Robert Reich

America's children shouldn't be held hostage to a partisan political brawl. It's time we focused solely on their learning and their safety.

Our collective tendency is to wait until big problems become catastrophic before dealing with them.

As hospitalizations in Florida soared past 12,000 this week, exceeding a record already shattered last weekend, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis accused President Biden of facilitating the virus by not reducing immigration through the southern border.

Guns, dangerous drugs, and desperate migrants are inextricably connected. The answer to solving one of these problems lies in responding to all three.

I was elated earlier this spring when it seemed as if Trump and COVID were gone, and Biden appeared to be getting the nation rapidly back on track. Now much is sliding backwards.

Let's be clear: Mike Lee's Republican Party, the putative party of "family values," doesn't support needy families.

The central question for America is whether it is possible to rediscover our identity and our mutual responsibility without creating another enemy.

Instead of complaining about a so-called "labor shortage," Republicans ought to be complaining about the shortage of jobs paying a living wage.

In this shameful era, Republican senators were more united in their opposition to voting rights than Democratic senators were in their support for them.

Maybe it's wishful thinking to declare the pandemic over in the U.S. and presumptuous to conclude what lessons we've learned from it. So consider this list a first draft.

Because we cannot put it behind us. Trump's Big Lie and all that it has provoked are still with us. If we forget what has occurred the trauma will return, perhaps in even more terrifying form.

By almost any measure, Joe Biden's first 100 days have been hugely successful. Getting millions of Americans inoculated against COVID-19 and beginning to revive the economy are central to that success.

It's understandable that the super wealthy might wish to escape the gravitational pull of the rest of us. But there's really no escape. If they're serious about survival of the species, they need to act more responsibly toward working humans here on terra firma.

America is about to revive an idea that was left for dead decades ago. It's called industrial policy, and it's at the heart of Joe Biden's plans to restructure the U.S. economy.

Corporations can and should bankroll much of what America needs. But they won't as long as corporations keep bankrolling American politicians.

Biden is excited about rebuilding America's "infrastructure," a word he uses constantly although it could be the dullest term in all of public policy.

Republicans are outraged—outraged!—at the surge of migrants at the southern border. Republicans are outraged—outraged!—at the surge of migrants at the southern border. But in fact, despite the surging hysteria from Republican ranks, there is no surge of migrants at the border.

Next Monday, Amazon faces a union vote at its warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama. If successful, it would be Amazon's first U.S.-based union in its nearly 27-year history.

Bidenomics means giving cash to the bottom two-thirds and their purchasing power will drive growth for everyone.

Biden must wield the power of the presidency to make senators fall in line with the larger goals of the nation. Otherwise, as LBJ asked, "What the hell's the presidency for?"

What's good for Biden and the Democrats in the short run is potentially disastrous for America over the longer term. One of its two major parties is centered on a Big Lie that threatens to blow up the nation, figuratively if not literally.

Climate change, COVID, and jobs are together splitting Americans by class more profoundly than Americans are split by politics. The white working class is taking as much of a beating as most Black and Latino people.

It's no small irony that a half century after Reagan persuaded Americans that big government was the problem, Trump's demise is finally liberating America from Reaganism—and letting the richest nation on earth give its people the social support they desperately need.

The crux of the problem is Americans now occupy two separate worlds—a fact-based pro-democracy world and a Trump-based authoritarian one.

The paltry $600 billion proposal from the ten Senate Republicans should be rejected out of hand.

For years, big corporations have been assaulting democracy with big money, drowning out the voices and needs of ordinary Americans—fueling much of the anger that opened the door to Trump in the first place.

There is no middle ground between lies and facts. There is no halfway point between civil discourse and violence. There is no midrange between democracy and fascism.

Those who say we should "look forward" to a new administration and forget or dismiss what occurred last week are delusional.

If we can afford to bail out corporations and Wall Street, we sure as hell can afford to help people—and six other lessons we must remember from that singular year.

If no one is held accountable, norms collapse. Trump's impunity is an invitation for some future president to do even more damage to our democracy.