Sunday, February 12, 2017

Can This "Democracy" Be Saved?





Mr. Douthat is right again.

trimp's "Staff And Cabinet of Deplorables" actually could consolidate their power with massive tax cuts to the working/middle class along with a robust program of public works extending well beyond roads and bridges.

So why don't they?  Why won't they?

If they don't, it's not because they're stupid even though they actually are VERY stupid.  It's just that "stupid" is "emotional" more than it's anything resembling "intellectual fire power" or the lack of same).

If they don't consolidate their power that way, it’s because they can’t. They can’t because they're constrained by logic and reality. Simply cutting taxes for the middle/working class (the 99%) in any substantial (and therefore politically sustaining way) would be unsustainable - even without an infrastructure overhaul.  It would also be wealth redistribution - even if the 0.1% weren’t taxed in a confiscatory way.

On the same vein, any significant tax cut for working Americans (which includes the Middle Class, of course) would reduce the scope of the Federal Government in ways too galling, disruptive, and unacceptable to the 0.1%.   It wouldn't just mean drastic curtailment of social welfare programs.  It would mean cutting into the “defense” budget in ways that radically reduce massive public subsidies to corporate profit in the form of R&D and procurement.

No. Especially when they’re ignored, wealth and income inequality curb the trimp clown car just as much (or more) than they may yet infantilize the perhaps overrated "resistance". 


But confronting wealth and income inequality may be more horrifying (to some) than watching democracy get trimpled to death as we dither on and on.

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