A friend has been asking for my take on the current mess in this
Republican primary season—the clown show, culminating in the nomination of the
chief clown--the GOP’s Mussolini, Donald Drumpf. The reason I have refrained
thus far is that I am unsure I understand what is going on. I mean, the GOP has
with some frequency nominated and we have elected idiot-savants, or just
idiots. Look at St. Ronald of Reagan, and The Shrub as your prime
examples. That the body public rejected
what many viewed as the prime candidate this year, Jeb Bush, should have come
as no surprise to anyone. I mean, did anyone
really expect the folks out here would buy into yet another member of the Bush
clan??
But even beyond the obvious, I remain unsure of how someone as goofy
and unqualified as The Donald could possibly have come this far. Mainly, my uncertainty stems from what I
observe, both here and in other countries.
Here, for example, we see two candidates, The Donald on the one side,
and Bernie on the other side, both attracting a large group of disaffected
voters. In Bernie’s case, especially, he has attracted a fairly large group of
young voters. The Donald may also be appealing to this same group, but he also
seems to be attracting blue collar. So, what is going on there?
Well, I think that our growing income inequality, wherein the top 1%
seems to be gathering up all the money, and our pols seem intent on increasing
the pace at which they so gather, by reducing the tax rates of the already rich,
is a central part of the overall phenomenon. The others, those being left
behind have begun to notice that they can no longer participate in our economy
like they used to do. Everything is now a stretch, including especially
housing. And because our large
corporations remain firmly fixed on unit cost, as distinct from quality, they
remain fixed on outsourcing labor to anywhere outside the US of A. And so, the laboring classes remain without
consistent sources of work, and therefore income. Mind you, the Government has little to do
with this issue. It is almost entirely a derivative of the commercial entities
in our country. It is of course true
that NAFTA and other similar trade pacts provide the slippery slope down which
we are all sliding. But the phenomenon
of jobs seeking low worker pay has been happening for decades, well before
NAFTA. The textile industry moved from the Northeast into the South, and thence
to places even farther South, and thence to China. Meanwhile, our Corporate
CEOs, sat around boardroom tables, sucking their thumbs and counting their
grotesque salaries and bonuses.
Workers of the world have begun noticing that, as their jobs
disappear, CEO pay packets keep increasing, and they have begun thinking—“what
is wrong with this picture?”
Now, the issue of income inequality is not solely a US phenomenon. If
you go to British, Australian, or European news outlets, you will discover that
income inequality has entered the political dialogues occurring in those places
also. In Britain, the Labour Party has
been fighting for some time with that nation’s “conservatives” and not winning,
despite the obvious fact that “conservatives” seem not to care about the middle
and lower classes, and keep focused on the tax rates of the rich. A recent
issue of the Australian Independent media posted a column on this subject:
“Should we be concerned that the
corporate tax rate is more important than a low paid worker with a disability
being able to take his little girls to the pictures one weekend? Or should we
be more concerned about the Turnbull government’s $29 billion cut to Education
over the next 10 years?
The agony of choice; tax cuts to
companies and those earning above $80,000 a year, or providing a better
education for a young man’s daughters. Tax cuts versus education? Which to
choose? It is clear which alternative the Turnbull government prefers.
That we should even
be debating such a choice, highlights how corrupted our system is, how
corrupted is a government that would put corporate tax cuts ahead of our
childrens’ education.
Malcolm Turnbull is
making the wrong choices for Australia’s future. He wants big business to have
a tax cut and he wants to cut funding from every school in the country. That
demonstrates a corrupted system in ways that should shock us all.
There is not a
scintilla of evidence to show that corporate tax cuts stimulate growth. There
is, however, a mountain of evidence to show that putting more money into the
hands of the low paid will generate economic activity.
The entire issue of
winners and losers in a fiat currency nation is itself, appalling. We can
provide incentives for business and educate our children without having to
compromise. We can implement a state of the art health system. We can provide
proper care for the elderly. We can employ every person who wants to be
employed.
We can spend the
money to make these things happen, without causing inflation, without
borrowing, without threatening the value of our currency. We can do all this if
we wanted to, if we cared enough.
But that’s not how
the system works.
The System is the problem.
We need to make the system work for us, rather than against us. We have much to
fear but it is not fear itself. It is loss of control. The choices we face in
the coming election should be about regaining control, taking back what is
ours.
Our democracy is
skin deep. We have surrendered our rights to a plutocracy that now controls our
daily lives. It is more evident than ever.
We need to fix the system.”
In
Britain, the arguments about Scotland remaining within Britain, and the
arguments raging about what is called Brexit (British exit from the EU) are all
about winners, losers, and immigration.
The arguments sound a lot like what The Donald has been screaming, and
not unlike what Bernie Sanders talks about.
So,
despite the vast differences in philosophy (to the extent that the Donald can
be said to hold a governing philosophy) The Donald and Bernie are attracting
potential voters, because those voters are disaffected. They believe the system
is rigged against them and they are ready to abandon ship. They want someone
who is different, and Bernie and The Donald are as different as they get.
What
does Bernie promise? Well, Bernie attacks the governing elites, especially the
financial systems of our country (and the world) and the large corporations who
work so zealously to reduce their tax burden, even at the expense of the
working poor. Corporate CEOs, and, especially, financial system CEOs seem to
care not one whit about the effects on the working dudes in our land. When
Romney spoke of that 47%, (Romney's told a private gathering of $50,000-or-more donors that nearly
half of Americans believe "they are victims, who believe the government
has a responsibility to care for them" and that "my job is not to
worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal
responsibility and care for their lives.") his comments sunk his
campaign. Bernie speaks to that same
group, as does the Donald. The difference? Bernie says that the system works
against them. The Donald says the same thing, with the difference being that Bernie
will focus on relieving The Donald and his friends of some of their money to
pay for the system changes (e.g., free college tuition, health care) he
advocates. The Donald essentially blames the Government and immigrants
streaming into our country uninvited. The Government keeps fighting stupid wars,
fails to police our borders, and signs on to stupid trade deals, which he will
repudiate.
So, the disaffected in our nation are attracted
in increasingly large numbers to candidates who promise radical change, and who
promise, in a sense, to throw the rascals out (whether the rascals are Mexican
druggies, or financial system CEOs, who are running our country into the ground
doesn’t seem to matter. These folks want large scale change and also want their
jobs back. Thus, when Hillary visits West Virginia coal country and tells folks
the truth—that their jobs will continue to disappear as other energy sources
are developed—it is a truth they do not wish to hear. They prefer instead
fiction that pleases their world view, which is why Fox News is so important in
this story. Fox preaches the plight of the very rich –Rupert Murdoch is very
rich, so he is preaching his own case. The folks who listen in rapt attention
to Fox, The Faux News Network, they are listening to a narrative that they want
to believe—that the Government is their enemy, and their only hope is to dump
the current government and bring in a new set of rascals, rascals chosen by
Rupert and the Koch brothers.
One problem in all this, of course, is that
Rupert and the Koch brothers don’t like The Donald, because he is
unpredictable. They remain uncertain whether he will side with them on money
issues, or go a different path. So, they prattle on about the evils of the
current government, while still not quite endorsing The Donald. Rupert and his buddies must be feeling a bit
schizoid at this stage of the game. The Donald meanwhile, and Bernie meanwhile
continue to go on yelling that they have the interests of the disaffected at
heart and only they have any answers.
The same sort of folks voted on Scottish
independence, and will soon vote on Brexit. The Scots decided narrowly to
remain British, and the question is still open on whether Britain will remain
within the EU. Here, we remain in a
catatonic state, awaiting the November results, still in a state of disbelief,
kind of like suspended animation, waiting to see whether we all need to move to
Canada before they build a giant wall and get us to pay for it.
