Former labor secretary Robert Reich used his year-end column to make a point I’ve long believed: The perception that America’s quality of life is declining is linked to the fact that wealth is increasingly concentrated in fewer hands. In his words, the American Dream is vanishing.
Over the past 40 years, the earnings of the typical American have barely budged (adjusted for inflation), while the compensation for CEOs of large corporations has skyrocketed to more than 300 times the pay of their typical worker — from 20 times in the 1950s and ’60s.
There has not been such a long period of wealth stagnation since the Great Depression. Where did the wealth go? The wealthiest 1% of Americans now bring home more than 40% of the country’s total income, up from 10% in the 1950s and ’60s. And they control 31% of the nation’s wealth, while the bottom 50% has only 2.5%. …Americans correctly perceive that our economic and political system is now rigged.
An NBC News poll conducted November 10-14 found that a record-low 19% of voters said they feel confident life for their children’s generation will be better than for their own generation, while 75% were not confident their children will be better off.
When most people stop believing they and their children have a fair chance at the American dream, public trust in the major institutions of society declines — as has happened over the past decade and a half in America.
For the same reason, many become vulnerable to the rants of a demagogue who promises radical change by taking a wrecking ball to democracy. Let me emphasize again that an explanation is not a justification. There is no moral justification for supporting Donald Trump. But I think it important to understand why many Americans do.
Reich doesn’t explain why MAGAts think Republicans will fix anything. We call this state of affairs a problem. They call it an accomplishment.
If you’re never gotten death threats from strangers, trust me on this: It’s not fun when you’re on the receiving end. It’s basically small-scale terrorism, and it’s illegal. Yet it’s become an oft-used tool in the political playbook, and though I’m not sure it’s being used exclusively by Republicans, it’s now standard procedure for MAGAts.
For decades, cannabis has been scheduled as a Schedule I drug under the Controlled Substances Act, making it as dangerous as fentanyl under government policy. The Food and Drug Administration finally has recommended reducing it Schedule III, but some legalization advocates are against the move, for mostly spurious reasons. The Drug Enforcement Agency has the final say, and Delawareans are all too familiar with what happens when you give cops the final say.
Alcohol, meanwhile, is the cause of about 140,000 premature deaths per year and is a $250 billion industry. Coincidentally, the Centers for Disease Control found that excessive consumption caused about the same amount – a quarter-trillion dollars annually – in what it calls “external costs.” Yet alcohol taxes have fallen in value by more than 30% since the 1990s.
Delawareans pay extra for their electricity because of Bloom Energy, but it’s nothing like the scale of the ripoff Texas ratepayers are underwriting. This piece by cartoonist Nick Anderson explains how crypto miners are making hundreds of millions per year by straining the state’s jury-rigged electrical grid, all with the eager support of its politicians.
The floor’s yours.