A Fabulous Failure: Managing American Capitalism during the Clinton Presidency

Recorded June 12, 2023. An in-person lecture by Prof Nelson Lichtenstein (University of California, Santa Barbara) organised by the School of Histories and Humanities. Nelson Lichtenstein, the author of a forthcoming major revisionist history of the Bill Clinton presidency, will speak on the major themes of his book. When Bill Clinton became president, his campaign's catch phrase, "The Economy, Stupid" encapsulated a commitment to the rejuvenation and transformation of the U.S. economy. But his efforts to revive American liberalism failed because those industry sectors and political constituencies upon which Clinton liberals had banked were no match for the power of Wall Street and an increasingly radicalized Republican opposition. The door was therefore open to the neoliberalism, both global and domestic, that has come to characterize the Clinton era. Learn more at: https://www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub/