This is the March 2025 soft launch of "Inflection Point", the Berkeley Political Economy Podcast, hosted by Dylan J. Riley & J. Bradford DeLong. Here we have the brilliant John Ganz on to discuss his truly excellent book When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, & How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s. The conversation touches on the intellectual, political, and economic forces behind the rise of Trump and assays historical analogies to the current period from caeserism to fascism…
Participants:
* Host: Dylan Riley—Political sociologist, professor at UC Berkeley, and New Left Review stalwart author:
* Read Dylan Riley…
* Host: Brad DeLong – Economic historian, professor at UC Berkeley, and former Clinton administration semi-senior official
* Subscribe to Brad DeLong’s Substack Grasping Reality…
* Guest: John Ganz – Journalist, historian, columnist for The Nation, and author of When the Clock Broke
* Subscribe to John Ganz’s SubStack Unpopular Front…
"The Republican Party stopped being a governing party and became something else entirely." – John Ganz
"We expected to deal with a moderate Republican opposition, but instead faced an uncompromising ideological movement." – Brad DeLong
"Right-wing populism can mobilize against the state in a way that left-wing populism cannot." – Dylan Riley
MOAR Notable Quotes:
* John Ganz: "My book is a prehistory of Trumpism—a narrative of how unresolved tensions inside the American right ultimately laid the groundwork for today’s radical populism…"
* Dylan Riley: "Trumpism is not a balancing Caesarism. It’s a movement that consolidates social forces on the right rather than navigating a coalition between classes..."
* Brad DeLong: "We [Clintonites] went down [to Washington] expecting to deal with Gerald Ford's Republican Party—or at least with Richard Nixon's Republican Party... serious people in the policy sphere. That's not what we Clintonites found when we hit Washington…"
* John Ganz: "What you were encountering was the post-Reagan new right... quite ideological conservatives opposed to the establishment of the Republican Party and wanting to replace it with hardcore conservatives.… Buchanan’s revolt against H.W. Bush signaled that the conservative movement’s radical wing was no longer content with Reagan's compromises…"
* Brad DeLong: "By 1985, foreign policy was in the hands of George Shultz, the ultimate Ford Republican, and domestic policy was in the hands of Howard Baker, the ultimate Ford Republican."
* John Ganz:"[George H.W.] Bush’s instincts were Tory... yet he still had to play ball with some very radical rightist forces that walked right up to—and often crossed—the limits of acceptable discourse…"
* Dylan Riley: "Did the New Deal order unmake itself by creating the social basis for the radical right?"
* Brad DeLong: "In 1978, Boston was a city of distinct ethnic enclaves. When an Italian-American from the North End married an Irish-American from South Boston, people whispered that such a mixed marriage was unlikely to last. By 1992, that was all dissolved into suburbia—a shift that eroded the sense of shared struggle that defined the New Deal order…"
* John Ganz: "Sam Francis believed that Reagan’s revolution had been absorbed and defanged by hegemonic liberalism—what Francis called the cosmopolitan overclass…. Francis believed that this proletarianized Middle America was a revolutionary subject that would overthrow the managerial class and enforce its own will..."
* Brad DeLong: "Francis’s vision seems like Jacksonism without the frontier—a Caesarism of the middle classes in a world where conquest-settlement expansion was no longer possible…"
* John Ganz: "Francis’s project was a post-bourgeois right wing—a proletarian right that was not conservative in the traditional sense…"
* Brad DeLong: "The shift from a Republican Party of strivers and entrepreneurs to one of people fearful of losing what little they have—that’s the defining change..."
* John Ganz: "Francis ultimately embraced race as a political mobilization tool—a Sorelian myth—rather than out of genuine racial and racist belief…. Steve Bannon is, in many ways, the heir to Francis’s vision—a populist who wants to mobilize an alienated public against the so-called managerial elites."
* Brad DeLong: "Peter Thiel’s vision is an attempt to build a capitalism of pure entrepreneurial creativity—divorced from markets—that ultimately feels incoherent…"
* John Ganz: "Bannon’s project resembles the ‘left’ wing of fascist movements like Ernst Röhm or Gregor Strasser—populists who ultimately get sidelined by business elites…. Trump's economic vision is incoherent—robbing Peter to pay Paul while juggling contradictory promises of protectionism, tax cuts, and economic revival…"
* Brad DeLong: "Napoleon III promised the preservation of the rights gained and the levelling property redistribution carried out by the Great French Revolution, and promised development, infrastructure, stability—even if he seemed corrupt and incompetent to all on a spectrum from Baron Jaime de Rothschild to Karl Marx. Trump offers no such tangible deliverables…"
Noteable Takeaways:
* Book Focus: When the Clock Broke examines the transformation of the Republican Party and the rise of Trumpism as a reaction to shifts in U.S. political and economic structures.
* Historical Political Shift: The Clinton administration expected to face Gerald Ford-style Republicans but instead encountered a transformed Republican Party shaped by Reagan's New Right, Pat Buchanan’s revolt, and Newt Gingrich’s aggressive conservatism.
* Reagan's Legacy: The Reagan administration's initially radical goals were massive tax cuts, social insurance rollback, and aggressive foreign policy. Those were absorbed into the Republican mainstream in Reagan’s second term by the likes of George Shultz and Howard Baker, even before George H.W. Bush’s pragmatic leadership.
* Bush’s Concessions to the Right: Despite his Tory instincts, George H.W. Bush incorporated radical conservatives like Pat Buchanan to maintain party unity after Buchanan’s damaging primary challenge.
* Rise of New Media: The emergence of talk radio figures like Rush Limbaugh amplified Buchanan’s appeal and radicalized segments of the conservative base.
* Sam Francis’s Influence: Francis's ideas became foundational for the radical right. He combined elements of James Burnham’s Managerial Revolution theory with his own vision of a proletarianized middle America poised for revolution.
* Francis’s Radicalism: Unlike traditional conservatives, Francis envisioned a “proletarian right” movement that rejected nostalgic conservatism and embraced authoritarianism led by a strong executive.
* Francis’s Nationalism: Francis saw his movement as forging a new American nationalism distinct from both Hamiltonian merchant capitalism and Jeffersonian agrarianism.
* Rising Right-Wing Populism: Gantz argues that Buchanan’s rise and Trump’s populism reflect a deep crisis within the Republican Party, where formerly upwardly mobile suburbanites became politically disenchanted and fearful of losing status.
* Economic Shifts and Political Realignment: The decline of New Deal social structures left many middle-class Americans feeling economically vulnerable, pushing them toward right-wing populism as a defense mechanism.
* Racial and Cultural Anxiety: A key component of this radical right surge was resentment toward perceived preferential treatment of minorities and fears of cultural displacement.
* Comparisons to Jacksonian Politics: Francis’s vision mirrored Andrew Jackson’s politics — portraying the common man as besieged by corrupt elites and oligarchic power.
* Francis and Trump’s Parallels: Francis’s ideas prefigured Trump’s symbolic politics — leveraging nationalist rhetoric, media manipulation, and racial grievance to mobilize voters.
* Influence of Bannon and Teal: Ganz draws parallels between Francis’s ideological framework and Steve Bannon’s contemporary influence, while Peter Thiel’s vision of monopolistic, entrepreneurial capitalism reflects elements of reactionary modernism.
* Fascism Analogy: Ganz sees Trumpism as paralleling early fascist movements, where radical populist wings (like Bannon) were marginalized in favor of alliances with big business interests.
* Structural Parallels to the 1930s: Ganz and Riley discuss similarities between today’s geopolitical disorder and the breakdown of 1930s diplomatic order, including parallels to Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement and nationalist retrenchment.
* Trump’s U.S. as a Revisionist Power: Unlike traditional great powers seeking to stabilize international order, the U.S. under Trump has behaved like a revisionist power, destabilizing alliances and institutions.
* Lessons from the Book: Ganz’s book emphasizes that Trumpism’s roots predate social media’s acceleration of political disruption. By studying this slower historical build-up, readers may better understand contemporary upheavals.
Recommended Readings:
* Ganz, John. 2024. When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, & How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. <https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374605557/whentheclockbroke>.
* DeLong, J. Bradford. 2022. Slouching Towards Utopia: The Economic History of the 20th Century. New York: Basic Books. <http://bit.ly/3pP3Krk>.
* Riley, Dylan. 2019. The Civic Foundations of Fascism in Europe: Italy, Spain, & Romania, 1870–1945. New York: Verso. <https://www.versobooks.com/products/1493-the-civic-foundations-of-fascism-in-europe>.
* Riley, Dylan, & Robert Brenner. 2022. "Seven Theses on American Politics." New Left Review, II/138. <https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii142/articles/dylan-riley-robert-brenner-seven-theses>.
* Riley, Dylan. 2017. "American Brumaire?" New Left Review, 103. <https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii103/articles/dylan-riley-american-brumaire>.
Plus:
* Wolf, Martin. 2023. The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism. New York: Penguin Press. <https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/554951/the-crisis-of-democratic-capitalism-by-martin-wolf>.
* Jackson, Trevor. 2025. "Never Too Much." The New York Review of Books, January 16. <https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2025/01/16/never-too-much-the-crisis-of-democratic-capitalism-wolf/>.
* Riley, Dylan. 2023. "Sermons for Princes." New Left Review, II/143. <https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii143/articles/dylan-riley-sermons-for-princes>.
And:
Podcast Show Prenotes:
1. John Ganz’s When the Clock Broke—The 1990s Right-Wing Revolt
* Initially, a revolt against the Republican Party establishment…
* The radical transformation of American conservatism in the 1990s…
* The rise of Newt Gingrich and the paleo revolt of Pat Buchanan, Sam Francis, & Murray Rothbard…
* The role of what were then “new media” (talk radio, Rush Limbaugh, & c.)
* Why on the right in the 1990s? The purge of Bush Sr. & the rejection of Reaganite conservatism; Buchanan’s “America First” & reaction against globalization; Perot and the outsider challenge…
* How did Newt Gingrich capitalize? War on institutional governance; hyper-partisanship & the end of deliberative politics; Frank Luntz and the strategic use of political chaos…
* How to compare & contrast? How did this movement anticipate Trumpism?; the shift away from a gentry establishment-based right; the shift to a plebiscitary populism…
Transition: “The 1990s saw the breakdown of political representation on the right. But what happens when entire societies feel unrepresented by their political institutions?”
2. Crises of Representation & Political Breakdown
* Patterns of political representation failing:
* Athens in the -500s…
* Spain and Romania in the 1930s…
* America today…
* What happens when representatives no longer represent? The Gingrichian Congress & the death of compromise; the hollowing out of the Democratic Party; interest-group fragmentation vs. right-wing unity; the failure of Clinton-era governance to resolve political alienation…
* The erosion of public reason & rise of plebiscitary politics: Spectacle over policy; media and “disintermediation” as accelerants of public distrust; limited institutional checks on power…
* How to compare & contrast? How does this compare to the breakdown of liberal democracy in the 1930s? Are we witnessing a permanent shift toward authoritarian populism?
Transition: “If the 1990s set the stage for today’s crisis, what is the economic foundation of this transformation?”
3. “Late Capitalist” Modes of Production (& Distribution, Communication, & Domination)
* Shifts in political-economy orders since the 1970s: From through the Globalized Value-Chain to the Attention Info-Bio Tech Economy –
* Mass-production society and the New Deal social-democratic order
* Globalized value-chain society, the Neoliberal order, & the rise of globalization & financialization…
* Attention info-bio tech society & a shift toward patrimonial-plutocratic neofascism?…
* How did the economy shape the political transformation? The decline of labor unions and the regulatory state; the shift from industrial capitalism to finance-driven neoliberalism; a role for economic insecurity in fueling right-wing populism?
* Why did the left fail to produce an equivalent populist movement? Structural weakness and dependency on institutions; failure to articulate a coherent alternative to neoliberalism; constraints of governing within the neoliberal framework…
* What might the future hold? A new economic order emerging? what comes after neoliberalism? Digital pluto-oligarchy?…
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit inflectionpointpodcast.substack.com
