Good Riddance to a Terrible Year
By Robert Reich
COVID took the lives of more than
340,000 Americans, about 1 out of every 1,000 of us.
Over 22 million of us lost our jobs
in March and April, and unemployment is again surging.
The trend of fatal police shootings
increased this year, with a total 864 civilians having been shot, 192 of whom
were Black (as of December 1, 2020, the latest data available).
Climate change has worsened. The
U.S. suffered an extraordinary 12 hurricane landfalls in 2020, smashing
previous records. California had the worst wildfire season ever, burning a
staggering 4.1 million acres.
The President of the United States
made all these crises worse. He played down and lied about COVID. He condemned
Black Lives Matter protesters and encouraged right-wing violence. He made the
climate crisis worse than it might have been by rejecting climate science and
rolling back environmental protections.
His last act has been to attack democracy
head on by contesting the 2020 election and stirring up Republican voters to
believe he won – despite losing by over 7 million votes, losing the Electoral
College with 232 electoral votes compared to Biden’s 306 (270 Electoral College
votes are needed to win), and then losing 59 of 60 court cases alleging fraud
or election “irregularities” as well as a Supreme Court refusal to even hear a
case.
For 2021, I wish you and your family
to be healthy, avoid COVID, and get inoculated as soon as you can. I hope your
children will be able to attend classes and socialize with friends, without
risk. If you’ve lost a job, I hope you to find a new one that pays as well if
not better, and that you are able to pay your bills and keep your family housed
and fed without economic anxiety.
And I hope that Joe Biden reverses
as much of the corruption, degradation, bigotry, hostility, inequality, and
catastrophic climate change as is humanly possible.
In short, I wish you and yours a
better year than 2020.
Robert
Reich's latest book is "THE SYSTEM: Who Rigged It, How To Fix It." He
is Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at
Berkeley and Senior Fellow at the Blum Center. He served as Secretary of Labor
in the Clinton administration, for which Time Magazine named him one of the 10
most effective cabinet secretaries of the twentieth century. He has written 17
other books, including the best sellers "Aftershock,""The Work
of Nations," "Beyond Outrage," and "The Common Good."
He is a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine, founder of
Inequality Media, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and
co-creator of the award-winning documentaries "Inequality For All,"
streamng on YouTube, and "Saving Capitalism," now streaming on
Netflix.