We “rethink the week” with Stephen Pimpare, Professor at the University of New Hampshire and a nationally recognized expert on poverty, homelessness, and U.S. social policy; and Dean Spiliotis, Civic Scholar and Presidential Scholar at Southern New Hampshire University.
HOW DO WHITE EVANGELICALS SQUARE THEIR RELIGIOUS VALUES WITH THEIR BLIND SUPPORT FOR TRUMP?
White evangelicals have told reporters that they are so wedded to Trump and his hateful, cruel policies because of his strong stance “protecting” our southern border from immigrants! Let’s leave aside all the Biblical references to “welcoming the stranger” and “loving our neighbors.” It’s not a coincidence that Trump’s wall is aimed against immigrants of color — while he has expressed a preference for good (white, blue-eyed) migrants from Norway and northern Europe.
We note a continuing pattern: Christian conservatives have, since the early 1980s, worked single-mindedly and ceaselessly on pursuing their extreme agenda through political activism. Whether it was the Moral Majority, the Heritage Foundation, the Federalist Society, or televangelists, they worked to keep American society the way they always viewed it: white, Christian, paternalistic, closely regulating women’s bodies and whom people love. In the early 90s, Ralph Reed declared that his goal was to dominate all (federal, state and local) Republican parties by the end of decade.
He succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. Evangelicals and extremists have won over not only the Republicans but many independents and former Democrats as well. The economic right and the religious right have converged into one big overwhelming behemoth. Nowadays, they’re not driven by religion or God, but by power and influence. It’s all about ensuring their own status quo. Gone are the days when they accepted the fact that Jesus was a refugee — and maybe a brown refugee — or that Jesus chastised people for focusing only on their own wealth and worldly desires. What would Jesus say about all the rich people who say they have a right to enter the Kingdom of Heaven (and to run it, too)?
WEALTH INEQUALITY HAS REACHED SICKENING PROPORTIONS.
According to a report in New York Magazine, the world’s 500 richest people increased their wealth by $1.2 trillion in 2019. (This is just the annual increase, not their baseline wealth.) And this growth is accelerating at an unimaginable rate. This $1.2 trillion growth in 2019 is larger than the total wealth currently held by the top 15 wealthiest Americans. Yes, the comparison is not precise: the 15 richest Americans are not the same as the 500 richest people on the entire planet, though they’re all 1%-ers, unlike the rest of us. But you get the idea. Will next year’s growth be $2 trillion? $10 trillion?
Our analysts discuss how this grotesque inequality is due to a failure of 21st century capitalism and democracy. Most of our economic growth inures to a narrower segment of the population, who avoid taxes by stashing their cash on offshore islands, and don’t appear too concerned about the climate refugees that they’re leaving behind. It’s enough to make one of our group think of the Trump Administration as a “smash and grab” operation on behalf of old white people.
IS IT POSSIBLE FOR A DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE TO WIN THE 2020 ELECTION BY ADDRESSING THIS TERRIBLE SITUATION?
How can a Democratic candidate discuss all the ways our system is failing, without making him- or herself literally “unelectable.” I.e., if a Democrat truthfully and objectively named these problems — and outlined a program to solve them — would that candidate have any chance of being elected President? Wouldn’t he or she be giving the Trump (or other GOP) reelection campaign enough ammunition to paint the Democrat as a stereotypical extremist/socialist/anti-American, leaving the Democrat unable to win the election?
The propaganda machine and its degrading dehumanization and “other”-izing would win, even if most voters would have preferred the Democratic policies (trying to help ordinary working people maintain a decent stable life, opposing the accumulation of ever-more unearned capital gains, and in favor of treating everyone as a human being regardless of the color of their skin, their gender or income, the circumstances of their birth, or whom they love).
WILL JOE BIDEN DO WHAT’S NECESSARY TO MOVE PAST HIS SON’S UKRAINE PROBLEM?
We wonder why Joe Biden won’t talk honestly and seriously about his son Hunter – and either admit to a mistake, explain what happened, or (God forbid) apologize. Joe looks both phony and foolish trying to deny that his son accepted a lucrative job with Burisma, a Ukrainian fossil fuel corporation, a job which was offered to him solely because his father (the candidate) was the sitting VP and was deeply involved in US policy toward Ukraine.
Perhaps more of a conundrum, why do powerful Democratic “leaders” and the Party itself — not to mention the media — refuse to push Biden on these potential electoral problems? Why are they trying to protect him? Do they really believe that, if they keep quiet and pretend there isn’t really any problem, then Trump and the GOP and their extremist supporters will also give Biden a pass on this?
