We all know that the United States is (roughly) divided into
two politico-cultural camps. So why do we have a president who worsens this
divide? Who benefits from our discord?
Clearly, the people who comprise Trump’s base, white people
who feel that they have been left behind by Washington, whose jobs have
disappeared, who blame our first African American president for policies they feel
have disenfranchised them, whose advantages are vanishing as they lose
prominence to other cultures; surely they will not benefit from Trump’s
policies. This president is dedicated to cutting their health care, polluting
their air with coal plant emissions, depriving them of their birth control
benefit, gutting the EPA that protects them, whittling away at the national
parks their children will inherit and providing them with less of a tax-cut
than the wealthy one percent. As a private businessman, he has sent their jobs
to foreign sweat shops. But he promises to consider them; to restore their
dominant past over the non-white population that is going to have superior
numbers in 20 years time. He fuels the culture war through racist and
anti-immigrant sentiment, through pandering to white supremacists, through
attacks on football players kneeling, Confederate statues coming down and
border walls going up. He soothes their fears while robbing them.
Who benefits? His class. The wealthy elite. If they do not
have to pay for healthcare and birth control; if their businesses thrive
because they are not regulated by the EPA and pollution laws; if their taxes
are reduced; they benefit...in the short run. In 1930s Germany, wealthy industrialists backed the Nazis to unseat a socialist Weimar government. They thought that they could control the Nazis through money. They were wrong. At present, the US is not in the same situation regarding Trump and his anti-semitic & white supremacist supporters. Trump is a nationalist racist who is reacting against the Obama years; but he is not a Nazi. However, it is the goal of Steve Bannon to replace moderate Republicans with candidates who are white supremacist & anti-semitic. His thinking is longer-term than Trump's and momentum is on his side. If he is successful, it will not end well. The nationalism, hatred, violence and division we are seeing in our streets and our government will become stronger.
Presidents have the potential to be unifiers. Government has
the potential to be a tool that protects all of its citizens. But that is not
the United States of today.
Today, the wealthy elite buy the politicians loyalty. They
fund the campaigns of those who promise to serve their desires. Most of these
politicians are themselves part of this wealthy elite. And the current President
of the United States is the wealthiest of these politicians. Trump, his agenda,
his Republican Party, with the complicity of wealthy Democrats, will continue
to skew the laws to benefit the wealthy at the expense of the non-elite citizen
and the environment.
There is a way out of this quandary; a way to claim
government for all of the people: The general population of common citizens
would have to make an effort to involve itself in the political process in a
manner that served their own interest for fair government. They would need to
work on the following three tasks: 1) Education for unity over division, that
exposes who benefits from culture wars where the rest of us fight over scraps.
2) Limitations on campaign contributions so money does not control the peoples’
representatives in government. 3) A permanent vigilance by the populace against
injustice and privileges of the wealthy.
The reality of the present is that the populace is divided.
While the rich harvest the trees, white people are fighting with people of
color and immigrants over the fruit left rotting on the ground. Those who are
not involved in this culture war are docile in front of TV screens and game
consols, too distracted, too apathetic, too tired from work and life’s
stressors to become involved. A change in our thought, our action and our
direction is necessary. Unfortunately, people normally participate en masse as
a last resort; when basic human needs are threatened for a significant number
of their class.
Will people getting fed-up with the culture war and being
robbed be enough of an impetus to fix this problem? That’s up to you. There are
a couple of places to begin. A couple of organizations attempting to correct
the problem of the wealthy elite’s power:
One organization is Indivisible. Their objective is to
defeat the Trump agenda. You can connect with a local chapter through their
website at https://www.indivisible.org/
Another organization is Common Cause. They are a
non-partisan, grassroots organization, attempting to limit campaign spending
and make government responsive to all citizens. They can be reached at http://www.commoncause.org/
The battle to regain the United States for the rest of us
will be long. Even after the elite have lost their stranglehold on national politics,
the populace will need to remain politically active, and well-educated
regarding the wealthy opposition, to prevent their resurgence. So get involved,
pace yourself, be patient and be persistent.
