American Carnage

As we move into 2018, I am swinging away from the Republicans. I don’t support the Paul Ryan “Better Way” agenda. I don’t support neoliberal economics. I think we have been going in the wrong direction since the 1970s and don’t want to continue going down this road.

Opioid Deaths:

As we all know, the opioid epidemic has become a national crisis and the White working class has been hit the hardest by it. It is a “sea of despair” out there.

White Mortality:

As the family crumbles, religion recedes in his life, and his job prospects dwindle, the middle aged White working class man is turning to drugs, alcohol and suicide:

Suicide:

The White suicide rate has soared since 2000:

Median Household Income:

The average household in the United States is poorer in 2017 than it was in 1997:

Real GDP:

Since the late 1990s, real GDP and real median household income have parted ways:

Productivity and Real Wages:

Since the 1970s, the minimum wage has parted ways with productivity gains in the US economy:

Stock Market:

Since 2000, the stock market has soared, but 10% of Americans own 80% of stocks. The top 1% owns 38% of stocks. In 2007, 3/4th of middle class households were invested in the stock market, but now only 50% are investors. Overall, 52% of Americans now own stocks, which is down from 65%. The average American has less than $1,000 in their combined checking and savings accounts.

Do you know what this tells me?

It tells me that the bottom line is that Christmas has become a harder season for White families. We are worse off because of BOTH social and economic liberalism which has only benefited an elite few. The bottom half of the White population is now in total disarray – drug addiction, demoralization, divorce, suicide, abortion, atomization, wages, household income, investments – and this dysfunction is creeping up the social ladder. The worst thing we can do is step on the accelerator.

Paul Ryan and his fellow conservatives look at this and concludes we need MORE freedom. We need lower taxes, more free trade, more deregulation, weaker unions, more immigration and less social safety net spending. He wants to follow up tax reform with entitlement reform in 2018. I can’t but see how this is going to make an already bad situation for the White working class even worse.

I’m not rightwing in the sense that these people are. I think their policies are harmful to the nation. I don’t think they feel any sense of obligation to the working class. They believe in liberal abstractions and make a fetish out of freedom whereas we feel a sense of solidarity with them grounded in race, ethnicity and culture which tempers class division. We recoil at the evisceration of the social fabric whereas conservatives celebrate this march toward plutocracy.

Do the wealthy need to own a greater share of the stock market? Do they need to own a greater share of our national wealth? Do we need to loosen up morals and the labor market? Do we need more White children growing up in financially stressed, broken homes on Christmas?