John D. MacDonald’s sometimes savage salvager Travis McGee once observed: “Reality is a curious convention. It is the special norm for each of us. Based upon the evidence of our own senses, we have established our own version of reality.”
Evidence determines our worldviews. Evidently, the reverse is also true. Our worldviews determine our choice of evidence. Too many people today seek propagandistic confirmation of their beliefs instead of accurate information which could provide them a better understanding of the world and their place within it.
Anti-republic Republicans have convinced followers that they can become crusaders saving a never-existent golden age of white, mainly-male supremacy from hordes of “different” enemies. It was a calculated move.
Way back in 1991, Thomas Byrne Edsall and Mary D. Edsall published Chain Reaction, detailing the long-range planning of Republicans to enrich the rich at the expense of everybody else.
“Chapter nine describes the Reagan attack on race liberalism as an attempt to disrupt economic class alliances.”
It has always been about economics. Keeping the 90% of Americans with similar economic needs disunited is the only way would-be oligarchs in the top 10% can maintain power.
As Percy Shelley noted, “We are many; they are few.” The goal of the oligarchs – and they are succeeding – is to keep us many divided.
The Edsalls reported on the introduction of “coded language” into the political debate. This tactic demonized terms as “groups” or “big government” or “special interests.”
This might seem tame today with Donald Trump calling for violence against anyone who disagrees with him, but those were the seeds that produced the current flowering of American fascism. A candidate for our highest office now spouts Nazi nonsense about “bad genes” without any Republican rebuke.
The final prophetic chapter, according to the Conflict Research Consortium, discusses what is at stake should American politics fail to deal more constructively with the issues of race, rights and taxes. “First, increasing economic and racial polarization threatens the very social order. Second, at stake is our sense that our political system is also a moral system, committed to producing justice. Finally, the very success of the ‘American experiment itself’ is at stake.”
In his The 99.9 Percent: The New Aristocracy That is Entrenching Inequality and Warping Our Culture, Matthew Stewart denotes three elements in racism: the targets, the marks and the beneficiaries – the big winners and their enablers.
The targets are those “others,” usually minorities though Trump’s attack on women’s rights and liberals in general show the full scope of GOP exclusionism.
The big winners are the top .1% and the following 9.9% new aristocracy that carries their water. These are those who get richer at the expense of the rest of us.
The “marks” are those who think they are important to the winners as more than means to a very mean end. Their bigotry keeps them from seeing their affinity with other have-nots, local or newly arrived. I guess it is easier for many to curse the weak than to confront the powerful who have played them like a pinball machine with its front legs on stilts.
“We are many; they are few.” Don’t let the few bamboozle you.
