A valentine for you

When I began this newsletter almost five months ago I had no idea what I was doing. I still don’t. But your enthusiastic response, thoughtful comments, and helpful feedback have guided me — and continue to make it all worthwhile.

It has been a journey into the unknown. We’re figuring it out together. A big thanks to you.

I hope you’re finding my course on inequality (which began here last Friday, and will be continuing for the next 13 weeks) helpful. I hope you’re also finding useful (and sometimes entertaining) my short essays and drawings, as well as the videos I’m making with my talented colleagues at Inequality Media. A big thanks to them in addition for helping me bring this newsletter to you.

I’m groping my way toward providing you with a larger context for what is happening in America and the world.

Although faced with existential challenges of a deathly pandemic, climate change, widening inequality, systemic racism, and direct attacks on democracy, America is strangely immobilized. Why? Because for years most of the gains from our political-economic system have gone to the top. Almost everyone else is working harder, getting nowhere, and feeling less secure. This has generated widespread anger and cynicism — which has increased many peoples’ receptivity to conspiracy theories and demagogues. (A similar dynamic is playing out in much of the rest of the world.)

In 2016, we elected a sociopath who spouted racist nationalism while giving the oligarchy whatever it wanted. Since then, the alliance of oligarchs and racist nationalists has continued. It appears to be growing.

Oligarchic economics combined with racist nationalism is treacherous for democracy. Oligarchs support racist nationalism because it divides people and diverts attention from how much wealth and power the oligarchy is accumulating. Racist nationalists thrive on oligarchs who provide almost limitless funding.

As early as 2012, more than 40 percent of all money spent in US federal elections came from the wealthiest of the wealthiest—not the top one percent or even the top tenth of the one percent, but from the top one percent of the one percent.

Peter Thiel, a staunch Trump supporter whose net worth is estimated by Forbes to be $2.6 billion, has become one of the Republican’s Party’s largest donors. The oligarchs don’t just support Republicans, though. Last year, at least 13 billionaires who had previously donated to Trump lavished campaign donations on Democratic senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, according to an analysis of Federal Election Commission records. 

The alliance between oligarchic economics and racist nationalism marks the failure of progressive politics. When the people are no longer defended against the powerful, they look elsewhere.

We must focus the national debate on this monumental and growing imbalance of power, and do whatever we can to rebalance it.

I am hopeful we can. What gives me hope? The new activism among workers struggling to unionize, young progressives who are giving new energy and purpose to the Democratic Party, people of color who are leading the way to social justice, and the young people I meet almost every day — such as the young baristas who are organizing Starbucks — who are building new centers of economic power.

Which brings me back to you. By becoming part of this community — subscribing to and sharing this newsletter and, offering your comments and feedback, and, if you can, supporting our work — you are part of this movement as well.

Today seems like a good time to declare my appreciation for our partnership in this experiment. Thank you, and Happy Valentine’s Day