Abortion and guns may awaken a slumbering giant for Democrats | Robert Reich

A mobilisation such as America has rarely seen could propel Democrats to larger majorities this November

Two of the most basic human aspirations are making one's own decisions about whether or when to have a child, free from government interference, and keeping any child one does have out of harm's way, secure against random violence.

Yet both aspirations have been fiercely resisted in the United States - the first by many evangelical Christians, the second by the gun lobby.

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