How we got here and what could have been

Within the past six decades, the United States has had several opportunities that in hindsight represent “roads not taken.” The “what-ifs” after the assassination of JFK; the 1972 election that saw Nixon win a second term over George McGovern; Jimmy Carter’s famous “malaise” speech (in which he never used the term); George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq, arguably the worst decision in modern U.S. history; and most recently, the fact that the Democrats preferred to lose with Hillary Clinton than win with Bernie Sanders.

In a real sense, the policies Barack Obama and the centrist Democrats of the DNC pursued over the past eight years led directly to the election of Donald Trump – the empty suit of American politics. The Democrats chose the path of identity politics to mask their inability to deal with the real economic issues that have effectively destroyed the blue-collar middle class.

White, blue-collar Americans aged 50 and over are the only demographic group in any of the advanced nations of the OECD to be experiencing shortened life spans, and were a substantial portion of Trump voters. Wall Street banks were bailed out, and no Wall Street bankers went to jail, while those who lost their homes were left to drown in bankruptcy.

The 2009 stimulus package was too small to produce a real recovery, as was known before its passage. A cobbled-together health care plan contained modest reforms but failed to address the underlying problem: the stranglehold Big Pharma and Big Insurance hold over health care.

The Democrats, like the GOP, accept an economic model that values markets over people. This, despite the evidence of four decades that blind faith in the invisible hand of the market has destroyed our manufacturing base, destroyed the blue-collar/union middle class, promoted an influx of cheap labor to depress wages, promoted tax cuts that helped redistribute vast wealth to the 1 percent and failed to create good jobs. The monied interests – oligarchs just as in Russia – that dominate both parties have weakened our democratic republic – perhaps past the point of return.

BRUCE CURRIE

Concord