he was gonna inherit a whole bunch of money if he could waste like $30 million in a month.
8:30
[SPEAKER_06]: spend a million dollars a day and not have anything to show for it other than the clothes on his back at the end of the month.
8:36
[SPEAKER_06]: And one of the things that he did, there's a whole bunch of fun creative things along the way.
8:40
[SPEAKER_06]: But one of the things he did is he ran a mayoral campaign.
8:43
[SPEAKER_06]: and the mayoral campaign was his slogan was vote none of the above because both sides he said were terrible and he was reaching the people who were just fed up with the system thought you know they can't their powerless they can't change anything so this this protest vote of none of the above would would be the answer and oddly enough he won and i got to tell you in today's politics
9:08
[SPEAKER_06]: I think if you ran on a none of the above campaign, I think you get a whole lot more votes than Donald Trump claims he got the most ever.
9:15
[SPEAKER_06]: Oh, that's why I've asked Dr. Karen Katrina Gamble to come share some thoughts with us.
9:20
[SPEAKER_06]: Katrina has written, co-written a piece over at the Guardian, how do we defeat authoritarianism?
9:26
[SPEAKER_06]: Well, by building a sense of belonging, she's the founder and CEO of Sojourn Strategies.
9:33
[SPEAKER_06]: You can check out their website Sojourn Strategies.com.
9:36
[SPEAKER_06]: Katrina, thanks for taking time for us.
9:38
[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks for having me, Eric.
9:40
[SPEAKER_06]: So look, I go back to this idea.
9:41
[SPEAKER_06]: And when I was reading your piece, it's immediately what I thought of.
9:45
[SPEAKER_06]: I think if just that whole none of the above, because people have been trained to go, you know what, it all sucks, it's all bad.
9:52
[SPEAKER_06]: My life's not gonna get any better.
9:54
[SPEAKER_06]: And we're trained to believe that they don't care.
9:57
[SPEAKER_06]: Where are we wrong?
9:59
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, the part that I think we get wrong is that they don't care.
10:02
[SPEAKER_03]: The frustration is 100% true.
10:05
[SPEAKER_03]: People are looking at their pocketbooks, they're looking at the cost of groceries, their ability to live the life that they want for their families and they're frustrated with elections and politics and folks who've made big promises but haven't delivered for them.
10:20
[SPEAKER_03]: But the piece that I think we get wrong is that they don't care.
10:24
[SPEAKER_03]: People actually really do care.
10:28
[SPEAKER_03]: voting or the electoral process is the way that they can change things.
10:33
[SPEAKER_03]: So that's that's one of the challenges in front of us is how do we convince people that they still have power through the vote and other forms of democracy and civic action?
10:42
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, the line we hear most often is, well, you know, if we could really change things, they wouldn't let us vote if it really mattered.
10:47
[SPEAKER_06]: No, we could, you know, they may have all the money, but we've out procreated them.
10:52
[SPEAKER_06]: There are more of us, and if we could get come together and find some commonality, some common grounds, some common direction, we could change things, because here's the thing, everybody I talk to face to face, they don't want a billionaire class who lives in a different world while we've got children starving, and we've got homeless veterans, and we've got all the problems that everyone's got.
11:13
[SPEAKER_06]: There seems to be
11:17
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, for sure.
11:18
[SPEAKER_03]: There definitely could be some common ground.
11:20
[SPEAKER_03]: And when one of the things that was really interesting when we did the research is that we found that people actually want to be in community, even though most of the people that we described as the disinfected electorate, those are people with very low trust in elections and politicians and very high levels of disillusionment, even though they were very isolated 58% of them said, I want to be more connected to my community.
11:41
[SPEAKER_03]: So,
11:41
[SPEAKER_03]: In this moment where people are very isolated and polarized, they're actually looking for opportunities to be in community with people, where they can actually take action to effect change.
11:51
[SPEAKER_06]: Now, this is where I'm a labor guy like I believe we need much stronger, much more militant labor unions.
11:56
[SPEAKER_06]: but it is that sense of community is that pulling people together of common interests.
12:00
[SPEAKER_06]: Because I think we all, I don't care what if you're white, black, gay, straight, male, female, I don't care.
12:06
[SPEAKER_06]: White in color, blue color, green color, no color, ring around the color.
12:10
[SPEAKER_06]: I think we all want good jobs, good pay, good benefits, some job security, some retirement security, some health security.
12:17
[SPEAKER_06]: I think there are things that we could all organize around to push forward, which is why
12:22
[SPEAKER_06]: The wealth class of this country fights so hard to crush organized labor and keep us pitted against each other or as Jay Gould famously said he could pay half the working class to murder the other half.
12:34
[SPEAKER_06]: This is it in action.
12:36
[SPEAKER_03]: Right, and that the thing that we found in this research right is to your point, this sense of frustration with the way things are right now and the system being rigged it's it was true that sentence is true across race we found that that sense of frustration and declining trust was true across all racial groups it was true across gender.
12:57
[SPEAKER_03]: The one thing that was true is that that feeling was much, it was higher among working class people, so folks with lower levels of income and lower levels of education.
13:06
[SPEAKER_03]: We're having feeling more of that frustration, which is not surprising because they're the ones most acutely filling the pain in this moment.
13:13
[SPEAKER_03]: But this is a sentiment that exists across different types of communities and people and and when we asked that group of people, who do you feel most connected with?
13:22
[SPEAKER_03]: They said people like me and working class people.
13:24
[SPEAKER_03]: Those were the two, the top two answers.
13:27
[SPEAKER_03]: So there feels like there's an opportunity to build a bridge for folks who are feeling frustrated and have a working class identity right now.
13:36
[SPEAKER_06]: So 85 million people, and as I said at the beginning, if those 85 million people, they could beat both parties, I mean, they could have won the last election, more people didn't vote than voted for either candidate.
13:49
[SPEAKER_06]: So the question then becomes, you know, why, you talked about community, I believe it has more to do with power.
13:56
[SPEAKER_06]: I view the people who vote the least as the people who feel the least empowered and have the least belief that the system can work for them in your findings.
14:06
[SPEAKER_06]: Does that bear out?
14:08
[SPEAKER_06]: Because look, lower socioeconomic levels, they tend to vote at lesser levels.
14:13
[SPEAKER_06]: The higher your education, the higher your wages, the more power you think you have and feel, the more you're likely to vote.
14:24
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, exactly that.
14:25
[SPEAKER_03]: We asked a couple of different questions in the survey where it was things like how much poverty think that your vote has, how much power do you think that people like you has in changing things.
14:36
[SPEAKER_03]: And for those folks who are who have very high levels of frustration and low levels of trust, they were much more likely to say that they feel like they don't have that their vote doesn't have any power.
14:47
[SPEAKER_03]: They were also more likely to say
14:53
[SPEAKER_03]: elections and so there was definitely this correlation to folks feeling frustrated with the system and a sense of a lack of sense of agency or to your point of the ability to have power to affect change.
15:07
[SPEAKER_03]: The interesting thing though I wanted to note Rick is though even though those folks felt like that they didn't have a lot of power and that they were less likely to say that they are going to vote.
15:16
[SPEAKER_03]: They were just as likely to say that they would do other types of civic action,
15:24
[SPEAKER_03]: other kind of civic forms of things like helping their neighbor with giving them a ride or things like that.
15:30
[SPEAKER_03]: So it's not that people are totally checked out.
15:32
[SPEAKER_03]: It's just that for whatever reason because of the way the system has worked.
15:36
[SPEAKER_03]: They have decided that voting is not a way that they can affect change, so they're looking at other avenues to do that.
15:42
[SPEAKER_06]: do you think that has more to do with the messaging that's constantly hammered at them because I hear it all the time.
15:47
[SPEAKER_06]: I've got a couple of friends were like, I don't know why you bother.
15:51
[SPEAKER_06]: Why waste your Tuesday?
15:52
[SPEAKER_06]: Why bother doing that?
15:54
[SPEAKER_06]: Nothing's ever going to change because there's this sense of hopelessness that at least in my working life, things haven't gotten better for the working class.
16:02
[SPEAKER_06]: In fact, I look at myself.
16:05
[SPEAKER_06]: 35 years ago I was better off in the job that I had that I still have wages were higher benefits were better conditions were better things have slowly gotten worse and I view that as you know what's happened to the entire working class across this country as we've built unimaginable wealth for a handful the rest of us are really struggling and and I guess it means sitting where I am feeling that I still have some power want to organize around how do we fight the good fight
16:34
[SPEAKER_06]: You can't, you can't stop the, you know, the boulder going downhill.
16:38
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think that's what our job is, is how do we demonstrate that they actually do have power in this democratic process?
16:46
[SPEAKER_03]: When we had the focus groups, people were very specific.
16:49
[SPEAKER_03]: It wasn't a vague frustration with the system.
16:51
[SPEAKER_03]: People would name things like these politicians.
16:54
[SPEAKER_03]: They run, they make promises year after year, and I haven't seen anything change in my particular neighborhood, or they talk about things that directly affect them, and their families like losing healthcare,
17:04
[SPEAKER_03]: or reduce social security not keeping up with the cost of inflation.
17:08
[SPEAKER_03]: So folks were very specific around that inflation and the number one thing that they said is that they felt like people in elected office didn't understand what it was like to live paycheck to paycheck or they couldn't understand their experiences.
17:21
[SPEAKER_03]: However, the opportunity here is that if you can demonstrate to people when they come together in an organized fashion, right, because 58% of these people say they want to be in more community, if you can give them examples where when folks came together in community, especially local examples and we're able to make win things or exert power.
17:42
[SPEAKER_03]: That's one of the ways in which you can start to convince people that they still have some level of agency and power in the system is by getting really specific with the receipts of how when you work together in community with other folks you can actually push back.
17:55
[SPEAKER_06]: No, absolutely.
17:56
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm a huge believer in organizing on every level, you know, one of the big organizing campaigns that's going on right now is the NIMB movement on data centers.
18:05
[SPEAKER_06]: We're not my backyard and there's a flood of people on all sides of the political spectrum.
18:11
[SPEAKER_06]: I find it interesting that they don't care if data centers are built just not in their backyard.
18:15
[SPEAKER_06]: So radical self-interest seems to play into this and this is where I
18:20
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm always amazed that so many people choose to sit out when there's a lot of anger.
18:25
[SPEAKER_06]: And I know anger is one of the main motivating factors.
18:28
[SPEAKER_06]: People don't generally go do things like marching the streets or vote when things are great.
18:35
[SPEAKER_06]: They think when you're angry, when things are really bad, that that's when you tend to find your community, your friends, your place.
18:45
[SPEAKER_06]: How come that hasn't happened yet?
18:47
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I think what we found is that the anger is translating into people taking other kinds of civic action, maybe they're participating in a protest or a boycott, but that anger isn't translating into, I'm going to go show up at the voting booth and so the challenge is, is how do you translate for the folks who are feeling anger that,
19:06
[SPEAKER_03]: Voting is also another way in which they can push back and reflect that anger in this moment.
19:12
[SPEAKER_03]: And the other thing is that is really, there's like, there's been a lot of research that shows that anger is a sentiment that doesn't necessarily universally work for everyone.
19:22
[SPEAKER_03]: There's actually a book by a scholar named Daven Phoenix called the anger gap and he actually found that anger in fear can actually have a depressing effect for black voters.
19:34
[SPEAKER_03]: So if you lean into anger and fear, people feel like, oh, well, this is hopeless, and then they don't actually show up.
19:39
[SPEAKER_03]: So it's also important to understand who you're talking to when you're leaning into certain sentiments to try to motivate people to take action.
19:46
[SPEAKER_06]: So, you know, look, I come back to that power dynamic that, you know, because look, I'm, I'm someone who feels that I have some, something, I'm, I'm in power to do things.
19:55
[SPEAKER_06]: I think I can get things done.
19:57
[SPEAKER_06]: So I guess I hear what you're saying.
19:59
[SPEAKER_06]: I mean, maybe, look, I grew up in a housing project on the West Side of Cleveland.
20:03
[SPEAKER_06]: I grew up where poverty was high, where desperation was high.
20:07
[SPEAKER_06]: And I've been very fortunate to kind of build into that.
20:11
[SPEAKER_06]: That we can change things mentality.
20:14
[SPEAKER_06]: But I guess thinking back, maybe had I stayed, maybe, maybe I don't know.
20:20
[SPEAKER_06]: I guess you're right.
20:24
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm gonna think that through.
20:25
[SPEAKER_06]: Now you call the whole transactional politics a sugar rush.
20:30
[SPEAKER_06]: And you know, walk me through what, what do you mean by transactional politics?
20:35
[SPEAKER_03]: That means that when folks, it's what we were just, what I was talking about at the beginning, where folks show up at people's door on election day, making lots of promises, and then they disappear for however many months, and then they show up again.
20:50
[SPEAKER_03]: And in some ways, that way of doing politics is only reinforcing the skepticism and distrust that people have in the system.
21:03
[SPEAKER_03]: instead of us continuing to lean into that, the work that's necessary, especially for these folks that we describe as a disinfected electorate, because they're already cynical, they're already have questions around the system and whether or not it's effective and if it's rigged, and so the work is to
21:20
[SPEAKER_03]: be engaging them month after month, year over a year and showing people pathways to actually exercise their power in community with others.
21:31
[SPEAKER_03]: Otherwise there's like this big bump of like convincing people that if they do this one thing, it's got to change everything and then.
21:37
[SPEAKER_03]: we disappear for nine months and nothing's changed and then we have to come back and try to convince them, no, no, this time it will matter.
21:45
[SPEAKER_03]: Instead of building the power in between those moments for folks to actually deliver, you know, get wins on the things that people care about.
21:52
[SPEAKER_06]: No, it's one of the big knocks I have about Obama.
21:55
[SPEAKER_06]: He built a OFA and, you know, organizing for America, just kind of petered out because originally the thought was to pick up where labor had failed.
22:04
[SPEAKER_06]: Because every election cycle, you know, the labor movement comes up with labor 2026 or labor 2028 and they ramp up two or three months before and it's, you know, all hands on deck and then gone and then you got to recreate the wheel again every cycle instead of having that constant
22:23
[SPEAKER_06]: you know, on the ground organizing, which the right has done incredibly well through talk radio through cable news through the churches oddly enough.
22:31
[SPEAKER_06]: Our work, you know, evangelicals have dominated politics for a while.
22:36
[SPEAKER_06]: So what's the lesson in this for for political operatives for candidates?
22:41
[SPEAKER_06]: Uh, what's the outreach do you think?
22:43
[SPEAKER_03]: I think it's exactly what you just described.
22:46
[SPEAKER_03]: It's like, we need to be creating spaces of belonging, political homes for folks that exist in between election cycles.
22:54
[SPEAKER_03]: And what does that look like?
22:55
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a bit of what you're getting at.
22:56
[SPEAKER_03]: It's one is establishing belonging.
22:59
[SPEAKER_03]: What are the cultural ties, the value ties that bring people in that may have absolutely nothing to do with politics, but they walk into the room and they know, these are my people.
23:08
[SPEAKER_03]: And this is where I belong.
23:10
[SPEAKER_03]: I feel safe, I feel seen, I feel heard.
23:12
[SPEAKER_03]: And then it's like, what are the pathways that I can work with those people in community to exercise my power to try to impact things and so there's and the one thing that we found in the research is that people still have some level of trust at the local level and so even though we're often talking about the federal elections, there's lots of opportunities in between big election cycles.
23:33
[SPEAKER_03]: to be organizing people to fight back on things that are like right there in their communities where they can start to build a muscle of exercising power and agency so that when it comes time to engage in the big election cycles there are in a space and working with people where they understand how to do that in community.
23:53
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, you trust what you can touch.
23:54
[SPEAKER_06]: I mean, you know, I love this at the polls that come out this, you know, my congressman's good, but the entire system's terrible.
24:01
[SPEAKER_06]: They're all bad.
24:01
[SPEAKER_06]: They're all crooks, but my guy's good.
24:04
[SPEAKER_06]: And you go, um, I'm in the same district you are and Scott Perry is not good.
24:10
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm hoping he goes in November.
24:12
[SPEAKER_06]: So, last night I had a question I got for you because every election cycle there's this, especially for people not getting into my age group.
24:18
[SPEAKER_06]: Well, the young are going to, they're going to save us.
24:21
[SPEAKER_06]: This time, the younger gonna come out, the younger gonna, you know, they're more ideological, they're more passionate, and every election cycle it seems like, well, that doesn't happen.
24:32
[SPEAKER_06]: How do we grab the next generation and move them in a way that they really are the future and that they really pick up the mantle and move forward?
24:41
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I mean, honestly, a lot of the folks like I said that, uh, that we described as a difficult letter, they are younger.
24:46
[SPEAKER_03]: They tend to be young people.
24:48
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's, it's no surprise.
24:50
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, if we look at a lot of the numbers in terms of the cost of living, the ability to buy a house, like young people are coming into adulthood at a moment where this may be the first generation where people are doing worse off than their parents.
25:03
[SPEAKER_03]: And so,
25:03
[SPEAKER_03]: This sentiment of frustration with this moment is based in some real lived experience.
25:09
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think that the opportunity with young people is that many of them, even though maybe it's not necessarily translating into voting, they are activated in different ways.
25:19
[SPEAKER_03]: Like people are showing up in other different ways.
25:22
[SPEAKER_03]: And so I think our challenge is how do we take those moments of activation if it's like a protest,
25:31
[SPEAKER_03]: and moving people into organizational infrastructure.
25:36
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm still a believer in organization, right?
25:40
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, we can move masses of people, but if we can move people into political homes where they can engage and understand their power over an extended amount of time, I think that's how we bring young people back into the democratic.
25:52
[SPEAKER_06]: Absolutely, look, the reality is that I've been saying this for years.
25:55
[SPEAKER_06]: We need to get back into the middle of the streets.
25:57
[SPEAKER_06]: We need to get off the sidewalks, yell at each other.
26:00
[SPEAKER_06]: We need to get shoulder to shoulder, march in the same direction.
26:03
[SPEAKER_06]: We need to have cultural unity.
26:06
[SPEAKER_06]: Last weekend, we just had the power for the power to the people, festival and DC, which I think we should be doing more of across the country that kind of organizing the bring people together.
26:17
[SPEAKER_06]: I think it's fabulous.
26:19
[SPEAKER_06]: So lastly,
26:20
[SPEAKER_06]: what should people be doing?
26:22
[SPEAKER_06]: What advice do you give someone?
26:24
[SPEAKER_06]: Who is one of these 85 million people?
26:26
[SPEAKER_06]: You know, what do you say, look, you know, you want to be involved?
26:30
[SPEAKER_06]: Here's what you do.
26:31
[SPEAKER_06]: Here's where you go.
26:32
[SPEAKER_06]: Give me something direct other than going to sojournstrategy.com or one of those sites.
26:39
[SPEAKER_06]: Where do we go, Dr. Campbell?
26:41
[SPEAKER_03]: I would say go find people who are in your community to build connection with.
26:46
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that's the first step before we have to push people to all the other things is we are in a moment where people are feeling deeply isolated and I think the first step is to find people who you can build community with that could be joining a book club, that could be
27:02
[SPEAKER_03]: whatever it is, a sports league, whatever it is, I think to your point about the concert, one of the things that we're learning is that joy in this moment where there's so much coming at us every day is actually an opportunity as a way to build connection and hope that we can then translate into civic action.
27:20
[SPEAKER_06]: There you go.
27:21
[SPEAKER_06]: So basically go find a friend.
27:23
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, exactly.
27:24
[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks for that translation.
27:26
[SPEAKER_06]: Dr. Katrina Gamble, I appreciate you taking time for us.
27:29
[SPEAKER_06]: So during strategy, so during strategies.com, the website, I appreciate it.
27:34
[SPEAKER_06]: I hope we'll come back and talk to us again.
27:36
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, thanks for having me.
27:37
[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks so much.
27:38
[SPEAKER_06]: One of your thoughts.
27:39
[SPEAKER_06]: Are you one of the 85 million?
27:41
[SPEAKER_06]: Who has just sat out?
27:43
[SPEAKER_06]: And I'd love to hear the reason why.
27:45
[SPEAKER_06]: Email me,
28:00
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History in 2.
28:03
[SPEAKER_06]: On this day in Labor History, the year was 1933.
28:06
[SPEAKER_06]: That was the day garment factory owners locked out dress makers in several shops throughout Los Angeles.
28:13
[SPEAKER_06]: The women garment workers overwhelmingly Mexican.
28:16
[SPEAKER_06]: had been organizing with the ILGW for over a month.
28:20
[SPEAKER_06]: They began conducting strikes at selected shops the previous month to press their demands.
28:26
[SPEAKER_06]: The women wanted Union Recognition, a 35-hour work week, and to homework, shop floor committees, a guaranteed wage, and more.
28:34
[SPEAKER_06]: Historian Douglas Monroy observed that their demands reflected the harsh working conditions that they fixed.
28:40
[SPEAKER_06]: It was a volatile.
28:42
[SPEAKER_06]: competitive seasonal industry businesses worked tirelessly to undercut each other and job out the work.
28:47
[SPEAKER_06]: Women workers were routinely unemployed or underemployed, subject to widespread wage theft and discrimination.
28:54
[SPEAKER_06]: They were frustrated by promises of the new industrial recovery act which promised the right to organize but held no provisions for enforcement.
29:03
[SPEAKER_06]: Employers flaunted the new legislation and continued to discharge workers for union activity.
29:10
[SPEAKER_06]: Local 96 looked to the AFL's central labor council to sanction a general dressmaker's strike, which started four days later on October 12th.
29:20
[SPEAKER_06]: As many as 3,000 Latina strikers maintained solid picket lines despite dozens of arrests.
29:27
[SPEAKER_06]: ILGWU Organizer Rose Passata arrived from New York to help with food distribution and packing the picket lines.
29:34
[SPEAKER_06]: The rank and file leadership produced a bilingual strike bulletin and made daily radio announcements.
29:39
[SPEAKER_06]: The strike ended in arbitration that conceded few gains to the garment workers.
29:44
[SPEAKER_06]: But the women of local 96 continued to organize throughout the Los Angeles area.
29:49
[SPEAKER_06]: They led a series of strikes that would eventually win the closed shop.
29:54
[SPEAKER_06]: Labor history in two brought to you by the Illinois Labor History Society and the Rick Smith Show.
30:07
[SPEAKER_01]: It's about hogs, both the four-legged species and the more pigish two-legged breed of agribusiness executives.
30:14
[SPEAKER_01]: The latter have long profited from cruel abuse of millions of hogs caged in their monopolistic system.
30:20
[SPEAKER_01]: And now, the Agbus Giants have launched a loving campaign call, Sob, Save Our Bacon.
30:27
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not a plea to save the abused animals, but to save the abusers' profits.
30:33
[SPEAKER_01]: It turns out that most consumers don't like animal abuse, so states are passing laws to prevent such corporate practices.
30:40
[SPEAKER_01]: This has led to a vibrant new market for humanely-raised pork, already gaining more than a fourth of national pork sales.
30:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Outscrew the factory farm giants, feeling the pinch of real competition, rather than clean up their methods, though, the monopolists have rushed to Washington, demanding that Congress save their bacon by artificially and automatically rigging the market.
31:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Their save our bacon act would you serve states' rights to set their own standards for animal welfare.
31:11
[SPEAKER_01]: This is not an academic free market issue.
31:14
[SPEAKER_01]: In recent state ballot initiatives, voters have overwhelmingly endorsed ethical standards for animal agriculture.
31:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Moreover, responsible family farm producers have quickly responded to this growing new market, upgrading their facilities to meet the new state standards of humane production.
31:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Yet, rather than embracing this success for animals, farmers, and consumers,
31:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Here come tiny clicks of corporate profiteers like the National Port Producer's Council.
31:41
[SPEAKER_01]: They're wielding their big money lobbying muscle trying to overrule the public interest and the political will of America's majority.
31:49
[SPEAKER_01]: This is Jim Heiteau, saying, which side is your member of Congress on?
31:53
[SPEAKER_01]: For information, go to Compassion and World Farming.
31:57
[SPEAKER_01]: C.I.W.F..
32:03
[SPEAKER_05]: Welcome back to the Rick Smith Show.
32:05
[SPEAKER_05]: Now, here is Rick Smith.
32:11
[SPEAKER_06]: So last week, Donald Trump literally rolled out the red carpet for the people's Republic of China's President Xi Jinping.
32:19
[SPEAKER_06]: Well, oddly enough, simultaneously attacking Democrats for being communist.
32:24
[SPEAKER_06]: You figure it out, it is what it is.
32:27
[SPEAKER_06]: There was talk of granite, because we have the best granite, ah, there were pictures of autopans,
32:37
[SPEAKER_06]: uh... lots of things that we could spend time mocking uh... because clearly mister art of the deal uh... uh... i don't know if you brought his a game
32:46
[SPEAKER_06]: But what kind of grades would you give him?
32:48
[SPEAKER_06]: The folks over at the Center for American Progress and they have a scorecard and to be honest, had I brought home a report card that looks like this when I was a kid, let's just say 50 years later, I'd still be unable to sit.
33:01
[SPEAKER_06]: But here to share, there are assessment of our wannabe authoritarians meeting with their actual authoritarian.
33:07
[SPEAKER_06]: I've asked Jonathan Fritz to come share some thoughts with us.
33:09
[SPEAKER_06]: Jonathan's a senior fellow there at the Center for American Progress refocuses on China policy.
33:14
[SPEAKER_06]: Jonathan, thanks for taking time for us.
33:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Pleasure to be here, thanks.
33:18
[SPEAKER_06]: So, a C, a Paradies, a couple of apps.
33:23
[SPEAKER_06]: Fettin' all got the C, Geopolitics and Protecting We The People, apps.
33:29
[SPEAKER_06]: What got you there?
33:32
[SPEAKER_02]: Look, I think we should start off with where he got an A+.
33:34
[SPEAKER_02]: Which was, he wanted a really show, Xi Jinping, a good time, and how much he wanted to carry his favor.
33:45
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think you got an A plus on that, you know, as you pointed out, I mean, there was a literal rolling out of the red carpet unlike anything that we've seen in American president do for any visiting foreign leader, you know, in decades.
33:58
[SPEAKER_02]: I think going back, well, leaving aside the reception that he gave to Vladimir Putin in Alaska, I think it goes all the way back to the Kenny administration.
34:06
[SPEAKER_02]: So A plus for sucking up to to an authoritarian leader.
34:12
[SPEAKER_02]: Of course,
34:14
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, cap, we did our grades on things that we thought would actually be of use to the American people.
34:20
[SPEAKER_02]: So we didn't include that category where he actually scored quite high.
34:25
[SPEAKER_02]: And look, we will start off giving him a little bit of credit.
34:29
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, fentanyl still kills way too many Americans every year.
34:33
[SPEAKER_02]: And the Chinese did announce a couple of additional restrictions on some, in a class as a substances that are used for precursors that, you know, probably,
34:42
[SPEAKER_02]: far from a silver bullet, but helpful steps in the right direction.
34:45
[SPEAKER_02]: So we did give them a decent grade on that front, but on just about every other aspect of this trip where we thought, you know, the interests of the American people ought to be front and center.
34:56
[SPEAKER_02]: The president did pretty darn poorly.
34:58
[SPEAKER_06]: I liked one of the assessments you get.
35:00
[SPEAKER_06]: You said if Trump, the Trump administration wants to pass the China, the test on China, it must stop settling for procedural
35:09
[SPEAKER_06]: and start leveraging real American power to secure durable measurable results.
35:14
[SPEAKER_06]: Now, I look at that and I go, look, Trump likes to project that kind of power that tough guy image.
35:21
[SPEAKER_06]: That didn't come through at all with Xi Jinping.
35:25
[SPEAKER_06]: In fact, you know, right on the tarmac, there is that the jets are flying over.
35:31
[SPEAKER_06]: We got him wincing and kind of ducking for cover.
35:34
[SPEAKER_06]: Didn't give us, wasn't great optics.
35:39
[SPEAKER_02]: And you know, I would, if you pair that with the footage of him arriving in Beijing, you know, another clear difference is teaching things wasn't at the airport to receive him on the tarmac.
35:50
[SPEAKER_02]: So that also is a pretty bad look.
35:52
[SPEAKER_02]: You got the leader of the free world.
35:56
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, you know, just kind of going out of his way to, you know, provide a lavish welcome for somebody that didn't go out of his way to reciprocate.
36:06
[SPEAKER_02]: again, just not a good negotiating position to be in.
36:09
[SPEAKER_06]: So look, I mean, we can pick, we can nitpick all this stuff like, you know, walking, you know, Xi Jinping through the, the people's haul or whatever, whatever it is that Trump stole from China when he was there to build here, whatever that was.
36:23
[SPEAKER_06]: And then the goofy, you know, taking Biden's picture out and replacing it with an auto pan, I think that's just childish, ridiculous.
36:30
[SPEAKER_06]: It should offend every American citizen
36:36
[SPEAKER_06]: That, I mean, that was probably the most disgraceful.
36:39
[SPEAKER_06]: I mean, you're walking through the half-done ball room and all that nonsense.
36:44
[SPEAKER_06]: That's one thing, but that, that level of disrespect, I think, sends a clear message back to China that we're not serious people.
36:54
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that's exactly right.
36:55
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that's why you saw the report card that we got.
36:59
[SPEAKER_02]: The Chinese didn't feel like they had to do much of anything to make this guy happy.
37:04
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, because he's not a serious guy that really cares about those serious things apparently, um, and again, you know, we, we, we went through a couple of things where we thought, uh, you know, the administration ought to have.
37:15
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, been laser-focused.
37:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, let's talk about them.
37:18
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, try it.
37:19
[SPEAKER_06]: Let's start with Trent.
37:20
[SPEAKER_06]: Let's start with Trent.
37:21
[SPEAKER_06]: Because that's the one.
37:21
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the good one to start with.
37:22
[SPEAKER_06]: Everybody I know, all the working class folks I know, they voted for Trump for the reason that he was going to be tough on China.
37:29
[SPEAKER_06]: He was going to bring back manufacturing.
37:30
[SPEAKER_06]: We were going to have all these jobs.
37:31
[SPEAKER_06]: They're going to recreate the fifties again.
37:33
[SPEAKER_06]: In fact, my family, otherwise known as the basket of deplorables, they voted for Trump enthusiastically.
37:40
[SPEAKER_06]: Ah, look, these are folks who, their, their races, their homophobic, their misogynistic, never, never got them to vote.
37:47
[SPEAKER_06]: Ah, they were not registered, they didn't care before.
37:49
[SPEAKER_06]: That guy made them go register, got them enthusiastically out to vote because not because he's racist and homophobic and all that.
37:59
[SPEAKER_06]: They are.
37:59
[SPEAKER_06]: He is, yes, but he sold them on the idea that Brook Park Avenue and Cleveland was coming back.
38:06
[SPEAKER_06]: The Ford and Chevy plant, the hundreds of feeder plant jobs, all those union jobs that union lifestyle that gave them the ability to support a family on one income, take vacations, every tirement security, all that.
38:18
[SPEAKER_06]: That's what they believed he was going to bring back.
38:22
[SPEAKER_06]: and he's done none of it.
38:23
[SPEAKER_06]: In fact, I would argue made things worse, especially looking so weak to China and basically squandering what little power that we have to confront that.
38:33
[SPEAKER_02]: Totally agree with you on that.
38:35
[SPEAKER_02]: Look, China Shock 1.0 was pretty traumatic for a lot of communities around our country and to be fair, countries around the world.
38:45
[SPEAKER_02]: And we're now probably
38:48
[SPEAKER_02]: well into China shock 2.0 you know back in the good old days China was going after the more mature industries you know steel and aluminum shipbuilding you know they've got those um they've got those you know pretty well in hand and now they're looking obviously at the you know the next generation of advanced manufacturing they're going after semiconductors they're going after electric vehicles uh robotics I mean they're you know they're they see themselves now competing
39:14
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, not just in the mature stuff, but on the leading edge as well.
39:17
[SPEAKER_06]: I would say that's just a leading job.
39:18
[SPEAKER_06]: And I would say exceeding and surpassing and dominating.
39:23
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, absolutely.
39:24
[SPEAKER_02]: Look, they bring, you know, as a communist country, they bring a huge toolbox to this party.
39:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, and there are handful.
39:31
[SPEAKER_02]: They've got, they own the banks so they can give cheap loans to to factories that aren't making any money.
39:37
[SPEAKER_02]: Obviously, they repress labor rights and workers in China don't get paid a fraction of what a worker is in America or Europe or places like Japan or Korea get paid.
39:49
[SPEAKER_02]: They steal intellectual property.
39:52
[SPEAKER_01]: They subsidize.
39:54
[SPEAKER_02]: They have just a huge toolbox and they're quite intent on dominating.
39:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I said, all of these mature industries, but also all these advanced industries as well.
40:05
[SPEAKER_02]: or make it's a pretty scary progress in a number of these sectors.
40:09
[SPEAKER_02]: And look, this is a really serious problem.
40:12
[SPEAKER_02]: It not only is bad for American workers in our economy and you know, hauling out our industrial base.
40:19
[SPEAKER_02]: It's also bad for national security.
40:21
[SPEAKER_02]: If China is the only place in the world that makes pharmaceuticals or the sending conductors that you need for your car plan, and they decide for whatever reason they're gonna
40:31
[SPEAKER_02]: Squeeze us, you know, that puts us in a really tough spot if they decide they want to do something kind of frisky.
40:35
[SPEAKER_02]: Say, these are V-taiwan or in the South China Sea.
40:39
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's a real national security problem and it's an economic security problem.
40:43
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's a one that, you know, this administration ought to be focused on.
40:48
[SPEAKER_02]: But, you know, what we got instead was an extension of the trade truce with China.
40:54
[SPEAKER_02]: And then,
40:56
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, we announced this deal where we're going to give China basically WTO level tariff treatment, permanent normal trade relations tariff treatment, most favorite nation tariff treatment for about $30 billion worth of goods we import from China, they're going to do the same for $30 billion worth of goods that we export to their market.
41:15
[SPEAKER_06]: And that's exactly my view.
41:17
[SPEAKER_06]: The opposite of what we should be doing.
41:19
[SPEAKER_02]: 100%.
41:19
[SPEAKER_06]: I mean, everything that we're doing seems the opposite.
41:22
[SPEAKER_06]: We should be getting closer to our friends and making new friends to take this on instead of beating up our allies and then budding up to the person who's literally eating our lunch.
41:33
[SPEAKER_02]: That's exactly right.
41:34
[SPEAKER_02]: Look, these guys are a handful.
41:37
[SPEAKER_02]: We got to play a team ball and instead of doing that, we have Donald Trump banning imports from Canada.
41:44
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, we've got tariffs on all of our good friends and allies, and now we're telling the entire planet that the one country that we're going to give, you know, a bit of a break on some of our trade with is the people's Republic of China.
41:57
[SPEAKER_02]: It's still asked country on the planet we ought to be doing this with.
42:00
[SPEAKER_02]: They are the source of all the excess capacity that is rolling like a title wave over pretty much.
42:06
[SPEAKER_02]: every industrial country on the planet.
42:07
[SPEAKER_04]: Right.
42:08
[SPEAKER_02]: There are ones with the forced labor issues, right?
42:10
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, for God's sake, and they're going to get, they're going to get the preferential treatment for $30 billion worth of their imports into our market.
42:18
[SPEAKER_02]: It's crazy.
42:18
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, tokens, basically tokens.
42:20
[SPEAKER_06]: So what I've been saying for years, and this is the first administration as well, you know, everywhere the Trump leaves a void, everywhere where Trump creates a fire, China's more than happy to go and infill that void or put out that fire.
42:33
[SPEAKER_06]: So while we're making enemies,
42:35
[SPEAKER_06]: With our allies, they're making inroads, the fact that Canada's bringing in 49,000 EVs from China, while it's only 49,000.
42:44
[SPEAKER_06]: That is a crack in the door.
42:45
[SPEAKER_06]: That's a beginning of ending our auto industry.
42:49
[SPEAKER_06]: All of these places, all of this screw up that our tough guys do in Mr. Art of the Deal just continuing to open the door for them, and they're not missing the taking advantage of it.
42:59
[SPEAKER_02]: And look, I would actually say that Trump has kind of screwed up on both sides of the equation with China on trade.
43:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Right now, he's looks weak as hell, right?
43:12
[SPEAKER_02]: We started off with him acting far stronger than even I would have, you know, recommended that, you know, a president, you know, when he went to basically 145% tariffs on China,
43:26
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, he wasn't ready for them to punch him back in the face.
43:29
[SPEAKER_02]: And he clearly, he just certainly didn't ask for expert opinions from, you know, people like myself at the State Department or at the National Security Council or the Commerce Department, you know, what China's likely response would be, but I think he started off, kind of on the wacko end of the spectrum, got punched in the face and then ended up going all the way over to the, to the taco end of the spectrum without ever stopping at the pragmatic middle where you actually,
43:54
[SPEAKER_02]: take advantage of your allies in your friends, take advantage of the sectors where we are still doing well, look at the tools in your toolbox and figure out, you know, a smart way to deal with a pretty formidable competitor.
44:07
[SPEAKER_02]: No, no, no.
44:08
[SPEAKER_06]: The same thing in Iran.
44:08
[SPEAKER_06]: I mean, to be honest.
44:09
[SPEAKER_06]: 100%.
44:10
[SPEAKER_02]: It's exactly the same dynamic.
44:12
[SPEAKER_02]: Start off all badass and we're going to crush you and then you end up looking like a limp noodle.
44:18
[SPEAKER_06]: And that's the sad reality, and all the while, you know, you've got the base, the rabbit base cheering him on who are the ones who are suffering and struggling the most.
44:27
[SPEAKER_06]: And this is, you know, one of my, my problems with where we are.
44:30
[SPEAKER_06]: So, you know, as someone who spent your career as a diplomat at the State Department as someone who studied how the world works, how much damage has been done and I guess I'm not going
44:46
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to operate on the optimistic assumption that it can be fixed because everything I do at this thing tank, and I think anybody, whether it can happen anywhere else, they're all focused on problems that we think we can fix.
44:59
[SPEAKER_02]: So I will say that the United States
45:03
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, since World War II, we have stored up such a huge bank of credit with countries around the world.
45:09
[SPEAKER_02]: Certainly, our best friends and allies, but even countries that we don't have like treaty alliances with, and Donald Trump is taking a wrecking ball to this huge edifice, but it is huge, the edifice.
45:22
[SPEAKER_02]: And he's doing damage every single day.
45:26
[SPEAKER_02]: But I am hopeful that by the time we get to
45:29
[SPEAKER_02]: you know, the next administration in 2029 that will still have plenty of plenty of material to work with, but it won't be easy.
45:38
[SPEAKER_02]: I do think he is doing
45:40
[SPEAKER_06]: He is doing some some serious damage and the scar tissue is going to take a while to heal and ultimately and then maybe you got a better view on this than I do ultimately it's going to be the working people of this country who suffer the most because the jobs haven't come back and they're not going then we continue to lose in fact the investments that we were making into renewable energies and those frontline technologies.
46:03
[SPEAKER_06]: And you said a moment ago that China wants to dominate, we're now falling behind on.
46:08
[SPEAKER_06]: So all of this, this regression, all of this is, well, it's going to harm us for quite some time.
46:14
[SPEAKER_02]: That is true.
46:15
[SPEAKER_02]: That's absolutely, unfortunately, that is the case.
46:19
[SPEAKER_02]: Hopefully, it's reputable, but it's going to take pain and suffering to kind of
46:23
[SPEAKER_02]: get back to where we ought to be.
46:24
[SPEAKER_06]: So I'm always accused of I attack the administration because I think they do dumb things and I wish they would do some smart things.
46:32
[SPEAKER_06]: And I have given credit where I think credit is due.
46:35
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm not horribly opposed that what they've done on the baby bonds.
46:39
[SPEAKER_06]: I wish we'd done that sooner back when my kids were young.
46:42
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm not thrilled in how they set it up.
46:43
[SPEAKER_06]: But that's something.
46:45
[SPEAKER_06]: Is there anything in this?
46:47
[SPEAKER_06]: in this summit was there anything you could point to you they go wasn't a total embarrassment I mean I look at the auto pan I look at the granite I look at the tour of the half finished building you know you go down the list of all this it seems like embarrassment after embarrassment is there a moment where you go yeah that's him trying to be presidential you know again the fentanyl advances the china announced um i will give some credit for that you know the administration has made it clear from when they you know first uh
47:17
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, first day after inauguration, that this was going to be an area where they're going to really put some pressure on China, and I'll take wins on that front.
47:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, trade, not great.
47:28
[SPEAKER_02]: AI, not great.
47:30
[SPEAKER_02]: Treatment of partners and allies, you know, pretty darn bad.
47:35
[SPEAKER_02]: Getting, you know, Americans that are, you know, being unjustifiably detained in China, and we didn't see any progress on any of these other things, really, that,
47:45
[SPEAKER_02]: That's what the guys get and pay to salary to work on.
47:50
[SPEAKER_02]: I guess when he comes to the partners now, I think it could have been even worse.
47:54
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, he didn't actually tell a sheep, he'd be cheating paying to, you know, go do something crazy with Taiwan or, you know, we're ending our alliance relationship with Japan or Australia.
48:06
[SPEAKER_02]: So I mean, he didn't burn down his own house, I suppose.
48:09
[SPEAKER_02]: But he really, you know, it was a pretty,
48:14
[SPEAKER_06]: There was nothing good there.
48:14
[SPEAKER_06]: There was nothing good there.
48:15
[SPEAKER_02]: There was nothing bad.
48:16
[SPEAKER_06]: There was nothing to write home about unlike, you know, Xi Jinping gets to go home.
48:18
[SPEAKER_06]: He was he was welcomed as, you know, as an equal.
48:19
[SPEAKER_06]: He was he was given a lavish party.
48:19
[SPEAKER_06]: He gets to go home and look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look,
48:30
[SPEAKER_06]: Hey, look what we've done and that I got to tell you back there from the folks that I know that that means something when you've got the kind of state media that they've got.
48:38
[SPEAKER_06]: I know we've got Trump TV now.
48:40
[SPEAKER_02]: That can bring us some of these working on these working replicating the communist model across the board.
48:46
[SPEAKER_06]: So last question I've got for you know and looking at this should this have happened I mean if you were advising still at the state department of your advice in his ear should this have happened at all should should this summit have happened here and in that way I mean because it seems it seems like way too much political capital to hand over absolutely not you know I think you're absolutely right Xi Jinping probably got a lot more
49:09
[SPEAKER_02]: out of this visit than the United States did.
49:12
[SPEAKER_02]: And now the whole point of engaging in this sort of high level diplomacy is to make sure your national interests are being advanced, whether or
49:26
[SPEAKER_02]: economics strengthening your position with allies and partners so that you can actually deter China from getting adventurous, you know, whether it's in the South China Sea or across the Taiwan straight, you know, another thing that would have been great if we could have made some progress on would have been artificial intelligence.
49:41
[SPEAKER_02]: So we set up some communication mechanisms, but Donald Trump clearly doesn't have a sense that artificial intelligence poses any real threats to us.
49:53
[SPEAKER_06]: Super.
49:53
[SPEAKER_06]: I bet.
49:55
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, you got me.
49:56
[SPEAKER_02]: You got me, right?
49:56
[SPEAKER_06]: You used to be supreme, but you didn't want to confuse that with the Supreme Court.
50:01
[SPEAKER_06]: His court.
50:02
[SPEAKER_06]: It's now super.
50:03
[SPEAKER_06]: Super intelligent.
50:04
[SPEAKER_02]: Because we need no guardrails other than him, so I mean, which shows, again, just a huge lack of seriousness about an issue that I'm no technological.
50:14
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, an expert, but it seems to me there are some things that we ought to be pretty darn careful about as we get closer and closer to this.
50:20
[SPEAKER_02]: That's sort of self-improving, super intelligence.
50:24
[SPEAKER_06]: Well, at least we didn't bomb any Chinese boats to get the fentanyl thing.
50:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Like we're doing, um, or not, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't do that to people that, you know, he feels have demonstrated they can bully him at least as well as he can bully them.
50:37
[SPEAKER_06]: There you go.
50:37
[SPEAKER_06]: Jonathan Fritz, I appreciate the time.
50:39
[SPEAKER_06]: Great talking with you.
50:40
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks so much, Rick.
50:41
[SPEAKER_02]: Take care.
50:41
[SPEAKER_06]: Want to hear your thoughts?
50:43
[SPEAKER_06]: Email me, Rick at therixmithshow.com.
50:45
[SPEAKER_06]: Go take a look at their report card.
50:48
[SPEAKER_06]: Not good.
50:49
[SPEAKER_06]: Jonathan, for its senior fellow of China policy there at the Center for American Progress.
50:53
[SPEAKER_06]: Email me, Rick at therixmithshow.com.
50:55
[SPEAKER_06]: Maybe you got a different view.
50:56
[SPEAKER_06]: Was it that was our dear leader better than their dear leader?
50:59
[SPEAKER_06]: Rick at therixmithshow.com right back.
51:05
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History in 2.
51:09
[SPEAKER_06]: On this day in Labor History, the year was 1986.
51:13
[SPEAKER_06]: Female flight attendants won an important legal victory.
51:16
[SPEAKER_06]: Can you imagine losing your job because you decided to get married?
51:20
[SPEAKER_06]: It might have happened if you were a flight attendant working in the mid 20th century.
51:24
[SPEAKER_06]: The industry expected their flight attendants to be young, attractive women, looking for a couple of years of adventure before marriage.
51:31
[SPEAKER_06]: If you wanted to stay in the industry longer, even other attendants might criticize your choice.
51:37
[SPEAKER_06]: One flight attendant who worked for TWA in the 1950s recalled, I could remember thinking, oh, this gal has been flying for four, five years, I wonder what's wrong with her.
51:47
[SPEAKER_06]: airline advertising capitalized on the sex appeal of their young single stewardesses.
51:52
[SPEAKER_06]: Continental used the double on taundra tagline, we really move our tails for you.
51:58
[SPEAKER_06]: Another airline asked Coily, does your wife know you're flying with us?
52:02
[SPEAKER_06]: The Association of Flight Attendants Union began to fight back against these practices.
52:07
[SPEAKER_06]: In 1968, the federal courts had struck down the rules for bidding marriage as a condition of employment.
52:14
[SPEAKER_06]: 1725 flight attendants who worked for United Airlines were forced to quit when they got married.
52:21
[SPEAKER_06]: They filed a class action lawsuit.
52:24
[SPEAKER_06]: It took almost 20 years to reach a settlement, but U.S. District Judge James B. Moran found in favor of the flight attendants.
52:32
[SPEAKER_06]: He awarded $7 million in back pay to the women.
52:38
[SPEAKER_06]: 475 of the women were also reinstated to their jobs.
52:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Come fly with me, let's fly, let's fly away.
52:49
[SPEAKER_00]: If you can use some exotic booze, there's a bar in Farbumbay.
52:57
[SPEAKER_06]: Labor history in two brought to you by the Illinois Labor History Society and the Rick Smithsia.
53:02
[SPEAKER_06]: For more information, go to laborhistoryintu.com.
53:07
[SPEAKER_05]: You're listening to the Rick Smiths Show.
53:10
[SPEAKER_05]: We're working people, come to talk.
53:19
[SPEAKER_06]: So I come back to this, the reality is I think Trump has done such a bad job on the international stage and caused so much global chaos that I hope Jonathan Fritz is right.
53:30
[SPEAKER_06]: I hope that I hope his optimism is on point and like he's a 32 year career diplomat.
53:40
[SPEAKER_06]: We spent multiple administrations in the state department dealing with things that we,
53:48
[SPEAKER_06]: So I'm hoping that he's right, I would like to defer to his experience and his expertise.
53:54
[SPEAKER_06]: But I got to tell you, if I'm in another country and I see gas prices going through the roof diesel prices through the roof like they are here in places that are already struggling and I'm seeing shortages and I'm seeing all kinds of stuff and I know it's because of Trump going into Iran, I don't think I'm all that thrilled about this country.
54:15
[SPEAKER_06]: I don't think I'm going to be all that willing to jump on board the next time, something pops up.
54:21
[SPEAKER_06]: No, that said.
54:25
[SPEAKER_06]: I have had conversations with people who were like, you know, what's wrong with you guys?
54:29
[SPEAKER_06]: What's wrong with you Americans?
54:32
[SPEAKER_06]: You were the beacon of hope for the globe.
54:35
[SPEAKER_06]: You were the shining city on the hill as Reagan used to love to say.
54:41
[SPEAKER_06]: what is going on, what's the matter, never mind Kansas, what's the matter with America?
54:47
[SPEAKER_06]: And Americans, that we tolerate this.
54:50
[SPEAKER_06]: We are depleting our oil reserves, and yet not a peep from our right wing bladisphere, nothing, nothing, virtually nothing.
55:04
[SPEAKER_06]: The same people who are ready to go on strike over a shot
55:10
[SPEAKER_06]: Uh, now we're just, you know, they're complaining a little bit, uh, now they're getting going to get the, they're going to get the colored diesel, so we've got the cheaper stuff.
55:18
[SPEAKER_06]: Let's go out and yeah, thank you, Donald, thank you, dear leader, it's, it's definitely interesting times.
55:27
[SPEAKER_06]: Now, again, my concern is, is the buffoonery that this administration has, has played on the international stage, will come home to Roost at some point.
55:37
[SPEAKER_06]: because the Chinese people are very serious.
55:41
[SPEAKER_06]: They see themselves as, as they see themselves as the dominant force that we believe that we are, and that we have ban.
55:50
[SPEAKER_06]: We are losing our stature.
55:53
[SPEAKER_06]: Yes, we have a big military, but I also seem to think that that fear is also diminishing.
56:05
[SPEAKER_06]: The idea that and I know any day now, you know, I guess the troops are all on ready I if Trump says go kill 90 million people We're I guess we're gonna annihilate a civilization and don't think that that hasn't happened to I ran in the Iranian people in the past because I guess history is not something we we spend much time thinking about I mean we went into Iraq and
56:29
[SPEAKER_06]: We had a president then who didn't know that the country was really three different distinct regions with different religions and different, never mind, never mind facts and reality, never mind listening to experts and we find out that our state department and our government is basically being eliminated with the people who would know.
56:55
[SPEAKER_06]: Oh, we've got a bunch of patron and chires, a bunch of loyalists.
56:57
[SPEAKER_06]: A busted guessman going, whatever deer Donald, whatever you want, oh, your ballrooms wonderful.
57:02
[SPEAKER_06]: You've got the biggest ballroom.
57:05
[SPEAKER_06]: Oh, don't you just have the biggest ballroom.
57:08
[SPEAKER_06]: Isn't your granite so nice?
57:10
[SPEAKER_06]: All that that auto pen joke that was such a good gag deer leader.
57:16
[SPEAKER_06]: When the rest of the world's going, what the?
57:20
[SPEAKER_06]: What's wrong with them?
57:23
[SPEAKER_06]: I mean, stop and think about this for a minute.
57:26
[SPEAKER_06]: I asked a friend who, who, he's got the hat off.
57:30
[SPEAKER_06]: There's no more red hat, but still in the Trumpest fear.
57:34
[SPEAKER_06]: He's kind of over.
57:37
[SPEAKER_06]: He's on that, maybe.
57:38
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm going to imagine what you would have done.
57:42
[SPEAKER_06]: Just be had or tamed me for a moment.
57:46
[SPEAKER_06]: What would you have done if Joe Biden
57:48
[SPEAKER_06]: If Joe Biden had, I don't know, changed Trump's picture to one of, you know, of him in abstin, armenar, you know, gagging it up.
57:59
[SPEAKER_06]: And then underneath it wrote that, you know, he was on the pedophile island.
58:02
[SPEAKER_06]: What would you have done?
58:03
[SPEAKER_06]: What would you have said?
58:05
[SPEAKER_06]: What would you have said if, you know, Donald Trump was, you know, if he put the picture of him and his 13 year old daughter in a really bizarre looking provocative kind of photograph, that are most of us have seen.
58:19
[SPEAKER_06]: And with the underneath, you know, of his statement on the Howard Stern show that, you know, if she weren't my daughter, I'd be dating her.
58:28
[SPEAKER_06]: What would you have said?
58:29
[SPEAKER_06]: What would you have done?
58:30
[SPEAKER_06]: What would you have thought of Joe Biden?
58:32
[SPEAKER_06]: I know, sleepy Joe wouldn't have been that creative, but that wasn't his response.
58:37
[SPEAKER_06]: His response was actually to stop and think, didn't say anything, but kind of reflected for a moment, which I'll tell you, I think was kind of a win because the auto-pen thing,
59:01
[SPEAKER_06]: what an absolute disgrace that made us look weak, stupid, and well, at a time when communism is the number one threat to America to be bowing down to an actual communist leader.
59:19
[SPEAKER_06]: Oh, I gotta get your thoughts.
59:20
[SPEAKER_06]: I wanna hear it.
59:21
[SPEAKER_06]: Rick at theworksmithshow.com.
59:23
[SPEAKER_06]: Tell me what you think.
59:24
[SPEAKER_06]: Was there something positive?
59:26
[SPEAKER_06]: Jonathan Fritz thought there was a little bit of something.
59:29
[SPEAKER_06]: Wanna hear yours.
59:30
[SPEAKER_06]: Rick at TheRicksmithshow.com.
59:31
[SPEAKER_06]: Miss any portion of the program.
59:32
[SPEAKER_06]: Podcasts and as always, thanks for being here.
59:35
[SPEAKER_06]: We'll see you back here next time.
59:46
[SPEAKER_05]: Email wreck at wreck at therixmithshow.com.
59:54
[SPEAKER_05]: Until next time, this has been The Rick Smith Show.
59:57
[SPEAKER_05]: We're working people, come to talk.