Robert Reich

As a child, I was bullied and harassed for being short. I remember feeling powerless and vulnerable. I also recall my shame. I directed much of my anger at myself.

A large portion of America has felt bullied and harassed for decades. They’ve worked their butts off but haven’t gotten anywhere. Employers have fired them without cause or notice, made them into contract workers without any security or rights, spied on them during working hours, and otherwise treated them like children.

They’ve been bullied by landlords who keep hiking their rent. By banks that keep adding large fees to whatever they owe. By health insurers and hospitals that charge them an arm and a leg. By corporate grocery monopolies that push up food prices.

Many of them voted for Trump because he promised he’d be their bully. He blamed others — immigrants, people of color, transgender people, foreign traders — for what they endured. He thereby found scapegoats for their deep feelings of powerlessness, vulnerability, and shame. It’s one of the oldest of demagogic tricks.

Democrats could have put the blame where it belonged — on monopolistic corporations and billionaires that abused their wealth and power by taking over our politics.

Democrats could have demanded higher taxes on big corporations and the wealthy to pay for child care and elder care. Tougher antitrust laws to break up monopolies. Labor law reforms that made it easier for workers to form unions and gain bargaining power. Universal health care. Strict regulation of big banks so they couldn’t shaft average people. And an end to big money in our politics.

But they have not — not loudly, not with one voice, not with the clarity the people need to hear.

The good news is they still can. They must. And we must push them to.

Trump is the culmination and consequence of decades of worsening inequality and corruption.

We could not have remained on the road we were on. Now that we see what we have reaped by allowing these trends to continue, we have a chance of summoning the political will to reverse them.

If there’s a silver lining in these darkening clouds, this is it.

Be well. Be safe. Hug your loved ones.

Robert Reich, former U.S. Secretary of Labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of “The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It.” Read more from Robert Reich at robertreich.substack.com.