Rev Left Radio
patreon
From Reagan to Trump: Neoliberalism, Class War, and American Decadence
🕑 Added 2025-11-05 03:11:26 +0000 UTCIn this episode, public school history teacher Gianni Paul joins Breht to trace the historical roots of our current crisis — stagnant wages, mass homelessness, collapsing infrastructure, rising fascism, Gilded Age inequality, and a beaten down working class — back to Reagan’s counter-revolution against the New Deal and the forty-year neoliberal project that followed. Together, they explore how neoliberalism emerged out of the crises of the 1970s, Carter’s role in laying the groundwork before Reagan, the destruction of unions and working-class power, the ideological weaponization of anti-communism, the bipartisan consolidation of neoliberalism under Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden, the ways Reagan and Trump represent two phases of the same class project, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the rise of capitalist triumphalism, the slow disintegration of America’s middle class into debt and precarity, the explosion of homelessness and hopelessness, the erosion of U.S. imperial dominance alongside the emergence of a multipolar world, and why the U.S. repeatedly chooses reaction over social transformation — raising the question of whether genuine change can still emerge from within the imperial core or whether new possibilities are taking shape elsewhere. Understanding this history is key to understanding why everyday life in America feels increasingly unstable, and what futures remain possible beyond neoliberal decay.
Follow Gianni and The People's Classroom on Instagram @thepeoplesclassroom315
Check out his full lectures on YouTube HERE
----------------------------------------------------
Make a one-time donation to Rev Left at BuyMeACoffee.com/revleftradio
Follow, Subscribe, & Learn more about Rev Left Radio https://revleftradio.com/
Comments
SprocketMusic
https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/powellmemo/ "The Powell Memorandum: An Attack on American Free Enterprise System"
Mauro
Somewhere in the initial part of the episode a memo is mentioned, but I couldn't understand the name. Can I get some help there? It was the one about the rich having to take control of everything.
Foko
As far as I’m aware the Sangha is the last Sunday of every month and is a scheduled zoom call. I know there’s been some talk of adding other mediums of communication but as far as I know that hasn’t been added yet.
Paragonah
This is unrelated but does anyone know how I can access the Buddhism Group perk? I recently signed up and am not sure if that’s a discord server or something else. Appreciated. Great podcast, amazing elucidation of American economy the past century!!
