America has a reputation for its optimism, its can-do spirit, its willingness to explore and innovate. And yet an atmosphere of pessimism has spread across the landscape, a dark vision telling us that we are besieged and in decline. What shall it be – optimism or pessimism? How should we think about ourselves?

The case for pessimism is strong, bolstered every day by the venality of our fellow Americans. Pessimism took root during the Great Recession, when millions of people lost their jobs and homes and millions more saw their income and standard of living imperiled. The fact that the swindlers on Wall Street who engineered the disaster escaped with their millions, unindicted and unpunished, was a twist of the knife.

A variation on this theme made the news this week when it was revealed that 5,300 employees of one of the nation’s largest banks, Wells Fargo, had been fired for the practice of setting up phony accounts for unaware customers who were billed for phony fees. Wells Fargo had to pay a fine of $185 million, but the executive who engineered the scam was rewarded with money and stock benefits of $124.6 million.

If that’s the way the world works, why shouldn’t we be pessimistic?

Another recent news story showed that the sugar industry had distorted the scientific research into the health effects of sugar by paying off scientists. The harm to the health of Americans because of the pervasive ingestion of sugar-sweetened drinks and other forms of sugar has been catastrophic, and the way was paved by corruption.

The paralysis of Congress is a solid reason for pessimism. The majority in Congress is captured by fantasies spun by industry that the climate disaster now upon us is not real. Because the refusal to spend money is the be-all and end-all of the GOP majority, Congress likewise refuses to address the pressing needs of the nation in all areas.

Pessimism among Republicans is grounded in other concerns – a belief that international trade and immigration are spelling our doom. The tenacious hold that this belief has on the Republican imagination is further cause for gloom among Democrats.

So where is the cause for optimism? In fact, despite Republican pessimism and the struggles plaguing people on the economic margins, recovery from the Great Recession is picking up steam. The median income was up 5.2 percent last year, the largest increase since record-keeping began in 1967.

The fact that Wells Fargo was called to account for its scam and faced a sizable fine is owing to the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which was a key part of the financial reforms backed by President Obama and pushed by Elizabeth Warren, now a senator from Massachusetts.

If optimism is to have a chance, we have to believe that it is possible to act in our own interests. In policing the banks, we are doing so. Republicans speak as a matter of habit against regulation, but how are we to protect ourselves from the corruption of the sugar (or tobacco) industry, or from pollution by chemicals in our water, or from the insistence of the fossil fuel industry that we fill the atmosphere with carbon, if we are not willing to get tough with those industries?

We need also to protect ourselves from the corruption of government by business, which is why vigilance, oversight, a vigorous press and the regulation of money in politics are necessary for the public good.

It is no accident that one of Obama’s slogans during his first campaign was "Yes We Can," or "Sí Se Puede." Digging out from under the avalanche of the recession and taking action on financial reform, health care reform and economic revitalization were not easy, but the fact that recovery in the United States has outpaced that in Europe is an indication that Obama activism was more effective than European austerity.

Optimistic? It’s possible to be optimistic. The Republican candidate has fashioned a politics of negativity and defeat that, should he be elected, would be grounds for the direst pessimism. But that isn’t going to happen – about that we are optimistic. We have to be.

– Rutland Herald (Vt.), Sept. 15