Sunday thought: What is Being Born

Out of the rubble and embers of this catastrophe

Friends,

I’m not going to dwell on this week’s outrages by Trump and his regime — his Supreme Court appointees gutting the Voting Rights Act, his bizarre claim that his war doesn’t require congressional approval because it’s “terminated,” his murders of additional sailors he suspects of smuggling drugs, his ongoing ICE raids, his continuing efforts to use the Justice Department to punish perceived enemies, his renewed attempts to silence comedians such as Jimmy Kimmel, his giant self-aggrandizing triumphal arch (what triumph?) and grotesque ballroom, his never-ending corruption and lies.

Yet in the midst of this cataclysm, the backlash against Trump is growing. Your work has been critical — your demonstrations and No Kings marches, your letters and phone calls to Congress, your boycotts and your local activism. Trump’s approval ratings are in the cellar. Two-thirds oppose his war. Many are demanding an end to his reign. Even some MAGA faithful are turning on him.

But it’s more than resisting Trump.

A new progressivism is being born.

Many of you are leading this. You are the activists in Montana and Hawaii pushing a new vision for reining in corporate power. You’re the activists in California and New York devising new ways to tax the super-wealthy to pay for what most people need.

You’re the activists in Massachusetts taking the lead on reproductive rights and access to health care. In Washington state, pushing new and more aggressive environmental regulations and renewable energy. In San Diego, Oakland, and San Francisco, devising new ways to address homelessness. Organizations like Voz in Portland, Oregon, empowering immigrant day laborers.

You are the activists in red states refusing to let warehouses be turned into migrant detention centers or let their towns host giant AI data centers.

You’re raising the minimum wage across America. Since the start of this year, 22 states have raised it, bringing the total number of jurisdictions raising the minimum — including cities and counties — to almost 90, with 18 states and the District of Columbia now mandating $15 an hour or more.

You’re supporting a new generation of young progressives in Congress: Maxwell Frost, Summer Lee, Greg Casar, Delia Ramirez, and the just-elected Analilia Mejia. And new progressive local leaders like New York’s mayor Zohran Mamdani.

You’re encouraging a new cohort of progressive rising stars, including Minneapolis’s Omar Fateh, Tennessee’s Aftyn Behn, Wisconsin’s Francesca Hong, Illinois’s Kat Abughazaleh, Texas’s James Talarico, San Francisco’s Saikat Chakrabarti, Maine’s Graham Platner, Tennessee’s Justin Pearson, Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed, Florida’s Elijah Manley, and many others.

In my six decades in and around American politics, I’ve never seen anything close to the progressive talent and energy that’s now emerging.

Make no mistake. These are terrible times — the worst I’ve lived through, and I’ve lived through some bad ones. (Remember 1968? Nixon’s enemies list? Anyone old enough to recall Joe McCarthy’s communist witch hunts?) Trump and his goons are doing everything they can to destroy America and much of the world.

But out of the embers and rubble that Trump and his despicable regime have wrought, a new America is being born. We are making it happen.

As long as we are alive and as long as we are resolved, as long as we are taking action to stop the worst of this catastrophe and also trying to make America and the world better, have no doubt: We will prevail.

Be safe. Hug your loved ones. Never, ever give up.

Robert Reich