US must address political corruption and social inequality, or risk the return of Trump in 2024
- Opposition to Biden’s much-needed welfare expansion plan shows America is still being run by the rich, for the rich
- The US must end its 40-year class war on the poor that has resulted in lowered life expectancy and a rise in depression
It’s not easy to diagnose exactly what ails America at its core so deeply that it incited the Trump movement.
All of these factors are at play. Yet, in my view, the deepest crisis is political – the failure of America’s political institutions to “promote the general welfare”, as the US Constitution promises.
Over the past four decades, America’s politics have become an insider’s game to favour the super-rich and corporate lobbies at the expense of the overwhelming majority of citizens.
Warren Buffett homed in on the essence of the crisis in 2006. “There’s class warfare, all right,” he said, “but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
America’s class war on the poor is not new but was launched in earnest in the early 1970s.
Following the Great Depression of the 1930s, America was generally on the same development path as post-war western Europe, becoming a social democracy.
Income inequality was declining, and more social groups were joining the mainstream of economic and political life.
Then came the revenge of the rich. In 1971, a corporate lawyer, Lewis Powell, laid out a strategy to reverse the social democratic trend. Under president Richard Nixon, Powell was sworn in to the US Supreme Court in 1972, enabling him to put his plan into operation.
Under Powell’s prodding, the court opened the floodgates to corporate money in politics. In 1976, it struck down federal limits on campaign spending as violations of free speech.
When Ronald Reagan became president in 1981, he reinforced the Supreme Court’s assault on general welfare by cutting taxes for the rich, attacking organised labour and rolling back environmental protections.
A few numbers spell out the differences. Governments in the European Union raise revenues averaging roughly 45 per cent of GDP, while US government revenues amount to only around 31 per cent of GDP. European governments are thus able to pay for universal access to health care, higher education, family support and job training, while the US is not.
As of 2019, the share of the richest 1 per cent of households in national income was around 11 per cent in western Europe, compared with 18.8 per cent in the US. In 2019, the US emitted 16.1 tons of carbon dioxide per person, compared with 8.3 tons in the EU.
In short, the US has become a country of the rich, by the rich and for the rich.
Thus, we are arriving at the end of Biden’s first year with obstacles in every direction regarding fair taxation, increased social spending, protection of voting rights and urgently needed environmental safeguards.
Biden could still eke out some modest wins, and then build on them in the coming years. The public wants this. Roughly two-thirds of Americans favour higher taxes on the rich and corporations.
Yet there is a real possibility that Biden’s setbacks in 2021 will help the Republicans win control of one or both chambers of Congress in 2022.
The US is not back, at least not yet. It is still in the throes of a struggle to overcome decades of political corruption and social neglect. The outcome remains highly uncertain, for both the US and the world.