Populism 201: Advanced Topics in American Democracy
2020-10-16 · Guest: Bradford R. Kane (Author and political insider) · 51:51
Historical roots and modern distortions of American populism
Host Bob Zadek interviews attorney and author Bradford R. Kane about his book, Pitchfork Populism. They explore the historical roots of populist movements in America, the tension between liberty and equality, and the specific political forces that shaped the 2016 election and continue to influence the 2020 landscape.
Topics: Populism, 2016 Election, Liberty vs. Equality, Individualism, Collectivism, Tax Policy, American Democracy, Donald Trump, Joe Biden
Speakers:
- Bob Zadek: Host
- Bradford R. Kane: Author of Pitchfork Populism
Introduction [00:00]
Voiceover: You’re listening to the Bob Zadek Show, a full hour of libertarian discussion with the smartest guests on radio. Live, spontaneous, and thoughtful. It’s the show of ideas, not attitude. Now, your host, Bob Zadek.
Bob Zadek: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Bob Zadek Show, the longest running—and I mean longest running—live libertarian talk radio show on all of radio. We are this morning and always the show of ideas, never once the show of attitude. Thank you so much for listening this Sunday morning.
Well, I guess politics is kind of in the news these days. We seem to have an election coming up, an election which many observers—I guess I can include myself on the list—consider this to be one of the most important or more important elections, presidential elections, perhaps of all time, if not longer than that. And therefore, this is the perfect time to discuss presidential politics: how we got here, wherever “here” is, how we got here, where we are likely to go, where we hope we don’t go, and how—what brought us to this point in time.
When you have a topic such as that, so full of—or which requires so much inside politics information, who better to have on the show than an author and a true political insider? One who has spent most of his adult life one way or another in Washington, either physically or professionally. And with that introduction, I introduce you to Bradford Kane. Brad has spent most of his adult life working in a wide variety of presidential posts, private sector posts involved in policy. He is a true insider. Therefore, Brad’s observations of how we got here, where we are going, and what “here” actually means—he is better than most others in sharing his views with us. He also has written, about a year ago, he wrote a very interesting book with a very interesting title: Pitchfork Populism, subtitled The Political Forces that Shaped an Election and Continue to—large font—Change America. We will learn this morning Brad’s observations on how we got here, where we are going, and where at least Brad hopes we are not going. So Brad, with that introduction, thank you so much for your book and thank you for joining us this morning.
Bradford R. Kane: Good morning, Bob. Thanks so much for having me.
Defining Pitchfork Populism [03:05]
Bob Zadek: So Brad, thank you so much. Now, your book is Pitchfork Populism. Now, interesting title. And what caught my attention was the word “populism” is a word bandied about. It is—you can’t even tell when populism is used in political discourse whether it is used as a compliment or as a bit of a slur, or whether it’s a neutral word. So we’re going to, of course, of course, get into in great detail the content of your book, which has a lot of lessons for all of us. But Pitchfork Populism—two important words, a bit of an alliteration. So what did you mean, or help us understand the term populism as you use it in your book? What are you referring to, and why “pitchfork”?
Bradford R. Kane: Sure thing. So first of all, of course, there’s a long history of populism, populist movements in the United States. Of course, one could argue that even the founding of our country in the 1770s was an outgrowth of a populist movement. But like during the 1800s, there was an agrarian populist movement and there were various economic populist movements. There were, for example, in Kansas, Mary Elizabeth Lease led a movement there in the late 18—I think it was early 1890s, late 1800s. But there was Jacob Coxey with Coxey’s Army marching from Ohio on foot to Washington, D.C. in search of veterans’ benefits, things like that. And of course, William Jennings Bryan. And then Teddy Roosevelt, of course, with his entire Progressive Party when he tried to return to power.
There’s been a lot of movements, and what they typically are all about is empowering people. Basically, where people wanted their concerns to be addressed, they organized, and populism is about people. The reason I call this “pitchfork populism” is that it’s actually not populism. It’s a form, it’s a distortion of populism. It’s a false populism. Basically, Donald Trump identified a disaffected, aggrieved cohort, and he kind of embraced them, and he mobilized them, he energized them to empower him. So basically, although he tried to kind of organize them in what their organizing principle was, it was just to support him to allow him to do whatever he wants with his transactional approach to governing. And we see the transactional approach everywhere, very interestingly brought up again very over the last couple days through things in the news when Senator Ben Sasse talked about things along those lines. And we heard the latest reference from John Kelly, former Chief of Staff to Donald Trump, where he basically referred to Trump’s transactional approach to everything. So basically, pitchfork populism is a false populism that uses the guise of that tradition, but really it’s all about Donald Trump.
Liberty, Equality, and the American Dream [06:44]
Bob Zadek: Now, you—the book was clearly written in the aftermath of, or after, of course, the 2016 election, which appeared to have caused you some concern in terms of the direction of the country. Now, you said populism is sort of—I’ll use the common phrase—power to the people. But what confuses some observers or some citizens is: Hold it, we have a democracy. We get to vote for president. We get to vote for representatives in the House. We get to vote for senators. So we do have populism in our democracy. So what makes populism—is it a subset of democracy? Isn’t it fair to say we have had a populist, as you use the phrase, society, a government, since our founding? So what makes populism different? And then I’m going to ask you—you mentioned that Donald Trump rose or rode the populist sentiment, the feeling by many people that they were not included in the government, they were not heard. You point out in your book that Donald Trump rode that wave to victory. And I’d like to discuss that in a moment. But first, Brad, we’re going to cover two topics. But first, help us distinguish populism as a separate concept independent of the kind of democracy we’ve lived in for 231 years.
Bradford R. Kane: Absolutely. And democracy is basically empowering the people. When you think about how the United States began, you had, as far as the white settlers who came to what became the colonies, basically they were fleeing oppression in Europe. And of course, the tragic part is that many of the oppressed became oppressors, as we know. But the thing is that those who originally came to the United States were kind of trapped in this situation, a kind of a caste society in Europe where they were serfs. There were the serfs and then there were the lords and ladies. And if one was not on the good side of that equation, there was no social mobility. So they came to the United States for social mobility, and that’s where it was both a combination of liberty and equality. And I can expand on those two different elements which basically formed our national split personality and, of course, the root of libertarianism as well. So liberty and equality, but it all comes from the same origin of basically wanting social mobility and giving power to the people. So yes, the essence of the United States is a populist country with a premium placed on power to the people, as you put it.
Bob Zadek: I’ll just mention a slight expansion of your concept. You mentioned, of course, quite correctly, that what the draw was in America in the founding era was social mobility. I would just supplement that, Brad, and I’m sure you wouldn’t object, that it was both social and perhaps even more importantly—but that’s, who cares—economic mobility. The fact in societies in Western Europe, which drew most of the immigrants in the early days of our country, it was economic mobility. The fact is where you were economically in Western Europe was determined the moment you were born, and that was immutable and you couldn’t change it except in the rarest of circumstances. But America offered, and still offers to this day, economic mobility, so that there’s no built-in structural barriers to be the best that you can economically. So I would just, as a minor just addition to what you have said.
But also, during the founding era, you mentioned in your book, and in a very interesting way, you make more than one reference to equality. And you create this dichotomy as if liberty and equality—and you describe the dichotomy as individualism versus collectivism, and you’ll have a chance at a moment to explain what you meant—but you mention even in the founding documents, you saw some tension between the two, that liberty somehow was at odds to some degree with equality. Now, when you use the word equality, which you use quite a bit in your book as you should, of course, it’s an important concept, but tell us about the equality that you’re referring to that you see as tension even in the founding, and how liberty or individualism somehow works against equality as you refer to it.
Bradford R. Kane: Sure thing. First of all, just a footnote on the previous discussion point there about why white settlers from Europe initially came here. It’s hard to distinguish between the economic and the social reasons because yes, some did come here because of what I was saying about the caste system and no opportunity for social mobility. Others came here for religious freedom. And so the two often went hand in hand, sometimes a little more of one, sometimes a little more of the other. But the two are very much drivers of how the colonies got started.
The bit about liberty and equality is very interesting. It’s that when you talk about social mobility and opportunity and the reasons why people came to this new land, the next question is: When you talk about social mobility and opportunity, the question is “for whom?” So that’s where you get liberty and equality that go hand in hand, and yet there is a bit of a tension. And of course, our founding documents have different points of compromise built in. The idea is that with liberty and equality, that foments into individualism or rugged individualism versus collectivism or communal collectivism. And the idea is that if it’s pure liberty, the idea of each individual should have full rights to do whatever they want and be unfettered by government and both not hampered by government, but not even wanting the assistance of government—just leave me alone. Well, that doesn’t work as an organizing principle of society if it is unrestrained.
And equality is vital because it’s a question of if you don’t have some kind of structure, then it gives rise to predators and who’s going to—for that matter, there’s oppression, but also even in commerce, the rules of the road. So the idea of “for whom” is very important because the idea is that everyone benefits when everyone has the opportunity to benefit. And that, of course, gives rise to the language of Mr. Jefferson of all—well, he said all men are created equal. Personally, I think if he could change one word in his document, why not just change from “all men” to “all people”? He disenfranchised 50% of the population with one word. So I’m sure if he were writing it today, he’d say all people are created equal. And that is the hallmark of the equality concept. So the two very much go hand in hand.
The Role of Government and Mandated Empathy [16:02]
Bob Zadek: Now, but I’m confused. You made passing reference just a second ago to rugged individualism: “Government, get out of the way, leave me alone, I’m just fine, thank you. I don’t want, require, or need anything from you except for the first principles of our society, our political society, which is government exists to protect the rights that we are born with. Therefore, yes, we very much need government, and that is to protect and ensure that our rights are not taken away from us by others who would do us harm.” So what’s—you said that concept that I more or less expressed doesn’t work. I’m not sure what you mean by “it doesn’t work.”
Bradford R. Kane: It’s because unfettered, that kind of—the notion of each person can do what they want, that can lead to the notion of each person is an island. Each person should be able to do—to not have the responsibility for their—as a part of their community. It’s an interesting thing. You brought in the word “empathy.” Absolutely, empathy is very much part of the discussion. I mention it a couple times in Chapter 1, both historically and in terms of the current administration. We are a society, and a society functions based on rules. Otherwise, if every person is able to do whatever they want, then you’ve got anarchy and chaos. So obviously there has to be some amount of rules. The question is finding where’s the fulcrum? Where’s the right balance so that people are not hampered and restrained from being able to pursue their aims, but the idea is also that everyone should be able to have the opportunity to pursue the American Dream in whatever way they see fit. But that requires a level playing field for everyone to have the opportunity to do so. If there are no rules, if there’s—oh, sorry, go ahead.
Bob Zadek: I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt. But you said we’re a society and we need rules. And I agree with you, we need rules, but rules are not laws. Rules are norms of behavior one to another, how we treat each other. Of course, we would hope there is a moral foundation to behavior. We would hope that people are kind and caring. I couldn’t agree more. That’s an aspiration, and I think it’s mostly borne out. But rules are not laws. And you seem to be suggesting—this is one of the items in your book that I was looking forward to having a conversation with you about—you seem to suggest that it is—you don’t say this expressly, but it’s clearly in your book—you mention we’re a society and we need rules, but you seem to be seeking to enforce empathy, to mandate empathy with a law, and that is a role, an appropriate role of government. And that is an area that I was hoping to get the concept a little more fleshed out. I agree with you we need rules. I disagree that we want to legislate morality. People ought to be free to be rude if they choose to do so. They shouldn’t be required. And empathy is an individual word. It is a quality of human feeling, individual feeling. So how do you bring empathy or the need for empathy, the desire for empathy, into a discussion on the structure of government? Government shouldn’t care if people are empathic or not as a matter of governmental policy, as a matter of legislation. That’s a private matter, like religion is a private matter.
Bradford R. Kane: The whole issue is finding the fulcrum, finding the right balance. So let’s make this tangible. There are laws about financial markets. There was the creation of the SEC, Securities and Exchange Commission. Prior to that, there were predatory practices, everything from a monopoly to—think about insider trading. Do we accept insider trading? No, we don’t. Libertarians do not like the idea of corporate CEOs basically with inside information selling the stock and leaving normal shareholders facing huge losses while the CEO goes off and lives in the Bahamas with a billion dollars. That’s an example of why laws are necessary. The same thing if you had—no matter what we’re talking about, automobiles. Should there be a pure libertarian approach to the manufacture of automobiles? Make them just have no rules? Well, then you have safety problems, and you want to make sure that someone buying a car is comfortable that there’s a certain amount of safety equipment and a ratio of metal to plastic or whatever it is, I don’t know. But all those different kinds of things to keep people safe. Or you talk about food inspection. People do not like the idea of being poisoned. So the idea of if you had a—if you had that kind of unfettered libertarian approach without having a balance, then you take the chance of relying on good morals by certain food processing companies or food distribution companies that they are just out of their own moral standards they are adhering to certain safety guidelines, and then suddenly there’s an outbreak of different toxins and people die because some company—some companies were scrupulous and other companies were more interested in driving up their profits and didn’t bother to clean their equipment. So the idea is you don’t want to be overly prescriptive, but you do want standards. And so laws are necessary. It’s a question of balance.
Analyzing the 2016 Election [21:00]
Bob Zadek: Brad, one thing—you just tortured me a little bit by your reference to insider trading. And if we were on a Zoom call or on television, you would have seen a bit of a smile on my face as you made somewhat passing reference to insider trading. Why did I perk up? The I think the second or third show that I did 12 or 13 years ago, my guest was Don Boudreaux, a wonderful economist who does a daily column that I must read every morning called Cafe Hayek. The subject was insider trading. And we’re not going to divert because it’s a great topic. I did a whole show on insider trading in which, Brad—this will get a little hairs on the back of your neck up—I wished that insider trading was mandatory, not a crime, but it was mandatory. And in fact, criminalizing insider trading harms the market, harms investors, and harms everybody. We can’t discuss it, Brad, although it’d be a fun conversation. I would just in a crass kind of way refer our listeners to a show I did 12 years ago, still available, on insider trading. It is a cool, complex, interesting topic. But now, as they say, back to our show with Brad.
So Brad, of course there is a role for governments in the marketplace, because remember that a libertarian point of view seeks to find as about the most valid and appropriate role of government is to protect individuals from having their rights, which preceded government, their rights protected from the bad acts of others and to be protected against theft, physical harm, and fraud. So in—of course that is a valid role of government to protect us against fraud. So you and I have found a fair amount of common ground there.
Now Brad, your observations on the 2016 election and your feelings about the election seem to be what prompted you—of course they are, I’m not reading your mind, but it seems to be that’s what prompted you to feel that you had something important to share, and thus you wrote the book. You mentioned in your introductory comments that Donald Trump was in your opinion elected in part because a large enough number of voters felt that neither political party was looking after their interest. And they felt as if—these weren’t your exact words, but I think it’s an accurate summary—these people, these voters, became somewhat of political orphans and they found refuge, they found a home in what Donald Trump and his populism or apparent populism was offering. And that is sort of a very quick but in your opinion and in your views, which you explain in the book in great detail, that was what accounted for the rather strange, in that it wasn’t predicted, results of the 2016 election.
So I’d like to discuss that for a minute because we have another election coming up and your observations and your thoughts, to the extent that your readership will agree with them, will help them understand the election we’re about to have. So tell us, just in a few words because we have a lot to cover, your analysis of where populism fit in to Trump’s election. And I’d like to discuss that for a few minutes after you make your brief presentation, because I may have a somewhat different spin. I don’t have the same confidence that I’m correct, it’s merely an observation, but we’ll talk about it for a few minutes. So tell us, populism and the 2016 election. In your opinion, how did Trump get elected and what does that tell us about America in 2016 and perhaps America in 2020?
Bradford R. Kane: 2016 definitely was a perfect storm combination of many different factors. And it was kind of a—this weird convergence. But the most important thing here is the question of the underlying forces that have been basically fomenting, and the more I looked into it, the more I realized that it goes back to the origins of our country, and that’s what I spell out in the book. So it’s not just Donald Trump; he basically galvanized a lot of this, but a lot of it predates him, and then of course he took it in his own direction in ways which I would argue are rather dystopian, and we’ve seen that bear out.
So the interesting thing is, if you go back to 2015, 2016, there were a lot of people who felt kind of forgotten, left behind, disaffected, disengaged, dislocated, partly because of the economic problems of 2008, 2009 from which they never recovered. Some people had feelings about the Obama presidency. And so basically what it was is that a lot of people felt, well, neither the Democrats nor the Republicans are serving my needs, so I want to try something different. And so some of them went with Donald Trump for that reason. People vote for different reasons, of course. There were some things that were unique to 2016, the fact that Jim Comey did what he did a week before the election. That was, in the view of many, rather reprehensible, putting his thumb on the scale a week before. There were unusual things like that, and a lot of it was candidate-specific.
Fast forward to today. I don’t believe there’s a single person in America who can say they don’t know what Donald Trump is or is about or stands for. It’s impossible after four years. One can have different opinions of it, absolutely. One can see it through different lens, but no one can—but in 2016, some people thought, well, it’s an unknown. Other people felt like they had an idea of what Donald Trump would bring. But for some, it was an unknown. It’s not unknown after four years of having his record. So the interesting thing is we’ve seen what he does, we’ve seen why—what he’s doing and how he does it. I talk—like in the book, I put forth a detailed discussion of his transactional approach and what drives him. Normally, every other president in American history has been driven by policy and principles, things like this. And of course, each of us will agree with some and disagree with others, but there were policy and principles involved. I contend that with Donald Trump, he has based his actions and decisions much more on his personality preferences and his psychological needs. And I believe that’s borne out when you see the—for example, he contradicts himself all the time, and that’s because those needs change and he fluctuates according to them. He even says that in his campaign speeches in recent days.
An interesting thing is there are a lot of reasons why people who voted for Donald Trump in 2016 now might be looking at him. Some people might like what they see and want to still vote for him, but there are a lot of people who see what they see now and have reasons why they do not want to see him be president for four more years. Turn to the other side of the equation. Is there anyone who voted for the Democrat in 2016 who would now have reason to vote for Donald Trump? I can’t think of a reason why someone who voted for the Democrat in 2016 would now say Trump is my guy. So the whole thing is, it’s a question from a libertarian point of view or pretty much any other in terms of what is America based on and founded on in terms of our founding documents, our founding principles of liberty and equality, and what we see Donald Trump doing where he basically hampers our institutions, he basically—he’s basically trying to dismantle, cause to question and even dismantle the credibility of our institutions, including our intelligence community, our FBI, anyone who doesn’t say nice things about him, he comes out against. That is damaging to the United States of America. So I think it’s an entirely different landscape in 2020 than it was in 2016.
Trump, Biden, and the Future of American Institutions [32:41]
Bob Zadek: Now, here’s—I am a political outsider, just an observer, just somebody who thinks about stuff more than perhaps is emotionally healthy, but that’s what I do. And I have—and I’m sure I’m in a minority, but I have an entirely different spin on, without getting involved in how I feel about Trump or Biden or anybody else, taking a step back, I have an entirely different spin on the 2016 election and of equal importance, what the election of 2016 tells us about America in 2016 and America today. And I’ll share with you, perhaps for your thoughts if you have any—it’s not required—but in my view, the 2016 election tells us nothing, nothing about how Trump got elected and what was going on in the country. Many observers, most perhaps more informed than me, and including you, Brad, many observers say, well, that was a populist movement, there were disaffected voters, and that’s what happened. That is, you make—you draw a conclusion about what was going on in America in 2016.
I disagree. My view is Trump won because his opponent was a horrible candidate and was the only human on the planet who could have lost to Donald Trump. Now, which means that the 2016 election was nothing other than the accident of the Democrats fielding a candidate who was proven to be unelectable by the country at large. If I am right—now, we know that Hillary ran a horrible campaign and she made mistakes. She didn’t campaign in the Midwest enough, so she made tactical errors. Had she made better tactical decisions, she would have won. And the point I am making is that the election tells us nothing about the country. In fact, Trump won with a minority of the vote, popular vote. It tells us nothing about the country because if Hillary would have ran a better campaign—not that I’m glad she ran a bad campaign—had she run a better campaign, she would have been elected. And you and I would not be on the show this Sunday morning talking about populism. It wouldn’t be on the agenda at all. We wouldn’t be talking about the country in the same way we are talking about it now. Well, the country doesn’t change based upon the quality of election tactics. So I say the election of 2016 tells us nothing about the country. It tells us only about how to operate and not to operate a political campaign. It is—all you—the only conclusions you can draw are technical political issues, nothing about the country. And had Hillary won, the conversation in America about where we are going would be entirely different. Well, America doesn’t change that much. America was America in 2016 and is America today. So I would just offer the observation that I do not draw any conclusions about the country based upon the 2016 election other than Hillary ran a stupid campaign. It’s that level of insignificance.
Bradford R. Kane: Well, Bob, as I was saying, in my view, 2016 was a perfect storm, kind of a conflagration of many different forces and factors. One of which was that the Democratic candidate was very unpopular, as was Donald Trump. Both were unpopular, and so that was absolutely one of the important factors. But I do think there’s a lot to be learned from 2016. One thing, for example, is the blatant racism that Donald Trump showcases. He is—when he talks about his MAGA movement, he basically is harkening back to a wistful notion of a mirage. He’s thinking back to the 1950s, which was very white-centric, when Black and Latino folks and Asian-American communities and Native Americans, there was very little presence, there was not equal opportunity. You turn on your TV, it was all white people. White privilege was kind of the founding principle of the 1950s. And Donald Trump has been embodying that. So do we learn from that? I believe we do. We see that Donald Trump is kind of—he showcases that even in his rallies and in his comments that he makes. Then when he’s pressured, he’ll make a comment that he’s sort of forced to say, and then he goes right back to his campaign and he makes these comments that are tinged with racism and xenophobia and things like this. He did it even over the last few days. I acknowledge what you’re saying, that 2016 was sui generis, it was its own creation and in one—and it does not transfer over to 2020. However, the underlying forces do tell us something about the American people.
And I think Joe Biden is very conscious of this. And he’s—when you look at what America’s tradition, we are mostly somewhere somewhat centric as a people, partly because of our split personality national identity that I talked about earlier with individualism and collectivism and all the different areas that spring up from those. We are generally a centrist nation. We lean a little left, we lean a little right, but there’s a pendulum swing between the two, but not toward the extremes. And Donald Trump has taken it to an extreme, and people are objecting to that. Joe Biden is reaching out to communities of all types, even with regard to people who were disaffected and who don’t appreciate the Democrats or the Republicans. Joe Biden’s—if you look at his policy principles, his “build back better” economic approach, he also wants to see more job training and transformation of the economy and job creation even for people who one would argue are principally in Trump’s base. Joe Biden wants to be the president for all of America, and even though some people won’t like him, he’s still going to do things that are in everyone’s best interest. So I both agree and disagree that 2016 is definitely its own creation, its own unique moment, but at the same time, the underlying forces in America are things that we should be conscious of, because if we’re not conscious of them, then they can kind of impact us in unexpected ways.
Tax Policy and Economic Equality [40:56]
Bob Zadek: And so just continuing, if I may, with my thought on equality, because equality is a very important, as it should be, concept in your book. I would compare equality under the law, which we in my view basically have in this country. We have that. So therefore, the concept of equality now as promoted by Biden with a different world view than I have, is that he wants equality of outcome. That if some people have more and others have less and dare I say not enough in his opinion, then it is appropriate for government to force wealth transfers from those who have more than enough in the government’s opinion to those who do not have enough in the government’s opinion. And if you want to know one fault line where Biden’s view only represents, let’s say, approximately half the country, but by no means all of the country, is in that concept: that by the mere fact that for whatever lawful reason some people have more and others have less, it is the government’s job to adjust that by interfering with otherwise people acquiring property lawfully in mutually beneficial exchanges throughout their life, that it’s the government’s job to merely by the dint of economic differences to put their thumb on the scale. And in that decision, which is a clear distinction between perhaps progressives and even the founding generation, that’s the fault line that means that Biden cannot claim to represent more than half the people, and the half he represents are for the most part people who are have-less group and they want to enforce a wealth transfer simply so they have more at the expense of people who have more than enough. That seems to be Biden’s application of the principle of equality, and that is for many of us a painful difference.
Bradford R. Kane: Bob, if I may, I’d like to take issue at that. I think that is not an accurate characterization of what Biden would be doing. I would like to address this in terms of both economics and in terms of rights. In terms of economics, that is not what he’s doing. First of all, for example, one of the important things, one of the things that Donald Trump did, his tax—so-called tax reduction plan that was passed at the end of, I think it was the end of 2017 in December. I don’t know how many people realize that the lion’s share, the overwhelming amount of the tax reduction went to corporations and to the wealthiest Americans and made it permanent. There was a small amount, a small fraction of the total, was tax reduction to the rest of Americans, and that was time-limited. It goes away after I think eight years, whereas the rest, the things for corporate America, the tax breaks for corporate America and for the wealthiest Americans, the millionaires and billionaires, that remains permanent. That is not equality, that is not fair. So when Joe Biden has been talking about what he would be doing on taxes, he’s made it clear that he will not raise taxes of people who earn $400,000 a year or less. But what he’s talking about are the millionaires and billionaires who got these open-ended, outrageous cuts, because what all Americans have to remember is that when one person isn’t paying, someone else is paying. So when corporations and the wealthiest Americans get that immense tax break in perpetuity, it means that people—whether you’re talking about people who work in hospitals and teachers and fire people and law enforcement folks—those are people who are paying their taxes and they are footing the bill so that the millionaires and billionaires get their tax break in perpetuity. So Joe Biden would correct that incredible inequality that Donald Trump instilled. And then on the rights issue, that’s, you know, as you also acknowledge, rights need to be—that’s where equality is always necessary. And I devote a chapter to discussing, for example, the Tenth Amendment and are things more focused on the states or on the federal government. And there’s been distortion of that in recent years as well during the Trump administration. So to put it in what I believe is a fair context, there’s been a serious distortion in recent years that Joe Biden would be addressing.
Bob Zadek: I’ve done lots of shows on tax policy, also way back. Just a minor comment, doesn’t require response. The corporate income tax is perhaps the most misunderstood tax policy in the country. There should be no corporate income tax because corporations pay the tax, and since they have to make a profit or else they wouldn’t exist, they simply treat the tax, whatever the tax is, as a cost, and they pass the tax along, built into the price or by paying lower wages or by paying less for the goods and services they buy. So in effect, corporations cannot pay taxes. They can collect taxes because they pay taxes to the government and then collect it from their customers, their vendors, or their stockholders. So therefore, any sensible study will show that a corporation income tax is actually paid by the lowest 25% of the earners because they spend the largest amount of their money on goods and services and the least on savings. So therefore, a corporate income tax is simply a way for the government to tax individuals by hiding behind corporations and saying we’re taxing corporations, but they’re really taxing individuals.
Well, we’re running out of time. I wasn’t trying to sneak in the last word. So I would like to devote the last minute or so, Brad, because you have so much to say in your book. Explain to us—we only have a minute—what you believe your readers—we only have a minute—will take away from your book, which will make them a more informed voter. And we only have a minute, Brad.
Bradford R. Kane: The most important thing really is that with this being election season, last call to vote November 3rd, I believe it’s very important from a libertarian point of view or any other point of view to be in touch with what does one believe about the United States. And is Donald Trump advancing those founding principles that are inculcated in our beliefs, or is he basically destroying them for his own personal benefit? If one—I believe it’s time that each of us must act responsibly and patriotically. It is not about party. It has nothing to do with Democrat, Republican. What we do face right here is kind of an infringement upon basic American principles and values.
Bob Zadek: And we close with Brad’s words: we must act responsibly. That’s a wonderful way to close. Brad, thank you so much for giving us an hour of your time and for the work you spent on the book.
Bradford R. Kane: Thank you very much, Bob. It’s been a pleasure.
Bob Zadek: Thanks so much to my listeners. I’ll be back again next Sunday. Enjoy the rest of the weekend.