In the wake of Trump’s victory over Harris there has been much hand-wringing over how to explain the obvious trend among Americans to favor Republicans. Is the Democratic Party too focused on social issues? Is this alienating white males in particular? Did the party underestimate the general misogyny of voters?
Somehow, and perhaps because billionaires and corporations are such a source of money for the party, the Democratic Party, in general, has not discussed the transformation of wealth and income inequality in America over the past fifty years. Only Bernie Sanders seems to have taken the lead on this gigantic heist by the rich and corporations.”The top 1% of Americans have taken $50 trillion dollars from the bottom 90% in the last 50 years.”1
The most successful social movement of the last 100 years.
In short, a better analysis of the Democratic Party’s failure to galvanize voters is that the problem is a top-down problem. The rich and corporations have conducted a 50-year patient, persistent, well-funded campaign to change how we see and talk about the country. They are the most successful social movement of the last 100 years. The grand coalition that brought the New Deal policies of the Great Depression transformed politics and policies lasted for 45 years (~ 1933 – 1978). The American conservatives of the Republican and Clinton-Obama Democrats, armed with free-market policies, have transformed America comprehensively.
They have created a massively monopolized economy that has eliminated competitive capitalism in almost every market segment. They exported millions of high-paying jobs to low-wage countries. This created an economy where the average family incomes have stagnated over the past 40 years with perhaps 15% real growth in income. This in an economy that produced $31,081 per capita in 1980, growing to $65,875 per capita in 20232 As the American Compass Cost of Thriving Index describes, in 1985, a single male worker worked 39.7 weeks to pay for the basics of middle-class life for a family of four. In 2022, the same worker had to work 62 weeks just to pay for the same basics. But, of course, there are still only 52 weeks in a year. So, he ended up $12,344 short for the basics over a calendar year.3
How is it that the Democratic Party, with the exception of what the party leadership itself describes as the “fringe left” (e.g., Sanders, Warren, Ocasio-Cortez), cannot come to speak of this vast concentration of income and wealth? “America’s more than 800 billionaires now own over 50% more wealth than does the entire bottom half of U.S. society, or roughly 65 million households ($5.8 trillion versus $3.7 trillion)“4
It is verbotten in American politics to speak of class warfare. The rich and corporations are laughing all the way to their secret bank accounts. They have conducted a class war for the past 50 years and they have completely wiped up all opposiiton. They have won the class war!
Footnotes
- https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=941635388031412
- 2010 constant dollars. See: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/NYGDPPCAPKDUSA
- See https://americancompass.org/2023-cost-of-thriving-index/
- https://americansfortaxfairness.org/tax-day-approaches-new-study-finds-u-s-billionaires-now-worth-record-5-8-trillion/
