Why is the nation more bitterly divided today than it's been in eighty years? Why is there more anger and vituperation than even during Joe McCarthy's anti-communist witch hunts of the 1950s, the struggle for civil rights in the 1960s, the Vietnam war, the Watergate scandal? Political scientists say the gap between the median Republican voter and the median Democrat is wider today on a whole host of issues than it's been since the 1920s. And those on the regressive Republican right might as well be on a different planet.
Undoubedly, as some of you point out, social media play a part, allowing people to pop off without bearing much responsibility for what they say. Most of us can cocoon within virtual or real communities that confirm all our biases and assumptions. We've also lost trusted arbiters of truth -- the Edward Murrows and Walter Cronkites who told it like it was. We've also lost most living memory of times when we were all in it togeth...er -- the Great Depression and World War II -- which reminded us how dependent we were on one another, and how much we owed each other as members of the same society.
But I think the deeper reality has economic roots. For more than three decades now, the middle class has been losing ground. The median wage of male workers is now lower than it was in 1980, adjusted for inflation. And all the mechanisms we have used to cope with this descent -- young mothers streaming into paid work in the late 1970s and 1980s, everyone working longer hours in the 1990s, and then borrowing against rising home values until 2007 -- are now exhausted. Wages are still dropping -- the median is now 4 percent below what it was at the start of the so-called recovery. And upward mobility has become a cruel joke. Meanwhile, income, wealth, and power are more concentrated now than they've been in ninety years. As a result, many have come to believe that the deck is stacked against them, the dice are loaded in favor of the wealthy and the privileged. Both the Tea Party and the Occupier movements began with the bailouts of Wall Street -- when both groups concluded that big government and big finance had plotted against the rest of us; the former blamed government, the latter blamed Wall Street.
Political scientists have also discovered a high correlation between inequality and political divisiveness. The last time America was this bitterly divided was in the 1920s, which was the last time income, wealth, and power were this concentrated. When average people feel the game is rigged, they get angry. And that anger can easily find its way into deep resentments -- of the poor, of blacks, of immigrants, of the well-educated, of government. Demagogues throughout history have used anger to target scapegoats, thereby dividing and conquering, and distracting people from the real sources of their frustrations. Make no mistake: The savage inequality we are experiencing is deeply dangerous.
Why is the nation more bitterly divided today than it's been in eighty years? Why is there more anger and vituperation than even during Joe McCarthy's anti-communist witch hunts of the 1950s, the struggle for civil rights in the 1960s, the Vietnam war, the Watergate scandal? Political scientists say the gap between the median Republican voter and the median Democrat is wider today on a whole host of issues than it's been since the 1920s. And those on the regressive Republican right might as well be on a different planet.
Undoubedly, as some of you point out, social media play a part, allowing people to pop off without bearing much responsibility for what they say. Most of us can cocoon within virtual or real communities that confirm all our biases and assumptions. We've also lost trusted arbiters of truth -- the Edward Murrows and Walter Cronkites who told it like it was. We've also lost most living memory of times when we were all in it togeth...er -- the Great Depression and World War II -- which reminded us how dependent we were on one another, and how much we owed each other as members of the same society.
But I think the deeper reality has economic roots. For more than three decades now, the middle class has been losing ground. The median wage of male workers is now lower than it was in 1980, adjusted for inflation. And all the mechanisms we have used to cope with this descent -- young mothers streaming into paid work in the late 1970s and 1980s, everyone working longer hours in the 1990s, and then borrowing against rising home values until 2007 -- are now exhausted. Wages are still dropping -- the median is now 4 percent below what it was at the start of the so-called recovery. And upward mobility has become a cruel joke. Meanwhile, income, wealth, and power are more concentrated now than they've been in ninety years. As a result, many have come to believe that the deck is stacked against them, the dice are loaded in favor of the wealthy and the privileged. Both the Tea Party and the Occupier movements began with the bailouts of Wall Street -- when both groups concluded that big government and big finance had plotted against the rest of us; the former blamed government, the latter blamed Wall Street.
Political scientists have also discovered a high correlation between inequality and political divisiveness. The last time America was this bitterly divided was in the 1920s, which was the last time income, wealth, and power were this concentrated. When average people feel the game is rigged, they get angry. And that anger can easily find its way into deep resentments -- of the poor, of blacks, of immigrants, of the well-educated, of government. Demagogues throughout history have used anger to target scapegoats, thereby dividing and conquering, and distracting people from the real sources of their frustrations. Make no mistake: The savage inequality we are experiencing is deeply dangerous.
Undoubedly, as some of you point out, social media play a part, allowing people to pop off without bearing much responsibility for what they say. Most of us can cocoon within virtual or real communities that confirm all our biases and assumptions. We've also lost trusted arbiters of truth -- the Edward Murrows and Walter Cronkites who told it like it was. We've also lost most living memory of times when we were all in it togeth...er -- the Great Depression and World War II -- which reminded us how dependent we were on one another, and how much we owed each other as members of the same society.
But I think the deeper reality has economic roots. For more than three decades now, the middle class has been losing ground. The median wage of male workers is now lower than it was in 1980, adjusted for inflation. And all the mechanisms we have used to cope with this descent -- young mothers streaming into paid work in the late 1970s and 1980s, everyone working longer hours in the 1990s, and then borrowing against rising home values until 2007 -- are now exhausted. Wages are still dropping -- the median is now 4 percent below what it was at the start of the so-called recovery. And upward mobility has become a cruel joke. Meanwhile, income, wealth, and power are more concentrated now than they've been in ninety years. As a result, many have come to believe that the deck is stacked against them, the dice are loaded in favor of the wealthy and the privileged. Both the Tea Party and the Occupier movements began with the bailouts of Wall Street -- when both groups concluded that big government and big finance had plotted against the rest of us; the former blamed government, the latter blamed Wall Street.
Political scientists have also discovered a high correlation between inequality and political divisiveness. The last time America was this bitterly divided was in the 1920s, which was the last time income, wealth, and power were this concentrated. When average people feel the game is rigged, they get angry. And that anger can easily find its way into deep resentments -- of the poor, of blacks, of immigrants, of the well-educated, of government. Demagogues throughout history have used anger to target scapegoats, thereby dividing and conquering, and distracting people from the real sources of their frustrations. Make no mistake: The savage inequality we are experiencing is deeply dangerous.
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