The Rise of the One Percent

                As the Trump presidency looms and the Trump cabinet is coming into focus, the rise of the one percent is closing in.  This is no ordinary transfer of power in what used to be world’s most stable democracy.  This is something completely different.  What is happening marks the end of over eight decades of cooperative government and liberal democracy dating back to the New Deal.  Over 75 years of ascendancy of American global power is about to end as nations – friend and foe – rush to arm themselves in the face of the most internationally  unpredictable and inept administration ever  preparing to take office.  Trump’s cabinet is the clearest sign of the consolidation of power in the hands of old, white, male billionaires who have no interest, experience or facility promoting policies that benefit anyone but themselves.  Trump ran as a populist, but he is setting himself up to rule as a plutocrat and dictator.

                Trump doesn’t deserve all the blame.  Mitch Mc Connell has been guiding us toward the end of democratic process for the last few years.  The refusal to confirm a Supreme Court judge, and the lack of confirmation for federal judges at all levels, has crippled one branch of government.  His refusal to work toward compromise, in spite of the fact that every position he holds is a minority position, has lowered public opinion and confidence in government to an all time low.  So low, that people would see a craven narcissist as a change agent.  Mc Connell has been matched, step for step, by Paul Ryan in the House.  When Trump takes office there will be no checks and balances left in place, and any procedural moves made by Democrats will be met with the same kind of response the Republicans made in North Carolina.  Ryan’s budget provides a clear indication of what we can look forward to.  Every program that benefits the poor and the vulnerable will be gutted to funnel more wealth to the top.  People who used to be in the middle, will find themselves slipping into the poor and vulnerable classes.

                Look at two areas that will be early targets, climate change and health care.  Trump has joked about climate change in the past, and his cabinet is loaded with people from the fossil fuel elite intent on extracting and burning every last drop of that fuel – the climate be damned.  The damage that these policies do cannot be undone.  Scientists are already trying to download as much data as they can from government data bases before they are erased or restricted.  NASA’s climate research will be halted and scientists will be weeded out of their government jobs.  Trump even promised to burn coal – COAL – in the face of economic and environmental arguments against it.  I can’t see even one speed bump in the Trump plan to ravage the environment.

                Health care is no better off.  Ryan and Mc Connell plan to repeal the ACA as soon as possible.  Of course, their public statements promise something better, but that has always been a lie.  The real Republican position is that most of us don’t deserve health care.  The argument that there is a Republican plan for health care is laughable.  The fact is that the ACA IS the Republican plan for health care and they won’t even support it.  We are headed back to the bad old days of people dying in Emergency Rooms and going bankrupt from health emergencies.  Women’s health issues and issues of access for women are going to revert to conditions not seen since the Fifties.  Medical care is going to go from a right to a luxury enjoyed only by a few.  The repeal of ‘Obamacare’ isn’t just the end of a law; it is the end of a philosophy of governing.

                The list of endangered programs doesn’t end here.  Public education, research in innumerable areas, housing, protection of workers and many more face the same fate.  The one percent see government as a way to consolidate and leverage their power, not to share the wealth.  There is a hard core social Calvinism baked into their view of the world.  They are a deserving elite, and the rest of us are an unfortunate and unnecessary problem.  At the end of the last Gilded Age workers were able to balance the political and economic policies a little because that economy need workers.  This one doesn’t.  It doesn’t take a factory or an office full of workers to write a Credit Default Swap.  Labor is not going to be the balancing force this time.  What could play that role is an open question.  The wealthiest among us do not seem to fear even the collapse of the environment.  It seems they have made a bet that a few will be able to survive with unlimited wealth and technology – that their children will live and ours won’t. 

                The rise of Trump and the one percenters marks the beginning of a new political and economic era. The old idea of politics and government will not be adequate to answer this challenge.  What Trump has done is to make the consequences clearer than they would have been under a normal political regime.  Under Trump, there isn’t even the pretense any more that this is business as usual. They are betting that we won’t rise up, that the phony left/right or conservative/liberal dichotomies will prevent us from resisting..  I think it’s time to call that bet.