from Brassville: “‘It’s the Inequality, stupid'”

“‘It’s the Inequality,  stupid'” [to paraphrase the Clinton-era message]

Since Reagan (and I would argue Nixon) Rs have ’tilted the ice’ and have effectively installed Trickle Down philosophies as the common,  central economic norm —  rejecting the New Deal and Great Society ideals as extreme. 

Trickle down is now orthodoxy. Again, Trickle Down came with tax cuts to the wealthy, deregulation of industries, demonization of unions, to name a few.    various markets were becoming less and less competitive as mergers and leverage buyouts accelerated, creating greater levels of wealth consolidation. As a result, the social contract and social safety net are generally forgotten, or labeled as worse.

How this played out during recent election cycles:

–When Dems are in power, they are politically restricted to still working within the Trickle down norms. So, any Democratic party successes are within the existing, skewed playing field.  When Ds are in power, they are politically restricted to still working within the Republicans norms.

So, any Democratic party successes are within the existing, skewed playing field. As a result,  wealth inequality is the orthodoxy. So, even now as the strongest economy in the world, so many Americans do not benefit from any such gains.

Put another way, it mirrors the current “weather  vs climate” arguments -i.e.: ‘economy ‘ is to ‘weather’ as ‘wealth inequality ‘ is to ‘climate. So when Dems respond to the ‘weather,’ they do not /can not fix any of the fundamentals of ‘climate change‘. As a result, the 2024 presidential elections pigeon-holed Ms. Harris as the more-of-the-same candidate who didn’t understand the economic lives of average Americans [granted, there was a lot of mis- / dis- and skewed information btw FOX, corporate media and social media algorithms, but that’s a discussion for another time…]

So how do we get the pendulum to swing back? I’d like to propose a few ideas in other posts that I will refer to as “‘We the People,”‘ proposals as part of future posts.

First & foremost: Corporation’s Are NOT People. This country has to codify in statue – and probably in a constitution amendment in order to neutralize the current SCOTUS.