The untold story
Now that Joe Biden’s won the election, it’s impossible that Donald Trump will hand the presidency over gracefully. That’s just the way he is. Two year-olds don’t know how to lose. That’s problematical, and we wish the US well during the political transition.
Tens of thousands of superficial and lightweight words are being written and spoken about what’s about to change. Yes, we do need to confront existential crises: the transition; the pandemic; nation-healing; climate change; China policy ……. but no one’s even close to explaining the increasing poverty and disappearance of the middle class.
What’s happened to the once great USA that political polarisation has become so extreme? Sure, Donald Trump’s weird, but does that mean that the half of the nation supporting him also consists of fruitcakes? Unlikely! They’re troubled – as are the winners.
The vast majority of Americans are rightly feeling badly done by – but for completely opposite and inadequate reasons: –
Republicans believe too much government is why enterprise is no longer ‘free’, and why they’re missing out financially: “It’s the drift into welfare, not the least medical welfare, and increasing socialism.” “What’s happening to our liberty?” “We’re headed into communism!”
Democrats want the government to increase social welfare because Americans are missing out on health and in the distribution of wealth. “Just look how our salaries have declined in real terms over the last forty years!” “Wealth is trickling up to the 0.1%, so the government must intervene to stop this fascist drift!”
The labels ‘communist’ and ‘fascist’ are drivel, neither addressing or solving what’s fundamentally a distributional problem. No commentator is to be found addressing this overarching problem of increasing poverty that’s also seeing the middle class disappear.
This process was meticulously explained 141 years ago, but no government since that time has had the intestinal fortitude to attack rentier capitalism head-on. They continue to fiddle, skirting around the key economic issue which could be remedied by a simple fiscal adjustment.
Good luck, Joe Biden!
