American Reckoning

Dec 29 2025 Robert Reich in The Guardian

Americans are waking up. A grand reckoning awaits us

Sometimes a nation needs a nightmare before it can fully awaken to long-simmering crises.

For 40 years, a narrow economic elite has been siphoning off ever more wealth and power.

… the US went off the rails: deregulation, privatization, free trade, wild gambling by Wall Street, union-busting, monopolization, record levels of inequality, stagnant wages for most, staggering wealth for a few, big money taking over our politics.

Corporate profits became more important than good jobs and good wages for all, stock buy-backs and the wellbeing of investors more important than the common good.

Trump has precipitated a long-overdue reckoning.

That reckoning has revealed the rot.

Not a rosy picture for an end-of-year piece, but at least the piece ends with:

I’d like to believe that the horrific darkness of this past year is a necessary prelude to a brighter and saner future