I was standing in the parking lot at Stop & Shop a few weeks ago, chatting with an acquaintance about our current political world.
After we parted, a man called out to me before getting in his car. Apparently, he had been listening in on our conversation and wanted to have a word. He started off by saying with great contempt, “You liberals …,” as if the very word hurt him to speak it. What I think he meant was “you Democrats.” And then he finished up by telling me that President Barack Obama had hired a whole bunch of sex offenders to work in the White House. When I asked where he got his information, he said, “Oh, I have my sources.” At that, I took my leave.
There didn’t seem to be any reason to continue the conversation, to try to convince him that his story was no doubt false. It did make me wonder about the labels we use to define each other and how loaded they have become.
I know I live in my own little bubble, just as he lives in his. But when I think of a Democrat/liberal/progressive, I think of someone who, while, of course, caring about their own life, also cares about the lives of others.
I want our government to help those in need. I want there to be affordable health care for all and good schools in every town and no one to go hungry or homeless. I want everyone to get a fair chance to succeed in life.
And I want clean air and water and a good fight to stop global climate change. And I’m willing to pay my membership dues, my taxes, to fund all that. And I want those at the top of the income scale to pay a larger share than those at the bottom.
Does wanting all that make me a bad person? Why are we so vilified by our political opposition, the conservatives/Republicans, for our desire to help others?
This year, a state representative running in a Pennsylvania special election for Congress was reported as saying that his opponent’s party, the Democratic Party, “has a hatred for this country” and “a hatred for God.” Thankfully, this kind of crazy talk didn’t help him much, since he lost in a district Republicans have held since 2000.
There seems to be great benefit in demonizing those we disagree with. But my question is who gets that benefit? Who benefits when the country is so politically divided that each side is beyond furious with the other?
It seems pretty clear to me that the people of this country, the ones who work hard each day to support their families, the ones who struggle to give their kids a better life than theirs, the ones whose incomes have stagnated, who have lost their health care coverage or never had it to begin with, the ones living paycheck to paycheck — these people of all political persuasions are definitely not the ones benefiting from this state of political war within the country.
Could the real beneficiaries be the ultra-wealthy and the large corporations, those who donate millions to elect their chosen candidates, knowing once elected they will work to cut their donors’ tax bill while blowing up the budget deficit? Absolutely.
And once they have cut those taxes and ballooned that budget deficit as they just did this past December, they will cry, “Oh no, we have a budget deficit!” And where do you think they will turn to recover the money they just gave away to their donors? Social Security and Medicare, of course, and all the other programs they’ve been dying to cut for years, the programs that are essential to nearly all of us.
And let’s not forget that those same elected officials and their appointees are relentlessly destroying the rules and regulations that protect us from the excesses of corporations of all types, from polluting industrials to giant financial institutions. And why? Because being forced to clean up after yourself or treat consumers fairly costs money and affects businesses’ bottom line and they surely don’t want that. What will their stockholders say?
Just last week the Environmental Protection Agency acting Administrator, Andrew Wheeler, a former coal industry lobbyist, signed a plan to replace the Obama-era Clean Power Plan to reduce pollution from coal-fired power plants. Now who do you think this will benefit? Certainly not the approximately 1,400 people per year who will die prematurely or the 15,000 people annually with new cases of upper respiratory illnesses. And these predictions come from the administration’s own analysis!
Who benefits? The coal industry, of course, not the adversely affected people of both parties, or the miners, for that matter.
So why don’t the people come together to fight the greed and corruption that make their lives harder and more dangerous with each administration policy decision and regulation rollback, and with each new tax and spending change?
The answer to that is the millions of dollars spent on campaigns to convince us otherwise, and it’s working. Those dollars also fuel the alternate universe that is social media, where conspiracy theories abound like the one my eavesdropper in the parking lot ascribed to. It’s all designed to divide us, to breed fear and hatred for those who are different from ourselves.
And then there’s the president who spends large parts of each day lying to the American people, misleading them about almost everything while labeling the free press “the enemy of the people.” While most of his twittering works to divide us, it’s also causing us to lose faith in truth itself. The message is “truth isn’t truth,” as his current lawyer and spokesman has helpfully explained.
I can’t help but wonder if the criminal conviction of the president’s former campaign manager, and his former lawyer’s guilty plea that implicated the president, will lead his many supporters to finally see how corrupt the man is? Will they come to realize that we all, Democrats and Republicans alike, are being harmed in much the same way by this trumped-up political war?
Maybe not, or at least not yet. But think of it, if everyone of all political stripes in, say, the bottom 60 percent on the income scale (that tops out at around $35,000 a year as reported in 2015), were to come together to elect politicians who support the programs that benefit them the most, not those very few at the top, the war would be over, and this country would be transformed.
Karen Gardner, of Haydenville, a retired computer programmer, is a bird watcher, nature photographer and ukulele player. She can be reached at opinion@gazettenet.com.