Resilience: the one word progressives need in the
face of Trump, Covid and more
Robert
Reich
The climate crisis, the economy, Biden’s struggle to
enact his spending agenda. The list goes on. The lesson? Be strong
Sun 31 Oct
2021 01.00 EDT
I often
tell my students that if they strive to achieve full and meaningful lives, they
should expect failures and disappointments. We learn to walk by falling down
again and again. We learn to ride a bicycle by crashing into things. We learn
to make good friends by being disappointed in friendship. Failure and disappointment
are prerequisites to growth.
Congressional
investigations by the US House and Senate have added granular detail that has
astonished even seasoned election-watchers in terms of the scale and complexity
of Trump’s attempted coup.
The real
test of character comes after failures and disappointments. It is resilience:
how easily you take failures, what you learn from them, how you bounce back.
This is a
hard lesson for high-achievers used to jumping over every hoop put in front of
them. It’s also a hard lesson for people who haven’t had all the support and
love they might have needed when growing up. In fact, it’s a hard lesson for
almost everyone in a culture such as ours, that worships success and is
embarrassed by failure and is inherently impatient.
Why am I
telling you this now? Because we have gone through a few very difficult years:
Donald Trump’s racist nationalism and his attacks on our democracy, a painful
reckoning with systemic racism, angry political divisions, a deadly pandemic
accompanied by a recession, and climate hazards such as floods and wildfires.
We assumed
everything would be fine again once these were behind us. But we now find
ourselves in a disorienting limbo. There is no clearly demarcated “behind us”.
The pandemic still lurks. The economy is still worrisome. Americans continue to
be deeply angry with each other. The climate crisis still poses an existential
threat. Trump and other insurrectionists have not yet been brought to justice.
Democracy is still threatened.
Expectations
for a new president and administration are always much higher than they can
possibly deliver
And Biden
and the Democrats have been unable to achieve the scale of change many of us
wanted and expected.
If you’re
not at least a bit disappointed, you’re not human. To some, it feels like
America is failing.
But bear
with me. I’ve learned a few things in my half-century in and around politics,
and my many years teaching young people. One is that things often look worse
than they really are. The media (including social media) sells subscriptions
and advertising with stories that generate anger and disappointment. The same
goes for the views of pundits and commentators. Pessimists always appear wiser
than optimists.
Another
thing I’ve learned is that expectations for a new president and administration
are always much higher than they can possibly deliver. Our political system was
designed to make it difficult to get much done, at least in the short run. So
the elation that comes with the election of someone we admire almost inevitably
gives way to disappointment.
A third
thing: in addition to normal political constraints, positive social change
comes painfully slowly. It can take years, decades, sometimes a century or
longer for a society to become more inclusive, more just, more democratic, more
aware of its shortcomings and more determined to remedy them. And such positive
changes are often punctuated by lurches backward. I believe in progress because
I’ve seen so much of it in my lifetime, but I’m also aware of the regressive
forces that constantly threaten it. The lesson here is tenacity – playing the
long game.
Which
brings me back to resilience. We have been through a difficult time. We wanted
and expected it to be over: challenges overcome, perpetrators brought to
justice, pandemic ended, nation healed, climate saved, politics transformed.
But none of it is over. The larger goals we are fighting for continue to elude
us.
Yet we must
continue the fight. If we allow ourselves to fall into fatalism, or wallow in
disappointment, or become resigned to what is rather than what should be, we
will lose the long game. The greatest enemy of positive social change is
cynicism about what can be changed.
Robert
Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the
University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For
the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged
It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is
at robertreich.substack.com
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário