DC insider won't minimize Trump's repugnance

04 August

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a law enforcement event in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., May 19, 2025. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

It gets bleaker and bleaker. He’s eviscerating environmental protections. He accuses Obama of treason. He’s ripping up labor protections. He wants to privatize Social Security. He fires the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics because he doesn’t like the job numbers. He forces the Smithsonian to take down an exhibit that includes his two impeachments. The European Union, Japan, Columbia University, and CBS are all surrendering to him.

Many of you ask me where I get my hope from, notwithstanding.

Three sources.

First, from all the young people I work with every day. They’re enormously dedicated, committed to making the world better. They’ll inherit this mess, and they’re ready to clean it up and strengthen our democracy. They also have extraordinary energy. And they’re very funny. It is impossible not to be hopeful around them.

Second, from history. We are now in a second Gilded Age that, like the first one (from the late 19th century to the start of the 20th), features wide inequalities of income and wealth, abuses of power by the oligarchs (then called “robber barons”), and a bullied and abused working class.

What happened then? The great pendulum of America swung back. The first Gilded Age was followed by what historians call the Progressive Era. Taxes were raised on the wealthy. Antitrust laws were enacted. Regulations stopped corporate malfeasance. Big money was barred from politics. And reformers — starting with Teddy Roosevelt in 1901 and extending through his fifth cousin, FDR, in 1933 — made life better for average working people.

I don’t know exactly how or when the pendulum will swing back this time, but I am certain it will. And the regressive moral squalor of Trump and his lackeys will be swept into the dustbin of history.

My third source of optimism comes from people I meet all over America, including self-described Republicans in so-called “red” states and “red” cities, who detest what’s happening to the nation and to the world under Trump (as well as under Netanyahu and Putin).

There’s a profound decency in the sinews of America. Most Americans are generous and kind.

Opinion polls show the vast majority don’t want ICE agents disappearing their neighbors off the streets and into detention camps. They reject Trump prosecuting his so-called enemies. They think it’s wrong for him to pocket billions from crypto and other pay-to-play schemes. They don’t like him or his lackeys verbally attacking federal judges, or silencing critics.

Over 80 percent believe the minimum wage should be raised, that no full-time worker should be in poverty, that corporations should share their profits with their employees, that working people should get paid family leave, and that child care and elder care should be affordable.

I don’t want to minimize the repugnance of Trump and his sycophants. Like you, I wince when I read the news. Some days I despair.

But there are sources of hope all around us. Find them. Cling to them. Never give up.

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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/.

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