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Robert Reich: Toward a Pro-Democracy Movement
Link: https://robertreich.substack.com/p/toward-a-pro-democracy-movement
Someone asked me this morning what we’re demonstrating for today. “I know what you’re demonstrating against — Donald Trump — but is there a positive purpose, too?”
Here’s what I told him. Ending the reign of King Trump isn’t the sole goal of today’s demonstrations. The purpose is much larger than that.
Trump himself is not the cause of the growing cynicism about democracy and the deepening polarization of our society. He’s the consequence and culmination of decades of neglect of our system. Even before Trump, we could not have remained on the road we were on toward ever-widening inequality of income, wealth, and opportunity.
That’s because when income, wealth, and opportunity are concentrated in few hands, so is power. And when power is concentrated in a few hands, trust in all institutions declines. Democracy withers.
In 1964, when I was in my formative years, only 29 percent of voters thought government was “run by a few big interests looking out for themselves.” By 2013 — years before Trump emerged in American politics — 79 percent of Americans thought so.
... [snip] ...
Gross inequalities of income, wealth, and opportunity fuel the gross inequalities of political power that lead to strongmen who destroy both democracy and freedom.
We are now in America’s Second Gilded Age. The only way to guard what is left of our freedom is to confront today’s anti-democracy movement with a bold pro-democracy movement that protects and revives the institutions of self-government.
A pro-democracy movement dedicated to not just to standing up against authoritarian strongmen like Trump and against big money like Peter Thiel’s, but to empowering all Americans, politically and economically. That’s why I’m demonstrating today.
- more at link -
Here’s what I told him. Ending the reign of King Trump isn’t the sole goal of today’s demonstrations. The purpose is much larger than that.
Trump himself is not the cause of the growing cynicism about democracy and the deepening polarization of our society. He’s the consequence and culmination of decades of neglect of our system. Even before Trump, we could not have remained on the road we were on toward ever-widening inequality of income, wealth, and opportunity.
That’s because when income, wealth, and opportunity are concentrated in few hands, so is power. And when power is concentrated in a few hands, trust in all institutions declines. Democracy withers.
In 1964, when I was in my formative years, only 29 percent of voters thought government was “run by a few big interests looking out for themselves.” By 2013 — years before Trump emerged in American politics — 79 percent of Americans thought so.
... [snip] ...
Gross inequalities of income, wealth, and opportunity fuel the gross inequalities of political power that lead to strongmen who destroy both democracy and freedom.
We are now in America’s Second Gilded Age. The only way to guard what is left of our freedom is to confront today’s anti-democracy movement with a bold pro-democracy movement that protects and revives the institutions of self-government.
A pro-democracy movement dedicated to not just to standing up against authoritarian strongmen like Trump and against big money like Peter Thiel’s, but to empowering all Americans, politically and economically. That’s why I’m demonstrating today.
Recommended reading!
