Americans are on the threshold of understanding what is happening in Congress, the seat of national government (the Senate and the House of Representatives). The relevancy of this uncharacteristic attention (normally confined to election trumpeting) has arisen because of a new and similarly unprecedented conflict. The complexities of government are being overtaken by an unresolved candidness which surpasses the rhetoric of bipartisanship and standard opposition bashing. The attempt of Trump to colour and fly his royalty of conduct for widespread federal price cutting by firing federal employees, by pursuing drug traffickers, by expulsion of illegal immigrants, by wiping the intellectual slate clear of uncomfortable esoteric (aka “woke”) conversation, by adopting popular religious themes against minority models – and expressing it all in the equally blunt language of accusation – has unwittingly entered into sharp opposition to the appetite of the public for flavourless commonality and prejudice.
The opposition arises from the clearly established interest of the richest man in the world and the leader of the most powerful country in the world contemporaneously to address matters of personal gain (including that of their similarly entitled and powerful global friends). And from their patent admission and public exhibition of that narrow but increasingly circumspect objective and association. The blunt condensation of the erstwhile popular motives of uniformity and wealth has proven sufficient to distill the unanticipated competition between the two. The reality that Trump is a convicted criminal and that Musk is indisputably self-interested has suddenly manifested itself on the stage of humanity disguised though it is by the turbulence of politics.
As quickly as these personal battles have unfolded the distinction of the two for private and perhaps nefarious gain has altered itself to public recognition. There is mounting feeling that the public has been had; that its mundane often saccharine interests have been dissolved by its own mendacity and intolerance to the more perilous objectives of the least disadvantaged. The distraction of entertainment and bravado has worked its magic. We’ve been fooled.
And indeed it is we who are the not only the victims but also the fools. Did we imagine the richest and most powerful people in the world would condescend to credit us with any scope or insight? Had we ever stepped beyond the limits of election to fathom the nature of our candidates? Did we really think they were different? Different from us by some peculiar osmosis called election? Did we foolishly predict that their birthright and wisdom evolved from a source different from our own?
By utter coincidence today I received from my friend and watchdog Marilyn E. Harris a copy of an article touching upon the identical subject; specifically, “Science Matters – Alberta coal fiasco unearths billionaire power grab”.
Some billionaires will never have enough. They live to accumulate wealth, well past the point of personal usefulness. The amounts they’ve hoarded could solve any number of global problems. The top one per cent now holds more wealth than the bottom 95 per cent of the world’s population, and “billionaire wealth grew by $2 trillion in 2024, three times faster than the year before, equivalent to roughly $5.7 billion a day,” Oxfam reports.
They’re fine with accumulating excessive wealth by destroying landscapes and watersheds, tearing up Indigenous territories, polluting air, water and soil and putting all life at risk. Some of them think they can escape to Mars when they’ve plundered the only livable planet we have.
It seems Alberta’s government has bought into the U.S. MAGA concept of government for the billionaires by the billionaires! It’s the playbook of self-serving, unimaginative politicians everywhere: sacrifice the future to convenient, short-term economic gain.
Furthermore this now entirely predictable evolution of government has sparked more than jealous interest from the masses. Instead the dissection relates to the universal rules governing democratic society. One such example is the headline, “Tax cuts for the wealthy only benefit the rich: debunking trickle-down economics”.
When UK Prime Minister Liz Truss and then Treasurer Kwasi Kwarteng sparked economic turmoil by announcing unfunded tax cuts for top earners to boost economic growth, it created one of the most extraordinary political crises in UK history.
Their “mini budget” spooked the markets and was widely condemned for appearing to rely on the discredited theory of “trickle-down economics”. But it’s an idea that has persisted: the last 50 years has seen a dramatic decline in taxes on the rich across advanced democracies. Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump were all elected on promises of major tax cuts for top earners, arguing that freeing up money for the wealthy allows them to hire more workers, pay better wages and invest more..
In its anxiety to make America great again, the populace of the United States of America has unwittingly swallowed the diversionary bait of the supremely wealthy and powerful; and thus distracted itself from the obviously careless and illusory activity of its leaders while allowing its own interests to become dismantled and reduced, not for its benefit, but for the associated but unconnected improvement of its leaders. In a matter of less than a decade Americans have lapsed into a past notable not for its greatest but for divine right of its rulers and oligarchical privilege once characteristic of the British monarchy and House of Lords wherein entire countries debated not the interest of the masses but the utility of marriage and the alliance with the church.
Finally there is the related matter of how the highest objectives of the masses are being used to ensure continued division among its diverse interests while isolating the private and selfish interests of the oligarchy and its alliances from scrutiny or threat. The accusations significantly spread among those on both sides of the aisle. This is not a political diatribe. The vituperation of politics is an indiscriminate voice. It touches the nerve of each one of us; reminding us each to preserve the dry intellectual division of thought from personal interests.