If stagnant wages, near-record
inequality, climate change, nuclear buildups, assault weapons, mass killings,
trade wars, opioid deaths, Russian intrusions into American elections, kids
locked in cages at our border, and Donald Trump in the White House don’t at
least occasionally cause you feelings of impending doom, you’re not human.
But I want you to remember this: As
bad as it looks right now – as despairing as you can sometimes feel – the great
strength of this country is our resilience. We bounce back. We will again.
Not convinced?
First, come back in time with me to
when I graduated college in 1968. That year, Martin Luther King Jr. was
assassinated. Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated. Our cities were burning.
Tens of thousands of young Americans
were being ordered to Vietnam to fight an unwinnable and unjust war, which
ultimately claimed over 58,000 American lives and the lives of over 3 million
Vietnamese.
The nation was deeply divided. And
then in November of that year, Richard Nixon was elected president. I recall
thinking this nation would never recover. But somehow we bounced back.
In subsequent years we enacted the Environmental Protection Act. We achieved marriage equality for gays and lesbians. We elected a black man to be president of the United States. We passed the Affordable Care Act.
Even now, it’s not as bleak as it
sometimes seems. In 2018 a record number of women, people of color, and LGBTQ
representatives were elected to Congress, including the first Muslim women.
Eighteen states raised their minimum
wages.
Even in traditionally conservative
states, surprising things are happening. In Tennessee, a Republican legislature
has enacted free community college and raised taxes for infrastructure. Nevada
has expanded voting rights and gun controls. New Mexico has increased spending
by 11 percent and raised its minimum wage by 60 percent.
Teachers have gone on strike in
Virginia, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Kentucky, and North Carolina — and won. The
public sided with the teachers.
In several states, after decades of
tough-on-crime policies, conservative groups have joined with liberals to
reform criminal justice systems. Early childhood education and alternative
energy promotion have also expanded nationwide, largely on a bipartisan basis.
In 2018, South Carolina passed a law
giving pregnant workers and new mothers more protections in the workplace.
The law emerged from an unlikely coalition – supporters of abortion rights and religious groups that oppose them. A similar alliance in Kentucky enacted laws requiring that employers provide reasonable accommodations for pregnant workers and new mothers.
The law emerged from an unlikely coalition – supporters of abortion rights and religious groups that oppose them. A similar alliance in Kentucky enacted laws requiring that employers provide reasonable accommodations for pregnant workers and new mothers.
The arc of American history reveals
an unmistakable pattern. Whenever privilege and power conspire to pull us
backward, we eventually rally and move forward.
Robert
B. Reich is Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of
California at Berkeley and Senior Fellow at the Blum Center for Developing
Economies. He served as Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration, for
which Time Magazine named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries
of the twentieth century. He has written fifteen books, including the best
sellers "Aftershock", "The Work of Nations," and "Beyond
Outrage," and, his most recent, "The Common Good," which is
available in bookstores now. He is also a founding editor of the American
Prospect magazine, chairman of Common Cause, a member of the American Academy
of Arts and Sciences, and co-creator of the award-winning documentary,
"Inequality For All." He's co-creator of the Netflix original
documentary "Saving Capitalism," which is streaming now.
