'Fight of our lives': Robert Reich expresses 'nauseous optimism' as general election gets underway

14 March 2024

The 2024 U.S. presidential race entered its general election phase when Democratic President Joe Biden and Republican former President Donald Trump picked up enough delegates to secure their parties' nominations.

Trump enters the general election with a great deal of baggage: 2024 marks the first time in the United States' 248-year history that the twice-impeached nominee of a major party is facing four criminal indictments as well as a range of civil lawsuits. But despite all of Trump's legal problems, polls indicate that this will be a close race.

Trump has had narrow single-digit leads over Biden in many polls released in March, although a Reuters/Ipsos poll released conducted March 7-13 showed Biden with a 1 percent lead.

Liberal economist Robert Reich is among the many Trump critics who has been slamming the former president as a dangerous authoritarian who openly praises dictators and will do everything he can to erode U.S. democracy if he returns to the White House in January 2025.

But in an opinion column published by The Guardian on March 14, Reich (who served as secretary of labor in the Clinton Administration during the 1990s) lays out a long list of reasons why he is feeling a "nauseous optimism about the presidential election."

"I chose the word nauseous over cautious because my stomach is churning at the very possibility Trump could get a second term," Reich explains. "But I don't believe that will happen. The progressive forces in America are overtaking the regressive."

Reich argues that Biden laid down a "powerful" case for reelecting him with a State of the Union address that was "feisty, bold, energetic and upbeat" as well as "combative."

"The Republican Party is so out of touch with American values that it's putting up outspoken bigots for major offices," the former Clinton labor secretary argues. "Case in point: Mark Robinson, who won the Republican nomination for governor of North Carolina last Tuesday night, has hurled hateful remarks at everyone from Michelle Obama to the survivors of the Parkland school shooting…. Oh, and he has a history of Holocaust denialism and antisemitic remarks. He's suggested that 9/11 was an 'inside job.'"

Reich stresses that the 2024 election will be a referendum not only on Trump's extremism and the need to "protect American democracy from authoritarianism," but also, on MAGA extremism in general — including Republican positions on abortion, climate change and the economy.

"The Republican Party has become a regressive cesspool, headed by increasingly unmoored people who are utterly out of touch with the dominant and emerging values of America," Reich writes. "And most Americans are catching on. I don't mean to be a Pollyanna. We're in the fight of our lives. It will demand a great deal of our energy, our time, and our courage. But this fight is critical and noble. It will set the course for America and the world for decades. And it is winnable."

Robert Reich's full column for The Guardian is available at this link.

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