On the eve of the longest US federal government’s shut down ever, we are seeing greed vs virtue doing battle in Trump’s America. SNAP or food stamps, which assist some 42 million poorer Americans, are about to be defunded thanks to the Trump regime’s shifting of wealth in his big beautiful bill. The Republicans could do something about this via emergency powers but are unwilling to do this. It seems everything else is an emergency when President Donald Trump is enacting executive powers but, apparently, American citizens going hungry is no emergency. The GOP, unlike all previous federal governments, will not compromise in anyway to get the budget funding passed.
“The US government shutdown continues, with Republican and Democratic lawmakers in Congress no closer to ending their budget standoff. It means that many – but not all – US government services aretemporarily suspended, and around 1.4 million federal employees are on unpaid leave or working without pay.
Although budget confrontations are common in US politics, this one is especially tense because President Donald Trump began drastically reducing the size of the national government as soon as he returned to office in January, and has threatened to use the current impasse to make further cuts.”
The Wealthy Vs The Poor In Trump’s USA
Thus, we have the Democrats holding out in the Senate on behalf of those poorer Americans losing their benefits and facing steeply rising health insurance premiums. It is fair enough, in this instance, to portray this as virtuous behaviour. Meanwhile, the strident refusal to compromise and make a deal by the Republicans is, when boiled down, about greed on behalf of many of the richest Americans receiving generous tax cuts. It always amazes me how readily the political system is willing to shaft those millions of citizens at the poorer end of the spectrum and that they get away with it time and time again. Obviously, these folk lack effective representation in America. A lot of Americans who find themselves in the middle must have voted for greed over virtue in the last presidential election.
White Morality Looks The Other Way In The USA
I suppose it is like when you see someone in the street getting the shit kicked out of them. The question, then arises, do you stop and help them or quickly distance yourself from it and those folk getting persecuted. That is what is being asked of all Americans under the Trump regime, as masked ICE agents beat up on brown skinned Americans and heavily armed military personnel walk the streets of American cities. Few of us would have ever thought to witness these scenes in the ‘so-called’ land of the free. Greed vs virtue doing battle in Trump’s America. If you tell folk enough times to fear and hate their fellow and sister Americans you can get this passivity. Convince those with a grudge to blame their perceived lack upon others and you get the same result.
The American South & Trump’s America
You know, in the American South wealthy slave owners convinced poor white southern boys to do their fighting for them against the North in the Civil War. Hundreds of thousands of them died, when many of them had more in common economically with the Black slaves. It seems a peculiarly American con to convince swathes of poorer folk to back the interests of those that are already exploiting them. Appealing to base racial fears with lies and misrepresentations of the truth. 1% of white southerners owned large slave holdings of 200 or more. Around 21% owned between 1 to 5 slaves. That leaves the majority, by some margin, as non-slave owners in the South. However, you get born into an economic system and most of us just accept things the way they are in life and know no better. Culturation imbues values and those feelings can run deep, as identity is tied up with such things. Greed becomes normal and virtue is disassociated from the way you make your money. It is defended by institutions like the church, which continued on its merry way down in the South extolling Christian values despite the enslaving of Africans, who were not seen as civilized human beings but mere savages. White supremacy runs deep in America.
https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w25700/w25700.pdf
“Why is everything so expensive now? What price life? Why are we getting poorer? First and foremost, the entire economy is set up to greatly favour owners over all other parts. Investors are owners, of course, and the company executives operate on their behalf. Shareholders are king and everyone else runs a poor second. Thus, profitability is always the prime consideration and profits have to constantly increase to satisfy the shareholders. Plus, executives manipulate the stock price through buybacks to enrich themselves wildly. This is where we get all the billionaires from. Elon Musk is a prominent illustration of this, the richest man in the world.”
Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of What Price Life?; America Matters: Pre-apocalyptic Posts & Essays in the Shadow of Trump; and other titles.
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