I spent my life fighting infiltrators. I still think there is hope in America Robert Rish

I He was born on June 24, 1946, 10 days after the birth of Donald John Trump, 12 days before the birth of George Walker Bush, and 56 days before William Jefferson Bleith III, whose name was later changed to Bill Clinton.

I did not become president. But among my first memories is my grandmother, mini feathers, telling me that I am He was Be president. I think she was trying to reassure herself that although she was a bribe, a head is completely shorter than the other young children, I will make her proud.

When Trump ran for the first time as a presidential candidate in 2015, she looked at him as an anomaly, and a cartoon cartoon for a man who tries to gain political power. He spent most of his life in other bullying – employees, contractors, sellers, women, tenants, lawyers, bankers, politicians and producers. He was and was not bullying in the fatwa – cliche, chaotic, angry, informed, impulsive, revenge.

I saw the damage caused by the leopards, and I spent a lot of my life trying to prevent them. I fought the difficulties in the school courtyard who disturbed me and my harassment for being short. I was protected by a teenager who was later killed by Ku Klux Klan for trying to register black voters in Mississippi. She walked for civil rights, protested the Vietnam War, and worked to elect Sinator Minnesota Eugene McCarthy, a war -anti -war candidate. As the Labor Minister of Bill Clinton, she tried to protect workers who were intimidated by employers.

I always thought that America was not a nation of fatwas. We have protected weakness, and we went to the injured, resorted to those who flee violence and persecution, and gave a voice to those who will not be heard. I found this ideal in the declaration of independence, the constitution, the noble rights, the addressing of Lincoln Gettbirg, the Emma Lazaros poem, on the statue of freedom, and the second opening of the FDR and Martin Luther Junior “free” in a biography in 1963 in the march in Washington in 1963.

My parents and grandparents adopted these ideals and explained their professors, and they linked me to previous generations of Americans and the sacrifices they carried to preserve our democracy and achieve greater good. Throughout my life, I was proud of this ideal and I hope to pass it.

When I was the Minister of Labor, I had an office near the American Capitol who had a view close to the large Capitol building dome. When I worked late, which was mostly nights, I was looking at my office and seeing her superior beauty as a great memorial to the idea of American democracy. I was often exhausted, sometimes inhibitors, but the scene of that great dome filled with me feeling that I was participating in something very important. It seems that he shines everything I was trying to do and exchange frustration that I felt, and I try but often fail to maintain economic fatwas.

However, Trump was elected president in 2016, and after that-after losing in 2020 and encouraging a coup and an attack on the Capitol in the United States, the American democracy itself-was re-elected in 2024. On January 20, 2025, he took the right of the position for the second time, under the great dome in the Capitol.

I asked myself how you could choose pluralism (although one arduous) from American voters to choose to put it in the Oval Office again and trust that he is committed to his department when he betrayed him the first time.

There are many explanations, but for me I started to be convinced more than four decades ago when I noticed that most of the Americans’ income was consistent even though the economy continued to grow. Since then, Assad’s share of economic gains has gone to the top.

Most Americans, especially those who do not have university degrees, felt a little improvement in their lives, and their jobs became less safe. Large areas of the country have been abandoned by industry.

The main deal was that if you worked hard and played the rules, you will do what is better, and your children will do better than you. But since the late 1970s, that deal has become a trick. The middle layer decreased. About 50tn has been stored from the bottom of 90 % of Americans to the richest 1 %.

Many Americans feel frustrated and angry. Trump gave a voice to this anger, although he directed him to a scapegoat who did nothing to cause it – uncomfortable workers, “deep state”, transgender people, “Communists” and Democrats. He did nothing at all to address the basic issue. In fact, it gave great tax cuts to the wealthy.

During these years, I witnessed, as other Republican president, who also reduce taxes on the wealthy, on the pretext that the government should allow the so-called “free market” to work without restrictions-perpetuation “the legendary and” hedge “that will benefit that the great wealth in a few hands will benefit many of the wealthy people make the nation more productive. But as I came to understand, the “free market” is a wrong name and little or nothing faded.

Meanwhile, I saw the Democrats abandoned the working class. John F. Kennedy was the last democratic president based on the voices of the American class, while the voices of the American and learners in the college lost by two to one. Sixty years later, Joe Biden relied on the voices of educated Americans in the college while the voices of the white working class were lost by two to one. Kamala Harris lost the working class with a larger margin.

I saw democratic leaders adopt free trade. I saw them turning into financing and allowing Lol Street to become a high -risk casino.

I was there when I allowed large companies to gain enough energy in the market to maintain high prices and profit. I saw them looking away when companies seized the unions and lower the salary statements.

I had a seat in the front row when they saved Wall Street because his addiction to the gambling threatened to detonate the entire economy, but they never saved homeowners who lost everything. I saw them welcoming large money in their campaigns and offering them Quid Pro Quos The market falsification for the benefit of the major and wealthy companies.

Thanks to this, Joe Biden reinstated the Democratic Party again towards its working class roots, but many changes that Biden stimulates were easily reflected. The bright and bright Kamala Harris campaign had an enormous energy, but it was in a short run -up runway, and was unable to address the reason for the work of many Americans more than ever they were still struggling economically.

For decades, it urged the Democratic candidates and legislators to inform the Americans about the reason for their salaries continuing to be safe and their jobs are less safe: Certainly not because of immigrants, “deep state”, transgender people, “Communists” or anyone else in the field of economics.

I asked the Democrats to stop providing bids of major and wealthy companies. Instead, they slow down the working class: demand for paid family leave, medical care for all, free public education, stronger unions, higher taxes on great wealth, and creating the largest boom in building housing since World War II.

I have argued that companies must share their profits with their workers and reduce the salaries of the CEO, that the shares re -purchase must be illegal, and that caring for companies (tax subsidies and credit that have nothing to do with the public interest) must stop and that giant companies have stopped.

I warned that expanding the inequality and corruption that accompanied him will ultimately call for Dimagog, who exploits the deficit and anger of Americans who felt economically intimidated.

The arguments that I have made are likely to be wrong and that my warnings are concerned. But they relied on what I saw and experienced. Now that the nation has re -elected the Demagoue type that it achieved exactly, there is an additional urgency in contrast to the amazing inequality and convincing bribery that distinguishes America today.

I love America and I am very proud of that this nation has accomplished throughout my life. I am still optimistic about the future in the long run. However, undoubtedly, we and the world face a lot of brutal crises, heading the decline in democracy and the deterioration of the rule of law.

A former generation won the Second World War and created the strongest economy and the strongest democracy in the world ever, as it is inhabited by the largest middle class and the most prosperous in history. My Jelly and I failed to create a decent, sustainable and just society that was among our understanding.

In this regard, I am sorry for the saying, we all got a shortcut.

Adapted from Robert Reich book Exodus: America’s notesOn August 5. Copyright © 2025 by Robert B. Shy

• Robert Reish, a former US Labor Minister, is an honorary professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley. He is an American column writer. His news message in Robertreich.substack.com