How to have gratitude — even in dark times

Some of you make it a daily or weekly practice to express gratitude for all the good things in your life. Others of us wait until days like today, or religious holidays.

I fear I’m becoming a grouchy old man who doesn’t appreciate nearly enough all the things I should be grateful for. I’ve become even grouchier since Trump was elected.

Even before he takes office on January 20, Trump has cast a darkening cloud over America. His picks for the White House and Cabinet insult the very idea of self-government. His ability to avoid accountability for his crimes turns my stomach.

So what am I grateful for on this day for giving thanks? With your leave, let me count my blessings.

On a personal level, my family. Just thinking about my sons and their partners and my granddaughter brightens my day.

My health, which is still reasonably good at my ripening old age.

My students — brilliant, optimistic, and committed to social justice — keep me sane and give me great hope for the future.

My young colleagues at Inequality Media Civic Action are extraordinarily talented, inventive, and great fun to hang out with.

I’m also grateful to you. Connecting each day, and receiving your thoughts and insights, is a continuous source of encouragement. Thank you.

**

As to politics, it’s difficult to come up with reasons for gratitude at the moment, but I find some solace in the fact that Trump won less than 50 percent of the popular vote (49.85 percent, to be exact), while Harris won 48.27 percent.

That means that the “party of non-voters” — Americans who didn’t bother to vote — is larger than the number who voted for either for Trump or Harris. So, there are lots of people who could be organized and energized over the next few years to do what’s right for the country and the world.

I’m confident that if Democratic candidates for the House and Senate who are now beginning to organize for the 2026 midterms, and presidential hopefuls now getting ready for the presidential campaign of 2028, spoke to the real needs of working people, they’d win by a landslide.

That’s partly because Trump and his stooges will inevitably overreach — handing out so many tax benefits and subsidies to the wealthy and big corporations, raising tariffs (and the cost of living) so high for average Americans, and attacking programs so many depend on, like Medicaid — that Americans will be eager to get rid of them.

But this will happen only if Democrats shift ground — from being the party of well-off college graduates, big corporations, “never-Tumpers” like Dick Cheney, and vacuous “centrists” — to an anti-establishment party ready to shake up the system on behalf of the vast majority of working Americans.

It’s possible.

Consider what just occurred in several so-called “red” states.

Citizens in Arizona, Missouri, Montana, and Nevada voted to protect reproductive rights by putting such rights directly into their state constitutions. (Floridians voted 57 to 43 to protect them, but the measure was just short of the 60 percent threshold needed to pass.)

Voters in Alaska and Missouri decided to increase their state minimum wages to $15 an hour; they and Nebraska also passed measures to require employers to provide paid sick leave.

Voters in Kentucky wisely rejected a measure that would have allowed the state to fund K-12 students outside the public schools.

And Democrats defended their liberal majorities in the Minnesota and Montana legislatures.

Democrats also expanded their majority on the Michigan Supreme Court to 5-2, flipped a state Supreme Court seat in Kentucky, and in Mississippi won a Supreme Court seat in an upset victory for a public defender. (Democrats are also narrowly leading North Carolina’s Supreme Court race as of this writing, with the race going to a recount.)

How did Democrats manage all this in “red” states?

They organized and mobilized and they planned for the long term.

Wisconsin offers a good illustration. There, Democrats picked up four seats and broke the GOP supermajority in the state Senate, picked up 10 seats in the state Assembly, and are on track to flip both chambers in 2026 and potentially get a trifecta if they win the governor’s race that year too.

This was possible because Democrats flipped Wisconsin’s state Supreme Court in April 2023, and that court then struck down the gerrymandered GOP-drawn state legislative map. Democratic Governor Tony Evers signed into law a new competitive state legislative map.

There’s reason to believe that most working Americans want a fairer and more just society. But achieving it depends on un-rigging the politics we currently have, which is dominated by corporations and wealthy individuals. It means organizing for the long term.

America is not Donald Trump. To the contrary, Americans still believe in social and economic justice, and we believe in democracy.

As a nation, we are rich enough to provide all workers paid family leave, give all of our children a first-class education, give all our people access to health care and affordable homes, and enable all our families to care for their elderly.

We don’t want government forcing women to give birth, or checking on whether we’re using bathrooms consistent with our sex assigned at birth, or demanding our citizenship papers, breaking up families, and holding people in detention camps.

We don’t want corporations that bribe public officials with campaign donations, or pay their CEOs 300 times the pay of their typical workers.

And we don’t want a president who has attempted a coup against the United States.

Trump is a conman. He is not America.

I’m grateful for the ideals the vast majority of us continue to share.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/