Robert Reich implies progressives are not authoritarian
Former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich was interviewed last week on Tucker Carlson’s show.
Robert Reich
Image/United States Department of Labor
During the interview, Reich expressed “concern” and “worry” over President Donald Trump’s cabinet picks. A cabinet that is so filled with billionaires, specifically mentioning Steve Mnuchin and Wilbur Ross, that they have no idea about what average working people are dealing with.
Carlson quickly points out that Reich’s economic views are closer to Trumps than Hillary Clinton, who he supported, questioning how much politics has to do with his criticisms.
He then goes on to say he supported socialist Senator Bernie Sanders because “he was a populist who really did care about working people”.
“There is a huge populist wave, Reich said. I think the difference between Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders is Donald Trump is an “authoritarian populist” and Bernie Sanders id a “Progressive populist.
“And I don’t think that authoritarianism works in America. I’m worried about authoritarianism quite frankly.”
Well so am I. However, it appears to me that Reich implies or suggests that progressives are not authoritarian.
If we look at the history of progressivism in America, there are many examples of authoritarian and downright despicable and clearly unconstitutional behavior.
One of the first progressives in the US, Woodrow Wilson committed many authoritarian atrocities with the Espionage Act of 1917 (which unfortunately still exists to this day) and the Sedition Act of 1918.
The country’s most popular progressive to both the right and the left, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was quite authoritarian. Just look at the Smith Act, the War Production Board and the Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937.
Perhaps the egregious authoritarian act took place on Feb. 19, 1942 when FDR signed Executive Order 9066 putting more than 100,000 mostly Japanese Americans in internment camps.
The most recent progressive to occupy the White House, Barack Obama, claimed the right to decide unilaterally which American shall die in a Justice Department “White Paper”.
He continued the authoritarian acts of his predecessor by reauthorizing the Patriot Act and continuing PRISM, totally endorsing George W Bush.
And let’s not forget “Reportergate”.
Is Donald Trump an authoritarian? Time will tell. Would Bernie Sanders be an authoritarian? It is likely considering some of the horrendous policies he endorses.
However, for Reich to ignore the authoritarian acts of progressives is ignoring history and just being not honest and hyperbolic.
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Most people don’t realize that internment began two months before 9066, when Japanese men were taken in Hawaii before the smoke cleared over Pearl Harbor. They also were the last released, from men-only camps without families, three months after WWII ended. It’s all chronicled in “First Taken, Last Released: Overlooked WWII Internment”.