We have been subject to the sociopath for a year and a half — 18 months of the most loathsome, least competent, and most corrupt person ever to be president of the United States.
We’ve watched him take a meat-axe to every major institution of our democracy, draw the nation into a never-ending war, establish a murderous domestic police state, reject renewable energy in favor of the dirtiest possible fossil fuels, make billions off his presidency, and cause most Americans to become poorer and less economically secure.
But here’s the good news. The sleeping giant of America is finally awakening.
Trump’s poll numbers are plummeting. They’re now at record lows. Even many Republicans have had enough. Progressives are winning election after election around the country.
The sleeping giant has always remained asleep until some venality becomes so noxious, some acts so disrespectful of the common good, some brutalities so noisy, that the giant has no choice but to awaken — blinking both eyes and then roaring, “What the hell is going on here?”
The first time I saw him awaken was during the witch hunts of Senator Joe McCarthy. He awoke again when the Ku Klux Klan tried to stop the Civil Rights Movement. Again when the Vietnam War was taking the lives of tens of thousands of Americans and millions of Vietnamese. And again when Richard Nixon threatened our system of government.
Each time the sleeping giant of America has awakened, the good sense of the American people has stopped whatever it is that awakened him. Again and again, we put the nation back on track toward democracy and social justice.
Trump isn’t gone yet, of course. He has another two and a half years. But he’s on his way out. He’ll soon be a cringeworthy irrelevance, a fat lame duck, excrement on the sidewalk of history.
In a few years, Trump’s gilded monuments will be razed, his name removed from every building and pediment, his pathetic attempts to glorify himself turned into bad jokes, his legacy object lessons in why big money must be banned from politics and dastardly dickheads like Elon Musk kept away from the levers of government power.
Trump will still cause a great deal of damage over the remainder of his term, the way a wild pig who’s been gored wreaks mayhem before it expires.
So this is no time to let down our guard or become overly confident about the coming midterm elections.
Quite the contrary. One hundred days from today must be a historic repudiation of Trump and his entire disgusting regime.
The blue wave must be a tsunami — inundating everything Trump may attempt to do to hold on to the House and Senate, overwhelming whatever lies he may tell about the election, and enveloping him in a rejection that’s so unmistakeable, a rebuke so unequivocal, a reproach so unambiguous as to cause the great giant of America to get up and dance.
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/.