There Are Sources Of Hope - Find Them And Never Give Up!

Robert Reich gives us three reasons to hope for a better future: 

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.

Trump's First 100 Days Has Most Voters Discouraged About The Next 4 Years

The chart above reflects the results of the Fox News Poll -- done between April 18th and 21st of a nationwide sample of 1,104 registered voters, with a 3 point margin of error. 

The Reason To Remain Hopeful About America's Future

The following is by former Labor Secretary Robert Reich:

So many people I know — including, I suspect, many of you — are despairing over Trump’s second regime.

I share your fears about what’s to come.

 

Yet I remain hopeful about the future of America. Here’s why.

Trump hoodwinked average working Americans into believing he’s on their side and convinced enough voters that Kamala Harris and Democrats were on the side of cultural elites (the “deep state,” “woke”ism, “coastal elites,” and so on).

 

But Trump’s hoax will not work for long, given the oligarchy’s conspicuous takeover of America under Trump II. 

Even before Trump’s regime begins, it’s already exposing a reality that has been hidden from most Americans for decades: the oligarchy’s obscene wealth and its use of that wealth to gain power over America.

 

Seated prominently where Trump is giving his inaugural address today will be the three richest people in America — Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg — each of whom owns powerful media that have either boosted Trump’s lies or refrained from telling the truth about him. 

Musk sank a quarter of a billion dollars into getting Trump elected, in return for which Trump has authorized him, along with billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy, to target for elimination programs Americans depend on — thereby making way for another giant tax cut for the wealthy.

The oligarchy’s conflicts of interest will be just as conspicuous.

 

Musk’s SpaceX is a major federal contractor through its rocket launches and its internet service, Starlink. Bezos’s Amazon is a major federal contractor through its cloud computing business. Zuckerberg is pouring billions into artificial intelligence, as is Musk, in hopes of huge federal contracts.

Ramaswamy, whose biotech company is valued at nearly $600 million, wants the Food and Drug Administration to speed up drug approvals. His investment firm has an oil and gas fund. His new Bitcoin business would benefit if the federal government kept its hands off crypto. 

Trump himself has already begun to cash in on his second presidency even more blatantly than he did the first time. He just began selling a cryptocurrency token featuring an image of himself — even though cryptocurrency is regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission, to which Trump has already said he’ll name a crypto advocate as chair. 

Not to mention the billionaires Trump is putting in charge of key departments to decide on taxes and expenditures, tariffs and trade, even what young Americans learn — all of whom have brazen conflicts of interest.

 

They’ll all be on display today with Trump. Then, many will take their private jets to Davos, Switzerland, for the annual confab of the world’s most powerful CEOs and billionaires. 

Not since the Gilded Age of the late 19th century has such vast wealth turned itself into such conspicuous displays of political power. Unapologetically, unashamedly, defiantly.

This flagrancy makes me hopeful. Why? Because Americans don’t abide aristocracy. We were founded in revolt against unaccountable power and wealth. We will not tolerate this barefaced takeover.

The backlash will be stunning.

I cannot tell you precisely how or when it will occur, but it will start in our communities when we protect the most vulnerable from the cruelties of the Trump regime, ensure that hardworking families aren’t torn apart, protect transgender and LGBTQ+ people, and help guard the safety of Trump’s political enemies.

We will see the backlash in the 2026 midterms and the 2028 presidential election, when Americans elect true leaders who care about working people and the common good.

And just as we did at the end of the first Gilded Age of the late 19th century when the oligarchy revealed its hubris and grandiosity, Americans will demand fundamental reforms: getting big money out of politics, taxing huge wealth, busting up or regulating giant corporations, making huge social media platforms accountable to the public rather than to a handful of multibillionaires.

Friends, we could not remain on the path we were on. The sludge had been thickening even under Democratic administrations. Systematic flaws have remained unaddressed. Inequalities have continued to widen. Corruption and bribery have worsened.

It’s tragic that America had to come to this point. A few years of another Trump regime, even worse than the first, will be hard on many people.

 

But as the oligarchy is conspicuously exposed, Americans will see as clearly as we did at the end of the first Gilded Age that we have no option but to take back power.

Only then can we continue the essential work of America: the pursuit of equality and prosperity for the many, not the few. The preservation and strengthening of a government of, by, and for the people.

The Public Believes The SC Immunity Decision Makes It Likely Future Presidents Will Commit Crimes

 

The chart above reflects the results of the Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between July 7th and 9th of a nationwide sample of 1,620 adults (including 1,443 registered voters). The margin of error was 3.2 points for adults and 3.1 points for registered voters.

The Hope For A Better Future For Russia

The following post is by Serge Schmemann in The New York Times:

The spectacle of Alexei Navalny’s funeral on Friday must have filled Vladimir Putin with fury.

He had done everything to silence Navalny, to crush any hint of disobedience from his followers, to eradicate any questioning of his war. And yet Putin could do nothing to prevent thousands of Russians from lining up in a dreary, remote Moscow district to pay their last respects to their fallen hero, to chant “No to the war!” and to defy the massed police in full riot gear.

I remember a similar outpouring of silent defiance in the Soviet Union, after the enormously popular balladeer and actor Vladimir Vysotsky died, when thousands of grieving Muscovites spontaneously gathered outside the theater where he worked. Vysotsky’s ballads spoke to the misery of ordinary Soviet lives, and at that moment popular grief overcame fear. The grief for Navalny was even greater: He spoke to an acute, simmering frustration among many Russians with what Putin has done to them and their country.

They may not be the majority in Russia. Putin still seems to command support among the millions of rural, less-educated Russians who believe in his propaganda about a hostile world out there that only he can hold at bay. But the mile-long line of people, most of them young and many with a clutch of roses, inching across the colorless, slush-covered streets of the southeastern Maryino district, were the people Putin continues to fear.

They gathered in other Russian cities, too, though they knew they would be photographed; they knew that Putin in his fury would seek revenge against them. Yet they walked past the lines of police officers and piled their roses at the grave and nodded to Navalny’s parents, sitting stoically alongside, some whispering, “Thank you for your son.” It was the mother, Lyudmila Navalnaya, who had demanded that Putin release her son for burial in Moscow, rather than in a hole at the remote Arctic labor camp where he died on Feb. 16.

When Mr. Navalny’s coffin was lowered into the ground, Frank Sinatra’s defiant version of “My Way” blared from loudspeakers. “I did what I had to do … I did it my way….” That was what people loved in Navalny, his refusal to bend. One Russian interviewed by an independent Russian online broadcaster said the long line of defiant mourners were evidence that “hope remains, that Russia has a chance for a future.”

World Population Will Be 10 Billion In 2085 - Then Decline

 

The following thought-provoking article is by economist Sara Kodesh in The New York Times: Here is just a part of what she wrote:

Most people now live in countries where two or fewer children are born for every two adults. If all people in the United States today lived through their reproductive years and had babies at an average pace, then it would add up to about 1.66 births per woman. In Europe, that number is 1.5; in East Asia, 1.2; in Latin America, 1.9. Any worldwide average of fewer than two children per two adults means our population shrinks and in the long run each new generation is smaller than the one before. If the world’s fertility rate were the same as in the United States today, then the global population would fall from a peak of around 10 billion to less than two billion about 300 years later, over perhaps 10 generations. And if family sizes remained small, we would continue declining.

What would happen as a consequence? Over the past 200 years, humanity’s population growth has gone hand in hand with profound advances in living standards and health: longer lives, healthier children, better education, shorter workweeks and many more improvements. Our period of progress began recently, bringing the discovery of antibiotics, the invention of electric lightbulbs, video calls with Grandma and the possibility of eradicating Guinea worm disease. In this short period, humanity has been large and growing. Economists who study growth and progress don’t think this is a coincidence. Innovations and discoveries are made by people. In a world with fewer people in it, the loss of so much human potential may threaten humanity’s continued path toward better lives.

Whenever low birthrates get public attention, chances are somebody is concerned about what it means for international competition, immigration or a government’s fiscal challenges over the coming decades as the population ages. But that’s thinking too small. A depopulating world is a big change that we all face together. It’s bigger than geopolitical advantage or government budgets. It’s much bigger than nationalistic worries over which country or culture might manage to eke out a population decline that’s a little bit slower than its neighbors’. . . .

It would be tempting to welcome depopulation as a boon to the environment. But the pace of depopulation will be too slow for our most pressing problems. It will not replace the need for urgent action on climate, land use, biodiversity, pollution and other environmental challenges. If the population hits around 10 billion people in the 2080s and then begins to decline, it might still exceed today’s eight billion after 2100. Population decline would come quickly, measured in generations, and yet arrive far too slowly to be more than a sideshow in the effort to save the planet. Work to decarbonize our economies and reform our land use and food systems must accelerate in this decade and the next, not start in the next century.

This isn’t a call to immediately remake our societies and economies in the service of birthrates. It’s a call to start conversations now, so that our response to low birthrates is a decision that is made with the best ideas from all of us. Kicking the can down the road will make choices more difficult for future generations. The economics and politics of a society in which the old outnumber the young will make it even harder to choose policies that support children.

If we wait, the less inclusive, less compassionate, less calm elements within our society and many societies worldwide may someday call depopulation a crisis and exploit it to suit their agendas — of inequality, nationalism, exclusion or control. Paying attention now would create an opportunity to lay out a path that would preserve freedom, share burdens, advance gender equity, value care work and avoid the disasters that happen when governments try to impose their will on reproduction. . . .

Humanity needs a compassionate, factual and fair conversation about how to respond to depopulation and how to share the burdens of creating each future generation. The way to have that conversation is to start paying attention now.

Voters Are Pessimistic About The Country's Future

This chart is from the NBC News Poll -- done between November 10th and 14th of a nationwide sample of 1,000 registered voters, with a 3.1 point margin of error.
 

Most Say Things Will Not Be Better For Their Children

This chart reflects the result of the Wall Street Journal / NORC Poll -- done between March 1st and 13th of a nationwide sample of 1,019 adults, with a 4.1 point margin of error. 

Young Voters Should Give Democrats Hope For The Future

The 2022 election turned out better than many Democrats feared, but not as good as they had hoped. However, thanks to the young voters (who turned out in greater numbers and voted overwhelmingly for Democrats), there is a great hope for the future of our country and our democracy.

Here is how Robert Reich sees it:

The aspect of the midterm elections that gives me most hope for the future is the growing ranks of the young — as well as people of color and women — among American voters and in American politics. 

By 2028, Millennials & Gen Z’rs will dominate U.S. elections. 

This is why the GOP is pulling out all the stops to entrench Republican power. They know they don't stand a chance against a multi-racial, progressive generation of young people that will make the GOP’s backwards ideas irrelevant.

They are the Republican Party’s worst nightmare.

The latest data prove the point. In this weeks’ midterm elections, 27 percent of young people (ages 18 to 29) turned out — the second-highest youth voter turnout in almost three decades.

These young people helped decide critical races. 

In a group of nine electorally competitive states for which exit poll data is available (Florida, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin), the aggregate youth voter turnout was 31%.

In Michigan, the early youth vote was up 207 percent from 2018. In Pennsylvania, up 318 percent. In Wisconsin, up 360 percent.

Young people were a critical force in holding back a “red wave.” They supported Democratic House candidates by 62 percent to 35 percent.

According to AP VoteCast, an in-depth survey of more than 94,000 voters nationwide, 61 percent of voters younger than 45 backed Democrat John Fetterman in his  Pennsylvania Senate race. 

What accounts for these astounding numbers?

Start with Trump, who continues to be deeply and justifiably despised by most young people. He wasn’t on any ballot, but he made his presence as conspicuous as he always does. Trump insisted on campaigning loudly and belligerently. Most Republican candidates joined in his big lie that he won the 2020 election.

Next is the stark political reality that young people -- the first generation in America to be subject in school to active shooter drills – want action on gun violence. 

They also want progress on the climate crisis, presumably because they’ll be living longer with its consequences than anyone else. 

And they’re passionate about preserving reproductive rights.

Don’t get me wrong. The growing numbers and political power of young people, as well as people of color and women, is not an argument for complacency.

To the contrary, it means Republicans will now be even more determined to suppress their votes. Fighting voter suppression in all its forms -- making it easier rather than harder to vote – should continue to be among our highest priorities.

We can also expect more cruel divisiveness from the Trumpian Republicans, especially if, as seems most likely, they take back control of the House. How to fight this? Not with more belligerence, which only kindles more of the same. No, we fight it with openness and civility. 

 

Third, we must continue to do everything possible to relieve the economic burdens borne by young people, women, and people of color – especially the escalating costs of housing, childcare, and higher education, and the scarcity of good jobs paying a living wage.

The encouraging reality is the inevitability of these long-term demographic trends: a nation that’s younger, more female, and with more people of color -- and, largely as a result, more progressive.

“History was made tonight,” tweeted Maxwell Alejandro Frost, the first Gen Z’r to be elected to Congress Tuesday night, at the ripe age of 25. “We made history for Floridians, for Gen Z, and for everyone who believes we deserve a better future.”

Indeed. 

Anyone worried about the direction this nation is heading still has much to be worried about. But we should find some solace in the young people who are committed to redirecting it toward social justice and democracy.