The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

America speaks decisively in rejection of Trumpism

- Robert Reich He is former U.S. Secretary of Labor and is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley.

Make no mistake: America has rejected Trumpism.

No one seriously expected the Senate to flip, because Democrats had to defend 26 seats in that chamber, compared with only nine held by Republican­s.

The real battlegrou­nd was the House, where Democrats had to achieve a net gain of 23 seats to get the 218 needed for a majority.

They did.

Trump wasn’t on the ballot, but he made the election into a referendum on himself.

So Americans turned against House Republican­s, who should have acted as a check on him but did nothing — in many cases magnifying his vileness.

The nation has repudiated Trump, but do not believe for a moment that our national nightmare is over.

Trump still occupies the White House and in all likelihood will be there for two more years. The Republican Party remains in control of the Senate.

The American people will be subject to more of Trump’s lies and hate, as amplified by Senate Republican­s and Fox News.

Most worrisome, America still won’t respond to real threats that continue to grow, which Trump and his enablers have worsened: climate change, the suppressio­n of votes and foreign intrusions into our elections, the most expensive and least efficient health care system in the world, and, not least, widening inequaliti­es of income, wealth and political power.

America will eventually overcome and reverse Trumpism. The harder challenge will be to reverse the reasons Trump and his Republican lapdogs gained power in the first place.

Some blame racism and nativism. But these toxins have poisoned America since the founding of the Republic. What’s new has been the interactio­n between them and the long economic slide of tens of millions of working Americans, most of them white and lacking college degrees.

Their long economic slide has generated the kind of frustratio­ns that demagogues throughout history have twisted into rage at “them.”

Meanwhile, most economic gains have gone to the top 1 percent, whose wealth is now greater than the combined wealth of the bottom 90 percent — giving them enough political muscle to demand and get tax cuts, Wall Street bailouts, corporate subsidies and regulatory rollbacks.

These were all trends before Trump. Trump has worsened them by slashing taxes on the wealthy and corporatio­ns, whittling back the Affordable Care Act and loosening restrictio­ns on Wall Street.

Jobs may be back, but they pay squat, especially compared with the rising costs of housing, health care and education. And they’re less secure.

Which presumably is why Trump decided to focus the midterms on hate and fear, thereby creating a large opening for Democrats aiming for 2020. They can become the party of the bottom 90 percent by creating a multiracia­l, multiethni­c coalition to wrest back control of our democracy.

The choice is either Trump’s authoritar­ian populism backed by the moneyed interests, or a new democratic populism backed by the rest of us.

The direction couldn’t be clearer. It is the Democrats’ hour.

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